Nor was the apostle content with his full and clear statement of the gospel. He draws the attention of Titus to its importance and value in a formula not uncommon in these pastoral Epistles. “Faithful [is] the saying; and concerning these things I will that thou affirm strongly, in order that they who have believed God may be careful to maintain good works. These things are good and profitable to men; but foolish questionings and genealogies and strifes and legal fightings shun, for they are unprofitable and vain” (ver. 8, 9).
There is no real ground for doubt that the apostle is here looking back on the development of the truth which had just occupied him. The salvation of God from first to last was simply and briefly stated in 1 Tim. 1:15, 16. It was here more fully explained. The relationship of the Holy Ghost to it is brought out as an added privilege, no less than the grace of God as the spring of it all. In 1 Tim. 1 it is just the plain truth of Christ come into the world to save sinners. Certainly the object of faith is not left out here; but God is shown to be a Savior-God as well as Jesus; and the Holy Ghost is said to be poured out richly, besides His renewing us, that, being justified by God's grace, we might be made heirs according to hope of eternal life.
It may be alleged, no doubt, that “faithful is the saying” precedes in the former case, whilst it follows here. But chap. 4: 9, 10, is a clear proof that the order may vary without in any way affecting the certainty of the apostolic application. The A. V. like some others is at least ambiguous, if not misleading; for one might infer from it that the faithful saying was merely the call of believers to maintain good works. This however is a most unworthy sense, which the text, as well as the truth generally, disproves. The apostle is laying down the only ground of power for a fruit-bearing course; he is urgent with Titus, that he should insist constantly and thoroughly on the sure but exclusive truth of salvation by grace in all its fullness as well as reality. This was the apostle's first theme for individual souls everywhere and always; he now presses it on Titus. Without it there is no readiness or power for good works; without it conscience is clouded, the heart hardened: there is neither life nor peace where it is unknown. When we are saved after this divine sort, we are able to take everything to God as well as from Him. In a world which cast out Christ and where Satan reigns, trials and sorrows are expected for the faithful, yet do we give thanks; comforts and joys are given of God, and we give thanks. Faith sees and hears Him Who guides and guards, whatever the difficulty or danger. His will is acceptable as well as holy and perfect. We love not His commandments only, but His word, having found its value in our deepest need, as He by it made known His love to us, in spite of our alienation and hatred. Now we can say without presumption, we love Him, because He first loved us; and we feel for His name and His honor. We desire to do His will, and to please Him; and this is the will of God, even our sanctification; for He has called us on terms of holiness, and we are ourselves taught of God to love one another: so the apostle has ruled.
Known salvation therefore, by God's grace in Christ our Lord, is the basis which the Holy Ghost lays for the walk of a child according to God. Nevertheless there is need for exhortation; and the word is full of cheer or of warning; and the encouragements are varied and strong, to the end that they who have believed God may be careful to maintain good works. Perhaps it is not too much to say that, if His grace justifies us, our fidelity justifies Him, however poor our measure may be.
It may be well also to protest here against lowering this expression (to maintain good works), as if it only echoed ver. 14. It is not so. The expression may be similar; but the context is clear that the object of God differs in the two verses, as we shall see by and by. Undoubtedly ver. 14 has an important bearing; but it is of a narrower and lower character. In ver. 8 good works have nothing to do with “necessary uses,” and must be taken in all their extent. They are the honorable works, which become a believer, not benevolent merely but suitable to the objects of divine favor and of everlasting blessing, in a world where evil abounds and God is unknown save to faith.
It is also well to add that it is not believing in God merely as in the A. V., but “believing God.” They have set to their seal that God is true, having accepted His testimony. Therefore they bowed to His conviction wrought inwardly, that they were hateful and hating one another, but oh! how thankfully also that according to His mercy He saved; and that if all the Trinity concerned itself in this truly divine salvation, without the cross it was not possible. Christ suffering for sins had made it righteous for God to exercise His grace without stint; and the Holy Ghost can crown it with the richest enjoyment and with real power for practice.
“These things are good and profitable to men.” Here it need not be doubted that the apostle includes the maintenance of good works on the part of believers; but why should any wish to exclude the faithfulness of God's salvation from a still more direct and important place? The cause is surely of at least equal moment with the effect. In contrast with these good and profitable things the apostle bids Titus “shun foolish questionings and genealogies and strifes and fighting about law.” It is the same apostle who told Timothy, as indeed we all know, that the law is good if a man use it lawfully. How so? It is not made for a righteous man but for the lawless and unruly, an unsparing weapon against all evil. What will produce honorable works? Nothing but the gospel of the glory of the blessed God which was committed to Paul and pressed on Titus no less than Timothy. Here then the apostle denounces the misuse of the law. As it puffs up man who, ignorant of his sin and powerlessness, builds on it, so it engenders foolish questions and genealogies and strifes, and legal fightings. Gospel truths are “good and profitable to men “: legal squabbles are “unprofitable and vain “; and such is the misuse of law to which man's mind is ever prone, if indeed he pays any heed at all. The truth of the gospel, as it reveals grace, so it commands both heart and conscience of the believer. Where faith is not, there is the power of death unremoved, and darkness God-ward. Such is the race in its natural estate, which no rite can alter—only the Deliverer received in faith.
From questions dark or trifling and in either way unprofitable or even injurious, to which legalism tends, the apostle next warns of a still darker result which is too apt to appear, the uprising of party spirit in its most extreme shape, which scripture designates “heresy.” 1 Cor. 11:18, 1918For first of all, when ye come together in the church, I hear that there be divisions among you; and I partly believe it. 19For there must be also heresies among you, that they which are approved may be made manifest among you. (1 Corinthians 11:18‑19), is the first occurrence of the phrase αἵρεσις in the apostolic Epistles, which can alone precisely define its Christian application. “I hear that schisms exist among you; and I partly believe it. For there must be also heresies among you, that the approved may be made manifest among you.” Hence we learn how ordinary language differs from scripture. Men regard “heresy” as a departure from sound doctrine, which is apt to end in a separate party or sect characterized by it. In short they regard “schism” as the severed result, whether with, as generally is the fact, or without, as may be, the heterodox root. Now the inspired word appears to me irreconcilable with such thoughts. “Schisms” already existed in the church at Corinth. As yet there were no “sects” or separate parties; but this the apostle regarded as inevitable. Splits within lead naturally, and, as men are, necessarily to splits without or sects. This was imminent at Corinth, unless grace gave self-judgment and thus nipped the bud, so that the evil fruit should not follow. But the danger was at work in the “schisms” that afflicted the Corinthian saints, though all as yet ate of the one loaf. If they did not repent, the issue would surely be “heresies” or sects, as in Gal. 5:2020Idolatry, witchcraft, hatred, variance, emulations, wrath, strife, seditions, heresies, (Galatians 5:20). It seems plain that the word in neither Epistle necessarily involves strange doctrine, however often this may be and is the animating spring of the party. The carnal preference, which set up Cephas against Paul, or Apollos against both, formed “schisms” in the assembly; and this, if not judged as sin, would issue at length in outward factions, or “heresies.” For such fleshly feeling ever grows more hot and intolerant, so that Christ the center of unity is overlooked, and the Spirit, being grieved, ceases to control those who are thus self-willed.
But there is another step in the path of evil, of which we find the expression in the Second Epistle of Peter (2:1). Here there is marked development; for we hear of false teachers (ψευδοδιδάσκαλοι), who are characterized as bringing in privily “destructive heresies,” or sects of perdition (αἱρέσεις ἀπωλείας). The context is clear, in this case alone, that it is not only personal or party self will breaking away from the unity of the Spirit, but that the factions or heresies anticipated by the apostle have the darker dye of ruinous heterodoxy also. Not a hint of this appears in the usage of the word for the Galatians and the Corinthians, bad as the case in its mildest form is; because it ever is a violation of church unity. It is only when the term is contextually enlarged and weighted with the distinct imputation of false teaching that we can tax the “heretic” with heterodoxy. Hence the unbelieving cavils of De Wette, &c., have no real ground. The traditional and mistaken sense of a later day does not apply to the Pauline usage of αἵρεσις.
Now this is of importance in helping us to a true and just discernment of the apostle's injunction to Titus, where there is an advance in fact on the warnings to the Corinthians and the Galatians. It is supposed that there was, or might be, a heretic in Crete, who had to be dealt with. Such an one had gone out in the pride of his heart and was after admonition to be declined. “An heretical man after a first and second admonition refuse, knowing that such a one is subverted and sinneth, being self-condemned” (ver. 10, 11). Here the evil is not expressed in the aggravated form of false teaching; and consequently we are not entitled to lighten the sin of faction in itself, of which alone the passage speaks, by supplementing the case with the far more serious shape of it denounced by Peter at a later day. By “heretical man” the apostle means any one active in originating or adopting faction, even if he were orthodox. Not content with “schism” inside, they were forming a separate school without. They might, as a general rule, fall into destructive views, more or less diverging from those whom they had willfullya and deliberately left, in order to justify themselves or oppose others vainly. But the apostle does not add a word, either here or elsewhere, to the evil of “faction” or “sect” in itself. Titus was to admonish once or twice. For there might be differing measures in the self-will that had gone outside: one so determined that a first admonition would be proved enough; another not so far gone might encourage the Lord's servant to persevere and admonish a second time.
This also explains, at any rate in part, why there is not a word about putting away the evil-doer. Titus was to “eschew” or “avoid” him. Now παραιτοῦ; is said of shunning old wives' fables (1 Tim. 4:77But refuse profane and old wives' fables, and exercise thyself rather unto godliness. (1 Timothy 4:7)), younger widows (v. 11), foolish and uninstructed questions (2 Tim. 3:23), as well as a heretic in the scripture before us. In no case is excommunication meant, but just avoiding, whether things or persons. It is granted that the Epistle does not embrace within its scope, like 1 Corinthians, all ecclesiastical action even to the last extremity; any more than excommunication is prescribed in the Epistle to the Galatians or in those to the seven Apocalyptic churches, whence the advocates for tolerating the worst evils within the assembly draw their unwise and unholy arguments.
But there is to be noticed another and more special reason why no such measure was to be laid on the church through Titus: the evil-doer had gone out. This is of the essence of “heresy,” whatever its form; in this lies its advance on and deduction from “schism.” Now how could you with propriety put away him who had already gone away? The utmost which could be done, when it was no mistake (perhaps with a right design yet an ill-guided conscience) but deliberate intention with willful slight and defiance of the assembly, would be to close the door formally, so that he could not enter fellowship again without as formal restoration. This in effect when it truly applied might be equivalent to excommunication; but it would bear on its front the stamping the offender with the fact of his own self will; while the assembly also would show itself not indifferent but vigilant and holy in the case. The assembly, by the Lord entrusted with the extreme act of putting away when God's word calls for it, does not overpass its responsibility in pronouncing on such a sin: the greater or at least more formal act includes what is less or akin. Some such action as this may be implied and inferred; but Waterland (Doctrine of Trin. ch. 4) goes too far in saying that the command to Titus contains as much. Still less is Vitringa (De Vet. Syn. 3. 1-10), after straining 2 Thessalonians and Rom. 16, warranted in making it= ἔκβαλλε, the public excommunication following the admonition, or a private one as among the Jews, as Bp. Ellicott justly observes.
The truth is that the Holy Spirit applies in Gal. 5 to false doctrine the same solemn figure as He does in 1 Cor. 5 to immoral evil. It is leaven; and, where church action is enjoined, we are commanded to purge it from the assembly. Will any one contend that doctrinal leaven is to be kept in, and only immoral leaven is to be put out Evil doctrine is the worse and more ensnaring; and if man as man does not trouble about it, the more is it incumbent on the faithful to care for God's honor. “Holiness, O Lord, becometh Thine house forever.” Now that our Passover, Christ, has been sacrificed, let us keep the feast, not with old leaven neither with the leaven of malice and wickedness, but with the unleavened bread of sincerity and truth. Let those who will have laxity speak out plainly and betray their evil aim, that we may at least keep ourselves pure.
Again, men who bring not the doctrine of Christ, and deny the Father and the Son, are branded by the most loving of the apostles as anti-Christ, whom we are forbidden to receive into the house or even to greet. This goes far beyond what is fairly and withal imperatively taught by the exclusion of leaven in the Pauline Epistles. It is a deeper evil striking at Christ's person, the Rock on which the church is built, and so demands a most prompt and thorough judgment for His sake, to say nothing of His people subtly imperiled by any tampering with them thereby.
Here Titus was simply to have done with an heretical man (leader or adherent is but a question of degree) after a first and second admonition. What follows confirms without constraint and thoroughly the difference of the case before us from ecclesiastical dealing: “Knowing that such a one is perverted, and sinneth, being self-condemned” (ver. 11). Whitby departs from scripture by adding, “is perverted from the true faith.” 1 Tim. 1:19, 2019Holding faith, and a good conscience; which some having put away concerning faith have made shipwreck: 20Of whom is Hymeneus and Alexander; whom I have delivered unto Satan, that they may learn not to blaspheme. (1 Timothy 1:19‑20), 2 Tim. 2:1818Who concerning the truth have erred, saying that the resurrection is past already; and overthrow the faith of some. (2 Timothy 2:18), teach this, but not the passage in question, which marks the evil of faction apart from heterodoxy, though the two often go together. Nor does αὐτοκατάκριτος mean “condemned by his own conscience,” but self-condemned, i.e., ipso facto, without saying a word of conscience, which may have been quite dull or darkened, instead of giving sentence against the man. He was self-condemned, because, liking his own will and perhaps notions too, he could no longer brook the atmosphere of God's assembly; he preferred to be outside God's habitation in the Spirit, to have a church of his own, or to be his own church. Now, as sin is lawlessness, so if one had as a denizen known that holy temple, built upon the foundation of the apostles and prophets, Jesus Christ Himself being the chief corner stone, to leave it (not forced out justly or unjustly) of his own will was to sin with a high hand and seal his own condemnation: words admirably suiting a deserter and self-exalting rival, but not by any means one whose sin had been solemnly judged and himself put away by the sentence of the church. In short, “heresy” simply, here and elsewhere in the Epistles, does not mean departure from the truth but from the assembly, which is its pillar and ground, where the Lord works by the Spirit to God's glory. It goes beyond “schism” which acts within, but it is not necessarily heterodox, though this is often added and likely to be its end.