The Epistle before us has a character a good deal in common with those to Timothy, particularly with the First Epistle, but not without a certain answer to the Second also. Order however is a prominent feature. A charge for its maintenance was given to Titus, rather than that care for doctrine which is so conspicuous, though order is not forgotten, in the First Epistle to Timothy. Without doubt the different circumstances called for these differences of object. Salvation shines brightly throughout.
There is another thing which modifies them all. Titus, though a trusty companion of the apostle, and his own child according to the faith no less than Timothy, did not stand in the same place of intimate affection as the younger laborer, into whose heart the apostle could pour out his feelings, sorrowful or bright, without reserve. This we saw strikingly in the Second Epistle to Timothy; it has no place in the Epistle to Titus, where the exigencies of the work and of the workman occupy (with saving grace and the moral order of the saints) the Epistle. It is remarkable that Titus has no mention in the Acts of the Apostles, where we hear so much of Timothy. But there is no warrant for supposing that his visit to Dalmatia subsequent to the present Epistle had anything in common with the state of Demos. The frequent and most honorable mention of his service in the Epistles of Paul ought to leave no doubt of his fidelity and devotedness from first to last.
In Gal. 2 Titus comes before us in a deeply interesting manner. He was one of the “certain others” from among the saints at Antioch, who went with Paul and Barnabas to the great council at Jerusalem. No one was a more suited companion of the apostle, for Titus was a Greek, and an uncircumcised man. He was therefore just a case in point. Must this Gentile believer be circumcised? Must he keep the law of Moses? The apostles and the elders, with the assembly as a whole, decided against any such compulsion. As the apostle Peter pointed out, the Holy Spirit had already decided the question by putting no difference between the circumcised and uncircumcised believers. Their hearts alike were purified by faith, and the heart—knowing God had given the Holy Ghost to both. It was tempting God by putting a yoke upon the neck of the disciples, which the fathers or the sons of Israel never were able to bear. Salvation is wholly through grace and by faith, consequently as open to the Gentile as to the Jew. If Moses had in every city those who preached him in the synagogues, it was now a question for all Christians of preaching our Lord Jesus Christ. The boldness of faith in the apostle was entirely vindicated at the council. And the grace already manifested in the call of Titus was confirmed by apostolic authority, not alone among the Gentiles, but in Jerusalem itself.
Some have confounded Titus with Timothy, and deliberately argued that the latter was Luke's name for the same person. Whatever may be the ingenuity of the argument, scripture is wholly opposed. Timothy is expressly said to be the son of a Jewish believing woman; and Paul took and circumcised him, not by compulsion, but on account of the Jews who were in those places where his father was known to be a Greek. The characters of the two men stand before us also with no small distinctness; for Titus had none of the yielding and sensitive spirit of Timothy; but as he was more mature, so was he also more courageous. Hence we find him sent to Corinth in the very critical circumstances of the church there after the apostle had written his First Epistle out of much affliction and anguish of heart with many tears. Paul had not only blamed their worldliness and carnal vanity, but had peremptorily called for the severest exercise of discipline in the case of an unclean person who stood very high in the estimate of many. He was deeply burdened in spirit and anxious about the result; so when he came to Troas for the gospel, and when a door was opened to him in the Lord, he had no relief, because he found not Titus, “my brother.” Taking his leave of them, therefore, he went off to Macedonia, which was the adjacent province; but there God that comforts the lowly comforted him by the coming of Titus, for he had learned that the Epistle had produced the happiest effects, and among the rest longing, mourning, and zeal for the apostle. The apostle therefore had the deepest joy. Their grief was according to God. It had wrought repentance to salvation never to be regretted; “earnest care, clearing of themselves, yea, what indignation, yea, what fear, yea, what longing, yea, what zeal, yea, what avenging: in everything ye proved yourselves to be pure in the matter.” And the apostle bears witness of the joy of Titus, because his spirit had been refreshed by them all. The boasting of the apostle, as he calls it, was not put to shame, but found to be truth, and his inward affection was more abundantly towards them, while calling to mind the obedience of them all, how with fear and trembling they received him—a state of soul which grace alone produced, especially in such as the Corinthians.
And the apostle in the same Second Epistle to the Corinthians mentions his exhorting Titus, as he had made a beginning before, to complete in the Corinthians their purposed liberality towards the suffering saints in Jerusalem. So the churches of Macedonia had done, which were as poor as the Corinthian church was rich. He thanked God for putting the same earnest care for the Corinthian saints into the heart of Titus; who, being himself very earnest, went forth to them of his own accord, and with him the brother whose praise was in the gospel through all the assemblies, sent by the apostle as he was chosen by the assemblies, for the ministration of this grace. The apostle, providing things honorable, not only before the Lord but before men, avoided taking it upon himself but gladly helped it on.
It is to this servant of God, of long standing and ripe experience in the work, that the apostle now writes. For Crete had a most unenviable name in ancient times; and when the freshness of grace and truth is no longer felt, these evil characteristics are apt to rise again and display themselves. To maintain the glory of the Lord in the help and correction of the saints there, was the urgent object of the Epistle to Titus. We shall see in the detail how wisely and worthily of God this fresh design was laid on the apostle's companion and fellow-laborer on their behalf.
Titus had been already left in Crete among other things for the authoritative nomination of elders; but the Epistle itself demolishes all thought of the permanent charge of a diocesan. He was to join the apostle at Nicopolis. The statements of Eusebius and others are negatived by scripture.