that to which the depraved human nature naturally leads. In verses 4-7 Paul very powerfully moves into the life of the believer as a citizen. He tells us that our sal vation becomes a tremendous im petus toward living a godly life. What a powerful motive for Chris tian living. There are no grounds for self-exaltation. Our salvation has its historical starting-point in the kind ness of God our Saviour, showing His love toward men. The divine at titude thus stands in sharp contrast to the human disposition pictured in 3:3. While God hates the sinner’s sin, He loves the sinner, and yearns to save him. This is what God thinks about you. True human philanthropy must always be rooted in God’s di vine love. These qualities of God were always there, but they received a clear revelation with the coming of Jesus Christ. In verse 5 we find the base upon which salvation is resting. It states this saving act as something of past fact. He’s already gone to the cross and accomplished all at Calvary. The word “us” means all who have ac cepted Christ as their personal Sav iour (v. 5). Salvation awaits its con summation at the return of the Lord. We have the instruments of our salvation: the washing of re generation, and renewing of the Holy Spirit (5, 6). This is not baptism through water, but the cleansing that comes through regeneration. It refers to the rebirth of the human soul in Jesus Christ (II Cor. 5:17). Verse 7 gives us the wonderful consummation or climax of our sal vation. Two results are indicated. The first is justification by His grace. Then we have also been made heirs of Christ. This speaks of the future condition of the Christian. Next we have the motivation be tween doctrine and Christian con duct. In 8 through 11 there is the reaction to spiritual truth as against spiritual error. Paul moves against
false teaching. Closing out the book are a number of admonitions and personal words to Titus (12 to 15). What a glorious book this is for our application in this important hour of outreach and testimony !
Coordinator of Records in the Registrar's Office at BiolaCollege is Rosemary Foote.
Secretaries in the Stewardship Department at Biolainclude (I. to r.) Virginia Freeman, Bernice Sykes, and Doris Lionbarger.
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