Titus 3:7 - Ellicott's Commentary On The Whole Bible

That being justified by his grace, we should be made heirs according to the hope of eternal life. — Here appears the glorious design of God’s salvation. We were in a hopeless and lost state, from which God’s love for man saved us by the laver of regeneration and renovation; and this was the end for which He saved us — that we should be heirs of eternal life. “Being justified,” that is, freed from the future punishment and consequences of sin, and received into the favour and friendship of God, which favour and friendship had been, through sin, forfeited. “By His grace,” by the favour and kindness of God the Father are we restored to His love and friendship. “Heirs,” see Romans 8:17, where this thought of our heirship of heaven is enlarged. “According to the hope of eternal life;” this life eternal is still for us in the future, though ever present in respect of hope; children of God we indeed are, and sharers in many a good gift of our Father, but eternal life, that glorious inheritance, is still in the far future, and as yet can only be enjoyed by us in hope, but it is a sure hope — eternal life — the hope of which is the mainspring of all Christian work and activity — though it includes it, of course, is something far more than merely endless existence. A veil, impenetrable to mortal eye, hangs between us and the many mansions of the Father’s house. “It doth not yet appear what we shall be;” we only know that then, we, in company with an innumerable host of blessed beings, shall share in the beatific vision; we only know that then “we shall ever be with the Lord;” and that with this thought and with these words are we to comfort one another. (See 1 Thessalonians 4:17-18.)