Making Return to God's Loving-Kindness
Throughout this Epistle, the Apostle insists on good works. See Titus 2:7; Titus 2:14; Titus 3:8; Titus 3:14. The word good might be rendered beautiful. We must not work to be saved, but being saved we must be ready to every good work, and careful to maintain good works. In this last phrase the Apostle apparently refers to the trades and callings by which his converts were to earn their daily bread.
What singular beauty there is in this allusion to the appearance of the kindness and love of God our Savior! These appeared in the person of Jesus, whose human nature alternately veiled and revealed them. The full outshining of God's love was curtained by the veil of His humanity, but enough was shown to irradiate the life of humanity, if only men's eyes had not been blind. Paul speaks of the laver of regeneration, Titus 3:5, r.v., margin, because the new nature, which we receive when we are born again, is clean, and cleanses the entire life from within outward. This is the result of the daily renewing of the Holy Spirit, whom God is ever pouring richly into our hearts. Is this your experience? Will you not claim an ever-increasing inflow? You have been born again; then, as an heir, enter upon the double portion of the firstborn, Titus 3:7.