Titus 2:13 — “The appearing of the glory of the great God”: one person or two?

“… awaiting the blessed hope and the appearing of the glory of the great God and of our Saviour Jesus Christ, who gave himself for us, that he might redeem us from all unrighteousness and purify for himself a people for his own possession, zealous for good works.”

Titus 2:13-14

Context: an exhortation, not a doctrinal proposition

The sentence stands at the close of a passage that is practical from beginning to end. Paul has charged Titus to tell the older men, the older women, the younger women, the younger men and the slaves how they are to live. Then follows the ground: “For the grace of God has appeared, bringing salvation to all people” (2:11), and it trains them to renounce ungodliness and to live self-controlled, upright and godly lives in this world — “awaiting the blessed hope and the appearing of the glory…” (2:13). The verse is the horizon of an exhortation, not the formula of a creed.

This is not merely a literary observation. Whoever makes this line into a proof that Jesus is called “the great God” loads upon an incidental remark within a moral exhortation the weight of a statement about essence. Had Paul introduced an innovation in the doctrine of God here, he would have chosen the most unusual place for it that his letters know — and would have left that innovation standing without any comment, without any safeguard, without any indication of its scope.

The letter as a whole belongs to the context as well. The Letter to Titus uses the word “Saviour” (Greek sōtér) six times, and it does so alternately for two different persons: three times for God the Father (1:3; 2:10; 3:4) and three times for Jesus Christ (1:4; 2:13; 3:6). Most clearly in 1:3-4, where the two stand immediately side by side and are expressly distinguished: “according to the commandment of God our Saviour … Grace and peace from God the Father and Christ Jesus our Saviour.” Whoever concludes from the title “Saviour” in 2:13 that only one person can be meant reads against the usage of the letter itself.

Equally to be noted is what immediately precedes and what immediately follows. Before, in verse 11, there is talk of the “grace of God” which has appeared — here “God” is undisputedly the Father. After, in verse 14, there follows a relative clause: “who gave himself for us” — here Christ is undisputedly meant. Between a sentence in which “God” designates the Father and a sentence in which the back-reference points to Christ stands the disputed expression. It therefore precisely does not stand in surroundings that treat of one person only.

Finally the historical setting of the debate. The appeal to the single preposed article is an old exegetical pattern; it was first developed into a formal rule in 1798 by Granville Sharp — expressly with the intention of taking their proof texts away from the anti-Trinitarians. The Racovian Catechism thus answers an argument it knew long before its codification, and it answers it not with a pronouncement of authority, but with counterexamples from the New Testament itself.

Socinian core thesis: two who appear, one glory

The Socinian reading does not dispute that the Greek text can be read as the Trinitarians read it. It disputes that it must be read so. That is the whole point. A sentence whose construction admits of two references cannot bear a statement which is nowhere else in Scripture unambiguously pronounced. Where all the clear passages call the Father the one God and distinguish Jesus from him (John 17:3; 1 Cor. 8:6; Eph. 4:6; 1 Tim. 2:5), there the obscure passage does not decide over the clear ones, but the clear ones over the obscure.

Read positively, the verse says: we await the blessed hope, and we await the appearing of the glory of the great God and (the appearing) of our Saviour Jesus Christ. Two genitives hang upon the same word. The one is the glory that is proper to God the Father; the other is he in whose coming it becomes visible. This expresses precisely what Jesus himself announced: that the Son of Man would come “in the glory of his Father with his angels” (Matt. 16:27; Mark 8:38).

The Racovian Catechism applies its lever at exactly this point, and it does so with a philological subtlety that was often overlooked in the later debate. Paul does not write “we await the coming of the great God”, but “we await the appearing of the glory of the great God”. The governing noun is not “appearing” alone, but “appearing of the glory”. That the glory of God the Father appears when the Son comes to judgement is no Socinian expedient, but the consistent manner of speaking of the New Testament.

The second lever is the rule of the article itself. It asserts that two nouns joined by kaí with only one preposed article must designate the same person. The Racovian Catechism replies that this rule “is not without exception even among the Greeks”, and adduces instances in which manifestly different things are gathered under a single article: buyers and sellers (Matt. 21:12), Pharisees and Sadducees (Matt. 16:1), apostles and prophets (Eph. 2:20; 3:5), calves and goats (Heb. 9:19). And it names three passages in which exactly the construction here in dispute occurs and where no one would think of referring it to one person: Eph. 5:5; 2 Thess. 1:12; 1 Tim. 5:21.

The third lever is the phrase “great God” itself. In the Old Testament it is a fixed title of honour of the LORD — “the great, the mighty and the awesome God” (Deut. 10:17; cf. Neh. 9:32; Dan. 9:4) — and in the whole of the New Testament it is never applied to the Messiah. Had Paul wished to transfer this title to Jesus, it would be the only case in the entire apostolic writings, and he would have lodged it in a subordinate clause of a domestic exhortation.

Exegesis: key terms and semantic field

Four expressions carry the entire interpretive load: the phrase “appearing of the glory”, the title “great God”, the word “Saviour”, and the question of the article. Whoever examines them one by one notices how little of the alleged unambiguity remains.

“Appearing of the glory” — epipháneia tês dóxês

Paul uses epipháneia five times in the Pastoral Epistles, and it always means a visible coming forth (1 Tim. 6:14; 2 Tim. 1:10; 4:1.8; Titus 2:13). In our passage, however, the word does not stand by itself, but joined with a second genitive: not “the appearing of the great God”, but “the appearing of the glory of the great God”. That is a linguistically significant shift: what is awaited is not God himself as the one who comes, but his glory as that which becomes visible.

The construction thereby permits, without any strain, the reading that “of the great God” depends on “glory” and that “of our Saviour Jesus Christ” joins the same chain as a second, coordinate genitive: the appearing of the glory of the great God and (the appearing) of our Saviour. Greek genitive chains of this kind are frequent in Paul; the Vulgate renders the passage with the same ambiguity (adventum gloriae magni Dei et salvatoris nostri Iesu Christi), and the old Latin expositors were by no means agreed about its reference.

Decisive is the cross-check on the substance. That the glory of the Father appears at the return of the Son is a commonplace of the Gospels: “When the Son of Man comes in his glory, and all the angels with him” (Matt. 25:31), “in the glory of his Father” (Mark 8:38). The expression of the Letter to Titus thus fits without a break into the oldest Christian expectation, without any statement about essence being required.

“The great God” — ho mégas theós

The title is firmly coined in the Old Testament. Deuteronomy 10:17 says: “For the LORD your God is God of gods and Lord of lords, the great, the mighty and the awesome God”; likewise Nehemiah 9:32 and Daniel 9:4. In the Septuagint and in Hellenistic Judaism the phrase is a reserved title of the one God; it belongs among those names by which Israel marked itself off precisely against polytheism.

In the New Testament the phrase occurs only here. That is a remarkable finding. Were Titus 2:13 a christological statement, it would be the only place in the New Testament at which Jesus is named with the most exclusive divine title of the Old Testament — and that in passing, without explanation, without defence, without any other apostle following him in it.

It is for precisely this reason that the Racovian Catechism lists Titus 2:13 among the passages where “it is everywhere supposed that Jesus is named by Scripture… as great God” — and it treats it in a series with Jer. 23:6; Zech. 2:8; 1 John 5:20; Jude 4; Rev. 1:8; Acts 20:28. Its procedure throughout is the same: it shows at each passage individually that the reference is either grammatically open or to be determined otherwise in substance. The sum of weak passages yields no strong proof.

“Saviour” — sōtér

The argument that “Saviour” can here refer only to Christ and therefore draws “great God” along with it founders on the letter itself. The Letter to Titus names a Saviour six times, and it distributes the title evenly: “according to the commandment of God our Saviour” (1:3), “the doctrine of God our Saviour” (2:10), “the goodness and loving kindness of God our Saviour” (3:4) — and alongside these “Christ Jesus our Saviour” (1:4), “Jesus Christ our Saviour” (3:6).

Particularly instructive is Titus 3:4-6, because there both uses stand within a single sentence structure: God our Saviour saved us “through Jesus Christ our Saviour”. An author cannot indicate more clearly that for him the title has two bearers, which he carefully keeps apart: the Father as the author, the Son as the means. Whoever derives an identification from the bare word “Saviour” in 2:13 reads against the usage of these same two chapters.

The question of the article — one article, two entities

The so-called Granville Sharp rule states that two nouns in the singular joined by kaí, which are not proper names and share a single preposed article, designate the same person. Sharp himself furnished his rule with express restrictions: no proper names, no plurals. It is precisely there that the dispute ignites, for “Jesus Christ” is a proper name, and the question whether “our Saviour” is already sufficiently determined by the hêmōn and thus possible without an article is no side issue, but the core of the problem.

The Polish Brethren answer not with grammatical theory, but with evidence. The Racovian Catechism names Eph. 5:5 (“in the kingdom of Christ and of God”), 2 Thess. 1:12 (“according to the grace of our God and of the Lord Jesus Christ”) and 1 Tim. 5:21 (“before God and Christ Jesus and the elect angels”). In all three cases the construction stands which supposedly designates one person of necessity — and in all three cases no expositor reads it so. A rule that fails at its own model passages can ground no doctrinal proposition.

To this comes a methodological objection of some weight. The rule was formulated in 1798, in a polemical writing whose declared aim was to take from the Socinians and Arians the appeal to precisely these passages. An instrument constructed expressly for the settling of a dispute cannot settle that dispute neutrally. The Catechism had already formulated the objection a century earlier: “but where it does not hold, this is recognised from the circumstances of the matter” — that is, from the context, not from a rule about the placing of an article.

Comparison of the interpretations

Reference to Sozzini and the Racovian Catechism

The Racovian Catechism treats Titus 2:13 in the section on the “divine names of Christ” as the “fifth testimony”. It names the two grounds on which the opposing side refers the designation “of the great God” to Christ — the rule of the article and the expectation of the coming of the Son — and answers both in turn. The second point contains the actual exegetical point:

“Paul does not say ‘we who await the coming of the great God’, but he says ‘we who await the appearing of the glory of the great God’. But that it is rightly said that the glory of God the Father will appear when Christ comes to judgement is shown by the words of Christ, when he says that he will come in glory, that is, with the glory of God his Father.”

Racovian Catechism, ‘The appearing of the glory of the great God’

The demonstration is remarkably sober. It does not claim that the Trinitarian reading is linguistically impossible; it shows that the text permits a second reading which fits without strain into the manner in which Jesus speaks of his own return. And it adds what is frequently overlooked: “Moreover it is by no means incongruous to say that God the Father will come, or rather appear, when the Son comes to judge the world.”

To the argument from the article the Catechism replies already in its answer to the preceding testimony, the Letter of Jude. There stands the core of the linguistic engagement, and it is summed up in a single sentence:

“It must however be maintained that this rule is not without exception even among the Greeks; but where it does not hold, this is recognised from the circumstances of the matter. That that rule is indeed not without exception is shown by the testimonies of the New Testament itself, as that passage where it is written: ‘He drove out all who sold and bought’, where in the Greek only a single article is placed before the words ‘buyers’ and ‘sellers’.”

Racovian Catechism, ‘The sole ruler’

The Catechism closes this series with the decisive indication: “And besides, the passages Eph. 5:5; 2 Thess. 1:12; 1 Tim. 5:21 show clearly that that rule is not without exception.” With that the dispute is moved to the level to which it belongs: it is not a rule that decides, but the context — and the context of the Letter to Titus distinguishes God and Christ in every single chapter.

How little the Polish Brethren were concerned with a belittling of Christ is shown by their treatment of the related passage 1 John 5:20. There the Catechism expressly guards against the misunderstanding that any divinity whatever is denied to Christ:

“I deny that these words ‘This is the true God’ refer to the Son — not because I would deny that Christ is true God in his own sense, but because I deny that he is that true God of whom this passage speaks.”

Racovian Catechism, ‘Christ as true God’

This distinction — Christ is God “in his own sense”, but not the one most high God — was worked out conceptually by Fausto Sozzini in his replies to Franciscus David. He distinguishes between the deity which God can share with no one and the deity which he imparts:

“The deity of God is on the whole of two kinds: the one, which we may call the essential, of which God himself speaks when he affirms that his glory will not be seen from the earth; the other may be called the effective, that is, the effect of his nature and operation. The former God does not impart to creatures …; the latter, on the contrary, he does impart.”

Fausto Sozzini, “On the Honour of Christ”, ‘The deity imparted to creatures’

With that the reproach is also refuted that the Socinian reading makes of Christ a mere secondary figure. In the disputation with Christian Francken, Sozzini precisely did not allow the opposition of Creator and creature to stand as a limit upon the honour of Christ, but took it as proof that honour is transferable:

“And even though the distance between God and the creature is the greatest of all, it is nevertheless not necessary that the difference between the honour of God and that of the creature should be equally great. For God can impart his honour to whomever he will; this he has shown to Christ, who is worthy of such honour and whom Holy Scripture does not command us to venerate without the weightiest of reasons.”

Fausto Sozzini, “On the Honour of Christ”, disputation with Christian Francken

Between these two sentences lies the whole Socinian position on Titus 2:13. The glory that appears at the return is God’s own — it belongs to that which he does not impart. The honour that is due to Christ is conferred upon him — and therefore real; not lesser, but differently grounded.

Overview of the writings of Sozzini

Logical arguments

The following points sum up why Titus 2:13 does not carry as a proof text for the deity of Christ:

1. Two readings, no constraint. The Greek admits of both references. Where the language itself does not decide, no doctrinal proposition can be won that is not clearly attested elsewhere. A dogmatics that rests upon a chain of genitives rests upon sand.
2. The governing word is “glory”. Paul does not write “the appearing of the great God”, but “the appearing of the glory of the great God”. That permits, without strain, referring the first genitive to the glory and placing the second beside it as coordinate.
3. The rule of the article is not without exception. Matt. 21:12; 16:1; Eph. 2:20; 3:5; Heb. 9:19 show one article over different entities; Eph. 5:5; 2 Thess. 1:12; 1 Tim. 5:21 show exactly the disputed construction over God and Christ, without anyone identifying them.
4. The rule is younger than the dispute. Granville Sharp formulated it in 1798, expressly for the refutation of the anti-Trinitarians. An instrument created specially for a case in dispute cannot decide that case independently.
5. “Great God” is a reserved Old Testament title. Deut. 10:17; Neh. 9:32; Dan. 9:4 use it exclusively of the LORD. In the New Testament it occurs only here — a single, incidental instance would establish an entirely new manner of speaking.
6. The letter itself distinguishes. Titus 1:3-4 and 3:4-6 name Father and Son side by side as “Saviour” and keep them carefully apart in doing so. From the title “Saviour”, therefore, nothing follows about the number of those meant.
7. The immediate context changes its references. Verse 11 speaks of the “grace of God” (undisputedly the Father), verse 14 of him “who gave himself for us” (undisputedly Christ). A shift between the two is in this passage the normal thing, not the conspicuous one.
8. 1 Timothy 6:14-16 is the cross-check. There Paul awaits the “appearing of our Lord Jesus Christ”, which “he will display at the proper time, he who is the blessed and only Sovereign …, who alone has immortality”. The same expectation, the same twofoldness — and there without any ambiguity.
9. Jesus himself said it so. He comes “in the glory of his Father” (Mark 8:38; Matt. 16:27). That at his coming the glory of the Father appears is no auxiliary construction, but his own announcement.
10. The measure of the burden of proof does not fit. When a doctrine that counts as the heart of the faith hangs upon a handful of grammatically disputed passages, while the unambiguous statements about the one God are to be found by the hundred, then the burden of proof does not lie with those who take the hundreds seriously.

Biblical cross-references

These passages deepen the interpretation in the light of the whole biblical testimony:

Deuteronomy 10:17

“For the LORD your God is God of gods and Lord of lords, the great, the mighty and the awesome God.” Here the phrase which Titus 2:13 takes up stands in its original context: as the marking off of the one God against all others. In the Hebrew Bible the title is never transferable; it designates him who has no one beside him.

1 Timothy 6:14-16

Paul exhorts that the commandment be kept unstained “until the appearing of our Lord Jesus Christ, which he will display at the proper time, he who is the blessed and only Sovereign, the King of kings and Lord of lords, who alone has immortality”. The structure is exactly that of Titus 2:13, only without ambiguity: the Son appears, and it is the Father who brings about this appearing and becomes visible in it. Whoever accepts the pattern here cannot dispute it there.

Titus 3:4-6

“But when the goodness and loving kindness of God our Saviour appeared … he saved us … through Jesus Christ our Saviour.” Within a single sentence structure the title “Saviour” carries two different bearers, and the author marks the roles carefully: God saves, Christ is the means. With that the chief argument from the word “Saviour” is refuted within the same letter.

2 Thessalonians 1:12

“… according to the grace of our God and of the Lord Jesus Christ.” The Racovian Catechism adduces this passage expressly as a counterexample: the construction is the same, the article likewise stands only once — and yet no one here reads a single person. Where a rule fails at its own parallels, it can prove nothing at the disputed passage.

Ephesians 5:5

“… has no inheritance in the kingdom of Christ and of God.” Here too a single article joins two entities which no expositor identifies. The Catechism names the passage in a series with 2 Thess. 1:12 and 1 Tim. 5:21 as evidence that the rule of the article “is not without exception”.

Mark 8:38

“… when he comes in the glory of his Father with the holy angels.” Jesus himself describes his return as the appearing of a glory which is not his own, but that of his Father. With that the Socinian reading of Titus 2:13 is not merely possible, but suggested by Jesus’ own manner of speaking.

John 17:3

“And this is eternal life, that they know you, the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom you have sent.” Here the same twofoldness stands without any grammatical blurring: the only true God and the one sent by him. This sentence belongs among the clear passages against which the obscure ones must be measured.

1 Timothy 2:5

“For there is one God, and there is one mediator between God and men, the man Christ Jesus.” Here, where the matter itself is expressly at issue for him, Paul formulates with the utmost sharpness: one God, and beside him — not within him — one mediator. What he says in a doctrinal proposition cannot be replaced by what one reads out of a subordinate clause.

Objections and Socinian answers

1. The rule of the article settles the matter

The rule is not false, but it is no law of nature, and it has exceptions which its own authors had to name. Sharp expressly excluded proper names and plurals — and “Jesus Christ” is a proper name. Whether the construction thereby falls under the rule is precisely the question in dispute and cannot be settled by appeal to the rule.

The Racovian Catechism answers not with theory but with textual evidence: Matt. 21:12 gathers buyers and sellers under one article; Matt. 16:1 Pharisees and Sadducees; Eph. 2:20 and 3:5 apostles and prophets; Heb. 9:19 calves and goats. And it names three passages at which God and Christ stand under one article — Eph. 5:5; 2 Thess. 1:12; 1 Tim. 5:21 — without any expositor drawing them together into one person.

To this comes the historical finding. The rule was formulated in 1798, in a writing whose title already announces that it is directed against the opponents of the doctrine of the Trinity. It is thereby not a neutral tool that one applies to the passage, but itself an argument in the matter. Whoever adduces it as a settlement presupposes what he wishes to prove.

Finally the principle which the Catechism formulates: “but where it does not hold, this is recognised from the circumstances of the matter.” That is exactly what is at stake. The context of the Letter to Titus distinguishes in every chapter between God our Saviour and Jesus Christ our Saviour. Where the context is so unambiguous, a rule about the placing of an article does not carry the contrary decision.

2. We await the coming of Christ, not that of the Father

This objection would be stronger if Paul had written what is here imputed to him. But he does not write “the coming of the great God”, but “the appearing of the glory of the great God”. That is the point at which the Racovian Catechism sets in: what is awaited is not the coming of the Father, but the becoming visible of his glory — and that happens when the Son comes.

That the glory of the Father appears at the return of the Son is no Socinian invention, but the manner of speaking of Jesus himself. He comes “in the glory of his Father with the holy angels” (Mark 8:38), and Matt. 16:27 repeats it. Whoever takes these statements seriously has no difficulty with a sentence that names the appearing of the paternal glory and the coming of the Son in one breath.

The Catechism even goes a step further and holds that it is “by no means incongruous to say that God the Father will come, or rather appear, when the Son comes to judge the world”. With that the objection is answered even in its strongest form: even if one wished to ascribe an “appearing” to the Father, there would be nothing unbiblical in it, because he who judges has received his office from the Father and acts in his name.

And the cross-check stands in the same corpus. In 1 Tim. 6:14-16 Paul awaits the “appearing of our Lord Jesus Christ” and adds that this appearing will be displayed by him “who alone has immortality”. The same linking of the coming of the Son and the working of the Father — only that there no one has the idea of making the two into one person.

3. “Saviour” is a title of Christ and draws “God” along with it

The Letter to Titus uses “Saviour” six times, and it distributes it evenly between two bearers. Three times it stands with the Father: “according to the commandment of God our Saviour” (1:3), “the doctrine of God our Saviour” (2:10), “the goodness and loving kindness of God our Saviour” (3:4). Three times it stands with Christ (1:4; 2:13; 3:6). Of an exclusively christological formula, therefore, there can be no talk.

This becomes clearest in 1:3-4, where both uses stand immediately side by side and are expressly distinguished. And in 3:4-6 the author brings them together within a single sentence structure without mingling them: God our Saviour saves — through Jesus Christ our Saviour. Whoever takes the title as a proof of identity would have to declare these sentences meaningless.

The linguistic background confirms this. In the Old Testament “deliverer” is a title of God (Isa. 43:11; 45:21), but it is also applied to human beings sent by God (Judg. 3:9.15; Neh. 9:27). The title thus designates a function which God exercises and which he also lets others exercise. It settles nothing about the essence of him who bears it.

It therefore remains the case: from “Saviour” no deity in the sense of consubstantiality follows, and from the joining of two titles under one article no identity of the bearers follows. Both arguments lean on each other, but neither stands on its own — and two arguments that do not carry make together no argument that does.

4. Verse 14 speaks of him who gave himself — so the whole expression is christological

The relative clause attaches to what immediately precedes, and what immediately precedes is “our Saviour Jesus Christ”. That is exactly what one expects even with two referents: the back-reference takes up the nearest suitable point of reference. The objection therefore shows what is undisputed in any case, and proves nothing about the more distant genitive.

The Racovian Catechism has treated this kind of argumentation at length elsewhere, namely at 1 John 5:20. There it points out that relative pronouns “are not always referred to what immediately precedes, but are frequently referred to that of which the discourse chiefly treats, even when it stands further off”, and supports it with Acts 7:18-19; 10:6 and 2 John 7. The rule thus runs in both directions and settles nothing.

If one looks at the passage as a whole, it speaks against the objection in any case. Verse 11 treats of the “grace of God”, verse 13 of the appearing, verse 14 of him who gave himself up. Between Father and Son there is a shift in three consecutive sentences — that is Pauline normal style, no indication of identity.

And in substance the relative clause is even a counterargument. “Who gave himself for us” describes a self-giving that presupposes a recipient and knows a commissioner. Paul says elsewhere that God gave him up (Rom. 8:32). The sentence therefore describes precisely the relation of two, not the identity of one.

5. This interpretation makes Christ small

The Polish Brethren did not make Christ small, but expressly defended his honour — and that against attacks from their own camp. Fausto Sozzini’s disputation with Christian Francken is directed at exactly this: Francken argued that a creature may receive no religious worship; Sozzini answered that God can impart his honour to whomever he will, and that he has shown it to Christ, “who is worthy of such honour”.

Likewise, in the replies to Franciscus David, Sozzini distinguishes between the “essential” deity, which God does not impart, and the “effective”, which he does impart. According to this teaching Christ really has divine power, divine office and divine honour — received, not inherited. The Racovian Catechism formulates the same position tersely: Christ is “true God in his own sense”, but not that most high God of whom Scripture says that he alone is.

The comfort of the gospel does not hang upon this. It hangs upon the fact that God sent the Son and raised him, that he gave him all authority in heaven and on earth, and that he will judge through him. All of this presupposes that God and the one sent are two — otherwise there would be no sending, no raising, no transferring of authority and no mediator.

And finally: whoever reads Titus 2:13 in the Socinian way takes nothing from Christ, but gives something back to him. The verse promises that in his coming the glory of the Father appears — that is, that the Son is the place at which the invisible God becomes visible. That is no belittling, but the highest statement that can be made about a counterpart of God.

Theological consequences

Related verses

The following passages support, deepen or contrast the interpretation presented here:

• John 17:3 — the only true God and the one sent by him, without any grammatical blurring.
• 1 Timothy 2:5 — one God and one mediator: the twofoldness in an express doctrinal proposition.
• 1 Timothy 6:16 — “who alone has immortality”: the context of the parallel to Titus 2:13.
• 1 John 5:20 — the same question about the reference of a pronoun, treated at length by the Catechism.
• Romans 9:5 — the second great question of punctuation and reference in the Pauline letters.
• Hebrews 1:8 — “Your throne, O God”: address, or a statement about God as throne?
• Acts 20:28 — “obtained with his own blood”: the same series in the Catechism.
• 1 Timothy 3:16 — how a textual variant decides a predication of deity.
• Colossians 2:9 — “the whole fullness of deity bodily”: imparted, not essential divinity.
• John 20:28 — the confession of Thomas and the limits of the word “God”.
• Philippians 2:9-11 — the honour that is conferred upon Christ, “to the glory of God the Father”.
• Deuteronomy 6:4 — the Shema as the standard against which every predication of deity must be measured.

Summary

Titus 2:13 belongs among the few passages at which the New Testament is supposed to call Jesus expressly “great God” — and the whole force of the proof hangs upon a chain of genitives and a missing article. The Greek admits of both references: “the appearing of the glory of our great God and Saviour Jesus Christ” or “the appearing of the glory of the great God and of our Saviour Jesus Christ”. Where the language itself does not decide, no statement about essence can be won.

The Racovian Catechism has already formulated the decisive objection: Paul does not speak of the coming of the great God, but of the appearing of his glory. With that the reference is divisible without any strain — the glory belongs to the Father, the coming to the Son — and it fits exactly into what Jesus himself said: that he would come “in the glory of his Father”.

Against the rule of the article the Catechism answers not with theory, but with the testimonies of the New Testament itself. Buyers and sellers, Pharisees and Sadducees, apostles and prophets stand under a single article; and in Eph. 5:5, 2 Thess. 1:12 and 1 Tim. 5:21 even God and Christ stand thus side by side, without any expositor ever having drawn them together into one person. A rule that fails at its own parallels can ground no doctrinal proposition — all the more since it was first formulated in 1798, expressly for the refutation of those against whom it is brought into the field.

The Letter to Titus itself speaks most clearly. It names a “Saviour” six times and distributes the title evenly between God the Father and Jesus Christ; in 1:3-4 and 3:4-6 it places the two side by side and keeps them carefully apart. Whoever in 2:13 derives an identification from the word “Saviour” reads against the usage of these same two chapters.

What this interpretation accomplishes is no diminishing of Christ. Sozzini expressly defended the honour of Christ against Christian Francken and held fast to the position that God can impart his honour to whomever he will — and that he has shown it to Christ. What he does not impart to the Son is the “essential” deity alone, that glory of which God says that it is not to be seen from the earth. But it is precisely this glory that Titus 2:13 promises for the day on which the Son comes: it will appear — and he in whom it appears is the man Christ Jesus, the mediator between God and men.