Jesus Christ: God or God’s Glory?
The following is taken from the monumental work titled The Incarnate Christ and His Critics: A Biblical Defense, authored byRobert M. Bowman, Jr. & J. Ed Komoszewski, published by Kregel Academic, Grand Rapids, MI, 2024, Part 3: The Name of Jesus: Jesus’ Divine Names, Chapter 24: Jesus as “God” in the Rest of the New Testament, pp. 460-463.
In my estimation this is THE best and most comprehensive exposition and defense of the biblical basis for the Deity of Christ. Every serious Trinitarian Christian student of the Holy Bible, apologist, and/or theologian must have this book in the library.
Titus 2:13
The grammatical analysis of Titus 2:13 based on the application of Sharp’s rule has strong confirmation from the expression “our Savior” (sōtēros hēmōn), which occurs six times in Titus. In five of those six occurrences, the article “the” (tou) immediately precedes “our Savior” (1:3, 4; 2:10; 3:4, 6); the one exception is Titus 2:13. The only good explanation for this variation is that “our Savior” is modified by the same article that modifies “great God.” For this reason, along with the factors discussed already, we consider it beyond reasonable doubt that “God” and “Savior” in Titus 2:13 must have a single referent. Once this fact is recognized, the only way around the conclusion that the text calls Jesus God is to argue that the whole expression “our great God and Savior” refers to the Father, even though it is followed immediately by the name “Jesus Christ.”
The best attempt to defend such a reading of Titus 2:13 has been put forward by Gordon Fee. He agrees that Sharp’s rule applies to Titus 2:13, so that “our great God and Savior” refers to one divine person. However, he argues that the person called “our great God and Savior” is the Father, not Christ. His view is that Jesus Christ is called “the glory of our great God and Savior.” In other words, he understands Paul to be saying that Christians are “awaiting the blessed hope and manifestation of the glory of our great God and Savior, [which glory is] Jesus Christ.”39 In grammatical terms, Fee understands the name “Jesus Christ” to be in apposition to “glory” instead of in apposition to “our great God and Savior.” As Fee puts it, he interprets the text to mean “the appearing of our great God and Savior’s glory, Jesus Christ.”40
If Fee’s view is correct, what Paul says about Jesus Christ still implies his deity (as Fee himself agrees), since he would be affirming that the climactic, ultimate revelation of God’s glory will be the appearing of Jesus Christ at his second coming. However, there are some strong reasons to dispute Fee’s interpretation.41 Much of his argument in support of that view boils down to the claim that it would be out of keeping with Paul’s way of speaking for him to call Jesus God. Yet it is clear that Paul departs from his usual terminology for Jesus in the epistle to Titus, since in this epistle alone he never refers to Jesus as “Lord” (kyrios) and refers to Jesus at least twice as “Savior” (sōtēr, Titus 1:4; 3:6), a term he rarely uses outside this epistle for Jesus (Eph. 5:23; Phil. 3:20; 2 Tim. 1:10). Murray Harris rightly warns against “an ever-present danger in literary research in making a writer’s ‘habitual usage’ so normative that he is disallowed the privilege of creating the exception that proves the rule.”42
At least eight factors cumulatively offer strong support for understanding “Jesus Christ” to be identifying “our great God and Savior,” not “the glory,” in Titus 2:13.
1. “Our great God and Savior” is immediately adjacent to “Jesus Christ,” making that expression much more likely to be in apposition to “Jesus Christ” than the word “glory,” which is separated from “Jesus Christ” by six words.43
2. It would be odd to speak of the manifestation of God’s glory and not mean that the one who is manifest is God.
3. All other things being equal, a personal designation like “our great God and Savior” is more likely to be identified as a person (“Jesus Christ”) than as an abstraction (“the glory”).
4. Paul never refers to Jesus as God’s “glory.” As an argument from silence, this fact does not prove that Titus 2:13 calls Jesus “God.” On the other hand, it is a problem for Fee’s argument, inasmuch as the whole basis of his argument is Pauline usage (specifically, that Paul never calls Jesus God). Fee admits the point, but explains that in 2 Corinthians 4:6, Paul “makes it clear that Christ is indeed the manifestation of God’s glory, since he is God’s true ‘image.’”44 Here and elsewhere, Fee implies that the word “manifestation” (epiphaneian), rather than “glory” (doxēs), is in apposition to “Jesus Christ” (Iēsou Christou) in Titus 2:13. However, such an interpretation is grammatically impossible, because epiphaneian is in the accusative case while Iēsou Christou is in the genitive case.
5. When Paul uses epiphaneia (“manifestation” or “appearing”) elsewhere in his epistles, it refers to the manifestation of Christ (2 Thess. 2:8; 1 Tim. 6:14; 2 Tim. 1:10; 4:1, 8), not of the Father.45 That is, in Paul’s usage, Jesus is not the “manifestation” of someone else but is the one whose “manifestation” we await. The close parallel of Titus 2:13 with 2 Timothy 1:10, “the appearing of our Savior Jesus Christ,” strongly confirms this usage in Titus 2:13. Thus, “the manifestation of the glory of our great God and Savior, Jesus Christ” (Titus 2:13 NRSV) means the “manifestation” of Jesus Christ.
6. In as many as twelve out of the eighteen times in his epistles that Paul uses the term “the glory” in the genitive case (tēs doxēs), it likely functions as a descriptive modifier of the preceding noun (Rom. 8:21; 9:23; 1 Cor. 2:8; 2 Cor. 4:4; Eph. 1:17, 18; 3:16; Phil. 3:21; Col. 1:11, 27; 1 Tim. 1:11; Titus 2:13). English translations often express this usage by the rendering “glorious” (especially the CEV, which does so in all twelve instances).46 Thus, Titus 2:13 may be better translated “the blessed hope and glorious appearing of our great God and Savior, Jesus Christ” (NKJV, cf. CEB, CEV, EHV, LEB, NET). If this is correct, then the text cannot be calling Jesus “the glory.” On the other hand, the rendering “the appearing of the glory” does not require us to understand the text to be calling Jesus “the glory,” but only makes that interpretation possible.
7. Paul immediately follows his reference to Jesus Christ by speaking of his accomplishments for our salvation: “who gave himself for us to redeem us from all lawlessness,” and so forth (Titus 2:14). The one “who gave himself for us,” of course, is Jesus Christ, the person just mentioned and the person who the whole New Testament teaches gave himself for our salvation. Thus, what immediately follows Titus 2:13 confirms that in this context Jesus Christ is “our Savior.” But since (as Fee and most scholars now agree) the one called Savior is in fact called “our great God and Savior,” this means that Titus 2:13 does call Jesus God.
8. The pattern of Paul’s references to “our Savior” in Titus—three references to “God our Savior” (1:3; 2:10; 3:4) each followed closely by a reference to Jesus Christ as “our Savior” (1:4; 2:13; 3:6) is disrupted if 2:13 does not refer to Jesus Christ as Savior.
This convergence of evidence regarding Titus 2:13, along with the evidence concerning Romans 9:5 reviewed earlier, is sufficient to warrant rejecting the presumption that Paul applied the designation “God” to the Father alone.
39. Fee, Pauline Christology, 440–48.
40. Fee, Pauline Christology, 443 (Fee’s emphasis).
41. The following is an extremely condensed summary of Robert M. Bowman Jr., “Jesus Christ, God Manifest: Titus 2:13 Revisited,” JETS 51, no. 4 (Dec. 2008): 733–52.
42. Harris, Jesus as God, 177.
43. Fee acknowledges this to be an “obvious difficulty” for his view, but claims, mistakenly, that it “is the only difficulty”; Fee, Pauline Christology, 444 n. 86.
44. Fee, Pauline Christology, 445, emphasis Fee’s.
45. Harris, Jesus as God, 184, surprisingly claims this is a weak argument because the text could be speaking of the epiphaneia of the Father’s “glory” rather than of the Father himself.
46. See also NLT (in ten of twelve examples, though not Titus 2:13), NET (in nine), and LEB (in seven). Fee asserts that such a usage of “the glory” adjectivally to mean “glorious” is “out of sync with Paul’s usage elsewhere”; Pauline Christology, 443. In light of the dozen likely examples of this usage in Paul, Fee’s statement would seem to be mistaken. (Bold emphasis mine)
The next excerpt is taken from Bowman’s JESUS CHRIST, GOD MANIFEST: TITUS 2:13 REVISITED, JETS 51/4, December 2008, pp. 733–52, being a thorough refutation of Fee’s arguments.
III. JESUS CHRIST: GOD, OR GOD’S GLORY?
As we have just explained, it is likely that we should translate Titus 2:13, “awaiting the blessed hope and glorious manifestation of our great God and Savior, Jesus Christ.” Still, it is also possible to translate it, “awaiting the blessed hope and manifestation of the glory of our great God and Savior, Jesus Christ.” Whichever of these options is preferred, the conventional understanding of most NT scholars today is that the text identifies “our great God and Savior” as “Jesus Christ.” However, Fee enumerates six points against this view and in favor of understanding “Jesus Christ” to identify, not “our great God and Savior,” but “the glory of our great God and Savior.” If the attributive interpretation of “glory” is correct, Fee’s position is not. On the other hand, if Fee’s six reasons for his position are strong, they might be sufficient to displace the weight of the arguments presented in favor of the attributive interpretation. Thus, either way, we need to consider Fee’s six points in order to do full justice to the question.
1. Reduced to “its barest essentials.” Fee begins his case by arguing that we can better see what Paul meant by eliminating the “multiplication of modifiers” in Titus 2:13 in order to reduce it to “its barest essentials.” When we do that, he says, we get “the manifestation of the glory of God, Jesus Christ.” If Paul had written that, Fee asserts, “no one would have imagined that ‘Jesus Christ’ stood in apposition to God.”31
As we shall see, there is reason to think that Fee’s claim here is overstated; some readers, at least, would think that “Jesus Christ” stands in apposition to “God” in Fee’s simpler statement. We will come back to that question when we consider Fee’s third point.
In any case, Fee’s argument depends on a selective choice of what counts as “essentials” in Paul’s statement and what counts as the nonessential “modifiers.” One might hypothesize, with equal or greater warrant, that the essence of Paul’s point is that we are awaiting “the manifestation of the glory of our Savior, Jesus Christ” (cf. 2 Tim 1:10). (That this abridged version is closer to the text’s actual emphasis is suggested by the fact that the title Savior receives striking emphasis in Titus.32) It is doubtful that anyone would ever suggest that in such a sentence “Jesus Christ” was in apposition to “glory.”
What we should ask is why few who read Fee’s simplified version of Paul’s statement are likely to understand it to identify Jesus Christ as God. The answer would seem to be that most of us do not think of the unqualified title “God” as an expected, customary designation for Jesus Christ. Thus, when we see a text that appears to call him “God,” many of us naturally and almost instinctively look for an alternate way of understanding the text. Suppose, for example, that Paul had written, “the manifestation of the glory of the Lord, Jesus Christ.” It is safe to say that no one would have any trouble recognizing “Jesus Christ” as “the Lord” (either in apposition or as part of a compound name).
It turns out, then, that Fee’s first point really presupposes his fifth point, namely, that it would be anomalous for Paul to have referred to Jesus Christ as God. I shall address this argument in turn; for now, we should simply notice that Fee’s first point loses its potency unless his fifth point is presupposed.
As a final response to this first argument, the fact is that Paul did not write the simpler statement that Fee hypothesizes. Supposing for the sake of argument that his simpler statement would more easily be understood to mean that Jesus Christ is the glory of God, it does not follow that we should understand what Paul actually wrote in the same way. As we examine his other arguments, I shall argue to the contrary that we should not understand Paul in that way.
2. The comparison with Col 2:2. Second, Fee compares Titus 2:13 to Col 2:2, where Paul writes about “the knowledge of the mystery of God, Christ” (translating literally).33 He points out that interpreters properly understand Paul to mean that Christ is “the mystery of God,” not that Christ is “God.” He suggests that had Paul written “the mystery of our great God and Savior, Christ,” we should still interpret him to mean that Christ is the mystery, even though some interpreters would presumably understand this statement to identify Christ as God.
This second point is really just an illustration of the first point. We could agree with Fee’s observations without agreeing with his conclusion that interpreters’ “instinct” has led them astray in Titus 2:13.
However, there is a significant difference between Col 2:2 and Titus 2:13 that is highly relevant. We would not normally understand “the knowledge of the mystery of God” as another way of referring to knowing God himself, because “mystery” rarely (if ever) refers to any aspect of God’s own being. On the other hand, we would normally understand “the manifestation of the glory of God” as a way of referring to God manifesting himself, since “glory” often refers to an aspect of God’s own being. It is in fact quite unnatural to understand “the manifestation of the glory of God” to refer to anything other than God manifesting himself in his own glory. By contrast, to speak of “the knowledge of the mystery of God” easily and naturally conveys the idea of knowing God’s mystery, whatever that mystery might be, as something distinct from God.
Hence, there are relevant semantic differences between Col 2:2 and Titus 2:13 that negate the argument of Fee’s first two points.
3. The “distance” between apposite terms. According to Fee, his first two points show that “it is only the distance from what it stands in apposition to, made so by the second appellation of God as ‘our Savior,’ that has caused us historically to read ‘Jesus Christ’ as in apposition to either ‘our Savior’ or ‘our great God and Savior.’” In a footnote, he acknowledges that the verbal distance is an “obvious difficulty” while claiming that it “is the only difficulty” with his position.34
First, under the right linguistic circumstances a significant verbal distance between nouns in apposition would create no confusion at all. In this case, however, the verbal distance between “glory” and “Jesus Christ,” if Fee is correct, has apparently misled the vast majority of interpreters. Nearly all scholars throughout the centuries have thought that “Jesus Christ” was in apposition either to “our great God and Savior” or “our Savior.” It has only been in the last hundred years that a few scholars have thought to identify “glory” as the term apposite to “Jesus Christ.”35 This “difficulty” is therefore a solid piece of evidence against Fee’s view.
Second, this is not the only evidence against Fee’s interpretation. As we have already pointed out, it would be semantically odd or unexpected to speak of the manifestation of the glory of God and not mean that the one manifest is God himself.
Third, when a reader is looking for a term to serve in apposition to a personal name, all other things being equal, the reader will tend to “land” on a recognized personal designation.36 Looking for a preceding term to which “Jesus Christ” stands in apposition, the reader is thus more likely to consider “our great God and Savior” as the apposite term than the term “glory.”
The convergence of the three factors just mentioned creates a strong presumption in favor of understanding “Jesus Christ” to stand in apposition to “our great God and Savior.” It is not the verbal distance alone, but the verbal distance and the preference for a personal designation to serve in apposition to a name, in conjunction with the semantic equivalence of the manifestation of the glory of God with the manifesting of God himself, that lead most interpreters to this conclusion.
Fee’s first three points, then, amount to one argument, namely, that the only reason for rejecting the view that “Jesus Christ” is in apposition to “glory” is the verbal distance between the two substantives. As we have seen, this is not the case. On the other hand, it would seem perfectly fair to say that the only reason to think that “Jesus Christ” is in apposition to “glory” is the apparent difficulty of Paul calling Jesus God. Our examination of the rest of Fee’s six points will confirm this to be the case.
4. Jesus Christ, God’s glory? Fee’s fourth point is that it is “a Pauline idea” to speak of Jesus Christ as the glory of God. He uses the term “idea” because, as he acknowledges, Paul nowhere else ever refers to Jesus as the glory of God—not even in 2 Corinthians 3–4, where Jesus is closely associated with God’s glory. Nevertheless, Fee states, Paul “makes it clear that Christ is indeed the manifestation of God’s glory, since he is God’s true ‘image.’”37
Fee here alludes to 2 Cor 4:4, where, however, Paul says that unbelievers fail to see “the light of the gospel of the glory of Christ, who is the image of God” (NRSV). Assuming we do not understand tes doxes attributively here as a description of the gospel (as Fee’s handling of tes doxes would require), in this statement Paul’s idea is not that Christ is (or manifests) the glory of God, since he speaks of “the glory of Christ.” The idea will have to be derived from verse 6, where Paul says that God “has shone in our hearts to give the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ” (NRSV).
From 2 Corinthians 4, then, one might draw the idea that Jesus Christ is “the manifestation of God’s glory,” as Fee says. In putting it this way, though, Fee has strayed from his exegetical position. His claim with regard to Titus 2:13 is that “Jesus Christ” is in apposition to “glory,” not to “manifestation.” Thus, he translates it as “awaiting the appearance of our great God and Savior’s glory, Jesus Christ,” and states explicitly that he thinks the evidence favors “‘glory’ as the apposing word for ‘Jesus Christ.”38 Yet Fee more than once paraphrases Titus 2:13 in a way that treats “manifestation” as the apposite noun. In addition to the statement already quoted, Fee says that in Titus 2:13 “Christ is the coming manifestation of God’s glory.”39 In a footnote Fee also acknowledges that “Christ is no more ‘the Glory of God’ than he is ‘the Grace of God,’ as though titles were in view in either case.” He then adds, “The passage has to do with the manifestation of God’s glory.”40 All these statements imply that “Jesus Christ” is in apposition to “manifestation.”
One may wonder, then, whether there is any plausible basis for construing Iesou Christou apposition to epiphaneian. Simple apposition (the use of the genitive assumed by Fee) requires that the two substantives be of the same case, ruling out simple apposition of the genitive ‘Iesou Christou to the accusative epiphaneian. There is a “genitive of apposition” or “genitive of definition” in which the head noun can be of another case, but this usage does not apply here. The genitive of definition basically covers two types of occurrences. (1) The head noun represents a broad or general category and the genitive noun specifies one of many possible members of that category (e.g. “city of Thyatira,” Acts 16:14; “sign of circumcision,” Rom 4:11). Since no NT writer views Jesus Christ as merely one of many manifestations of God, Titus 2:13 is not this type of occurrence. (2) The head noun is used metaphorically and the genitive noun gives the meaning of the metaphor (e.g. “temple of his body,” John 2:21; “cup of his wrath,” Rev 14:10). Since “manifestation” is not a metaphorical term in Titus 2:13, this type of occurrence is also inapplicable.41 The extreme distance between epiphaneian and ‘Iesou Christou (seven words, including three genitive nouns) adds to the high improbability of the two terms being in apposition.42
In defense of his claim that Titus 2:13 identifies Christ as the glory of God, Fee asserts that “it seems inexplicable” that Paul would “refer to the personal coming of Christ as a manifestation of Christ’s ‘glory.’ Of course his ‘glory’ will be seen when he comes; but why say such a thing at all in this context?” Assuming for the moment (as Fee insists) that the attributive use of “glory” to modify “manifestation” is not in play here, I do not see what would be so odd in Paul speaking of Christ’s glory in this context. For that matter, why bring up the manifestation of God’s glory? Why bring up the manifestation of glory at all? Paul might simply be saying that believers are to live in a godly way in view of their hope that when their great God and Savior is manifested in all his glory, they will be the beneficiaries of that event. This point would still make sense whether or not the text identifies that “great God and Savior” as Jesus Christ.
The bottom line here is this: Paul nowhere calls Jesus Christ “the glory” of God, and the idea has only the loosest basis in Pauline theology. On the other hand, Paul explicitly calls Jesus Christ “our Savior” in the very epistle in question (Titus 1:4; 3:6) and explicitly speaks of the “manifestation” of Christ in several other places in the Pastorals (1 Tim 6:14; 2 Tim 1:10; 4:1, 8). So why balk at the idea that Titus 2:13 speaks of the manifestation of Jesus Christ as “our great God and Savior”? There can really be only one reason, and that is the assumption that Paul could not have called Jesus “God.” This leads us to Fee’s fifth point.
31 Fee, Pauline Christology 444. The second and third arguments also come from this same page of Fee’s book.
32 Six of Paul’s twelve uses of soter are in Titus (1:3, 4; 2:10, 13; 3:4, 6). I owe this point to Daniel B. Wallace.
33 Fee assumes, rightly enough, the consensus on the text-critical question of the original wording of Col 2:2. He also assumes, again rightly, that the best exegesis of that text construes Christou in apposition to mysteriou and not tou theou. On these questions, see Harris, Jesus as God 263–65.
34 Fee, Pauline Christology 444 n. 86.
35 See n. 2.
36 This is probably why Harris felt it necessary to consider whether Col 2:2 calls Christ God (Jesus as God 263–65), even though hardly any NT scholars argue for that conclusion. Since theos is the immediately preceding noun and is a personal designation, it would normally make a more suitable term in apposition for Christou than does mysteriou. Harris’s only objection to this conclusion is that it would be unprecedented (pp. 264–65), which is hardly decisive. There are two exegetical reasons for concluding that Col 2:2 does not call Christ “God.” The first is the semantic significance of mysteriou: Paul is concerned that believers gain the knowledge of God’s mystery, that is, the mystery or secret that God has now disclosed or revealed. The expression of concern that we know God’s now-disclosed secret invites the expectation that Paul is about to tell us what that secret or mystery is. The following words, “Christ, in whom are all the treasures of the wisdom and knowledge kept secret” (2:2b–3, literal translation), naturally meet that expectation. Second, Paul has just identified the “mystery” explicitly as “Christ in you” (1:27). These contextual indications override the customary expectations that the apposite term will immediately precede and be a personal designation. No such contextual indications appear in Titus 2:13.
37 Fee, Pauline Christology 445, emphasis Fee’s.
38 Ibid. 443–45.
39 Ibid. 445.
40 Ibid. 444 n. 87, emphasis Fee’s.
41 On the genitive of apposition, see Wallace, Greek Grammar Beyond the Basics 95–100.
42 Wallace lists about twenty examples of the genitive of definition; in none is there any intervening substantive of any kind. (Ibid., pp. 741-746; emphasis mine)
Bowman also argues for taking tes doxes (“the glory”) in an adjectival sense modifying the word epiphanein (“appearing”):
II. “MANIFESTATION OF THE GLORY”
OR “GLORIOUS MANIFESTATION”?
Like many exegetes (including some who think Titus 2:13 calls Jesus “God”), Fee construes tes doxes as the subject of the verbal idea expressed by the verbal noun epiphaneian (“manifestation” or “appearing”). In this view, the glory is what appears or becomes manifest. We may call this the subjective interpretation (since “the glory” is the subject of the “manifestation”). However, several English translations construe tes doxes as an “adjectival” description of the manifestation: “glorious appearing” (notably KJV, NKJV, NIV, CEV, New English Translation [net], Goodspeed, and Phillips).9 The grammatical basis for this view is the widely acknowledged fact that a descriptive noun in the genitive following another noun may exhibit an attributive use of the genitive, in which the noun functions as a description of the preceding (or “head”) noun.10 In this view, glory is what characterizes the appearance or manifestation.
If the attributive view is correct, Fee’s reading of the text cannot be, since epiphaneian tes doxes tou megalou theou kai soteros hemon would mean “glorious manifestation of our great God and Savior,” shutting the door on the idea that the text is referring to Jesus Christ as the glory. On the other hand, if the attributive view is incorrect, Fee’s view is possible but not necessarily correct. If the subjective view of tes doxes is correct, the text may mean either “the manifestation of the glory of our great God and Savior, [which glory is] Jesus Christ,” or “the manifestation of the glory of our great God and Savior, [which great God and Savior is] Jesus Christ.”
Fee dismisses the attributive view of tes doxes “as most unlikely. . . . There is hardly a thing in favor of this view, and nearly everything against it.” He offers three arguments against it: (1) It is “out of sync with Paul’s usage elsewhere.” (2) Doing so would “obliterate the parallel with ‘the manifestation of grace’ in v. 11 . . . and thus destroy the rhetoric of the sentence as a whole.” (3) It wrongly understands the words in question to describe “the nature of Christ’s coming” rather than “the fact that God’s own glory is what is going to be revealed.”11 I will consider each of these arguments in turn.
1. Paul’s usage of tes doxes. Regarding Fee’s first argument, he offers no citations or examples from “Paul’s usage elsewhere” in support. Evidently, Fee does not dispute that this usage occurs outside of Paul’s writings, as indeed it does with tes doxes (e.g. Acts 7:2; Jas 2:1; cf. Matt 19:28; 25:31).12 Far from being inconsistent with Paul’s style, this usage of the genitive, and specifically tes doxes, is especially prominent in Paul’s writings. In two-thirds of the occurrences of tes doxes in Paul’s writings (12 out of 18, counting Titus 2:13),13 this same usage of tes doxes is at least possible:14
• “the glorious freedom of the children of God”: Rom 8:21 KJV, RSV (but not NRSV), NAB, NIV, NKJV, REB, NLT, NET, CEV, HCSB15
• “glorious riches”: Rom 9:23 New Jerusalem Bible [NJB]; cf. CEV, “how glorious he is”
• “the Lord of glory”: 1 Cor 2:8, that is, the “glorious Lord,” NLT, CEV; “glorified Lord,” Twentieth Century NT [TCNT]16
• “the light of the glorious gospel of Christ”: 2 Cor 4:4 KJV (but not NKJV), Phillips, NET17
• “the Father of glory”: Eph 1:17, that is, “the glorious Father,” NIV, TCNT, HCSB, CEV, Weymouth, cf. NET note18
• “the riches of his glorious inheritance”: Eph 1:18 NRSV, NIV, ESV, NET, CEV; “the glorious riches of his inheritance,” HCSB19
• “his glorious riches”: Eph 3:16 Phillips, NIV, NLT
• “his glorious body”: Phil 3:21 KJV, RSV (but not NRSV), REB, ESV, NIV, NKJV, NET, HCSB, CEV, Weymouth
• “his glorious power”: Col 1:11, most versions
• “the glorious riches of this mystery”: Col 1:27 NIV, NET, HCSB; cf. CEV
• “the glorious gospel of the blessed God”: 1 Tim 1:11, most versions, though not the American Standard Version [ASV], Basic Bible in English [BBE], nab, Today’s New International Version [TNIV]; “glorious” as modifying “God,” CEV, Good News Translation [GNT], REB
• “glorious manifestation [or “appearing]”: Titus 2:13 KJV, NKJV, NIV, NET, CEV, Goodspeed, Phillips; cf. “the Appearing in glory,” Weymouth, TCNT
Consistent with his view of Titus 2:13, Fee departs from the usual translation of 1 Tim 1:11, rendering the words in question “the gospel of the blessed God’s glory.”20 Only a few versions construe 1 Tim 1:11 in this way, the TNIV (of which, perhaps not coincidentally, Fee was one of the lead translators) being one of only two notable recent versions to do so (“the gospel concerning the glory of the blessed God”; cf. NAB). Although both ways of rendering 1 Tim 1:11 are possible, the conventional rendering is somewhat more likely.21 When Paul follows the noun euangelion (“gospel”) with a genitive noun, that genitive typically (at least 15 out of 20 times) denotes God (Rom 1:1; 15:16; 1 Thess 2:2, 8, 9) or Christ (Rom 1:9; 15:19; 1 Cor 9:12; 2 Cor 2:12; 9:13; 10:14; Gal 1:7; Phil 1:27; 1 Thess 3:2; 2 Thess 1:8). There are three unambiguous exceptions (Gal 2:7; Eph 1:13; 6:15), none of which uses doxes. The two disputable texts both involve tes doxes, and in both cases one could construe tes doxes attributively as modifying adjectivally the preceding noun (2 Cor 4:4; 1 Tim 1:11). If we take them in this way, then both texts fit the usual pattern of Paul’s usage, with the former referring to “the glorious gospel of Christ” and the latter referring to “the glorious gospel of the blessed God.”22
One possible objection to this argument is that in 1 Tim 1:11 (as well as 2 Cor 4:4), unlike the other 18 texts cited above, we have one genitive expression following another. In such a chain of genitives, it may seem that each genitive is linked to the following genitive, so that, for example, tes doxes (“of the glory”) should be directly modified by tou makariou theou (“of the blessed God”) in 1 Tim 1:11. However, we have already noted some texts where this expectation may not hold. For example, Rom 8:21 should probably be translated “the glorious freedom of the children of God.”23
A better argument applying specifically to 2 Cor 4:4 is that tes doxes appears again in verse 6 in a parallel construction, and there it seems less likely to be attributive:
ton photismon tou euangeliou tes doxes tou Christou
photismon tes gnoseos tes doxes tou theou en prosopa ‘Iesou Christou
“the light of the gospel of the glory of Christ” (v. 4)
“the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ” (v. 6)
Although it is possible to translate verse 6 “the light of the glorious knowledge of God,” such a rendering seems as unlikely as it is unprecedented. In the context, Paul’s emphasis is on the humility of the apostles (3:4–6; 4:7–12) and on the divine glory (“the glory of the Lord,” 3:18; “the glory of God,” 4:15), making a reference here to “glorious knowledge” inappropriate. Thus, 2 Cor 4:4 may well be an exception to the typical pattern of tes doxes being used attributively. If so, of course, it is also possible that 1 Tim 1:11 is another exception,24 though most translators disagree.
It would be nice if we could prove one way or the other the correct translation of 1 Tim 1:11, since it is the only other place besides Titus 2:13 that tes doxes occurs in the Pastorals. Certainty or even high confidence seems elusive, though, at least on this point. However, what ought to be clear is that Fee’s assertion that such a usage in Titus 2:13 is “out of sync with Paul’s usage elsewhere” is mistaken. Two thirds (12 out of 18, if we count Titus 2:13) of the occurrences of tes doxes in Paul’s writings may fit this usage, and of these, several are commonly so understood. All other things being equal, the evidence tips the scale in favor of the attributive use and the translation “glorious manifestation.”
2. “Manifestation of grace”? Fee’s second objection to construing tes doxes attributively in Titus 2:13 is that doing so would “obliterate the parallel with ‘the manifestation of grace’ in v. 11 . . . and thus destroy the rhetoric of the sentence as a whole.” Murray Harris has raised the same objection: “The first advent of Christ was an appearance of God’s grace; the second advent of Christ will be an appearance of God’s glory.”25 Of the three objections Fee raises against the attributive view, this is the one that has persuaded a fair number of exegetes.26
This parallel, however, is not necessary to “the rhetoric of the sentence as a whole,” since in fact Paul does not actually write “the manifestation of grace,” as Fee puts it. What Paul writes in verse 11 is that “the grace of God has been made manifest” (or “has been manifested”), using the verb epiphaino (in the aorist passive form, epephane). In verse 13 he uses the noun epiphaneian (the accusative form of epiphaneia) to write, “awaiting the blessed hope and manifestation.” It is fair to say that Paul is speaking of two contrasting advents of Christ, one that had recently occurred in the present age (v. 12) and the other expected to occur in the future that would usher in the age to come. But it is not clear that Paul is rhetorically setting up a contrast between “grace” and “glory,” since these terms are not naturally paired semantically as contrasting terms.
In any case, the shift from the verb epiphaino to the noun epiphaneia rather weakens the argument that Paul’s rhetorical strategy proves that Paul uses grammatically parallel expressions “the grace of God” and “the glory of God.” The reason this is so is that elsewhere in the Pastorals,27 the grammatical subject of the noun epiphaneia is always a personal designation for Jesus Christ:
• “the manifestation of our Lord Jesus Christ” (1 Tim 6:14)
• “the manifestation of our Savior Jesus Christ” (2 Tim 1:10)
• “Christ Jesus . . . and his manifestation” (2 Tim 4:1)
• “the Lord . . . all who have loved his manifestation” (2 Tim 4:8)
On the other hand, Paul uses the verb epiphaino twice in Titus to denote the manifesting of God’s grace (2:11) or his goodness and love of humanity (3:4). It would seem that throughout the Pastorals, Paul reserves the noun epiphaneia for references to the manifestation of Christ himself, and uses related verbal forms when speaking of divine attributes or blessings being “manifested.” This distinction seems especially evident in 2 Tim 1:9–10, a text that in many ways is parallel to Titus 2:11–14:
who has saved us and called us with a holy calling, not according to our works, but according to His own purpose and grace [charin] which was granted us in Christ Jesus from all eternity, but now [nun] has been revealed [phanerotheisan] by the appearing [epiphaneias] of our Savior Christ Jesus [soteros hemon ‘Iesou Christou], who abolished death and brought life and immortality to light through the gospel (NASB).
Compare the above text with Titus 2:11–14:
For the grace [charis] of God has appeared [epephane], bringing salvation to all men, instructing us to deny ungodliness and worldly desires and to live sensibly, righteously and godly in the present [nuÅn] age, looking for the blessed hope and the appearing [epiphaneian] of the glory of our great God and Savior, Christ Jesus [soteros hemon ‘Iesou Christou], who gave Himself for us to redeem us from every lawless deed, and to purify for Himself a people for His own possession, zealous for good deeds (NASB).
It seems, then, that any apparent parallel between epephane in Titus 2:11 and epiphaneian in 2:13 is not evidence against construing tes doxes attributively in verse 13. To the contrary, the evidence from Paul’s use of epiphvneia in the Pastorals for the manifestation of the person of Christ (as distinct from his usage of related verbal forms) is evidence in support of that attributive exegesis.
3. Glory: what’s coming? Fee’s third objection to understanding tes doxes attributively in Titus 2:13 is that doing so wrongly understands the words in question to describe “the nature of Christ’s coming” rather than “the fact that God’s own glory is what is going to be revealed.” Frankly, this objection begs the question of whether tes doxes expresses the nature of the epiphany (the attributive exegesis) or the subject of the epiphany (Fee’s exegesis). His exegetical objections to the attributive view do not seem to hold up. Harris expresses a similar objection, arguing that the attributive interpretation “weakens the import of the term doxa.”28 Again, this objection really assumes what is in need of evidence, namely, that Paul is stating emphatically that it is the glory of God that will become manifest. There is at least one other line of evidence that supports interpreting tes doxes attributively. Titus 2:13, following the opening verb of the clause, divides into two halves, each consisting of a phrase using the article + adjective + noun + kai + noun + genitive construction, then ending with the name “Jesus Christ”:
art. + adj. + noun + kai + noun + genitive
tes makarian epida kai epiphaneian tes doxes
tou megalou theou kai soteros hemon
The parallel between the two halves of the verse provides some evidence for the view that Paul uses tes doxes attributively as an adjectival expression modifying epiphaneia, similar to the way that the genitive pronoun hemon modifies soteros.29 Thus, the view that we should construe Paul to be speaking of “the glorious manifestation,” rather than “the manifestation of the glory,” looks more likely in view of this bit of evidence.30
It may be impossible to prove beyond reasonable doubt that we should construe tes doxes attributively in Titus 2:13. However, contrary to Fee’s statement that “there is hardly a thing in favor of this view, and nearly everything against it,” it would appear that there is nothing decisive against it and at least some significant evidence in favor of it. We have specified three lines of evidence in favor of the attributive exegesis: (1) Paul frequently uses tes doxes attributively in his writings (as much as two thirds of all occurrences). (2) Elsewhere in the Pastorals, the grammatical subject of epiphaneia is always Christ, while related verbal forms denote the manifesting of God’s blessings. (3) The parallel constructions in the two halves of Titus 2:13 suggest that tes doxes, like hemon, modifies the preceding noun.
If the attributive reading of tes doxes is correct, then Fee’s interpretation cannot be. On the other hand, even if the attributive reading is incorrect, Fee’s interpretation does not necessarily follow. It is quite possible to understand Titus 2:13 (as Harris, for example, does) to mean that Christians await the manifestation of the glory of our great God and Savior, and that this great God and Savior is Jesus Christ.
9 Fee mistakenly attributes this rendering to the NASB; neither the original nor the updated NASB translates tes doxes as “glorious.” Ironically, one can add the New World Translation [NWT] (published by the Jehovah’s Witnesses) to the list of English versions that adopt this rendering.
10 On the attributive use of the genitive, see Daniel B. Wallace, Greek Grammar Beyond the Basics: An Exegetical Syntax of the New Testament (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 1996) 86–88.
11 Fee, Pauline Christology 443 and n. 83.
12 George Knight overlooks Matt 19:28 and 25:31 when he asserts that “elsewhere” the term doxa when used in reference to Jesus’ return “is not used adjectivally but as a noun indicating the splendor” of his return; George W. Knight III, The Pastoral Epistles: A Commentary on the Greek Text (NIGTC; Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1992) 322. 13 I am not counting the anarthrous doxes, since it is more unusual for an anarthrous noun to be used attributively (though see Matt 19:28; 25:31). The anarthrous doxes occurs eight times in Paul (2 Cor 3:11, 18; 4:17; 6:8; Eph 1:6, 12; 2 Thess 2:14; 2 Tim 2:10). There are six articular occurrences of doxes in Paul that cannot be attributive (Rom 3:23; 5:2; 6:4; 2 Cor 3:10; Eph 1:14; 2 Thess 1:9).
14 See the similar list in Harris, Jesus as God 175. Harris lists seven of the same ten examples; he omits 1 Cor 2:8; Eph 1:18; Col 1:27.
15 Joseph A. Fitzmyer, Romans: A New Translation with Introduction and Commentary (AB; New York: Doubleday, 1993) 504, 509, translates “glorious freedom.” Commentators are split on the question. According to Osborne, “But here glorious freedom should probably be translated ‘the freedom of the glory of the children of God,’ for the emphasis in this section is on the future glory that awaits God’s children (8:18), namely, that final vindication when we share in his glory.” Grant R. Osborne, Romans (IVPNTC 6; Downers Grove: InterVarsity, 2004) 213. “Glory” is indeed a significant theme in this passage (see also 8:30), though the controlling theme seems to be that of God’s sons or children (clearly sounded in 8:14–17, 19, 21–23, 29). In any case, translating “the glorious freedom of the children of God” places due emphasis on glory—arguably more than the translation Osborne prefers. Cf. Wallace, Greek Grammar Beyond the Basics 87–88, where he uses tes doxes in Rom 8:21 as an example of the attributive genitive.
16 Most translations render “the Lord of glory” in 1 Cor 2:8, but this clearly means that the Lord is characterized by glory. Cf. Ps 24:7–10; 29:3; Acts 7:2; and Eph 1:17 (on which see below).
17 Fee, Pauline Christology 443 n. 83, complains that “the translators did the same thing” in 2 Cor 4:4 (“the glorious gospel”) that they did in Titus 2:13. By “the translators” he evidently means the translators of the KJV. The only version cited by Fee that translates 2 Cor 4:4 in a similar way is the net. Cf. “the light, which is the good news about our glorious Christ,” CEV; similarly Goodspeed.
18 Although most versions render this expression “the Father of glory” (Eph 1:17), there can be little doubt that “of glory” characterizes or describes the Father. Hence, whichever translation we may prefer here (and both are fine), the expression means “the glorious Father.” See note 17 on 1 Cor 2:8. Cf. the translation “the all-glorious Father” in Markus Barth, Ephesians (AB 34A; Garden City, NY: Doubleday, 1974) 145, 148.
19 The text of Eph 1:18 is plouto tes doxes tes kleronomias autou, “the wealth of the glory of his inheritance.” Several ways of construing the genitives here are possible: “the wealth of the glory that characterizes his inheritance” (this exegesis is reflected in the NRSV, NIV, ESV, NET); “the wealth that consists of the glory that is his inheritance” (which the more “literal” rendering would probably imply); and “the glorious wealth that is his inheritance” (cf. the HCSB). For the last-mentioned view, see also Wallace, Greek Grammar Beyond the Basics 90.
20 Fee, Pauline Christology 423.
21 Among commentators favoring this view, see Raymond F. Collins, 1 & 2 Timothy and Titus: A Commentary (NTL; Louisville: Westminster John Knox, 2002) 34. A notable recent commentator disagreeing is Philip H. Towner, The Letters to Timothy and Titus (NICNT; Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2006) 132.
22 The force of this argument might seem blunted somewhat by Knight’s observation that “Paul often uses doxa followed by a genitive construction referring to God,” as in both 1 Tim 1:11 and Titus 2:13; Knight, Pastoral Epistles 322, citing Rom 1:23; 3:23; 15:7; 1 Cor 10:31; 11:7; 2 Cor 4:6, 15; Phil 1:11; 2:11 (see also Rom 5:2; 6:4; 2 Cor 3:18; of Christ, 2 Cor 4:4; 8:23; 2 Thess 2:14). However, two fifths of the genitives following doxa in Paul denote something other than God or Christ (Rom 8:21; 1 Cor 11:7b; 15:41 [three times]; 2 Cor 3:7; Eph 1:6, 18; Col 1:27; 2 Thess 1:9), so that no regular pattern exists here, unlike with euangelion followed by the genitive.
23 Again, Wallace argues that an attributive genitive complicates the usual way that such a chain of genitives is to be interpreted and translated, citing Rom 8:21 as an example (Greek Grammar Beyond the Basics 87–88).
24 Knight, for example, while noting that “there is much to commend” the attributive reading in 1 Tim 1:11, ends up rejecting it in light of 2 Cor 4:4; Knight, Pastoral Epistles 90–91. It is a judgment call whether the wording of 2 Cor 4:4 should have more influence in our decision than the typical Pauline locution “gospel of God/Christ.”
25 Harris, Jesus as God 175–76; likewise, Knight, Pastoral Epistles 322.
26 Knight, Pastoral Epistles 322 (who gives additional reasons); D. Edmond Hiebert, “Titus,” EBC 11:441; Thomas D. Lea and Hayne P. Griffin Jr., 1, 2 Timothy, Titus (NAC 31; Nashville: Broadman, 1992) 312; cf. Jouette M. Bassler, 1 Timothy, 2 Timothy, Titus (ANTC; Nashville: Abingdon Press, 1996) 200–201; I. Howard Marshall, A Critical and Exegetical Commentary on the Pastoral Epistles, in collaboration with Philip H. Towner (ICC; Edinburgh: T & T Clark, 1999) 275.
27 The noun epiphaneia occurs once in Paul outside the Pastorals (2 Thess 2:8), where the subject of the manifestation is “his coming.” Since everyone, including those who affirm Pauline authorship of the Pastorals, agrees that the use of vocabulary in the Pastorals is somewhat distinct from the use in other Pauline epistles, we should not press 2 Thess 2:8 as an “exception” to the consistent usage in the Pastorals.
28 Harris, Jesus as God 176.
29 The point here is not that “Sharp’s rule” applies to both halves. The first half of Titus 2:13 does not involve personal nouns, which is the kind of noun to which Sharp’s rule applies. Rather, the point is simply that the very close syntactical parallel between the two halves supports the view that the last element of both halves serves the same grammatical function (that of an adjectival modifier of the previous noun).
30 Harris (Jesus as God 183) notes the parallel in support of construing “our great God and Savior” as referring to one person, but does not consider the possibility that the parallel implies that tes doxes is being used attributively. Marshall dismisses Harris’s argument as “hardly compelling” (Pastoral Epistles 280). (Ibid., pp. 735-741)
Here is Bowman’s conclusion:
IV. CONCLUSION
Fee has done the church a tremendous service in his scholarship demonstrating that the orthodox doctrine of the Trinity is deeply rooted in the teaching of the earliest NT writings, those of the apostle Paul. The point deserves emphasis lest anyone misunderstand the critique offered here as impugning Fee’s theology. He concludes that understanding Paul to be saying that “the final manifestation of God’s glory” will be “the coming of Jesus Christ himself” implies for the letter to Titus a “high Christology indeed.”61 Quite true.
However, in this study we have seen that Paul’s high Christology was even able to include an affirmation of Jesus Christ as God. Fee’s main objection to this understanding of Titus 2:13 is that Paul would never have called Jesus theos. This assumption simply overwhelms the exegetical evidence, as can be easily illustrated by the following hypothetical question. Suppose Titus 2:13 had said that we were waiting for the “manifestation of the glory of our great Lord and Savior Jesus Christ” (epiphanein tes doxes tou megalou kai soteros ‘Iesou Christou). Would anyone suppose that in such Å a sentence the name “Jesus Christ” was in apposition to “glory” (or to “manifestation”) rather than in apposition to “our great Lord and Savior”? We may confidently say that no one would ever have seriously proposed such an exegesis. (Nor, of course, would anyone suggest that in such a sentence “the great Lord” was one person while “our Savior Jesus Christ” was another.) Since the only difference between this hypothetical sentence and Titus 2:13 is the use of kyriou instead of theou, it follows that the actual reason for these creative—and overly clever—exegetical proposals is the assumption that the author could not have called Jesus “God.”62 It is a mistake to make this assumption a test of exegesis instead of testing the assumption by exegesis.
As we have seen, several exegetical lines of evidence in Titus 2:13 converge to show that the alternate interpretations of the text are inferior to the view that it refers to Jesus Christ as both God and Savior:
(1) “Our great God and Savior” (tou megalou theou kai soteros hemon) is best understood as having one referent, not two (a point that Fee concedes).
(2) We should probably construe tes doxes attributively in Titus 2:13, that is, understanding this “glory” to be descriptive of the “appearing” (epiphaneia) rather than (as Fee’s interpretation requires) a designation for Jesus Christ.
(3) Elsewhere in the Pastorals, the grammatical subject of epiphaneia is always Christ (1 Tim 6:14; 2 Tim 1:10; 4:1, 8), while related verbal forms denote the manifesting of God’s blessings.
(4) It is practically impossible to construe epiphaneia as in apposition to ‘Iesou Christou (which, though technically not Fee’s view, is implied by some of his statements about the text).
(5) The verbal distance between doxes and ‘Iesou Christou, along with the Å preference for a personal designation (like theou kai soteros) to serve in apposition to a name, makes Fee’s view that ‘Iesou Christou is in apposition to doxes syntactically awkward.
(6) God’s manifesting “glory” is naturally understood as an aspect of God himself (unlike God’s “mystery” in Col 2:2), so that construing “the glory” as a designation for Jesus Christ as someone distinguished from God in this context is conceptually as well as syntactically awkward.
(7) Paul nowhere calls Jesus Christ “the glory” of God (in any of the Pauline epistles), and nor does any other NT writer, but Paul does call Jesus Christ “our Savior,” including at least two occurrences in this very epistle (Titus 1:4, 3:6).
(8) The description of Christ’s saving work in the very next clause (Titus 2:14) shows that in this immediate context it is Jesus Christ who is “our Savior.”
(9) There is an evident rhetorical pattern of three passages in which first God is called “our Savior” and then Jesus Christ is immediately called “our Savior” (Titus 1:3, 4; 2:10, 13; 3:4, 6). Confirming this rhetorical pattern is the fact that in all three passages, and in them only in this epistle, Paul uses the word “hope” (Titus 1:2; 2:13; 3:7) and the verb “appeared” (Titus 1:3; 2:11; 3:4).
The cumulative or converging effect of these observations is to show that we should indeed understand Titus 2:13 to refer to Jesus Christ as “our great God and Savior.” This convergence of evidence is sufficient to warrant overriding or overturning the presumption that Pauline usage applies the designation theos to the Father alone. We may be all the more confident, then, in asserting that the earliest Christology exemplified in the NT confessed that Jesus Christ is himself no less than God.63
62 The same controlling assumption is at work when exegetes claim that tou megalou theou kai soteros hemon ‘Iesou Christou (“our God and Savior Jesus Christ”) in 2 Pet 1:1 refers to two persons while accepting the fact that tou kyriou kai soteros hemon ‘Iesou Christou (“our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ”) in other Petrine texts (1:11; 2:20; 3:18; cf. 3:2) refers to one person.
63 I am indebted to Daniel B. Wallace for his careful critique and many suggestions, most of which I have followed and some of which I have (perhaps stubbornly) ignored. (Ibid., pp. 750-752)
Further Reading
Comments