Titus 3:5 Commentary and Bible Study

‘Not by works of righteousness which we have done’ – never. Some people have said that you are saved by grace but, when you die, it is the works that you have done as a Christian that will contribute to get you to heaven. Hopefully, we know that is not true. It is always the work of Christ. We are saved; there is a work in our hearts. Now we are capable of obeying God to a great extent. The work of sanctification has begun in our hearts. Some sins are conquered completely; others partially; gradually we are improving. But when we die, what gets us to pass from time into eternity, saved and into the presence of God, will be solely the work of Christ on our behalf. Because even the good which we may have done after salvation is nothing like enough to contribute to our everlasting glory and life. Everything depends upon the suffering, the death, and the offered-up righteousness of Christ. ‘Not by works of righteousness which we have done.’ We have an obligation to do them, and we please God by doing them, and he gives us the strength to do them, but always, it is Christ who earns everything for us. ‘But according to his mercy he saved us’, rescued us. ‘By the washing of regeneration, and renewing of the Holy Ghost.’ Regeneration was when God planted within us the seed of life. That was the beginning of the conversion process: when we were invisibly born again within, and our whole disposition was changed. From being resistant to the word of God, we were now touchable by the word of God. When the preaching or the reading of the Scripture warned us and appealed to us; it now spoke to us because there had been an illuminating regenerating work within us. Our hearts were softened; our minds were opened. There was still fight in us; there was still resistance, but it was different after regeneration. We are going to be saved; we are bound to be saved, because the seed of life has been planted in us, and the will is inclined and the mind is opened to the truth of God. So we repent, and we believe, and our souls are cleansed, and we are justified. ‘The washing of regeneration, and renewing of the Holy Ghost.’ From that time the Holy Ghost enters in – not subsequently, but from that time – and plants within us the new nature, and the capacity to pray, and assurance, and, having repented and believed just as the baby which has life, is now born into the open, so we consciously become the children of God, and we are embarking on the walk of righteousness. The renewing of the Holy Ghost. Changed in considerable measure, but with a progressive improvement to the end of life, when God will ultimately transform us into the image of Christ.