It is God's gracious purpose that all should have the privileges in full. In baptism He washed us from our sins, He gave us a new birth, He poured out His Holy Spirit upon us richly, through Jesus Christ; "_in order that_, being justified by His grace, we might be made heirs according to hope of eternal life."
[81] =loutron palingenesias=. Comp. Eph. v. 26.
[82] Middle Voice, =apelousasthe=, on which see Professor Evans in the _Speaker's Commentary_ iii., p. 282. And it is worth noticing that in both passages the principal verbs are in the tense which in Greek commonly indicates some one particular occasion, "Ye were washed, were sanctified, were justified," are all in the aorist. So also here: "He saved us," and "He poured out upon us" are both in the aorist. And in both cases the natural reference is to the particular occasion of baptism in which we "were washed, sanctified, and justified," because God "saved us by the laver of regeneration and renewing of the Holy Spirit which He poured out upon us richly."
[83] See Waterland, _Regeneration Stated and Explained_: Works, Vol. vi. pp. 359--362. The whole tract may be commended for clearness and moderation.
_THE MEANING OF HERESY IN THE NEW TESTAMENT, AND THE APOSTLE'S DIRECTIONS RESPECTING THE TREATMENT OF HERETICAL PERSONS._
"A man that is heretical after a first and second admonition refuse; knowing that such a one is perverted, and sinneth, being self-condemned"--TITUS iii. 10, 11.
It is in connexion with this instruction respecting the treatment of heretical persons that we have some of the earliest testimonies to the genuineness of the Epistle to Titus. Thus Irenaeus about A.D. 180 writes: "But as many as _fall away from_" (=aphistantai=, 1 Tim. iv. 1) "the Church and give heed to these _old wives' fables_" (=graôdesi mythois=, 1 Tim. iv. 7), "are truly _self-condemned_" (=autokatakritoi=, Tit. iii. 1): "whom Paul charges us _after a first and second admonition to refuse_" (_Adv. Haer._, I. xvi. 3). It will be observed that in this passage Irenaeus makes an obvious allusion to the First Epistle to Timothy, and then quotes the very words of our text, attributing them expressly to St. Paul. And about ten or twelve years later, Tertullian, after commenting on St. Paul's words to the Corinthians, "For there must be also heresies among you, that they which are approved may be made manifest among you" (1 Cor. xi. 19), continues as follows: "But no more about that, seeing that it is the same Paul who elsewhere also in writing to the Galatians reckons heresies among sins of the flesh (Gal. v. 20), and who intimates to Titus that a _man who is heretical must after a first[84] admonition be refused, because he that is such is perverted and sinneth as being self-condemned_. But in almost every Epistle, when insisting on the duty of avoiding false doctrines, he censures heresies of which the practical results are false doctrines, called in Greek _heresies_, with reference to the _choice_ which a man exercises, whether in instituting or in adopting them. For this reason he says that the heretical person is also self-condemned, because he has chosen for himself that in which he is condemned. We, however, may not allow ourselves anything after our own will; nor yet choose what any one has introduced of his own will. The Apostles of the Lord are our authorities: and even they did not choose to introduce anything of their own will, but faithfully consigned to the nations the instruction which they received from Christ. And so, even if an angel from heaven were to preach any other gospel, he would be called accursed by us" (_De Praes. Haer._, vi). In this passage, which contains a valuable comment on the meaning of the word "heresy," it will be noticed that Tertullian not only quotes the text before us as coming from the Epistle to Titus, but, like Irenaeus, his earlier contemporary, says expressly that the words are those of St. Paul. Thus, from both sides of the Mediterranean, men who had very large opportunities of knowing what books were accepted as Apostolic and what not, attribute our Epistle without hesitation to St. Paul. And in both cases this is done in treatises directed against heretics, who might be expected to reply with very telling effect, if it could be shown that what was quoted against them as the writing of an Apostle was of quite doubtful origin and authority.