Welcome back everyone to the Deeper Waters blog. I appreciate your prayers for my recovery. I woke up at 4 AM this morning with a sore throat. I did get back to sleep but I’m wondering if this is going to be a “symptom of the day” thing. I have been taking on a much more normal schedule. I also appreciate prayer in the other area I spoke of. I’ve found some areas that need a lot of work. I suppose it’s God doing a work of healing and it’s sure nothing pleasant. (By the way, this isn’t physical healing I mean.)
Anyway, we now continue our Trinitarian commentary with a key verse. We’re going to be in Titus 2:13 tonight. Enough chat! Let’s skip to the text!
while we wait for the blessed hope—the glorious appearing of our great God and Savior, Jesus Christ,
Some of you might be wondering about the name of this blog post. It comes from a Greek grammarian who came up with a rule that has held strong. James White of Alpha and Omega ministries describes the rule in this way:
Basically, Granville Sharp’s rule states that when you have two nouns, which are not proper names (such as Cephas, or Paul, or Timothy), which are describing a person, and the two nouns are connected by the word “and,” and the first noun has the article (“the”) while the second does not, *both nouns are referring to the same person*.
This is the same layout that we see in this verse which means that great God and savior refers to Jesus Christ. However, when we come to what the Jehovah’s Witnesses have in their translation, we see this:
while we wait for the happy hope and glorious manifestation of the great God and of [the] Savior of us, Christ Jesus,
The Watchtower changes this to the appearing of two persons. That’s problematic in itself as I know no place where we are supposed to see God appear, especially since men cannot see God. What is going on in this case is a violation of the Granville Sharp rule. Of course, if they’re wanting to see the Father and the Son, for all we know, maybe they’re wanting to become Mormons.
In the orthodox view, we can see this as a high Christology once again. Paul is speaking about the hope of all Christians which would be the appearance of the glory of Jesus Christ. Now how you are going to relate this eschatologically again is up to you, but all views of Christianity which are orthodox would hold to this.
What is going on with the Watchtower I contend in this and many other passages is a deliberate attempt to hide that which is taught in the text. Greek grammarians throughout time have understood that this is a reference to Jesus Christ alone and the Granville Sharp rule helps point that out. We should be thankful for the great minds that have gone before us in helping us understand the biblical languages and the great truths they reveal about Christ
We shall continue tomorrow.
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