New Thoughts (1/6/03-1/7/03)
Paul refers to God in two persons in this blessing. A quick survey shows that this blessing is pretty much the standard opening for Paul's letters. Only Colossians differs materially. There, grace and peace are both from God the Father, and it is noted afterwards that He is the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ. The question, though, is why? Why the explicit mention of Father and Christ? Why is the Holy Spirit not included in these blessings?
It's possible, given the general lack of punctuation in Greek writing, that the intent of the passage is slightly different. I don't know enough about the Greek to draw any definite conclusions, but it's possible that the idea is more along the lines of 'from God, the Father and Christ Jesus, our Savior.' This would emphasize the godhood in two of its three persons. However, it could just as easily be 'from God the Father, and Christ Jesus our Savior.' This would emphasize the unique offices performed by the two persons of that holy Trinity. I suppose a third possibility is that Paul intended no particular emphasis at all.
For now, I'd like to consider the unique aspects of these two persons from whom our blessings are sought. In the person of the Father, we are shown Him who is our Creator, but not only that. He is also our Nourisher, our Protector. In a healthy family, these aspects of the father are readily seen and understood. In the more traditional structure of family life, the father is the on responsible for provision. It is he who does what is necessary to keep food on the table and shelter overhead. In the face of danger, it falls to the father to defend his family. These are the roles God has assigned the father of the family. These are the tasks for which He has uniquely equipped the father.
God, as Father, fulfills these same functions in the greater family of God into which we've been adopted and declared legitimate children. He is our Creator, all the moreso as we have come into the new birth of the Spirit. In recent months, I've looked long and hard at the work of Providence. In that work, we see God constantly in action as the Nourisher and as the Protector. He moves heaven and earth to see to the care of His children! He moved heaven and earth to make it possible for us to become His children! Knowing His hand upon our lives, knowing that He not only created us, but also all that is around us, knowing that He cares for us, looks out for our best interests; this is peace. If God is for us, who can be against us? (Ro 8:31)
That is the significance of God the Father in this blessing. In Him, uniquely, we know peace, because in Him we have a Protector perfect in knowledge, wisdom, and power. He knows everything that is occurring in our lives. He knows not only the trials that come upon us from the world around us, but also the trials that we bring upon ourselves by our inner thoughts and emotions. His wisdom is perfect. He knows the absolute best possible way to deal with each issue that we face, and He knows the best means to use to achieve what He knows to be best. His power is insurmountable. What He puts in motion, nothing will stop. If He puts plans in motion on behalf of His children, who or what will stand against it? Nothing! That is the assurance Paul gives us in that passage from Romans! That is the same assurance he gives here, at the opening of his letter. Who better to ask for peace than Him alone who can offer peace?
There is one more aspect of the Father that we should examine before we move on to the Christ. God the Father is to be to us our Father. He is not only the Father of our Lord, He is our Father, too. He created us, He sustains us, and in His grace, He has given us new birth. All this He has done, and all this He has done with purpose. He purposes for us to resemble Him who is our Father, just as our flesh bears the resemblance of our earthly father. We were created to glorify God. Paul tells us to glorify God in our bodies (1Co 6:20), and in everything we do (1Co 10:31). How do we do this? By living and acting as our Father would live and act.
We are His children, John wrote, yet we don't know yet what the fullness of that shall be. We do know that when we see Him in His fullness, we will be like Him (1Jn 3:2). The 'Him,' in this case, is Jesus. But then, Jesus is the image of the Father. "He who has seen Me has seen the Father," He told Philip (Jn 14:9). The Father is visible in the Son, because the character of the son is molded by the father. This was part of the significance we were shown in our last study, regarding the phrase 'true son.' It was not only the legitimacy of that sonship, but also the authenticity of the son's reflection of his father's character. Just as Paul, as an apostle of Christ, was a true son of his Teacher, and Titus likewise true to the teaching and character of Paul, so we, as sons of our Father, are called to be true to His character in all we do. By His grace, it is possible. By His promise, it is certain that it will come in time. When we see Him, we shall be like Him. The molding of our character will have been completed, and our resemblance to Him will be unmarred.
Then, Paul presents us with Christ Jesus our Savior. The Christ, the anointed One, the Messiah. He is God, and yet He is sent of God to earth for a specific purpose. Just as God worked to have the kings of Israel anointed, to show His hand upon their reign, to show that He had sent them, and that, with purpose; so in the Christ, we have the anointed King of prophecy, the King whose throne shall never be vacated, never be occupied by another. He was sent, this King, to the world He created for a particular purpose. That purpose was to make manifold the grace of God towards His creation. Looking upon His handiwork, He saw that sin had wreaked its havoc upon the beauty He had made. He saw the helpless state of His children, trapped in slavery to the power of sin. He saw that His own children were now condemned by His own Law, sentenced to death and incapable of raising any defense.
In His unchangeableness, He could not violate His own Law. In His mercy, He could not accept the destruction of His children. He is all-wise. Where there was no way, through the eons of human history, God worked to bring about the redemption of His children from the sentence they were under. Knowing we could do nothing in our own power to save ourselves, He sent His Son to save us. Jesus came with purpose; the Christ, anointed Messiah, Savior of God's people. What the Father had created, nourished, and protected, Messiah came to preserve and deliver!
Through the work of the Son, the Messiah, we were saved from the penalty of God's perfect Law, and still His perfect unchangeableness was intact. Our faith in Him cannot be shaken precisely because of that unchangeable nature which is His alone! Through Christ, then, grace came to us. In our sinful, fallen state, we could in no way earn our freedom from the penalty we had incurred. We could in no way call upon the mercy of the court with any reason to expect that mercy. We had shown ourselves completely unworthy of the love our Father yet held towards us. That's grace! His love continued in spite of us! That's the wonder of the God view of man!
So, through Christ grace has been given us. That grace is to us like the kindness of the Master towards His servants, like the unqualified love of a father for his children. It is the love of the Father for His children, a love of which He informs us through His Son. Christ was sent with a purpose, anointed for that purpose, and that purpose was to give us to understand that God still loves His children. That purpose was to heal the rift we had caused between ourselves and our Father.
He had never forsaken us. We thought ourselves separated, we certainly behaved as though we were no relations of His. We had, by and large, disowned our Maker, but He had not disowned us! Through our Savior, He announced that His love towards us was unbroken. Through our Savior, He announced that there was yet a way to heal the relationship, to be restored to the full status that is ours as God's children. Through our Savior, we have peace once more with our Father. He has done what was needful for us to come out of our rebellious state, and be restored to our true family.
Our Messiah has administered the gracious gift of God's love to our lives, and through that ministry of grace, we have peace with God. The enmity we held towards Him has been done away with. The joy that we should know in our Father's house is once more ours. Oh, what a reunion there's going to be when all God's children are home once more!
"Peace is brought about by grace." So long as we continued to run away from home, we could have no peace. There was no hope of it, for we knew that our actions must hurt our Father, that we must be calling down His just wrath upon ourselves. But all that is ended. Our Messiah has administered the gracious gift of mercy and forgiveness, He has proclaimed to us the will of our Father in this matter: that we be reconciled to Him, and restored to our former state. Through Christ, then, we know peace with Father God, and through knowing that peace, we attain to a peace such as the world does not know, for we have attained to a peace that carries the stamp of God's assurance.
Our Father, our Savior, our God: He has provided. This is the full power of Paul's blessing. Though he uses the blessing often, it is not an empty formula. It is an assurance of the true state of affairs as God has declared them to be. Grace and peace shall be ours in Him. Grace and peace are already ours as we are in Him. They are the provision He has given us, the nourishment on which our souls feed. They are the assured protection that only our Father can give us. They are the new life our redemption has brought to us. Indeed, He has provided wonderfully.
One more word on peace, a word particularly apropos to the purpose of this letter. Peace, on an individual basis, reflects harmony and concord. Peace cannot exist in the presence of conflict, it is, after all, the absence of conflict and strife which define a state of peace. It was conflict that kept us separated from our Father, and it is conflict that will separate us from our brothers and sisters here and now. There's a cure for that conflict. It's called concord, agreement, harmony of purpose. This unity of purpose requires good order. Where things are not in order, there can be no agreement on how things should proceed. Good order brings direction. When we have no sense of direction, our peace is disturbed. When there is no leadership, we have no peace.
This was the state of the church in Crete. This was why Paul was writing. There was leadership, in the person of Titus, but there was not harmony amongst those he was to lead. Everybody, it seemed, wanted to be the leader. Everybody had his own ideas as to what the church should look like, what it should be doing, who it should be listening to. This could not continue. When this is the state of affairs in a church, one of two things must result: either the church is going to change, and be restored to proper order under a godly leader, or the church is going to cease to exist.
Peace cannot exist without that harmony and order that proper government establish. This is why God has ordained governing authorities among man. He is the supreme Governor of creation, and He appoints leaders as His subordinates. He requires of His people that they array themselves in orderly fashion under the leaders He has appointed, that they serve in agreement with that leadership, even when they may harbor different opinions. God has appointed leaders and followers. Each has his purpose and his direction. Where the blessing of peace is present, each will seek to fulfill his own purpose within the plan God has laid out. There will be no attempts to fulfill another's position instead. Followers will follow faithfully, and leaders will lead as they in turn are led by the Spirit and the counsel of God.
Indeed, grace and peace to you: the grace to submit to God's purposes and methods, and the peace that comes of that submitted state!
