Albert N. Martin
When we open up the Scriptures, we find that the kind of religious faith and the kind of Christian experience molded by apostolic preaching is faith and experience that is literally percolating with the reality, hope, and confident expectation of the return of Jesus Christ, with clear and unmistakable identity, in bodily, visible form.
John says, “Every eye shall see Him.” You think of the sermons in the Book of Acts. “He was approved of God among you by mighty signs and wonders.” As surely as the apostolic preaching and witness affirmed, the facts of the life and the ministry of Jesus, facts which affirmed and attested His identity as Messiah. As surely as their witness affirmed His death and resurrection as procuring redemption for sinners. We find it again and again in their preaching, and in their letters. So with equal clarity and certainty their witness involved an unmistakable declaration that this Jesus, attested as Messiah by His mighty works, this Jesus procuring redemption by His suffering and resurrection, this Jesus would indeed come again, just as the angel said.
“As they saw Him go into Heaven, this same Jesus shall come in like manner.” Because this was true, when we pick up the New Testament documents, particularly the letter sent to these communities of people brought into the faith of Christ through the preaching and testimony of the apostles, and those who had received the message of the apostles, we find that the truth of the Second Coming of Christ is not some secondary issue buried away, to be taken out occasionally for consideration. Rather, we find that their whole experience of the Christian life is molded by this reality: the same Jesus who went up into Heaven shall so come in like manner out of Heaven!
Eager expectation and yearning for the Coming of Christ is part and parcel of normal Christian experience. The reality of the Coming of Christ becomes the very stepping off point for exhortations across the whole broad spectrum of the Christian life. By doing this, what I trust will happen to us is that if we find ourselves out of sync and strangers to that mood, to that atmosphere of New Testament, apostolic, Christian faith and experience, that by the grace of God we’ll get on board. Some of us have great fears, because you’re aware of the untold pile of rubbish and nonsense surrounding the doctrine of the Second Coming.
That wretched movie that was promoted a few months ago, that we were led to believe, as the stuff came to my house, that if I, as a pastor, was really concerned with evangelism, I’d get all of you in a furor of trying to get everybody to go see Left Behind, and to read the whole Left Behind series of books. Millions of them have been promoted and sold, tens of hundreds of thousands. I don’t know if it’s in the millions yet. You might say, “Wait a minute. Did Pastor Martin get infected by this bug?” I assure you, no. I have absolutely no sympathy for any nonsensical, unbiblical notion about somebody being snatched away and nobody knowing nothing about it.
“This same Jesus who was taken up from you shall so come in like manner.” When Jesus comes, it’s not going to be a secret to nobody. So please, don’t have fears that I’m going to indulge in some kind of wacko consideration of prophetic matters. Not at all. I want us to let the testimony of Scripture come and confront us. That anticipation of the fulfillment of this prophecy by those two angels is indeed part and parcel of the belief and the experience of ordinary believers within the orbit of apostolic preaching.
According to Titus 2:13, eagerly awaiting Christ’s return is a distinctive lesson in the instruction of the saving grace of God. Turn to Titus chapter 2. The Apostle has been giving very specific directions to Titus with respect to the kind of instruction he is to give, as we saw in the previous hour, to the various categories and groupings of people within the churches of Crete. There are old men and older women; there are young men and younger women; there are husbands and wives; and there are servants. So, he is concerned that all of these various groupings of believers be given specific directions for practical godliness. You see, the Apostle Paul didn’t have this notion, “Just preach the broad strokes and the Holy Spirit will deal with the particulars.” No. He didn’t have that mentality. He says now in chapter 2, verse 1, “Speak the things that befit the sound doctrine.” Then he gets very specific. “Older men are to be marked by these graces; older women etc.”
Now, at the end of verse 10, when he’s dealt with servants and how they are to conduct themselves, and says that this is the great end and view, “That they may adorn the dotrine of God our Saviour in all things,” notice how verse 11 begins: “For.” Whenever you see a ‘for’ ask, “Why ‘for’?” After all of this instruction in verses 1 through 10, now the Apostle is saying, “I want to tell you, Titus, and I want you to make plain to the people of Crete what lies behind all this specific, concrete, detailed instruction about practical godliness. I want you to know, Titus, and I want the people of Crete to know that I have not suddenly become a backslidden Christian who has become a Pharasaic moralist, and so I’m giving a bunch of ethical instructions.”
There are people in our day who say if you do anything other than preach Jesus and give the broad strokes of the Christian life, you’re a moralist. I reject and resent that description, because if we’re preaching specifics—as Paul does, and as Titus is instructed to do—they will always be rooted in the great, redemptive realities of God’s salvation in Christ. That’s exactly what Paul does here. “For.” “This is why you must do this, Titus. If any of the old ladies and the old men and the young men and the servants ask you ‘Why in the world all this teaching?!’ This is what you tell them.” “For the grace of God has appeared, bringing salvation to all men.” Literally from the original it says, “The grace of God has appeared, saving to all men.” God’s grace in Jesus Christ has appeared, and in Christ the salvation suitable to all of these various categories of men, all of these various stations in life. A salvation has been brought in Jesus Christ. “The grace of God has appeared.” Not in abstraction, but in a Person. That Person is the Lord Jesus who is full of grace, full of truth. The grace of God has appeared, saving to all men.”
Notice now, grace is here described as a teacher! “Instructing us.” Taking us under its tutalage. Grace that brings salvation to hell-deserving sinners! Grace in the Person and work of Jesus and in the outpoured spirit. That grace has not only appeared saving to all men, but it comes instructing. What is its instruction? “Instructing us, to the intent, [here’s the negative], that denying ungodliness and worldy lust.” Turning away from everything that is unlike God!
What’s ungodliness? It’s being unlike God. We’re to image God. Anything we want, do think, anyplace we go, any association we enter that is not like God is ungodliness! We’re to turn from ungodliness as a pattern of life. That’s what grace teaches us when it holds out salvation in Jesus Christ. It calls us to repent, to turn away from ungodliness and worldy lust. That is, lust, desires, ambitions, passions, appetites that have their taproots not in santified human desires: the desires for love, acceptance, sex, food, blue sky, puffy, cumulus clouds. Those desires are sanctified human desires. Grace does not war with what is natural, it wars with what is sinful! We are to deny ungodliness and worldy lust, desires, appetites, passions that are framed by life in detachment from God, and under the control of the devil. That’s worldy lust. That’s the negative. Grace comes always teaching us that. If anyone tells you that they’re saved by grace, they’ve been taught the grace of God, and they’ve not denied ungodliness and worldy lust, they are self-deceived! Grace never comes silent about ungodliness and worldy lust. Grace always comes offering salvation not in sin, but from sin! Denying ungodliness and worldly lust is the negative, but now look at the positive.
Bible References: Titus 2
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