The Pulpit Commentary on Titus 2:12

The Pulpit Commentary · Joseph S. Exell and contributors · Public domain

True self-denial.

Here we see that the cross of Christ has its influence within ourselves as well as on the moral government of God. We are not left passive in a mere receptivity of blessing; we are actively to co-operate with the Spirit of God in working out our salvation.

I. HERE IS SELF-DENIAL. But what are we to deny? Our better selves? No; we are to please our conscience, to satisfy our sense of moral order and beauty, to gratify the spiritual being. All depends, in our consideration of self-denial, upon which self we are to deny, the lower self or the higher self. Ungodliness is to be denied; for nothing can minister to the true ends of our being that is not of God. Without "godliness" we are graceless, and all seeming beauty is meretricious and unreal. Worldly lusts are numerous. Lust is love in wrong directions. It is not merely excess or a question of degree; it is a question of kind. Love may be pure, or it may be the lust of the eye, which is sensuality. The pride of life is the lust of pride in mere carnal enjoyment and ambitious aim. We must deny the thorns and the tares of the one to leave room for the harvest of holiness. But—

II. NEGATIONS ARE NOT ENOUGH. We are not good by what we give up simply, but by what we take up. The cross has its creative as well as its destructive influence. "I am crucified with Christ: nevertheless I live;" and how? "Soberly;" giving room for reason to take the place of passion, and for conscience to conquer the excitements of intoxicated desire. "Righteously;" so that it may be seen that wickedness is wrong—our life "wrung," that is, twisted from the "straight." "Godly;" that is, not governed by laws of custom, or expediency, or self-pleasing, but by God's will, and the Spirit of God in the heart. For as nature is beautiful because therein we see the ideal of God—no art being really beautiful that is not true to nature—so no life is pure and holy that has not God's thought and purpose in it. And we are to do all this amid temptation and hesitation, in "this present world."—W.M.S.

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