TITUS 2:14 PART ONE

“Who gave himself for us, that he might redeem us from all iniquity, and purify unto himself a peculiar people, zealous of good works.”
Titus 2:14

PART ONE

“A New Nature”

The Good News is this, that “God so loved the world that HE gave His only begotten Son, that whosoever…” God initiated; God was moved toward His creation by the simplicity of a Love that loves because it IS Love. We look for reasons why, we try to understand the sense of it all. We look for value within our own heart and find none. Love is its only reason. Love is the beginning, the journey, and the end of man’s relation to GOD. In all of this, HIS design is to replicate His nature within us. For nature determines relationships. Without the new birth from the old Adam into the NEW, there can be no relationship with God. Jesus said, “you must be born again”. Nature is the result of BIRTH not teaching. We think by knowledge we have access to God, but without the new nature, HE knows us not. The reason we are the offspring of God is that in Christ we have been born anew.

Nature is the Foundation of Relationship

Adam beheld all of creation. He named them and understood with great wisdom their creation and design.

“Out of the ground, the Lord God formed every beast of the field and every bird of the air and brought them to Adam to see what he would call them. And whatever Adam called each living creature, that was its name”
GENESIS 2:19

What great delight must have been God’s to see what man would call the creatures HE had created! For it is always the joy of the Father to see his children function and live as distinct and active beings! We read in verse Genesis 2:18 that it was God’s desire to bring forth a help “meet” (fit or suited) for Adam. So God “brought” every beast of the field and fowl of the air, both male and female, to pass in front of Adam, and in so doing HE caused Adam to see and understand the wonder and wisdom of companionship in the midst of creation. In so doing there was a cry that awoke within Adam for his own counterpart; something that was of his own likeness, something that was of his nature with a corresponding ability to answer to the cry of his own heart for relationship. The result of this desire is summed up in verse 2:20 “… but for Adam, there was not found a help meet for him”. In the verses that follow we see the glory of God bringing forth one out of Adam that answered the cry of his own heart; one that was “bone of his bone and flesh of his own flesh”. One called “Woman, because she was taken out of man”. God well knew that man would not find that deep companionship with the rest of creation, good as it was. For Adam was of a different nature, and that companion must be of the same nature for there to be a true and deep relationship.

So it is of great importance that we begin to see that our relationship with HIM is only true and real according to the measure that HIS nature is formed within us. Do we not read in Psalm 42 that “deep calls unto deep”? (Psalm 42:7) Should not this be the norm for the true people of God; the depths within us calling out to the depth of our heavenly Father? How can a doctrine, teaching, or activity replace this cry for trueness of being? For it is written as we have borne the likeness of the earthly, even so, we shall bear the image of that which is heavenly and eternal? Even as Eve came out of Adam so must the Bride of Christ arise out of HIM that we may know of this likeness and companionship. Brought out of HIM by the sovereign Grace of God that we might be presented UNTO HIM that we might ever be WITH HIM throughout eternity that in the ages to come God may show forth the manifold wisdom of God in Christ Jesus! So Peter exhorts us…

“Whereby are given unto us exceeding great and precious promises that by these ye might be partakers of the divine nature, having escaped the corruption that is in the world through lust.”
IIPeter 1:4

If in our fallen condition, God took upon Himself the initiative to give HIMSELF for us, our partaking of that nature would freely cause us to give of ourselves to HIM and to ONE ANOTHER that we may see the reality of the Body of Christ in the earth. For it is in loving one another that we reveal our love for HIM (I John 4:20). Nature is the result of birth not teaching. Conduct is the doing of that which is in the nature of a man; by this, we know that we are the children of God;

“…and everyone that loveth is born of God, and knoweth God.”
I John 4:7

“Conduct is what we do,
Character is what we are”
E. M. Bounds

Brian Troxel