The Connection Between God’s Teaching and His Grace

Let me start by saying that the above statement is not categorically true. Grace can be thought of as the extension of God’s favor. We frequently attach the word “unmerited” when describing God’s favor because we know that every relationship entered into by God is imbalanced; in fact, there’s no balance, with God working, filling, and being “all in all” (1 Corinthians 12:6; 15:28; Ephesians 1:23). God’s favor is always extended to the undeserving, and there is nothing that anyone can do, no matter how righteous, respected, or rich, to force open the benevolent hand of God.

Some of God’s favor though truly is “unmerited” in that it is extended regardless of what people do (and often in spite of what they do). Jesus said that our “Father in heaven… causes the sun to rise on the evil and the good, and sends rain on the righteous and the unrighteous” (Matthew 5:45). Effectively then, some of God’s blessings come no matter what people do simply because God is “the Father of lights” (James 1:17). Each time God blesses, He moves first in extending help and love (e.g., Genesis 3:15; John 3:16).

Sometimes though, we have to check our tendency to attach the word “unmerited” to grace. If we’re not careful, we may confuse something being “unmerited” with that thing being “unconditional.” This distinction isn’t important as relates to things like those Jesus described – the sun shining and the rain failing. However, it’s vitally important as relates to even more important blessings – the blessings we need when we sin.

God formed His plan of salvation before mankind even existed, let alone before the first sin. Jesus is described as the “Lamb slain from the foundation of the world” (Revelation 13:8). Jesus died for us while we were yet sinners (Romans 5:8); in fact, He died because we were sinning against Him, crucifying Him with our “lawless hands” (Acts 2:23). Everything God graciously did happened unconditionally.

We shouldn’t – we mustn’t – assume though that just because salvation was planned and purchased unconditionally that we can possess it unconditionally. While grace was unconditionally extended, it was not, is not, and never will be unconditionally received. Saving grace is conditional.

You actually probably already know this. Think about it: what would be true if this weren’t true? There are only two possibilities. Possibility one is universal salvation; Jesus’ death on the cross obtained salvation for the entirety of humanity forever. Possibility two is arbitrary salvation; Jesus’ death only benefited those souls God randomly chose to be saved from amongst the hordes of the lost. While some people do believe one of these two possibilities to be true (if you do, talk to me!), most of the Christian world doesn’t.

Denying these two possibilities is not the same as proving they’re false or establishing that the Bible teaches the concept of conditional saving grace. Thankfully, there’s a very clear but somewhat neglected passage that can offer a lot of help here. Let’s read it and then consider what it teaches.

At the risk of bringing up some painful memories, let’s walk through this verse as though we were in a grammar class. Boiling the thought of the first part of this reading down to a simple subject and predicate, it says, “Grace has appeared.” Grammatically, every other element builds off this simple thought. The rest of the passage describes grace as it appeared, answering questions about the kind of grace that appeared and the conditions surrounding its appearing.  

Remember, God extends different kinds of favor. What kind of grace appeared? My translation has Paul using a subordinate clause to identify the kind of grace: it is the grace “that brings salvation.” In Greek, it’s just an adjective, i.e., “saving grace” or, more woodenly, “a bringing salvation kind of grace.” That’s exactly the kind of grace we want to know about!

The potential beneficiary of “saving grace” is everyone, for it “has appeared to all men.” A prepositional phrase here in the NKJV translates a dative phrase that serves the same purpose in Greek. Yes, God’s saving grace has appeared to everyone; Christians get to tell the good news, “the Gospel of the grace of God” and its appearing to all, not just a few (Acts 20:24). Grace’s appearance to all men does not mean that everyone is saved; the sentence doesn’t end here. To borrow from Paul elsewhere, “they have not all obeyed the Gospel,” and, “if our Gospel is veiled, it is veiled to those who are perishing” (Romans 10:16; 2 Corinthians 4:3).

Paul spoke about the potential for the Gospel containing God’s grace to be veiled/hidden or even for it to be disobeyed. One other very important detail from Titus 2:11-12 helps to explain the circumstances in which this happens. As Paul’s sentence continues, it contains a participial phrase, “teaching us,” followed by some information surrounding the content of that teaching that continues into the following verses. If you can understand this participial phrase, you can understand when saving grace appears and when it doesn’t.

Whether in English or Greek, a participle is a verb that serves as adjective or an adverb. You can spot them in many Bible translations by looking for verbs with an “ing” ending that don’t have a form of the verb “to be” (was, were, is, am, are, will) in front of them. Participles are used in both English and Greek; in Greek, you have the added bonus of the participle being grammatically tied to the noun it’s describing through its ending. Whether you think of “teaching” adjectively (“teaching grace”) or adverbially (“grace… has appeared… teaching”) doesn’t really matter; the word is tied to grace and is describing grace in this context.

Putting all of this together, “saving grace” has a specified condition for its appearing: “teaching.” Put another way, “saving grace” is “teaching grace.” Or put yet another way, if you ignore the teaching of grace found in the aforementioned “Gospel of grace,” you ignore saving grace altogether. If you receive grace’s teaching but disobey it, it’s appearing will not benefit you at all.

So yes, the statement is true as relates to Titus 2:11-12 and "saving grace": “No Teaching? No grace. Know Teaching? Know grace.” Grace and teaching are bound together Please, “do not frustrate the grace of God” (cf. Galatians 2:21 KJV). Listen to its teaching, and obey its voice.
                   

-Patrick Swayne  
patrick@tftw.org