NOTES for Tit 3:1-15

Speaking about the necessity of obeying the law (vv. 1-2), Paul mentions another aspect of the problem that, apparently, in the heat of polemics or condemnation in those days (as, indeed, today) many forgot. He reminds both Titus himself and those whom Titus was to instruct that a sinful person has no right to condemn anyone at all, that condemnation of people, even if they are sinners, is an unsuitable occupation for a Christian. The point is not only that only God can adequately evaluate a person, and not separate actions he has committed, and God will give His assessment at the Last Judgment. The point is also that fallen man has no moral right to condemn anyone. Of course, many had guessed this long before the Savior came into the world; the saying "physician, heal yourself" was known already in deep antiquity. But the main point is still elsewhere: condemnation of one's neighbor distracts the Christian from the struggle with his own sins, from being rooted in the Kingdom, and from witness.

The apostle, it is clear, calls his fellow believers to focus on solving precisely these main tasks and to leave in peace those who may deserve condemnation but on whose condemnation a Christian should hardly spend time, especially since in due time each of those who now walks the way of salvation deserved the same condemnation (vv. 3-8). Apparently, the abuse of the Torah mentioned by the apostle (v. 9) became fertile soil for condemnation. The Torah was given to man not for condemning his neighbor, but for evaluating concrete actions and deeds, both his own and others', in order to understand whom and in what one can support, and from whom it is better to keep one's distance. Yet in every age there has been a temptation to abuse the Torah, using it not as a spiritual compass that allows one not to lose spiritual and moral bearings in the world of human deeds and actions, but as a means for self-exaltation and condemnation. Such abuse inevitably led to the empty disputes Paul mentions, whose participants, mutually condemning one another, lost both the meaning of the Torah and the Kingdom. It is no accident that the apostle says that those who think about the Torah differently than he himself and those who share his mind (in the Synodal translation these dissenters are called "heretics") condemn themselves (vv. 10-11): the Torah is a double-edged weapon, so anyone who wants to aim it at his neighbor inevitably turns it against himself as well. The one who scrupulously and mercilessly counts his neighbor's sins will have to answer to God for his own, and God will count them just as scrupulously as the condemner once counted another's sins, condemning him as mercilessly as he himself condemned his neighbors. Then the Torah will become for him a path leading not to the Kingdom, but to that outer darkness of which the Savior spoke.

Paul has a low opinion of untransformed human nature. At times it may seem that he somewhat lays the colors on thickly. Indeed, when saying "we," he lists such traits of character and such sins that, one may think, neither Paul himself nor his closest circle suffered from even before turning to Christ. But the matter is probably not only in the concrete manifestations of one sin or another. It is also in sinfulness as such. Traditionally the Torah was always directed toward the struggle with the concrete sin of a concrete person. But on the other hand, the very idea of the inner Torah already presupposed a certain quality of spiritual life, and here readiness to commit sin under certain favorable conditions became in itself a serious spiritual problem. This problem stood even more sharply for those seeking the Kingdom: in the Kingdom the quality of spiritual life comes to the foreground, and here the quality of spiritual life determines the quality of life in general. When Paul lists all the sins he lists, applying them to himself as well, he most likely has in mind that spiritual state of fallen man which can easily allow him to turn into everything the apostle mentions. Paul clearly understands perfectly well that if we do not become any such thing in more or less favorable external conditions, this by itself does not at all prove the absence of spiritual problems. One could speak of their absence only if we remained "good" under any circumstances, even under those that do not contribute to "goodness" in any way. Only then could one speak of our readiness to take a step into the Kingdom. Of course, in itself this still guarantees nothing, because in this case we are not speaking of the first level of spiritual life, but rather of the zero level, of the foundation without whose laying no further construction can be discussed. And Paul seeks to make his fellow believers understand that they absolutely need this foundation, even if they themselves think that they are already quite good enough, successfully keeping their sinfulness from manifesting outwardly. For the issue is not morality, but the Kingdom. Here one must not keep rules, but simply live. As the person one really is.

If we are indeed saved "not by works of righteousness," does this mean that righteousness is irrelevant to our salvation? Or does the apostle mean something else? The key word here is still probably "works." After all, in the final analysis, what is human righteousness? Even before the coming of Christ, many understood that fallen man cannot be righteous. Human righteousness was always perceived as a reflection of God's righteousness, while only God Himself was considered righteous in the full sense of the word. And then it turned out that righteousness is a divine-human matter, that a person does not walk the path of righteousness by himself, not by his own strength, but that God leads him along this path, while from the person only complete trust in God and faithfulness to Him are required. And a person cannot "earn" anything before God. He can only refrain from spoiling what God is doing with his hands. And the Kingdom is given to the seeker not for works of righteousness, which he does not have and cannot have, but for the very readiness to remain faithful despite his own sinfulness and to follow the One who can deliver from any sin if only He is allowed to do so and asked for deliverance. Here God's mercy is manifested: mercy, as the authors of the biblical books understood it, implied precisely readiness to do for another what that other in no way deserves and what no one is obliged to do for him. Only such mercy can open the path to the Kingdom for us.

In his letter to Titus, Paul reminds him of the essence of Christianity, that a person is saved not by "works of righteousness," but by the grace he receives in communion with Christ and in the context of relations with Him. Today for many Christians these words of the apostle have become a commonplace. Meanwhile behind them stands the fullness of awareness of that tradition of the path of righteousness which was characteristic of Yahwism already in the pre-exilic period. Even before the coming of Christ, everyone who took spiritual life seriously understood that righteousness cannot be attained by any human efforts, that at its foundation it is God's work, not man's.

But on the other hand, it could still be called a divine-human work, because without the participation of the person himself righteousness is impossible. And not only in the sense that a person must agree to God's presence in his life, but also in the sense that a person must make constant efforts to maintain himself in a state of readiness to receive what God gives him, to participate in the life that God opens to him and into which He includes him.

This activity of the person was usually called "works of righteousness." Of course, in every age there has also existed a purely religious understanding of righteousness, which did not presuppose a path in the proper sense, but only the scrupulous fulfillment of a prescribed set of religious norms and rules. But such an understanding of righteousness does not even reach the best examples of Yahwism and Judaism.

Yet if in the Synagogue religious righteousness could still find a place on the periphery of communal life, though that periphery, as usual, was usually much larger numerically than the center, then in the Church there could be no place for it by definition, at least as long as Christianity had not partially degenerated into religion, or more precisely, into many religions that in time blossomed on its spiritual soil. This is what Paul reminds Titus of, probably also because the tendency toward a religious understanding of righteousness already existed in the Church in those days, and the apostle perceived it as an essential spiritual distortion of Christianity.

In every age, people have had a tendency to argue. Of course, for some this desire was stronger, for others it was less visible, but fallen man is by nature argumentative, because in the overwhelming majority of cases an argument is not simply an exchange of opinions or a search for truth, but a desire to assert oneself. Unlike many other forms of self-assertion, it comes under very respectable pretexts, so that this kind of self-assertion is often not perceived as something blameworthy even by those who would certainly condemn the same self-assertion in any other form. Besides, an argument allows a person to display intelligence, wit, eloquence, and many other qualities whose demonstration flatters self-love.

But truth, if it is born in argument at all, alas, is not born there every time. Of course, in the ideal case, when those arguing argue without any desire to show off or assert themselves at the expense of the opponent, they really can arrive at some truth. But in fallen humanity, unfortunately, the ideal argument is just as purely theoretical a model of reality as an ideal gas is in physics: in real life such arguments are as impossible as an ideal gas is impossible in nature. At best, we can speak only of the desire to find truth predominating in those who argue over the desire for self-assertion. But even such predominance is, alas, not nearly as common as it may appear. In every other case, argument really loses its meaning.

Even Jesus Himself did not try to argue with those who entered into a dispute solely in order to outargue their conversation partner: any arguments are useless there. More than that, such an argument can harm those who argue instead of helping them. When the matter reaches a struggle of self-loves and rivalry in self-assertion, those arguing, as centuries of experience show, easily and quickly forget the commandments of God, and usually remember them only when it is already too late. To get involved in such arguments means to encourage them, and that is certainly not fitting for someone called to bear witness to the Kingdom. Here the well-known saying about speech being silver and silence being gold finds its justification.