Christ is God #2

Recently a few friends found an old post of mine titled “Punctuation Matters! Christ is God!” and posted it on their Facebook. This inspired me to finish what I had started. There are a handful of passages that explicitly say Jesus is God. I quoted the Romans 5 passages in the first post. Here is another:

Titus 2:13

13 προσδεχόμενοι τὴν μακαρίαν ἐλπίδα καὶ ἐπιφάνειαν τῆς δόξης τοῦ μεγάλου θεοῦ καὶ σωτῆρος ἡμῶν Χριστοῦ Ἰησοῦ,

. . . looking for the blessed hope and the appearing of the glory of our great God and Savior, Jesus Christ. . . NASB

Both God and Savior describe Jesus. “The Granville Sharp rule states that if a single article links two or more singular substantives, the second and subsequent substantives further describe the first.” (It’s Still Greek to Me by David Allan Black p80)

The article here is τοῦ (the) followed by the two substantives θεοῦ (God) and σωτῆρος (Savior). These are both singular not plural. Thus it should be translated “the God and Savior . . ..” Savior describes God. Or God is Savior.

Paul, however, continues: he names Our God and Savior as Jesus Christ.

Some have tried to link Savior with Jesus and leave God as a separate entity. That would render the translation as “. . . the great God and Jesus our Savior. . .” but the grammar does not allow for this. Granville Sharps rule has been shown to be the case in every instance. Paul, then, is not talking about two personalities at this point he is calling Jesus the God and Savior of us!

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