Scripture
Titus 2:13
Paul identifies the Christian hope with the glorious appearing of Jesus Christ, our great God and Savior.
as we await the blessed hope and glorious appearance of our great God and Savior Jesus Christ.
God and Savior
Paul does not merely call Jesus a helper alongside God. He says believers await the appearing of the glory of “our great God and Savior Jesus Christ,” then immediately grounds salvation in Christ’s self-giving work.
The wording belongs with the wider apostolic pattern: Jesus is not one more creature receiving a lesser honor, but the divine Savior whose appearing is the church’s blessed hope.
Read with the parallel phrases
Titus 2:13 is especially clear when read beside phrases such as “our God and Savior Jesus Christ” in 2 Peter 1:1 and “our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ” in 2 Peter 1:11. The repeated construction joins both titles to Jesus rather than splitting “God” away from him.
Grammar alone should not be treated as a trick that settles every objection. But the natural reading of the phrase, the saving work named in the next verse, and the New Testament’s larger confession all point in the same direction: Jesus is addressed as Savior because he is included in the identity and work of God.
Where this passage comes up
- The New World Translation restores the truthJudged by its own standard of following the text, the New World Translation bends the verses about Jesus' identity in one direction, while much of it reads fairly.
- Jesus never claimed to be GodThe earliest records show Jesus claiming God's own authority, and his followers worshiping him within decades, long before the Council of Nicaea.
- The Trinity and incarnation violate monotheismChristians confess one God, not three. They claim Jesus belongs within the identity of Israel's one God, a claim argued from the Hebrew Bible, not polytheism.
- Jesus is GodThe New Testament places Jesus inside the identity of Israel's one God, the Creator, while still distinguishing him from the Father.
- The Trinity is monotheismThe Bible says there is one God, distinguishes the Father, Son, and Spirit from one another, and treats each as that one God. The Trinity is the summary that keeps all three.