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"The appearing of the glory of our great God and Saviour Jesus Christ." Among the foolish charges which have been brought against the revisers is that of favouring Arian tendencies by blurring those texts which teach the Divinity of Jesus Christ. The present passage would be a sufficient answer to such a charge. In the A.V. we have "the glorious appearing of the great God, and our Saviour Jesus Christ," where both the Wording and the comma make it clear that "the great God" means the Father and not our Saviour. The revisers, by omitting the comma, for which there is no authority in the original, and by placing the "our" before both substantives, have given their authority to the view that St. Paul means both "great God" and "Saviour" to apply to Jesus Christ. It is not any Epiphany of the Father which is in his mind, but the "Epiphany of the glory of our great God and Saviour Jesus Christ." The wording of the Greek is such that absolute certainty is not attainable; but the context, the collocation of the words, the use of the word "Epiphany," and the omission of the article before "Saviour," all seem to favour the revisers' rendering. And, if it be adopted, we have here one of the plainest and most direct statements of the Divinity of Christ to be found in Scripture. As such it was employed in the Arian controversy, although seems to have understood the passage as referring to the Father and Christ, and not to Christ alone. The force of what follows is enhanced if the revisers' rendering, which is the strictly grammatical rendering, is maintained. It is as being "our great God" that He gave Himself for us, that He might "redeem us from all iniquity"; and it was because He was God as well as man, that what was uttered as a bitter taunt was really a glorious truth; — "He saved others; Himself He cannot save."

(A. Plummer, D. D.)

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KJV: For the grace of God that bringeth salvation hath appeared to all men,

WEB: For the grace of God has appeared, bringing salvation to all men,