Titus 2:13

Apostolic (Oneness) PentecostalPaul does not describe two persons appearing. He names one: 'the glorious appearing of the great God and our Saviour Jesus Christ.' In the Greek a single article governs both titles, so 'great God' and 'Saviour' are the same Person (compare 2 Pet. 1:1). The next verse says what He did: He 'gave himself for us' (2:14). The great God who appears is the Saviour who died, and His name is Jesus Christ. The church's hope is not to see a second divine person. It is to see God, and His face is the face of Jesus (2 Cor. 4:6; Rev. 22:3-4).

JewishNo traditional Jewish reading. Judaism does not accept Jesus as God or as the Messiah.

CatholicRead as a direct statement of Christ's divinity. Its words are echoed at every Mass after the Lord's Prayer: 'as we await the blessed hope and the coming of our Saviour, Jesus Christ.'

ProtestantMost modern translations (ESV, NIV, NASB) read 'our great God and Savior, Jesus Christ', and most Protestant scholars take it as a direct statement that Jesus is God. Because most Protestants are Trinitarian, they read it as God the Son, the second person of the Trinity, and not as the Father.

OrthodoxOne of the clearest New Testament confessions that Christ is God.

DispensationalMany dispensationalists read 'that blessed hope' as the pre-tribulation rapture, distinct from the glorious appearing.

AcademicMost scholars take the grammar as one person (M. J. Harris, Jesus as God, 1992), though some read two, God and Jesus. Payne lists it as a second-advent prophecy.

Why it was written“But these are written, that ye might believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God; and that believing ye might have life through his name” (John 20:31). Peter told the first crowd how to begin: “Repent, and be baptized every one of you in the name of Jesus Christ for the remission of sins, and ye shall receive the gift of the Holy Ghost” (Acts 2:38).
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