To Lob the Right Questions

1Paul, a bond-servant of God and an apostle of Jesus Christ, for the faith of those chosen of God and the knowledge of the truth which is according to godliness,

2in the hope of eternal life, which God, who cannot lie, promised long ages ago,

3but at the proper time manifested, even His word, in the proclamation with which I was entrusted according to the commandment of God our Savior,

4To Titus, my true child in a common faith: Grace and peace from God the Father and Christ Jesus our Savior.

II. Purpose

1. For the faith (and the knowledge)
2. In the hope

We’re going to take a look at the second possible purpose phrase of Paul’s intro: “In the hope of eternal life.” I’d like first to predict what I may find in the Greek text, based on my previous study and knowledge of vocabulary, then compare it to what’s actually there. Then we’ll look for other places Paul and others use this construction and in what contexts, and will finish by attempting to draw some conclusions from our findings.

I would expect this Greek phrase to look something like this: “ἐν τῶ ἐλπίδι” – literally “in the hope.” The preposition ‘in’ with the locative case form of ‘hope,’ with its corresponding definite article. What I actually find is ἐπ᾽ ἐλπίδι. ἐπ᾽ is the abbreviated form of the preposition ἐπὶ, whose root meaning is stuck in my brain as ‘upon.’ There’s no definite article in the actual Greek text.

I find the use of ἐπὶ very curious…mainly because I’m almost three years removed from my Greek education and haven’t retained a good grasp on the vocabulary, aside from some simple one-word English substitutes, which I’m beginning to distrust more and more. I’m going to Bauer’s Lexicon to check out the preposition and look at its different uses.

Bauer lists some 18 primary meanings/uses of ἐπὶ, presumably in descending order of frequency:

1. marker of location or surface, answering ‘where?’ (on, upon, near)
2. marker of presence or occurrence near an object or area (at, near)
3. marker of involvement in an official proceeding (before)
4. marker of movement to or contact with a goal (toward)
5. marker of manner
6. marker of basis for a state of being, action, or result (on)
7. marker of addition to what is already in existence (to, in addition to)
8. marker of perspective (concerning, etc.)
9. marker of authority (over)
10. marker of legal proceeding (before)
11. marker of purpose, goal, result (to, for)
12. marker of hostile opposition (against)
13. marker of number or measure
14. marker indicating indirect object (to)
15. marker of feelings directed toward someone (for, toward)
16. marker of object or purpose
17. marker in idiom of authorization
18. marker of temporal associations (at, on)

I was hoping/expecting to see our Titus reference listed under ‘11 – marker of purpose, goal’ or maybe ‘16 – marker of object or purpose.’ No such luck. After searching I finally found it listed under ‘6 – marker of basis for state of being, action, or result.’ He lists five other occurrences of its combination with ἐλπίδι:

1. Acts 2.26′THEREFORE MY HEART WAS GLAD AND MY TONGUE EXULTED; MOREOVER MY FLESH ALSO WILL LIVE IN HOPE;’
   • This is part of Luke’s quotation of King David from Psalm 16.8-11. Interestingly, the Hebrew word used in the Psalm is the noun בטח – ‘confidence,’ from the root verb בטח – trust. The noun is in this case (and almost always) used with the ל preposition to make it an adverb: ‘confidently.’ Obviously Luke is quoting from the LXX, which indeed reads ἐπ᾽ ἐλπίδι. Fascinating, but we’ll come back to that later when we really dig into ἐλπίς.

2. Romans 4.18In hope against hope he believed, so that he might become a father of many nations according to that which had been spoken, “SO SHALL YOUR DESCENDANTS BE.”
   • This is from Paul, but he’s talking in a discourse context about Abraham. Good reference, but not a good parallel with our text.

3. Romans 8.20-21For the creation was subjected to futility, not willingly, but because of Him who subjected it, in hope that the creation itself also will be set free from its slavery to corruption into the freedom of the glory of the children of God.
   • This is yet another Old Covenant reference (interesting in itself), giving us a connotation of expectation and certainty (the previous verse says ‘For the anxious longing of the creation waits eagerly for the revealing of the sons of God’)

4. I Corinthians 9.10Or is He speaking altogether for our sake? Yes, for our sake it was written, because the plowman ought to plow in hope, and the thresher {to thresh} in hope of sharing {the crops.}
   • Here again we have a probable allusion to confident expectation. The plowman knows that his labor will yield results.

5. Acts 26.6″And now I am standing trial for the hope of the promise made by God to our fathers”
   • Bauer lists this a secondary example of this combination of words, with a slightly different meaning. He posits that here ἐπί is indicating the basis for which Paul is on trial.

I notice that all of these references are to some sort of ancient or timeless heritage of hope. Titus seems to be the only clear reference to the current hope of eternal life. It could be argued that Paul’s hope (for which he argues his case in Acts) is that of eternal life. Nevertheless I’d counter that Paul is presenting his case before a Jewish court, to whose heritage and culture (which he shared) he was appealing. The hope they knew of was the Old Covenant hope of the Promised One. Paul’s point was that that hope was realized in Jesus Christ. It’s only to the New Covenant Christian that the hope of eternal life, referenced here in Titus, is valid.
Upon further search, I’ve found another valuable instance of this combination of words in the Greek text.

• Romans 5.2

  By whom also we have access by faith into this grace wherein we stand, and rejoice in hope of the glory of God.

Now here we can presume that Paul means the future revealed glory of God following the second coming, since he just finished talking about justification by faith and peace with God that comes through Christ.

I find it interesting that the Greek here in Romans is also ἐπ᾽ ἐλπίδι, and it took me forever to find Bauer’s listing of it. I finally found it under the same main heading, ‘6 – marker of basis for a state of being,’ but under a subheading ‘c – with verbs that denoted aroused feelings.’ It lists it with as the only example with the verb καυχώμεθα, which is the PMI 1st person plural of καυχάομαι – ‘rejoice.’

I think this is probably the clearest parallel to the Titus usage because it carries the same principle of future glory.

Conclusions

Does this phrase actually indicate purpose for which the letter was written? Bauer would say ‘no’ I think, but I’m still not throwing out the possibility. Like its predecessor phrase ‘for the faith,’ it could be referring back to Paul’s personal introduction. That is, he could be qualifying his identification of himself as ‘a bond-servant of God and an apostle of Jesus Christ,’ ‘in the hope of eternal life,’ which is to say that he’s only qualified to call himself such things in the context of the hope we have through Christ.

If it seems that I’m long on research, analysis, and conjecture, but short on conclusions, it’s only because I am.