The Christological Significance of Interchangeable Savior Titles in Titus

J. Neil Daniels

Nota Bene: An audio overview is available here: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1MXgv4iTEmtE4mIqR0J8wU1zxGUXfrYCQ/view?usp=drivesdk

Introduction

The Epistle to Titus presents a striking Christological phenomenon with far-reaching implications for understanding the New Testament’s witness to the deity of Christ. Within this brief pastoral letter, the Apostle Paul employs the title Savior (σωτήρ) in reference to both God the Father and Jesus Christ in a manner that reflects functional equivalence and ontological unity. This usage is especially significant when considered in light of first-century Jewish monotheism, in which the application of titles and attributes proper to deity to any being other than YHWH would have constituted a radical theological assertion.

Titus also stands apart within the Pauline corpus in another respect: it is the only epistle where the title Lord (κύριος) is completely absent in reference to Christ.¹ Instead, Paul confines his titles for Jesus to “Christ,” “Jesus Christ,” or “Christ Jesus,” and repeatedly employs the term Savior, a term he otherwise reserves for God in 1 Timothy.² This deliberate lexical shift invites careful reflection on the theological function of the title Savior in this epistle.

Textual Evidence for Interchangeable Usage

The interchangeability of the title “Savior” is evident in several key passages throughout the epistle. In Titus 1:3, Paul speaks of “God our Savior,” followed immediately in 1:4 by “Christ Jesus our Savior.” This pattern continues consistently throughout the letter: “God our Savior” appears again in 2:10 and 3:4, while “Jesus Christ our Savior” recurs in 2:13 and 3:6.

Of particular note is Titus 2:13, where Paul refers to “the appearing of the glory of our great God and Savior, Jesus Christ.” The application of the Granville Sharp rule—a syntactical principle in Koine Greek—strongly indicates that both “God” and “Savior” refer to the same person, namely Jesus Christ.³ This construction is not merely a parallel usage of similar titles but an explicit identification of Christ with the God of Israel.

This identification is all the more remarkable given the framing of Titus 2:11–14 as part of a liturgically structured, creedal passage. The use of ἐπιφάνεια (“appearing”) to refer to both Christ’s first and second comings—one as the manifestation of God's grace, the other as the epiphany of God’s glory—reinforces that Jesus is portrayed not merely as a messenger of God's glory but as its personal embodiment and eschatological revelation.⁴

The Monotheistic Jewish Context

Paul’s theological affirmations must be evaluated against the backdrop of his own religious heritage. As a Pharisee, Paul was thoroughly grounded in the monotheistic convictions of Second Temple Judaism and described himself as “advancing in Judaism beyond many of my contemporaries…being more extremely zealous for my ancestral traditions” (Gal 1:14, LSB). The Shema, Israel’s foundational confession—“Hear, O Israel! Yahweh is our God, Yahweh is one!” (Deu 6:4, LSB)—formed the bedrock of Jewish belief.

Within this framework, the title “Savior” was understood as an exclusive designation of deity. The Hebrew Scriptures repeatedly and emphatically attribute this role to YHWH alone. Isaiah 43:11 proclaims, “I, even I, am Yahweh, and there is no savior besides Me,” while Isaiah 45:21 affirms, “Is it not I, Yahweh? And there is no other God besides Me, a righteous God and a Savior; there is none except Me.” To apply this title to Jesus would have constituted either a blasphemous overreach or an astonishing recognition of His full possession of deity.

Paul’s introductory formula in Titus 1:1, where he calls himself “a slave of God” (δοῦλος θεοῦ), is likewise theologically significant. Elsewhere, Paul typically identifies himself as “a slave of Jesus Christ” (cf. Rom 1:1; Phil 1:1; Gal 1:10), but here he frames his apostleship under the immediate lordship of God. Yet in verse 4, the greeting is from “God the Father and Christ Jesus our Savior.” The symmetry suggests that Paul views the authority behind his commission as equally grounded in both persons of the Godhead.⁵ What is normally said of Christ is now said of God, not in contrast but in coordination, thereby underscoring their shared prerogatives in the mission of salvation.⁶

Theological Implications for Christ’s Deity

Paul’s consistent and interchangeable application of the title Savior to both God and Christ yields several significant theological conclusions. First, it reveals a functional unity in the economy of salvation. Paul does not depict the Father and the Son as operating in separate redemptive domains, nor as complementary agents with differing degrees of authority. Rather, both are presented as co-participants in the one saving act that properly belongs to deity.

Second, this functional equivalence presupposes ontological unity. If salvation belongs to God alone (Isa 43:11; Hos 13:4; Jon 2:9), and if Jesus is presented without qualification as “our Savior,” then He must possess full deity.⁷ The absence of any mitigating language suggests that Paul does not treat Christ as a subordinate or derivative agent of redemption, but as fully God, operating within the singular will and essence of the one true God.

Third, the linguistic and narrative pattern reinforces a Trinitarian trajectory that finds its roots not in Hellenistic speculation but in the Hebrew Scriptures and their fulfillment in Christ. Paul's use of Savior for both God and Christ, particularly in a letter written to counter Judaizing errors on Crete (Titus 1:10–16), functions to reframe the covenantal identity of God's people. The repeated echoes of Old Testament salvation language (e.g., Deu 32:15; Pss 25:5; 27:9) serve to place the Cretan believers within the story of Israel's redemption, now fulfilled in Christ.⁸ Paul thus replaces the misuse of the Old Testament by his opponents with a proper reading in which Jesus is the eschatological Savior who enacts the deliverance prefigured in the Exodus.⁹

Christological Development and Early High Christology

The evidence from Titus supports the conclusion, widely recognized among scholars, that a high Christology characterized Christian belief from its earliest stages.¹⁰ The pastoral epistles, far from being products of late theological elaboration, exhibit a robust and integrated understanding of the full deity of Christ. Paul’s language reflects not a nascent or developing belief, but a mature theological conviction that Jesus Christ is truly God.

Moreover, this Christology is not confined to abstract theological reflection. The epistle to Titus demonstrates that the recognition of Christ’s deity was embedded in the practical concerns of Christian ethics, ecclesial leadership, and eschatological hope. The title “Savior” is invoked not merely as a doctrinal affirmation but as the basis for Christian conduct, pastoral oversight, and the believer’s confident expectation of Christ’s return.

This passage, long debated in exegetical literature, overwhelmingly favors the single referent view based on the Granville Sharp rule.¹¹ The construction—“τοῦ μεγάλου θεοῦ καὶ σωτῆρος ἡμῶν Ἰησοῦ Χριστοῦ”—requires that “God” and “Savior” both refer to Christ. Attempts to read this as two referents (i.e., the Father and the Son) not only violate standard Greek syntax but also ignore the rhetorical structure of the passage, which frames the appearing of God’s glory as a future manifestation of Christ.¹² Thus, Paul not only calls Jesus “Savior,” but also “our great God.”¹³

Conclusion

The interchangeable use of the title “Savior” in reference to both God the Father and Jesus Christ in the Epistle to Titus constitutes a profound and deliberate Christological assertion. It reflects an early Christian conviction, rooted in Jewish monotheism yet transformed by the revelation of Christ, that Jesus shares fully in the identity and essence of the one true God. Paul, a Pharisaic Jew writing within a strict monotheistic framework, applies to Christ a title that Scripture reserves for God alone. He does so without hesitation, qualification, or doctrinal tension.

This testimony from Titus offers compelling evidence that the recognition of Jesus’ deity was not a later ecclesiastical development, but a foundational element of apostolic proclamation. The epistle thus stands as a vital witness to the New Testament’s teaching on the person of Christ and provides a theological anchor for understanding early Christian worship, doctrine, and life. Paul’s affirmation that Jesus Christ is “our great God and Savior” remains one of the clearest and most decisive declarations of His deity in the Pauline corpus—and indeed, in all of Scripture.

Endnotes

Gordon D. Fee, Pauline Christology: An Exegetical-Theological Study (Peabody, MA: Hendrickson, 2007), 438–39.
Ibid., 439.
Daniel B. Wallace, Greek Grammar Beyond the Basics: An Exegetical Syntax of the New Testament (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 1996), 270–90. See also Granville Sharp, Remarks on the Uses of the Definitive Article in the Greek Text of the New Testament, Containing many New Proofs of the Divinity of Christ, from Passages which are wrongly translated in the Common English Version, 3rd ed. (Durham: L. Pennington, 1803 [1798]; Philadelphia: B. B. Hopkins, 1807); A. T. Robertson, A Grammar of the Greek New Testament in the Light of Historical Research (Nashville: Broadman, 1934), 785–89; Nigel Turner, Syntax, vol. 3 of A Grammar of New Testament Greek, ed. James Hope Moulton (Edinburgh: T&T Clark, 1963), 183–84; Daniel B. Wallace, Granville Sharp’s Canon and Its Kin: Semantics and Significance, Studies in Biblical Greek 14 (New York: Peter Lang, 2009).
Fee, Pauline Christology, 441–42.
George W. Knight III, The Pastoral Epistles: A Commentary on the Greek Text, New International Greek Testament Commentary (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1992), 285.
Fee, Pauline Christology, 438–39.
Murray J. Harris, Jesus as God: The New Testament Use of Theos in Reference to Jesus (Grand Rapids: Baker Academic, 1992), 173–85.
Fee, Pauline Christology, 440.
William D. Mounce, Pastoral Epistles, Word Biblical Commentary, vol. 46 (Nashville: Thomas Nelson, 2000), 382.
Richard Bauckham, Jesus and the God of Israel: God Crucified and Other Studies on the New Testament’s Christology of Divine Identity (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2008), 3–51; Larry W. Hurtado, Lord Jesus Christ: Devotion to Jesus in Earliest Christianity (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2003); idem, Ancient Jewish Monotheism and Early Christian Jesus-Devotion: The Context and Character of Christological Faith, Library of Early Christology (Waco, TX: Baylor University Press, 2017).
Wallace, Greek Grammar, 284.
Knight, Pastoral Epistles, 322; Mounce, Pastoral Epistles, 421.
Harris, Jesus as God, 178–79.

Bibliography

Bauckham, Richard. Jesus and the God of Israel: God Crucified and Other Studies on the New Testament’s Christology of Divine Identity. Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2008.

Fee, Gordon D. Pauline Christology: An Exegetical-Theological Study. Peabody, MA: Hendrickson, 2007.

Harris, Murray J. Jesus as God: The New Testament Use of Theos in Reference to Jesus. Grand Rapids: Baker Academic, 1992.

Hurtado, Larry W. Lord Jesus Christ: Devotion to Jesus in Earliest Christianity. Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2003.

Knight, George W., III. The Pastoral Epistles: A Commentary on the Greek Text. New International Greek Testament Commentary. Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1992.

Marshall, I. Howard. The Pastoral Epistles. International Critical Commentary. Edinburgh: T&T Clark, 1999.

Mounce, William D. Pastoral Epistles. Word Biblical Commentary, vol. 46. Nashville: Thomas Nelson, 2000.

Wallace, Daniel B. Greek Grammar Beyond the Basics: An Exegetical Syntax of the New Testament. Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 1996.

Yarbrough, Robert W. The Letters to Timothy and Titus. The Pillar New Testament Commentary. Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2018.