Visible Goodness
Day 286 – 13 October
Brought Into View
“For the grace of God that brings salvation has appeared to all men, teaching us that, denying ungodliness and worldly lusts, we should live soberly, righteously, and godly in the present age,” (Titus 2:11–12, NKJV)
An Image Waiting in the Dark
Late in 1840, William Henry Fox Talbot made a discovery that changed photography. Until then his paper photographs had needed an hour or more in the camera, slowly darkening until the scene could be seen. Talbot found that a far shorter exposure, a minute or two in bright sun, left an image on the treated paper that was faint or entirely invisible. Nothing seemed to be there. Yet when the paper was carried into the dark and washed with a developing solution of silver nitrate and gallic acid, the scene rose up out of the blank sheet, line by line, until every detail stood plain. Daguerre in France had used a similar principle on silvered metal plates; Talbot was the first to make it work on paper, and his calotype process was made public in 1841.
The image a developer brings out was written by light before anyone could see it. The developing simply makes visible what the light had already set down.
Grace Comes Into View
Something very like that is at work in one of Paul’s loveliest sentences: “For the grace of God that brings salvation has appeared to all men.” The verb is epephanē (appeared, shone out), from epiphainō (to shine upon, to become visible), a member of the family that gives English its “epiphany”. Strong’s explains it as shining upon something so that it becomes visible or known, and Ellicott points out that Luke used it for the sun. Zechariah sang of the dawn from on high that would “give light to those who sit in darkness” (Luke 1:79), and on Paul’s voyage to Rome there were many days when “neither sun nor stars appeared” (Acts 27:20).
The sailors on that ship never imagined the sun had ceased to exist. It was there above the storm the whole time; what they lacked was the sight of it. In the same way, when Christ was born, God did no travelling and underwent no change in His nature. His grace had always been exactly what it is. The appearing was the moment it shone into human view, in the Son who took on our flesh and walked our streets, so that people could see with their own eyes what God had always been like. Ellicott describes it as a sun on a darkened world, and the image fits. Grace became visible.
Seen by Every Person
And it became visible “to all men.” The Received Text, which the New King James follows, reads hē charis… hē sōtērios (the grace, the saving one), and with that wording the phrase “to all men” belongs naturally with “has appeared,” as the Pulpit Commentary notes. Many modern editions omit the second article and read “bringing salvation for all people.” Either way, the reach of this grace takes in every human being. No one stands outside the light it sheds, and no nation, class or history puts anyone beyond its saving power. Ellicott adds the careful note that this is no promise that everyone will in the end be saved; it is a declaration that this grace is the one way salvation comes, and that it shines on all. Each person comes into its benefit by turning towards it in faith.
Grace the Tutor
Faith, once it turns, finds that grace has more to do. Paul went straight on to say that grace is paideuousa (teaching, training), from paideuō (to bring up a child, to educate). The grace that saved us also stays to bring us up. It teaches the soul to say no to ungodliness and to the cravings that pull a life out of shape, and it teaches the positive art of living “soberly, righteously, and godly in the present age.”
That last phrase keeps the lesson here, in this world, in this week. On God’s side nothing is missing from our restoration, yet in our lives it comes into view gradually, the way an image rises on the paper in the tray. Each lesson grace teaches, each habit unlearned and each kindness practised, brings a little more of the likeness of Christ to the surface of an ordinary life.
Tuesday in the Developing Tray
Some lines of that likeness are still faint in all of us, and that is no reason for despair. The image is truly there, and grace is a patient teacher. Today, take one lesson from it on purpose. Name one habit grace has been teaching you to refuse, a sharp tongue, an idle hour on the phone, a grudge rehearsed in the car, and set it aside for one day. Then put one sober, upright, godly thing in its place: an honest answer, a careful piece of work, a short prayer for someone who has hurt you.
Others often notice the change long before you do. People seldom see their own image developing, yet those around them watch it rise. Let them see grace coming into view in you, and let them trace the light back to where it has always been.
Declaration
Something true of me is still coming into view. The light that wrote it on my life was shining long before I ever turned to see it, and it shines on every person I will meet today. I let grace bring me up, lesson by lesson. I lay down one old way for the length of this day and practise an upright one instead. I am content to develop slowly, because nothing in the original is missing. Let those who watch me see the outline growing clearer, and let them look past me to the light that put it there.
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