A Greek Study on the Deity of Jesus Christ: titus two thirteen

I would like to start a series on the Deity of Jesus Christ, by digging into the original Greek text of selected passages from Scripture. The more I study the original Greek, the more meaning I see hidden by our modern English translations! Ministering specifically to Mormons and Jehovah's Witnesses has forced me to better understand the text, because they can too easily take verses out of context and twist them to fit their worldviews! So, to start this series off, I'd like to dig into Titus 2:13.

Here it goes! In the King James version, Titus 2:13 reads as follows:

"Looking for that blessed hope, and the glorious appearing of the great God and our Saviour Jesus Christ; "

Although there is obviously nothing wrong with this version, it is lacking something from that Greek that makes it easy to twist. Interestingly enough, the Joseph Smith Translation, which Mormons use and is based on the KJV and not the Greek, reads the same. The New World Translation, which the Watchtower uses and is also based on the KJV and other obscure translations, and not the Greek, reads as follows:

"while we wait for the happy hope and glorious manifestation of the great God and of [the] Savior of us, Christ Jesus,"

You see, the problem with the KJV is that it could be read that God and the Savior Jesus Christ are two separate beings. Christians, Mormons, and Witnesses can all agree that Jesus Christ is the Savior. The thing that separates Christians from the others, is that we believe what Scripture trully reveals about Jesus Christ, that he is the One and Only, True Living God! This verse in the New American Standard reads a little better as follows:

"looking for the blessed hope and the appearing of the glory of our great God and Savior, Christ Jesus,"

The NASB helps a lot by placing the comma after Savior, to point towards Christ Jesus as being the great God and Savior. What I love about the Greek, is that the text becomes so absolutely clear that there is no way to deny what it is saying! First, the word endings, in the Greek, of the words God, Saviour, and Jesus Christ, are all possessive, meaning they are all sharing or possessing the same thing, which in this sentence is the Glory. So, this means that Jesus Christ, the Savior, is sharing the same Glory with God. My first question then becomes, how can they be sharing the same Glory unless the are the same Being?

Second, the way this sentence is constructed in the Greek, it reads weird translated word for word in the English, but leaves no room for error. Word for word, the sentence should read like this:

"looking for the blessed hope and appearing of the glory of the great God and Savior our Jesus Christ,"

When read this way in the original text, it absolutely reads that our Jesus Christ is the great God and Savior. Truly amazing!

Mormons use the Joseph Smith Translation to say there are two separate beings or gods, and the Witnesses use the New World Translation to say there are also two separate beings, but God is the only God, and Jesus Christ is Michael the Archangel. But, when confronted with the original text, there is no denying the Triune Deity of of our God and Savior, Jesus Christ!

I hope this has and will be helpful to you in your endeavors to defend the Faith! God Bless you all!