What does it mean that to the pure all things are pure (Titus 1:15)?

But there is a reality worth clinging to. To the pure all things are pure: everything in creation has a proper place and function. To be pure is to be unmixed as regards motives and character, and therefore to regard things in their proper perspective, in uncorrupted simplicity. But those who have no faith are defiled or adulterated by sin's corruption, and consider nothing to be pure. Even their minds and consciences are defiled. Witness the present-day callous disregard for the sanctity of the marriage bond, the revolting abuse known as homosexuality, the prevalence of lies and hypocrisy; and all this mixed with a measure of religiousness! Their minds no doubt are active, but adroit enough to so rationalize as to twist truth totally out of its perspective; and knowledge becomes a deadly weapon rather than a help to a noble end. And conscience, though it cannot help but speak, becomes so defiled as to be ignored. How much better is "a pure conscience," one not adulterated by the strong desires of the flesh.

Here we do well to watch against a too common misconception of the opening words of ver. 15. They do not mean "to, or in, the mind of the pure," but for their use. How many victims of passion and lust, particularly among men and women accepted as holding a sacred position, have vainly sought to extract from this holy saying an excuse and cover for their iniquities! May we be kept from every illusion of the flesh and every delusion of our subtle enemy.

Duty depends upon relationship, and relationship on the revelation of God in Christ our life. Otherwise we are only in our sins. Such once were we all: not all gross, nor all externally shameful, as were some. But now through grace we were washed, but we were sanctified, but we were justified in the name of the Lord Jesus and by the Spirit of our God. Such then is the source of Christian purity; and it is so much the more truly ours, because it is of God; Who, as He has called, will also keep His own, through our Lord Jesus — loved in the world, and loved unto the end. To such all things are pure, because they themselves are pure. It is no question now of abstinence from this or that; of allowance of legal sanctity; of fleshly uncleanness. The will of God as expressed by His word directs the believer, as we see its perfection in the Lord Jesus.

This, and not the law, is the true rule of life for the Christian. Without Christ there can be nothing but a rule of death. And to the defiled and unbelieving nothing is pure. What was forbidden provoked the flesh to desire it. Stolen waters were sweet; and so it is still where Christ is unknown. Nothing is pure to the defiled and unbelieving, but both their mind and their conscience are defiled: an awful sentence morally, but most true. It is not only that their lower nature is corrupt, but the highest part of them, even that which ought to delight in good, and presumes to discuss divine things and God Himself, is no less defiled. Religion in such a condition is at least as impure and loathsome as anything else.

Man’s mind is defiled by all that engages it connected with the world, and the Christian’s mind will also be defiled if he gets occupied with what belongs to a defiled world. The Apostle Peter views the Christian’s mind as being pure, that is kept pure by the word of God, and therefore wrote, “This second epistle, beloved, I now write unto you; in both which I stir up your pure minds by way of remembrance” (2 Peter 3:1). We need to be constantly reminded of the great truths of Christianity, and to be ever meditating on them.

Writing to Titus, the Apostle Paul said, “Unto the pure all things are pure: but unto them that are defiled and unbelieving is nothing pure; but even their mind and conscience is defiled” (Titus 1:15). All pure things are pure to pure minds, but the defiled and unbelieving are unable to apprehend the purity of divine things, not having the divine nature and the pure mind that alone can enter into them. They can only see things through their impure and defiled sensibilities, so that everything is impure to them.

Now the bishops were to be men of soberness and sound in the faith, as we have seen, but all believers are to be sound in the faith as verse 13 shows. That is the thing of first importance. If we are right ourselves — pure ourselves — then all things are pure to us for the inward holiness preserves from infection. On the contrary, the defiled and unbelieving defile all they touch.

Moreover, he had still to speak concerning ordinances and traditions, those evil plagues in the church of God which provoke Him to jealousy, and which, by exalting man, are opposed to His grace. One thing was not pure, another was forbidden by an ordinance. God claims the heart. To the pure all things are pure; for him whose heart is defiled it needs not to go out of himself to find that which is impure; but convenient, in order to be able to forget what is within. The mind and conscience are already corrupt. They talk of knowing God, but in their works they deny Him, being unprofitable and reprobate as regards every work really good.

After this he adds another point of instruction: "Unto the pure all things are pure: but unto them that are defiled and unbelieving is nothing pure." How true! Unbelief always degrades even the precious word of God, turns it into a path of self, and in effect severs it from Christ. This accordingly is to make nothing pure. On the other hand, the power of the saint of God is the Holy Spirit acting on that life which is in Christ. He is speaking of practical ways here below. How great then is the spring that the believer possesses! Would that those who teach always knew where their secret of strength lies! It is the ability to mingle Christ with everything that comes before us, and that is incumbent on us. Hence, in contrast with the power of faith, which makes all things pure to the pure, the apostle speaks most solemnly of the character of those that believe not. "They profess that they know God, but in works they deny him, being abominable and disobedient, and unto every good work reprobate." What a filling up of the picture Christendom manifests at this day!

We are not in the immediate context directed to the person of Him Who makes all this folly and evil manifest; nor have we dogmatic unfolding of the gospel; but grand moral principles of the utmost moment are laid down. There is room for all, but each in its season, as God is pleased to suit His word to every one who hears the Shepherd's voice. "To the pure all things are pure." How plain and assuring to those who are subject to the Lord! How vain, in presence of such a declaration, to say that "the church" forbids flesh to be eaten on a Friday or in Lent! The value of a real fast is not denied thereby: it is really of grace in presence of adequate passing occasion, and never in the New Testament a general law, still less the sham of eating fish and eggs. Scripture, however, goes farther still, and, not content with maintaining the holy liberty of the Christian, denounces solemnly those who would infringe it.

"But to the defiled and unfaithful nothing is pure, but both the mind and the conscience are defiled." Having part neither in divine nature nor in divine light, to which they plainly prefer human thoughts, feelings, and authority, they necessarily become a prey to the enemy whose malicious pleasure it is to dishonour God in man's dark and alien ways. Defilement accordingly taints every spring of inward and moral affection, as it pervades their entire life, be they or not openly corrupt, and at any rate unfaithful.

An ignorant conscience is a very different thing from a defiled conscience. There were some who professed that they knew God, while in works they were denying Him. Such persons had a mind and a conscience alike defiled (Titus 1:15-16). But widely different is the case of the man who, while under impressions perhaps most erroneous, and altogether remote from those which a fuller light would produce, yet walks with pure intent under such impressions, as under a yoke which God has placed upon his neck. It would be a proof of spiritual weakness if a Christian abstained from meats. But so long as his observance of this scruple was not obtruded on the conscience of other men, as a thing absolutely right, he was not to be despised on account of what might seem to the more established saint a bondage of conscience unworthy of the liberty of Christ (verses 2, 3).

Knowledge then is spoken of in verse 13, and Paul shows clearly that in his own mind there is no shadow of doubt as to it — “I know, and am persuaded by the Lord Jesus, that there is nothing unclean of itself.” As regards the creation of God, a soul taught of God can discern that these things do not in themselves have any moral character of evil. The evil is of course in the heart of man who corrupts these things. But if a Christian does not have this discernment such as Paul had, then whatever he regards as unclean is unclean to him. If he indulges in it, his conscience cannot but be defiled.