CRITICAL AND EXPLANATORY NOTES
Titus 1:15. Unto the pure all things are pure.—This saying concentrates all the opposition to fictitious holiness and purity which made the apostle the object of the cordial hatred of Judaism. A greater than Paul had paid His life for similar teaching. Unto them that are defiled … nothing is pure.—The best food in vessels all foal will only be an object of loathing. Their mind.—Their practical reason. And conscience.—The human consciousness connected with action, and expressing itself regarding the moral value of it.
Titus 1:16. They profess.—“They declare, affirm.” This seems best in view of the “deny” which follows. Compare John 1:20: “He confessed, and denied not.” “Their confession is a true one so far, that they have the knowledge, and belie it” (Alford). Being abominable.—A strong word, meaning “to emit a stench.” For the idea of offensiveness to God compare Isaiah 65:5, and contrast 2 Corinthians 2:15; Ephesians 5:2.
MAIN HOMILETICS OF THE PARAGRAPH.— Titus 1:15-16
Moral Defilement—
I. Arises from unbelief.—“Unto them that are defiled and unbelieving is nothing pure” (Titus 1:15). Faith gives spiritual insight, and enables us to distinguish the moral qualities of things. Purity, like the forgiveness of sin, is attained through faith. “Whatsoever is not of faith is sin” (Romans 14:23). Unbelief is itself defiling, and leads to increased defilement. If men really believed in virtue they would never commit the wickedness they do.
II. Affects the whole man.—“Even their mind and conscience is defiled” (Titus 1:15). The mind is the mental sense and intelligence. Conscience is the moral consciousness of the conformity or discrepancy between our motives and acts on the one hand, and God’s law on the other. A conscience and a mind defiled are represented as the source of the errors opposed in the Pastoral epistles (Fausset). When the conscience is defiled, the whole soul is defiled. “Trust that man in nothing,” said Sterne, “who has not a conscience in everything.” When the compass loses its proper polarity at sea, the whole course of the vessel might be altered by it; and when the conscience loses its right direction, its responsibility to God, its deference and inclination to His law by its continued violation of the higher duties, the heart is filled with fears, and the dispensations of Providence are suspected to be judgments when they may be real and satisfying mercies.
III. Is evident in the outward life (Titus 1:16).—The profession of godliness is a lie, and there is no abomination with which the conduct may not be polluted, though expressing abhorrence of things indifferent. Disobedience to God and lack of faith in goodness produce a spirit of inveterate wickedness which will issue in final rejection. A sinful life when tested will be found utterly worthless, and will be eternally reprobated.
IV. Purity is not in outward things, but in a right state of the heart.—“Unto the pure all things are pure” (Titus 1:15). Material things have no moral quality. They are pure or impure according to the disposition and moral state of him who uses them. In the first ages of the Church a traveller exhausted with his journey called on Spiridion, Bishop of Cyprus, on a day which the Church had set apart for fasting. Spiridion instantly ordered refreshments, and invited him by his own example to eat. “No, I must not eat,” said the stranger, “because I am a Christian.” “And because you are a Christian,” replied the bishop, “you may eat without scruple, agreeably to the decision of an apostle—‘Unto the pure all things are pure.’ ”
Lessons.—
1. Unbelief is more a moral than a mental obliquity.
2. Sin is at the root of false doctrine.
3. The heart is purified by faith in the truth.
GERM NOTES ON THE VERSES
Titus 1:15. Purity.
I. To the pure all things and all persons are pure, because their purity makes all seem pure.
II. To the pure all things not only seem pure, but are really so, because they are made such.
III. All situations are pure to the pure.
Lessons.—
1. We learn to understand the Fall.
2. We learn to understand the Millennium. These things are not to be for ever.—F. W. Robertson.
Purity of Heart leading to Purity of Life.
I. The heart is the source of life.
II. Defilement has a tendency to spread.
Titus 1:16. The Judgment of Hypocrisy.
I. Hypocrisy the occasion of atheism.
II. Is offensive even to the ungodly.
III. Is practical disobedience.
IV. Is universally condemned.—F. W.