This section, the last section in
chapter 1, has 4 verses.
To set the stage, let us read the previous four
verses.
Titus 1:9-12
9 Holding fast the faithful word as he hath been
taught, that he may be able by sound doctrine both
to exhort and to convince the gainsayers.
10 For there are many unruly and vain talkers and
deceivers, specially they of the circumcision:
11 Whose mouths must be stopped, who subvert whole
houses, teaching things which they ought not, for
filthy lucre's sake.
12 One of themselves, even a prophet of their own,
said, The Cretians are alway liars, evil beasts,
slow bellies.
Now to the last four verses of the chapter
Titus 1:13-16
13 This witness is true. Wherefore rebuke them
sharply, that they may be sound in the faith;
14 Not giving heed to Jewish fables, and
commandments of men, that turn from the truth.
15 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.
16 They profess that they know God; but in works
they deny him, being abominable, and disobedient,
and unto every good work reprobate.
We will begin with the Barclay. This commentary
covering all four verses [13-16]. The first
three sentences are verses 13-16 paraphrased.
THE PURE IN HEART
For that very reason correct them with severity,
that they may grow healthy in the faith and not pay
attention to Jewish fables and to rules and
regulations made by men who persist in turning their
backs on the truth.
‘To the pure, all things are pure.’
But, to those who are defiled and who do not
believe, nothing is pure, because their mind and
conscience are defiled. They profess to know God,
but they deny their profession by their deeds,
because they are repulsive and disobedient and
useless for any good work.
THE great characteristic of the Jewish faith was its
thousands of rules and regulations. Many things were
branded as unclean; many kinds of food were
classified as forbidden. When Judaism and Gnosticism
joined hands, even the body became unclean, and the
natural instincts of the body were held to be evil.
The inevitable result was that long lists of sins
were constantly being created. It became a sin to
touch certain things; it became a sin to eat certain
foods; it even became a sin to marry and to have
children. Things which were either good in
themselves or quite natural were considered unclean.
It is the heart which makes all the difference. If
someone is pure in heart, all things are pure to
that person. If someone is unclean in heart, then
everything that person thinks about or speaks about
or touches becomes unclean. This was a principle
which the great classical writers had often stated.
‘Unless the vessel is pure,’ said Horace,
‘everything you pour into it grows bitter.’ Seneca
said: ‘Just as a diseased stomach alters the food
which it receives, so the darkened mind turns
everything you commit to it to its own burden and
ruin. Nothing can come to evil men which is of any
good to them, nay nothing can come to them which
does not actually harm them. They change whatever
touches them into their own nature. And even things
which would be of profit to others become pernicious
[harmful] to them.’ The person with a dirty mind
makes everything dirty, taking even the loveliest
things and covering them with smut. But the person
whose mind is pure finds purity in everything.
It is said of these people that both their minds and
their consciences are contaminated. We come to
decisions and form conclusions by using two
faculties. We use intellect to think things out; we
use conscience to listen to the voice of God. But if
the intellect is warped in such a way that it sees
the unclean everywhere and in all things, and if the
conscience is darkened and numbed by continual
consent to what is evil, it becomes impossible to
take any good decision at all.
If we allow impurity to infect the mind, we will see
all things through a mist of uncleanness. The
infected mind soils every thought that enters into
it; the imagination turns every picture which it
forms into a source of lust. Every motive is
misinterpreted. Every statement is given a double
meaning. To escape that uncleanness, we must walk in
the cleansing presence of Jesus Christ.
THE UGLY AND THE USELESS LIFE
WHEN people get into this state of impurity, they
may know God intellectually but their lives are a
denial of that knowledge. Three things are singled
out here about such people.
(1) They are repulsive. The word (bdeluktos) is the
word particularly used of idols and images. It is
the word from which the noun bdelugma, an
abomination, comes. There is something repulsive
about someone with an obscene mind, who makes
sniggering jokes and whose comments are full of
innuendo.
(2) They are disobedient. Such people cannot obey
the will of God. Their consciences are darkened.
They have made it almost impossible for themselves
to hear the voice of God, let alone obey it. People
like that cannot be anything but an evil influence
and are therefore unfit to be instruments in the
hand of God.
(3) That is just another way of saying that they
have become useless to God and to others. The word
used for useless (adokimos) is interesting. It is
used to describe a counterfeit coin which is below
standard weight. It is used to describe a cowardly
soldier who fails in the testing hour of battle. It
is used of a candidate rejected for public office,
someone whom the citizens regarded as useless. It is
used of a stone which the builders rejected. (If
a stone had a flaw in it, it was marked with a
capital A, for adokimos, and left to one side, as
being unfit to have any place in the building.)
The ultimate test of life is usefulness, and those
who are a bad influence and who have a contaminating
effect are of no use to God or to other people.
Instead of helping God’s work in the world, they
hinder it; and uselessness always invites disaster.
~Barclay Commentary
Now to the other commentaries. We will begin with
the general commentaries and spend this whole less
there.
This from the Matthew Henry Main where I am breaking
in to a long commentary covering verses 6-16.
6. He gives the reasons of this, from the liberty we
have by the gospel from legal observances, and the
evil and mischief of a Jewish spirit under the
Christian dispensation in the last two verses. To
good Christians that are sound in the faith and
thereby purified all things are pure. Meats and
drinks, and such things as were forbidden under the
law (the observances of
which some still maintain), in these
there is now no such distinction, all are pure (lawful
and free in their use), but to those that
are defiled and unbelieving nothing is pure; things
lawful and good they abuse and turn to sin; they
suck poison out of that from which others draw
sweetness; their mind and conscience, those leading
faculties, being defiled, a taint is communicated to
all they do. The sacrifice of the wicked is an
abomination to the Lord, Proverbs 15:8. And Proverbs
21:4, The ploughing of the wicked is sin, not in
itself, but as done by him; the carnality of the
mind and heart mars all the labour of the hand.
~Matthew Henry Main
Note: I want to
make a clear distinction here. The things that
are pure are all the things that are lawful before
God. What is being referred to here are the massive
amount of added law by the Jews of the time.
We are absolutely not speaking to clean and unclean
meats here. Unclean meats remain unclean for
all time.
Now to the Matthew Henry Concise which covers verses
10-16,
False teachers are described. Faithful ministers
must oppose such in good time, that their folly
being made manifest, they may go no further They had
a base end in what they did; serving a worldly
interest under pretence of religion: for the love of
money is the root of all evil. Such should be
resisted, and put to shame, by sound doctrine from
the Scriptures. Shameful actions, the reproach of
heathens, should be far from Christians; falsehood
and lying, envious craft and cruelty, brutal and
sensual practices, and idleness and sloth, are sins
condemned even by the light of nature. But Christian
meekness is as far from cowardly passing over sin
and error, as from anger and impatience. And though
there may be national differences of character, yet
the heart of man in every age and place is deceitful
and desperately wicked. But the sharpest reproofs
must aim at the good of the reproved; and soundness
in the faith is most desirable and necessary. To
those who are defiled and unbelieving, nothing is
pure; they abuse, and turn things lawful and good
into sin. Many profess to know God, yet in their
lives deny and reject him. See the miserable state
of hypocrites, such as have a form of godliness, but
are without the power; yet let us not be so ready to
fix this charge on others, as careful that it does
not apply to ourselves.
~Matthew Henry Concise
Now a couple of items from the Biblical
Illustrator. This subject of purity can be a
complex one and its explanation in the Biblical
Illustrator can be abundantly wordy. You are
not going to get absolute clarity with my reading of
it. You will have to slowly read and reread
this and do some meditation and even some praying.
Purity
I. Who are meant by pure persons. The persons
here called pure are such as by faith are set into
Christ [are firstfruits], by whose blood they are justified, and by
whose Spirit, through the means of the Word, that
immortal seed of regeneration, they are sanctified
and reserved unto life everlasting. And hence to
both these is the purifying and cleansing of sinners
ascribed in the Scriptures.
1. Because by faith every member of the Church
layeth hold upon Christ’s most absolute purity.
2. The spirit of regeneration hath washed every
part, although in part only, nor so clean as it
shall be, yet so as that perfect purity is sealed
and assured to the soul by it.
3. The Lord doth account every such believer pure
even for the present, and imputeth never a spot unto
them, but reputeth in His Christ all fair.
4. Hath promised them that for time to come they
shall become so absolutely clean as though they had
never been defiled.
II. How all things are pure or impure.
1. Seeing all things were pure in their creation, we
may herein, as in a glass, behold the purity of God
in all His creatures, admiring that goodness of His
which bewrayed [shows] itself even in the meanest of
them; yea, provoking ourselves to love, reverence
and fear before Him, the image of whose goodness
shineth out not only in angels and men, but even in
the silly worm and fly, yea in the lifeless
creatures themselves. And further, hence we may
gather our own duty towards the creatures, namely
(1) Reverently meditate and speak of them.
(2) Purely to use them.
(3) Mercifully to deal with them. All which we shall
the easier do if we can spy out some part of God’s
image in them.
2. The restitution of us to our former right is only
from our Lord Jesus Christ, and our first right is
recovered to us in this manner. First, as we were at
odds with the Creator, and consequently with the
creature, even so first we are reconciled unto God
through Christ, and then to the creatures; for when
Christ (who is our peace)
hath wrought our peace with God, He bringeth back
our peace, both the inward peace of our own
consciences, which before could do nothing but
accuse and terrify, as also peace with others,
friends and enemies, yea even with the beast of the
field, and stone in the wall, and everything
striketh a covenant of peace with him who hath
entered into league with the Creator of it. If any
man, then, would have any right in any creature he
useth, he must not hold it by the broken title in
the first Adam, but by a recovered and new purchase
in the second Adam, who is the Lord of glory,
blessed forever.
III. How all things are pure to the pure. That we
may rightly and properly conceive the apostle’s
meaning, we must know
1. That the universal particle “all things”
admitteth restraint, and may not be extended beyond
the apostle’s intendment, who speaketh only of such
things as are not forbidden by the law of God, or
nature; or rather only of things of an indifferent
nature, which in themselves are neither commanded
nor forbidden, and neither good nor evil in their
substance and nature, but are to be used or not used
according to the circumstances and occasions of
them; such things as these are meat, drink, apparel,
recreation, sleep, marriage, single life, riches,
poverty, bondage, freedom, etc. And it may not seem
strange thus to restrain this general proposition,
seeing we have it thus limited in sundry other
places (1 Corinthians 6:4). “All things are lawful,
but not profitable” (1 Corinthians 10:23). “All
things are lawful for me, but not expedient” (Romans
14:20). “All things indeed ere pure, but destroy not
for meats,” etc.
Quoted verses:
1 Corinthians 6:4
If then ye have judgments of things pertaining to
this life, set them to judge who are least esteemed
in the church.
1 Corinthians 10:23
All things are lawful for me, but all things are not
expedient: all things are lawful for me, but all
things edify not.
Romans 14:20
For meat destroy not the work of God. All things
indeed are pure; but it is evil for that man who
eateth with offence.
2. By pure is meant nothing else but that all such
things are free now to be used in good conscience,
without scruple, by means of our Christian liberty.
3. In that he addeth “to the pure,” he showeth how
we come to have title in this liberty, even by
becoming believers and getting our hearts purified
by faith. In one word, all indifferent things are
pure, and free to be used of the pure and believing
person, with this one condition; so they be purely
and rightly [lawfully] used.
Purity of mind indispensable
I. The import of the terms. By “the pure” is not
meant sinless. Evangelical purity is connected with
faith (1 Peter 1:22; Acts 15:9). The mind and
conscience are governing powers; if they be
polluted, all the man is so.
Quoted verses:
1 Peter 1:22
Seeing ye have purified your souls in obeying the
truth through the Spirit unto unfeigned love of the
brethren, see that ye love one another with a pure
heart fervently:
Acts 15:9
And put no difference between us and them, purifying
their hearts by faith.
Note: The "us
and them" here are the Jews and Gentiles; the
circumcised and uncircumcised.
II. Illustrate the sentiment.
1. On a believing mind the doctrines of Christ will
have a sanctifying effect, and the contrary on an
unbelieving mind.
2. On a believing mind precepts and even
threatenings produce a salutary effect.
3. Mercies and judgments humble, melt, and soften
some, but harden others.
4. The evils which occur amongst men, differently
influence different characters.
5. The treatment received from men brings out the
state of the heart.
Even their mind and conscience is defiled
The faithlessness of conscience
Note: The text below is speaking about
the defiled mind.
That the conscience is so perverted in our present
condition, that no confidence can be placed in its
decision, is evident.
I. From the fact that these decisions can be correct
in no other cases but those in which Divine truth is
fully understood.
II. That the decisions of conscience are not always
in accordance with the truth is evident from the
fact that sinners are not always convinced of sin.
III. This position is also sustained by the fact
that the agency of the Holy Spirit is requisite to
convince the world of sin.
IV. The faithlessness of conscience is apparent in
the fact that hypocrites have not always an
appalling sense of their hypocrisy.
V. This view of the subject is strengthened by the
fact that even Christians do not always detect their
own sins.
VI. This doctrine is evident from the fact that
there is no command in the Scriptures to follow the
dictates of conscience.
VII. And while there is no direction to follow the
dictates of conscience, it is true that the
Scriptures designate different consciences, and
perhaps different states of the same conscience, by
different and directly opposite terms.
VIII. This view of the subject is confirmed by the
fact that the way to ruin seems to be the way of
peace and eternal life. This is a very common and
perhaps a general trait of the human family. The
light that is in them by nature is darkness. They
discern not the way in which they should go.
RECAP
Besides the false doctrines and false teachers that
abound then and now, certain men, such as the
Pharisees and Scribes had added all kinds of laws to
the true Christian faith.
As we saw in verse 14, these Jewish fables and
commandments of men had the power to turn us from
the truth.
These individuals who create these commandments of
men have turned their backs on the truth.
Three things we know about these individuals:
1] They are repulsive.
2] They are disobedient.
3] They are useless to God and others.
To the faithful firstfruit, all things are pure.
That is, all things God made are good and have their
place in the world.
Firstfruits do all things on earth lawfully.
Firstfruits let God and His Word direct their lives
The vain talkers and deceivers do not heed God.
Shameful actions and the reproach of heathens should
be far from Christians.
Firstfruits should not be too ready to judge
hypocrites so much as they be focused on the self to
make sure we gather no traits of the hypocrites.
We are in a process created by God to the purifying
and cleansing of sinners ascribed in the Scriptures.
Firstfruits spend their lives laying hold of the
purity of Christ.
God made all things on the earth in purity. In
nature, we can see God in every animal, plant and
rock that He made.
The phrase, "all things are pure" comes with
restraint meaning that we can use all things and do
all things only in accordance with law and the Word
of God.
All things are pure, and free to be used of the pure
and believing person, with this one condition; so
they be purely and rightly [lawfully] used.
Evangelical purity is connected with faith [1 Peter
1:22].
The doctrines of God have a sanctifying effect on
the firstfruit mind.
Not all hypocrites know that they are hypocrites.
There is nothing in scripture commanding us to
follow the dictates of conscience. We are to follow
the dictates of God. The power of God works with
your conscience to do all things lawfully.
These are the lessons of verse 15. |