Titus 1:15

Tit_1:15

Unto the pure all things are pure

The supreme importance of moral character

1.

There is an essential difference in the moral characters of men.

2. The outward world is to men according to this difference.

I. The morally pure in relation to all things.

1. In relation to appearance. A good man is neither given to suspicion nor censoriousness; he sees some good in all men.

2. In relation to influence. A good man, like the bee, can extract honey from the bitterest plant; or, like the AEolian harp, can turn the shrieking wind into music.

3. In relation to appropriation. A corrupt soul appropriates, even from the most strengthening and refreshing means of spiritual improvement, that which weakens and destroys.

II. The morally defiled in relation to all things.

1. The sphere of the defilement.

2. The cause of the defilement.

3. The hideousness of the defilement. (D. Thomas, D. D.)

Purity

For the evils of this world there are two classes of remedies--one is the worlds, the other is Gods. The world proposes to remedy evil by adjusting the circumstances of this life to mans desires. The world says, give us a perfect set of circumstances, and then we shall have a set of perfect men. This principle lies at the root of the system called socialism. Socialism proceeds on the principle that all moral and even physical evil arises from unjust laws. If the cause be remedied, the effect will be good. But Christianity throws aside all that as merely chimerical. It proves that the fault is not in outward circumstances, but in ourselves. Like the wise physician, who, instead of busying himself with transcendental theories to improve the climate, and the outward circumstances of man, endeavours to relieve and get rid of the tendencies of disease which are from within, Christianity, leaving all outward circumstances to ameliorate themselves, fastens its attention on the spirit which has to deal with them.

I. The principle that St. Paul has here laid down is, that each man is the creator of his own world; he walks in a universe of his own creation. As the free air is to one out of health the cause of cold and diseased lungs, so to the healthy man it is a source of greater vigour. The rotten fruit is sweet to the worm, but nauseous to the palate of man. It is the same air and the same fruit acting differently upon different beings. To different men a different world--to one all pollution--to another all purity. To the noble all things are noble, to the mean all things are contemptible. In its strictest sense, the creation of a new man is the creation of a new universe. Conceive an eye so constructed as that the planets and all within them should be minutely seen, and all that is near should be dim and invisible like things seen through a telescope, or as we see through a magnifying glass the plumage of the butterfly, and the bloom upon the peach; then it is manifestly clear that we have called into existence actually a new creation, and not new objects. The minds eye creates a world for itself. Again, the visible world presents a different aspect to each individual man. One man sees in that noble river an emblem of eternity; he closes his lips and feels that God is there. Another sees nothing in it but a very convenient road for transporting his spices, silks, and merchandise. To one this world appears useful, to another beautiful. Whence comes the difference? From the soul within us. It can make of this world a vast chaos--a mighty maze without a plan; or a mere machine--a collection of lifeless forces; or it can make it the living vesture of God, the tissue through which He can become visible to us. In the spirit in which we look on it the world is an arena for mere self-advancement, or a place for noble deeds, in which self is forgotten, and God is all. Observe, this effect is traceable even in that produced by our different and changeful moods. We make and unmake a world more than once in the space of a single day. In trifling moods all seems trivial. In serious moods all seems solemn.

II. There are two ways in which this principle is true.

1. To the pure, all things and all persons are pure, because their purity makes all seem pure. There are some who go through life complaining of this world; they say they have found nothing but treachery and deceit; the poor are ungrateful, and the rich are selfish, yet we do not find such the best men. Experience tells us that each man most keenly and unerringly detects in others the vice with which he is most familiar himself. Persons seem to each man what he is himself. One who suspects hypocrisy in the world is rarely transparent; the man constantly on the watch for cheating is generally dishonest; he who suspects impurity is prurient. This is the principle to which Christ alludes when He says, Give alms of such things as ye have; and behold all things are clean unto you. Once more, to the pure all things are pure, as well as all persons. That which is natural lies not in things, but in the minds of men. There is a difference between prudery and modesty. Prudery detects wrong where no wrong is; the wrong lies in the thoughts, and not in the objects. There is something of over-sensitiveness and over-delicacy which shows not innocence, but an inflammable imagination. And men of the world cannot understand that those subjects and thoughts which to them are full of torture, can be harmless, suggesting nothing evil to the pure in heart. Here, however, beware! No sentence of Scripture is more frequently in the lips of persons who permit themselves much license, than the text, To the pure, all things are pure. Yes, all things natural, but not artificial--scenes which pamper the tastes, which excite the senses. Innocence feels healthily. To it all nature is pure. But, just as the dove trembles at the approach of the hawk, and the young calf shudders at the lion never seen before, so innocence shrinks instinctively from what is wrong by the same Divine instinct. If that which is wrong seems pure, then the heart is not pure but vitiated. To the right minded all that is right in the course of this world seems pure.

2. Again, to the pure, all things not only seem pure, but are really so because they are made such.

(1) As regards persons. It is a marvellous thing to see how a pure and innocent heart purifies all that it approaches. The most ferocious natures are soothed and tamed by innocence. And so with human beings, there is a delicacy so pure, that vicious men in its presence become almost pure; all of purity which is in them is brought out; like attaches itself to like. The pure heart becomes a centre of attraction, round which similar atoms gather, and from which dissimilar ones are repelled. A corrupt heart elicits in an hour all that is bad in us; a spiritual one brings out and draws to itself all that is best and purest. Such was Christ.

(2) Lastly, all situations are pure to the pure. According to the world, some professions are reckoned honourable, and some dishonourable. Men judge according to a standard merely conventional, and not by that of moral rectitude. Yet it was in truth, the men who were in these situations which made them such. In the days of the Redeemer, the publicans occupation was a degraded one, merely because low base men filled that place. But since He was born into the world a poor, labouring man, poverty is noble and dignified, and toil is honourable. To the man who feels that the kings daughter is all glorious within, no outward situation can seem inglorious or impure. (F. W. Robertson, M. A.)

Purity

I. Who are meant by pure persons. The persons here called pure are such as by faith are set into Christ, 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 Christs 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 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 Gods image in them.

2. Consider our misery, and the woeful fruit of our sin, which hath debarred us from all comfort in heaven and earth, from God or any of His creatures. The sweetest sins would carry a bitter taste, if we would but remember what sweet comfort of the creatures we have forfeited for them.

3. 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. II 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 apostles meaning, we must know

1. That the universal particle all things admitteth restraint, and may not be extended beyond the apostles 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 (1Co_6:4). All things are lawful, but not profitable (1Co_10:23). All things are lawful for me, but not expedient (Rom_14:20). All things indeed ere pure, but destroy not for meats, etc.

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 used. (T. Taylor, D. D.)

Purity of mind indispensable

I. The import of the terms. By the pure is not meant sinless. Evangelical purity is connected with faith (1Pe_1:22; Act_15:9). The mind and conscience are governing powers; if they be polluted, all the man is so.

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. (A. Fuller.)

Purity

A pure lake is beautiful as it reflects the loveliness of the heavens, but a pure heart is more beautiful as it reflects the loveliness of God. (W. M. Statham, M. A.)

Even their mind and conscience is defiled

The faithlessness of conscience

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 pot 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.

Lessons:--From this subject I infer

I. That God has placed no rule of duty within ourselves. Our reason was never designed to be our guide in spiritual things. Its only office is to understand the things which God has revealed in His Word, and in all cases reverently to bow to His authority. So long as its eyes are not opened by the power of the Holy Spirit, the understanding is in deplorable darkness. And even if it were capable of discerning all the principles of duty, its office is to gather them from the Word of God.

II. The subject teaches us that to live conscientiously is not in all cases to live godly. Conscience in its decisions has respect to some principles of life. These principles may be the fruit of our own reason. In this case, the decision will approach no nearer to truth than the principles are according to which the decision is made. Or it may decide according to the maxims of duty which it has learned from others. In this instance, as in the former, its decisions can claim no higher authority or greater correctness than the maxims according to which they are made. Or, if even the Scriptures be the rule according to which the decisions are made, then it will follow that the decisions themselves must be affected by the blindness of the understanding and by the weakness of conscience itself. And hence, to live conscientiously may vary widely from living accordingly to the commands of God.

III. The subject teaches what estimate to set on professions of acting conscientiously.

IV. The subject suggests the importance of praying for the purification of our conscience.

V. The subject suggests that our condition is very deplorable. We are exceedingly inclined to rely on our understandings to discover the way of life, and on the testimony of our consciences that we are walking in it. But not only are our natural understandings too blind to discover it, but our consciences are exceedingly apt falsely to decide that we are walking in it, even while we are wandering in darkness. Thus we are liable to think we are something when we are nothing. The way which we take may seem right unto us, but the end thereof are the ways of death. (J. Foot, D. D.)

Pollution of mind and conscience

By the mind is meant the whole understanding part of the soul, which, being the eye of the soul, carrieth with it reason, judgment, and election. The pollution of which, is, to be taken up with darkness and blindness (1Co_2:14); to be filled with vanity (Eph_4:17); with fleshliness (Col_2:18); in so much as all the natural wisdom of man is fleshly and devilish. By conscience is meant that faculty of the soul which, by applying particular things judged of and done, doth determine them either with or against them; which, depending upon the former, must necessarily be led into the errors of it, no otherwise than one blind man is led by another into a ditch. The pollution of it is when it is either idle or ill occupied; the former, when it is sleepy, senseless, or seared, doing nothing at all, neither accusing, nor excusing; the latter, when it doth both these, but neither of them as it ought, but accuseth where it should excuse, and excuse where it ought to accuse.

I. We have here a good argument of the divinity of scripture, in that it can, and doth (as God Himself) enter upon, and judge the thoughts of men; and of men themselves (not as men) from things without, but from things within, even according to their cleanness or uncleanness before God. From this argument the apostle proverb the same thing (Heb_4:12).

II. We learn further, what is the estate of a man unregenerate, whom the apostle setteth out thus.

1. He is one that is unclean.

2. An unbeliever.

3. One to whom nothing is pure.

4. His mind.

5. His conscience is polluted.

In all which respects he is a most odious person, in whom is nothing but filthiness of flesh and spirit, the which the pure eyes of the Lord cannot abide.

III. Before this natural uncleanness be purged everything is unclean unto a man; the unbeliever tainteth everything that he toucheth; nothing within him, nothing without him, which is not polluted, although not in his own nature, yet unto him and in his use. Let a natural man turn him to any action, word, or thought, all of them, not excepting the best, are against God, because they proceed from unclean minds and consciences.

1. His actions spiritual, even his best services, as praying, hearing, reading, receiving the sacraments, alms, all these being the sacrifices of the wicked, are abomination unto the Lord, who first looketh to the person, and then to the gift, who if he turn his ear from hearing the law, even his prayer is abominable; if he choose his own ways, let him kill a bullock for sacrifice, it is all one as if he slew a man; if he be a polluted person that toucheth any of these holy things, shall they not be unclean? Yes, surely, the most Divine ordinances are turned to him to sin; for the Lord first requireth pure parts, and then pure actions (Eze_36:26).

2. His civil actions, his honest dealing in the world, his buying, selling, giving, lending, his labour, care, yea, all the duties of his calling, are in and to him no better than sins.

3. His natural actions, as eating, drinking, sleeping, recreation, physic, all are unclean unto him.

4. All Gods creatures and human ordinances, as meat, drink, clothes, goods, lands, buildings, marriage, single estate; in a word, the whole way of the wicked is abomination to the Lord (Pro_15:9). All these are witnesses of his sin and filthiness, all of them are enlargers of his woe and damnation, because he wanteth faith to lay hold on the Lord Jesus, whereby the just do live, have their heart purified, and so are made lords over the creatures. (T. Taylor, D. D.)

Defilement of mind and conscience

The mind is more than the mere intellective faculty, and includes the activity of the will; and conscience is the moral self-consciousness which brings self, and the fact, and the entire behaviour of the soul and spirit, into judgment. This conscience may be good in the sense of being approving, or in the sense of being active; it may be evil in that it is torpid, seared or dead, and also in respect of its being accusing or condemnatory. Defilement of mind must mean that thoughts, ideas, desires, purposes, activities, are all corrupted and debased. Defilement of conscience would mean that the sentinel sent to watch was bribed to hold his peace, or that the guide to loftier standard was eagerly applying some base-born, man-made perilous rule as all-sufficient. (H. R. Reynolds, D. D.)

A pure conscience cast aside

In the majority of cases conscience is an elastic and very flexible article, which will bear a deal of stretching, and adapt itself to a great variety of circumstances. Some people by prudent management, and leaving it off piece by piece, like a flannel waistcoat in warm weather, even contrive in time to dispense with it altogether; but there be others who can assume the garment and throw it off at pleasure; and this, being the greatest and most convenient improvement, is the one most in vogue. (Old Curiosity Shop.)

The Biblical Illustrator, edited by Joseph S. Exell (c. 1880s–1900s) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

Tit 1:15-16. Unto the pure — Namely, believers whose hearts are purified by faith, Act 15:9; all things are pure — All kinds of meats are lawful to be used; but unto them that are defiled — Who are still under the guilt and power of sin; and unbelieving — Destitute of true, saving faith, to purify them; nothing is pure — Nothing they do, enjoy, or possess: they are still defiled with guilt, and are exposed to condemnation and wrath from God. The apostle joins defiled and unbelieving, to intimate that nothing can be clean without true faith. For even their mind — Their understanding, whereby they should distinguish between what is lawful and what is unlawful, and their conscience, whereby they should judge of their own actions; is defiled — Blinded, perverted, and polluted with past guilt and present depravity; and consequently so are they, and all they do. They profess that they know God — And glory in their relation to him as his peculiar people, and boast of having the true knowledge of his will from the Mosaic revelation; see Rom 2:17; but in works they deny him — Live in contradiction to the very law they profess to know, as if they were utterly ignorant of him and it; being abominable — Worthy to be abhorred and avoided by all; and disobedient — To the plainest dictates of duty to God and man; and unto — Or, with respect to; every truly good work reprobate — Αδοκιμοι, without discernment; neither judging truly, nor acting rightly: or disapproved and condemned, when brought to the standard of God’s word, though almost among the first to condemn others.

Joseph Benson's Commentary on the Old and New Testaments (1811–1818) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

CRITICAL AND EXPLANATORY NOTES

Tit_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.

Tit_1:16. They profess.—“They declare, affirm.” This seems best in view of the “deny” which follows. Compare Joh_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 Isa_65:5, and contrast 2Co_2:15; Eph_5:2.

MAIN HOMILETICS OF THE PARAGRAPH.—Tit_1:15-16

Moral Defilement—

I. Arises from unbelief.—“Unto them that are defiled and unbelieving is nothing pure” (Tit_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” (Rom_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” (Tit_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 (Tit_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” (Tit_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

Tit_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.

Tit_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.

The Preacher's Complete Homiletical Commentary (gen. ed. Joseph S. Exell; Funk & Wagnalls, c. 1892) — public domain (pre-1929). A full-Bible homiletical/sermon-outline anthology covering 65 of 66 books (2 John is absent from the source module). Text from a community e-Sword module.

1:15-16 These two verses comment on the people of 1:14 and their commands, while transitioning to a discussion of wholesome teaching (2:1–3:11).

1:15 Cp. 1 Tim 4:3-5.

Tyndale Open Study Notes — © Tyndale Open Resources, licensed CC BY-SA 4.0. Text via the HelloAO Bible API.

Tit 1:15. Πάντα μὲν, all things indeed) The defenders of fables and of the commandments of men used this pretext, which Paul sweeps away.—τοῖς καθαροῖς, to the pure) Supply, and to the faithful, taken from the antithesis (unto the unbelieving); 1Ti 4:3; Act 15:9; Rom 14:23. All outward things are pure to those who are pure within.—μεμιασμένοις, to them that are defiled) This is discussed presently.—ἀπίστοις, to the unbelieving) This is discussed in Tit 1:16.—οὐδὲν) nothing, either within, or consequently without.—νοῦς, their intelligence, mind) Rom 14:5.—συνείδησις, conscience) concerning things which are to be done, or that have been done; 1Co 8:7.

Bengel's Gnomon of the New Testament — English translation (T&T Clark, Edinburgh, 1860) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

Tit_1:15. The apostle, bearing in mind the prohibitions of the heretics, opposes to them a general principle which shows their worthlessness.

πάντα καθαρὰ τοῖς καθαροῖς] πάντα quite generally: all things in themselves, with which a man may simply have to do, but not a mans actions, nor, as Heydenreich thinks, the errors of the heretics. The usual explanation which limits the bearing of the words to the arbitrary rules of the heretics regarding food and other things, is only so far right that Paul lays down his general principle with special reference to these rules; but πάντα itself should be taken quite generally. Even the exposition of Matthies: all that falls into the sphere of the individual wants of life, places an unsuitable limitation on the meaning. Chrysostom rightly: οὐδὲν ὁ Θεὸς ἀκάθαρτον ἐποίησεν.

καθαρά as the predicate of πάντα is to be connected with it by supplying ἐστί: all is pure, viz. τοῖς καθαροῖς. Bengel: omnia externa iis, qui intus sunt mundi, munda sunt. Many expositors wrongly refer the conception of καθαροί to knowledge, as Jerome: qui sciunt omnem creaturam bonam esse, or as Beza: quibus notum est libertatis per Christum partae beneficium. It should rather be taken as referring to disposition: to those who have a pure heart everything is pure (not: to them everything passes for pure), i.e. as to the pure, things outside of them have no power to render them impure. From the same point of view we have in the Testam. XII. Patriarch. test. Benjam. chap. viii.: ὁ ἔχων διάνοιαν καθαρὰν ἐν ἀγάπῃ, οὐχ ὁρᾷ γυναῖκα εἰς πορνείαν· οὐ γὰρ ἔχει μιασμὸν ἐν τῇ καρδίᾳ. Kindred thoughts are found in Mat_23:26; Luk_11:41; comp. also the similar expression in Rom_14:20. On καθαροῖς, van Oosterzee remarks: By nature no one is pure; those here called καθαροί are those who have purified their heart by faith, Act_15:9. This is right, except that Paul is not thinking here of the means by which the man becomes καθαρός; the indication of this point is given afterwards in ἀπίστοις. The apostle purposely makes the sentence very emphatic, because it was with the distinction between pure and impure that the heretics occupied themselves so much.

The contrast to the first sentence is given in the words: τοῖς δὲ μεμιαμμένοις καὶ ἀπίστοις οὐδὲν καθαρόν. Regarding the form μεμιαμμένος, see Winer, p. 84 [E. T. p. 108] [also Veitch, Irregular Greek Verbs, s.v.]. The verb forms a simple contrast with καθαροῖς, and stands here not in a Levitical (Joh_18:28), but in an ethical sense, as in Heb_12:15; Jud_1:8. Καὶ ἀπίστοις is not an epexegesis of μεμιαμμ., but adds a new point to it, viz. the attitude of the heretics towards the saving truths of the gospel. The two words do not denote two different classes of men, as the article τοῖς is only used once. To these impure men nothing is pure, i.e. every external thing serves only to awaken within them impure lust

ἀλλὰ μεμίανται αὐτῶν καὶ ὁ νοῦς καὶ ἡ συνείδησις] This sentence expresses positively what οὐδὲν καθαρόν expressed negatively, at the same time furnishing the reason for the preceding thought. De Wettes opinion therefore is not correct, that for ἀλλά there should properly have been γάρ; the author, however, makes moral character equivalent to moral action. The relation of the two sentences is pretty much the same as if, e.g., we were to say: he is not rich, but his father has disinherited him. If Paul had used γάρ, the sentence would simply have furnished the reason for what preceded; ἀλλά, on the other hand, indicates the contrast. Still we must not conclude, with Hofmann, that the second sentence merely says the same thing as the first. It should be interpreted: but to them everything is impure, because their νοῦς and their συνείδησις are defiled.

Νοῦς and συνείδησις do not here denote the inner nature of man on the two sides of knowledge and will (so Hofmann). Νοῦς is the spiritual faculty of man acting in both directions; in N. T. usage the reference to action prevails, νοῦς being equivalent to the practical reason. Συνείδησις, on the other hand, is the human consciousness connected with action, and expressing itself regarding the moral value of action; it corresponds to conscience (see on 1Ti_1:3). The two conceptions are distinguished from each other by καὶ … καί, and at the same time closely connected. By this, however, no special emphasis is laid on the second word (formerly in this commentary). In Tit_3:11 (αὐτοκατάκριτος) and 1Ti_4:2, the apostle again says as much as that the conscience of the heretics was defiled. Though the thought contained in this verse is quite general in character, Paul wrote it with special reference to the heretics, and is therefore able to attach to it a further description of them.

Meyer — Critical and Exegetical Commentary on the New Testament — English translation by Peter Christie, edited by Frederick Crombie (T&T Clark, 1880) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

Tit 1:15 . πάντα καθαρὰ κ . τ . λ .: This is best understood as a maxim of the Judaic Gnostics, based on a perversion of the Saying πάντα καθαρὰ ὑμῖν ἐστιν (Luk 11:41 . Cf. Rom 14:20 ; Mar 7:18 .). St. Paul accepts it as a truth, but not in the intention of the speaker; and answers, τοῖς δὲ μεμιαμμένοις κ . τ . λ . The passage is thus, as regards its form, parallel to 1Co 6:12 sqq. , where St. Paul cites, and shows the irrelevancy of, two pleas for licence: “All things are lawful for me,” and “Meats for the belly, and the belly for meats”. τοῖς καθαροῖς is of course the dat. commodi, for the use of the pure, in their case , as in the parallels, Luk 11:41 , 1Ti 4:3 ; not in the judgment of the pure , as in Rom 14:14 .

τοῖς δὲ μεμιαμμένοις , κ . τ . λ .: The order of the words is to be noted: their moral obliquity is more characteristic of them than their intellectual perversion. The satisfaction of natural bodily desires (for it is these that are in question) is, when lawful, a pure thing, not merely innocent, in the case of the pure; it is an impure thing, even when lawful, in the case of “them that are defiled”. And for this reason: their intellectual apprehension ( νοῦς ) of these things is perverted by defiling associations; “the light that is in them is darkness;” and their conscience has, from a similar cause, lost its sense of discrimination between what is innocent and criminal. That any action with which they themselves are familiar could be pure is inconceivable to them. “When the soul is unclean, it thinks all things unclean” (Chrys.). The statement that the conscience can be defiled is significant. While conscientious scruples are to be respected, yet, if the conscience be defiled, its dictates and instincts are unreliable, false as are the song-efforts of one who has no ear for music.

The Expositor's Greek Testament, edited by W. Robertson Nicoll (1897–1910) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

If our minds and conscience be unclean, what cleanness is there in us before regeneration?

He showeth in few words, that purity consisteth not in any external worship, and that that is according to the old Law, (as in difference of meats, and washing, and other such things which are abolished) but in the mind and conscience: and whosoever teach otherwise, know not what is true religion indeed, and also are nothing less than that they would seem to be.

Geneva Bible (1599) marginal notes — public domain. Text via Bolls.life.

all things--external, "are pure" in themselves; the distinction of pure and impure is not in the things, but in the disposition of him who uses them; in opposition to "the commandments of men" (Tit 1:14), which forbade certain things as if impure intrinsically. "To the pure" inwardly, that is, those purified in heart by faith (Act 15:9; Rom 14:20; Ti1 4:3), all outward things are pure; all are open to, their use. Sin alone touches and defiles the soul (Mat 23:26; Luk 11:41).

nothing pure--either within or without (Rom 14:23).

mind--their mental sense and intelligence.

conscience--their moral consciousness of the conformity or discrepancy between their 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 (Ti1 1:19; Ti1 3:9; Ti1 6:5).

Jamieson, Fausset & Brown — Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible (1871) — public domain (CC PDM 1.0). Text via the HelloAO Bible API.

Verse 15. Unto the pure all things are pure] This appears to have been spoken in reference to the Jewish distinctions of clean and unclean meats. To the genuine Christian every kind of meat proper for human nourishment is pure, is lawful, and may be used without scruple. This our Lord had long before decided. See on Lu 11:39-41.

But unto them that are defiled] In their consciences, and unbelieving, απιστοις, unfaithful both to offered and received grace, nothing is pure-they have no part in Christ, and the wrath of God abides upon them. Their mind is contaminated with impure and unholy images and ideas, and their conscience is defiled with the guilt of sins already committed against God.

Adam Clarke's Commentary on the Bible (1810–1826) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.

15 To the pure all things indeed are pure He glances at one class of fabulous opinions; for the choice of the kinds of food, (such as was temporarily enjoined by Moses,) together with purifications and washings, were insisted on as being still necessary, and they even made holiness to consist almost wholly in these minute observances. How dangerous to the Church this was, we have already explained. First, a snare of bondage was laid on the consciences; and next, ignorant persons, bound by this superstition, had a veil drawn over their eyes, which hindered them from advancing in the pure knowledge of Christ. If any of the Gentiles refused to submit to this yoke, because he had not been accustomed to it, the Jews vehemently contended for it, as if it had been the chief article of religions. Not without good reason, therefore, does Paul firmly oppose such corrupters of the gospel. In this passage, indeed, he not only refutes their error, but wittily laughs at their folly, in laboring anxiously, any advantage, about abstaining from certain kinds of food and things of that nature

In the first clause of this verse he upholds Christian liberty, by asserting, that to believers nothing is unclean; but at the same time he indirectly censures the false apostles who set no value on inward purity, which alone is esteemed by God. He therefore rebukes their ignorance, in not understanding that Christians are pure without the ceremonies enjoined by the Law; and next he chastises their hypocrisy, in disregarding uprightness of heart, and occupying themselves with useless exercises. But as the subject now in hand is not the health of the body, but peace of conscience, he means nothing else than that the distinction of the kinds of food, which was in force under the Law, has now been abolished. For the same reason it is evident, that they do wrong, who impose religious scruples on consciences in this matter; for this is not a doctrine intended for a single age, but an eternal oracle of the Holy Spirit, which cannot lawfully be set aside by any new law.

Accordingly, this must be true till the end of the world, that there is no kind of food which is unlawful in the sight of God; and, therefore, this passage is fitly and appropriately quoted in opposition to the tyrannical law of the Pope, which forbids the eating of flesh on certain days. And yet I am not unacquainted with the sophistical arguments which they employ. They affirm, that they do not forbid the eating of flesh, because they allege that it is unclean, (for they acknowledge that all kinds of food are in themselves clean and pure,) but that abstinence from flesh is enjoined on another ground, that it has a tendency to tame the lust of the flesh; as if the Lord had forbidden to eat swine’s flesh, because he judged swine to be unclean. Even under the Law the fathers reckoned that everything which God created is in itself pure and clean; but they held that they were unclean for this reason, that the use of them was unlawful, because God had forbidden it. All things are, therefore, pronounced by the Apostle to be pure, with no other meaning than that the use of all things is free, as regards the conscience. Thus, if any law binds the consciences to any necessity of abstaining from certain kinds of food, it wickedly takes away from believers that liberty which God had given them.

But to the polluted and unbelieving nothing is pure. This is the second clause, in which he ridicules the vain and useless precautions of such instructors. He says that they gain nothing by guarding against uncleanness in certain kinds of food, because they cannot touch anything that is clean to them. Why so? Because they are “polluted,” and, therefore, by their only touching those things which were otherwise pure, they become “polluted.”

To the “polluted” he adds the “unbelieving,” not as being a different class of persons; but the addition is made for the sake of explanation. Because there is no purity in the sight of God but that of faith, it follows that all unbelievers are unclean. By no laws or rules, therefore, will they obtain that cleanness which they desire to have; because, being themselves “polluted,” they will find nothing in the world that is clean to them.

But their mind and conscience are polluted. He shows the fountain from which flows all the filth which is spread over the whole life of man; for, unless the heart be well purified, although men consider works to have great splendor, and a sweet smell, yet with God they will excite disgust by their abominable smell and by their filthiness.

“The Lord looketh on the heart,” (1 Samuel 16:7,)

and

“his eyes are on the truth.” (Jeremiah 5:3.)

Whence it arises, that those things which are lofty before men are abomination before God.

The mind denotes the understanding, and the conscience relates rather to the affections of the heart. But here two things ought to be observed; first, that man is esteemed by God, not on account of outward works, but on account of the sincere desire of the heart; and, secondly, that the filth of infidelity is so great, that it pollutes not only the man, but everything that he touches. On this subject let the reader consult Haggai 2:11-14. In like manner Paul teaches that

“all things are sanctified by the word,” (1 Timothy 4:5,)

because men use nothing in a pure manner till they receive it by faith from the hand of God.

John Calvin's Commentaries (1540-1563) — public domain. Text from the Calvin Translation Society English edition (1840s-50s) via the Christian Classics Ethereal Library (ccel.org). Calvin's coverage is partial (roughly two-thirds of the Bible); uncommented books and verses are honest gaps, never fabricated. The 19th-century editor's footnotes and remarks are omitted so the notes are faithfully Calvin's own voice.

(15) Unto the pure all things are pure.—The spirit of this famous saying of St. Paul, occurring almost in the same language in the Roman Letter (Rom_14:20), was the groundwork of much of the Gentile Apostle’s teaching. The words of the Lord Jesus above referred to (Mat_15:2; Mat_15:11) contain the same grand truth. “All things” include much besides mere food—in a word, include all acts connected with every-day life which in themselves are neither right nor wrong, neither good nor evil, but which derive their colouring of good or evil solely from the doer of the act. Bengel well sums this up in his “omnia externa eis, qui intus sunt mundi, munda sunt.”

But unto them that are defiled and unbelieving is nothing pure.—Here, as so often in these Pastoral Epistles, the last utterance, so to speak, of that grand life of St. Paul’s, purity and sound doctrine are inseparable. Here “the defiled,” “the polluted,” we are told, are the unbelieving; and to these, the Apostle says, nothing is pure. Yet there is nothing in God’s creation impure or evil—the evil and impurity are in the mind and heart of men; these may, and often do, defile and make impure the choicest gifts of God’s creation. One word is still left to be said on the teaching of this memorable verse. Who are the pure to whom all things are pure? Only those in this world who have sought cleansing by faith in the precious blood of Christ.

But even their mind and conscience is defiled.—Here St. Paul defines exactly the sphere over which the moral defilement of these hapless ones, who belong to the Christian company, alas, only in name, extends—the mind and conscience. The first of these—the mind—is the willing as well as the thinking part of man, as it has been well defined the human spirit (pneuma) in one of its aspects, not simply quatenus cogitat et intelligit, but also quatenus vult. Defilement of this mind (nous) means that the thoughts, wishes, purposes, activities, are all stained and debased. The second of these—the conscience (suneidçsis)—is the moral consciousness within, that which is ever bringing up the memory of the past, with its omissions and commissions, its errors, its cruel, heartless unkindness, its selfish disregard of others. When this is defiled, then this last safeguard of the soul is broken down. The man and woman of the defiled conscience is self-satisfied, hard, impenitent to the last.

A Bible Commentary for English Readers, edited by Charles John Ellicott (1878–1897) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

15. Unto the pure all things are pure] To the same effect as 1Ti_4:3-5. Cf. Mat_15:2; Mat_15:11 for the ‘wholesome words of Jesus Christ’ on the same point. The true principle of lawful Christian abstinence is given (with the same phrase) Rom_14:20. ‘The “all things” are those which in themselves have no moral character, food, marriage, business, pleasure, daily life, Sabbatic observance, and social freedom; that vast region of conduct to which Jewish pedantry and oriental asceticism had applied the vexatious rules Touch not, taste not, handle not.’ Reynolds.

defiled and unbelieving] As ‘the pure’ here corresponds to ‘them that believe and have full knowledge of the truth’ in 1Ti_4:3, so impurity of life and unsound doctrine, go together.

but even their mind and conscience] Rather, nay, there is defilement of both their mind and their conscience. Nothing is pure, and indeed those very organs to which we look for instilling purity are defiled. Cf. Mat_6:22-23, ‘The lamp of the body is the eye; if thine eye be evil, thy whole body shall be full of darkness.’ The ‘mind’ in N.T. is more than ‘reason’ and ‘intellect’ including also ‘the will and ‘the feelings,’ 1Ti_6:5; Rom_1:28 ‘God gave them up to a reprobate mind.’ The ‘conscience,’ suneidêsis, is the ‘moral sense,’ or ‘self-consciousness,’ pronouncing intuitively by a spiritual instinct on our acts, 1Ti_3:9; Rom_2:15. ‘The two united represent the stream of life in its flowing in and flowing out together. Cf. Appendix, A, iii. 1, and D.

is defiled] R.V. ‘are defiled,’ our modern idiom differing from the Greek, which has the singular verb agreeing with the nearer only of the two nouns. In old English also two substantives when closely allied in meaning not uncommonly are followed by the singular verb, e.g. ‘Destruction and unhappiness is in their ways.’

The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges (gen. ed. J. J. S. Perowne; Cambridge University Press, 1878–1918) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

Unto the pure all things are pure,.... The apostle having made mention of Jewish fables, and the traditions of the elders, takes notice of some darling notions, that these judaizing Christians had imbibed or retained; that there were some things, which being touched, or handled, or tasted, occasioned uncleanness, and which the apostle denies to them that are "pure"; by whom are meant, not such who are so in their own eyes, who yet may not be cleansed from their filthiness; nor do any become pure through ceremonial, moral, or evangelical performances, done by them; they are only pure, who are justified from all sin by Christ's righteousness, and are clean through the word or sentence of absolution spoken by him; and who are washed from their sins in his blood, and have that sprinkled upon their consciences, by which they are purged and cleansed from all sin; and who have the clean water of sanctifying grace sprinkled upon them, and have clean hearts, and right spirits created in them; and whose hearts are purified by faith, and have true principles of grace and holiness formed in them; whose graces are pure and genuine, their faith is unfeigned, their love is without dissimulation, and their hope without hypocrisy; and who, in consequence of all this, love pureness of heart, speak the pure language of Canaan, hold the mystery of the faith in a pure conscience, and follow after purity of life and conversation: to these "all things are pure"; whatever they touch, or handle, or eat, nothing can defile them; for it is not what enters into man that can pollute him; nor is any creature unclean of itself, but good, and to be received with thanksgiving; see Mat 15:11.

But unto them that are defiled and unbelieving is nothing pure; all mankind are defiled with sin; they are altogether become filthy; there is none good, no, not one; and all of them, or that belong to them, are unclean; the members of their body, and the powers and faculties of their soul, their mind and conscience, understanding, will, and affections; there is no place clean: they are originally so, from their first conception and birth; and they are actually defiled by their own evil thoughts, words, and doings: some are openly impure, like the dog and the swine, who wallow in their impieties, such are the profane part of the world; others are more secretly so, as those of a pharisaical complexion, nominal Christians, and formal professors; and such the apostle has here in view: and who, notwithstanding their profession of the Christian religion, were "unbelieving"; they had not true faith in Christ, though they professed it; they were not indeed unbelieving, as the Jews, who rejected Jesus as the Messiah: yet they did not purely and cordially embrace the doctrines of the Gospel, nor yield a spiritual and cheerful subjection to the ordinances of it; but were for mixing the ceremonies of the law with the institutions of Christ: and to these were "nothing pure"; right and lawful to be done, or not done, even in the case supposed, about eating things forbidden by the ceremonial law; to eat them would be to eat with offence, to their own consciences, on their principles, and so be evil, Rom 14:20 and to abstain from them on account of laws not in force, would be superstition and will worship, and so criminal, Col 2:21. There is nothing that defiled persons can do, but what is unclean; as are their persons, so are their offerings and works, Hag 2:14, and being destitute of true faith, whatever they do is sin, and not anything they do can be acceptable and well pleasing to God, Rom 14:23. There were some things among the Jews, which were prohibited to them that were defiled, and were free to them that were pure: thus, for instance (u),

"the flesh of the most holy things, and the flesh of those which are lightly holy, boiled with flesh of delight, (or common flesh,) are forbidden "to the defiled", but are free "to the pure".''

Which one of their commentators (w) thus explains;

"the flesh of the most holy things is forbidden to strangers, though pure; the flesh of things lightly holy is free to strangers that are pure, but forbidden to them that are defiled.''

Whether there may be any allusion to this, may be considered: however, the reason the apostle gives why nothing is pure to the impure, is, because of the pollution of the superior powers and faculties of their soul:

but even their mind and conscience is defiled; there is nothing in them, or that belongs to them, that is pure; their mind or understanding, which conceives and judges of things, and forms notions of them; and the conscience, which draws conclusions from them, are both defiled with sin; and what then must the thoughts, the words and actions of such persons be? it matters not what they do, or abstain from, what they touch, taste, or handle, or if they do not, they sin in all they do.

(u) Minn. Orla, c. 2. sect. 17. (w) Bartenora, in Misn. Orla, c. 2. sect. 17.

John Gill's Exposition of the Whole Bible (1746–1763) — public domain (CC PDM 1.0). Text via the HelloAO Bible API.

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.

Ver. 15. Unto the pure all things, &c.] This Piscator {in Mar 14:3} holds a sufficient warrant for us to use, Ne forte, and other heathen expressions; like as the apostles used χρηματιζεσθαι χρηματισμος &c., abused by the Greeks to signify their wicked and devilish oracles. But Pasor is utterly against it. (Prefat. ad Lexic.)

Is nothing pure] Their own table is a snare to them, yea, God’s table. The saints are kept at hard commons, but have their keeping of freecost: the wicked have larger cares, but pay sweetly.

Conscience is defiled] To wit, with sins, and so can no more judge it than a man can discern colours in a foul and soiled glass.

John Trapp, A Commentary or Exposition upon All the Books of the Old and New Testament (1647–1656) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

Unto the pure all things are pure - See the notes at Rom 14:14, Rom 14:20. There is probably an allusion here to the distinctions made in respect to meats and drinks among the Jews. Some articles of food were regarded as “clean,” or allowed to be eaten, and some as “unclean,” or forbidden. Paul says that those distinctions ceased under the Christian dispensation, and that to those who had a conscience not easily troubled by nice and delicate questions about ceremonial observances, all kinds of food might be regarded as lawful and proper; compare the notes at 1Ti 4:4-5. If a man habitually maintains a good conscience in the sight of God, it will be accepted of him whether he do or do not abstain from certain kinds of food; compare the notes at Col 2:16. This passage, therefore, should not be interpreted as proving that all things are right and lawful for a Christian, or that whatever he may choose to do will be regarded as pure, but as primarily referring to distinctions in food, and meaning that there was no sanctity in eating one kind of food, and no sin in another, but that the mind was equally pure whatever was eaten.

The phrase has a proverbial cast, though I know not that it was so fused. The principle of the declaration is, that a pure mind - a truly pious mind - will not regard the distinctions of food and drink; of festivals, rites, ceremonies, and days, as necessary to be observed in order to promote its purity. The conscience is not to be burdened and enslaved by these things, but is to be controlled only by the moral laws which God has ordained. But there may be a somewhat higher application of the words - that every ordinance of religion, every command of God, every event that occurs in divine Providence, tends to promote the holiness of one who is of pure heart. He can see a sanctifying tendency in everything, and can derive from all that is commanded, and all that occurs, the means of making the heart more holy. While a depraved mind will turn every such thing to a pernicious use, and make it the means of augmenting its malignity and corruption, to the pure mind it will be the means of increasing its confidence in God, and of making itself more holy. To such a mind everything may become a means of grace.

But unto them that are defiled and unbelieving is nothing pure - Everything is made the means of increasing their depravity. No matter what ordinances of religion they observe; what distinctions of meats, or drinks, or days they regard, and what events of Providence occur, all are the occasion of augmented depravity. Such distinctions in food they make the means of fostering their pride and producing self-righteousness; the mercies of God they abuse to pamper their own lusts, and the afflictive events of Divine Providence they make the occasion of murmuring and rebellion. Naturally corrupt at heart, no ordinances of religion, and no events of Providence, make them any better, but all tend to deepen their depravity. A sentiment similar to this is found in the classic writers. Thus Seneca, Epis. 98. Malus animus omnia in malum vertit, etiam quae specie optimi venerunt. So again (de Beneficiis v. 12), (Quemadmodum stomachus morbo vitiatus, et colliques bilem, quoscunque acceperit cibos mutat - ita animus caecus, quicquid fill commiseris, id onus suum et perniciem facited.

But even their mind and conscience is defiled - It is not a mere external defilement - a thing which they so much dread - but a much worse kind of pollution, that which extends to the soul and the conscience. Everything which they do tends to corrupt the inner man more and more, and to make them really more polluted and abominable in the sight of God. The wicked, while they remain impenitent, are constantly becoming worse and worse. They make everything the means of increasing their depravity, and even these things which seem to pertain only to outward observances are made the occasion of the deeper corruption of the heart.

Albert Barnes' Notes on the Bible (1834–1885) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.

All things are clean to the clean. That is, no creature is evil of its own nature; and the distinction of animals, clean and unclean, is now out of date, as are the other ceremonies of the Jewish law. And that to these unfaithful, defiled men, nothing is clean, because their consciences are defiled when they make use of them against their conscience. (Witham) --- St. Paul here tells Titus, to be particularly on his guard against those who wished to introduce among Christians a distinction of meats, and to preach up the necessity of divers purifications prescribed by the Mosaic law. All kinds of meats, he says, are clean to those who preserve their hearts free from sin; it is not what enters into the body defiles a man. But to eat with unwashed hands; to eat swine’s flesh, or meat that has been offered to idols: these things in themselves are indifferent actions, though particular circumstances may make them criminal. (1 Corinthians viii. 4, 5, 6, &c.) (Calmet) --- But to the defiled, &c. On the contrary, the man whose soul is defiled with sin, or who lives in infidelity, never can possess purity of heart; whatever legal washings or purifications, whatever sacrifices or ceremonies of the law he may make use of, all these cannot wash away the stains of the soul. (Estius, Menochius, Tirinus)

George Leo Haydock (1774–1849), Haydock's Catholic Family Bible and Commentary, 1859 edition — public domain. Excludes Psalms (Douay-Rheims chapter numbering differs from Protestant) and Deuterocanonical books (Catholic canon only).

Unto the pure all things are pure: by the pure here (as appeareth by the terms opposed to it) are meant all those whose hearts are purified by faith, working by love in a holy life. To these he saith all things, that is, all the creatures of God, all meats and drinks, are pure. What God hath cleansed none ought to call common or impure, Act 10:14; so as, notwithstanding any law of God to the contrary, any believers under the gospel may eat of any meats.

But unto them that are defiled and unbelieving is nothing pure; but if men be unbelievers, and so defiled, having not their hearts purified by faith, Act 15:9, nothing is pure to them.

But even their mind and conscience is defiled; their mind, their notion and understanding, is defiled; and their conscience, which is the practical judgment they make up about things, is defiled: if they forbear to eat, they are defiled through superstition; if they do eat, they sin by acting against the dictate of their conscience, which is the proximate rule of men’s actions.

Matthew Poole's English Annotations on the Holy Bible (1683–1685) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.

15. Pure all things… pure—Just so far as the heart is pure the eye is pure. The heart, under complete control of the law of purity, sees no effective incitement to lust in the external object. That control is the joint resultant of the divine law, the indwelling Spirit, and the firm will. Just so far as all concur, the world presents no objective temptation that wakes the sinful response from within.

Them that are defiled—The slow-bellies of Tit_1:12. Their inward nature is tinder, that takes fire at every presented spark; and the sparks are flying in perpetual circles around it. Every hour of the day objects are occurring to awaken lust, gluttony, rapine. Such men frame to themselves a dim theory of life that nothing is pure, and that all virtue is sham. To them no woman is chaste, no man is honest. All apparently good people are hypocrites; and your only honest man is the free liver, who commits all rascality and makes no pretensions to a moral life. Nothing and nobody is pure, just because they themselves are defiled.

And unbelieving—Without that faith which works by love and purifies the heart, as these gainsayers, and slow-bellies, and their subverts (Tit_1:11) were.

Their mind—Their intellect, so that they think in accordance with systematic wrong, and believe that they believe it, in spite of an under-current of moral misgiving.

And conscience—Their moral sense is abolished, (save the above under-current, which cannot be destroyed,) and a false conscience is constructed, by which wrong is seen by them to be their right.

Daniel D. Whedon (gen. ed.), Commentary on the Old and New Testaments (1874–1909) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

To for unto, A.V (twice); nothing is for is nothing, A.V; both for even, A.V; their conscience for conscience, A.V; are for is, A.V To the pure, etc. This allusion shows dearly that the "commandments of men," here condemned, are of the same kind as those referred to in the above-quoted passage in the Colossians. We learn also from Ro 14 1Co 8; and elsewhere, what were the kind of questions which agitated the Judaizing Christians. But St. Paul in a few wise words shows the utter worthlessness of such controversies. "To the pure all things are pure." "There is nothing from without a man," said our Lord, "that entering into him can defile him"; (Mar_7:15) "Neither if we cat are we the better, neither if we eat not are we the worse"; (1Co_8:8) "The kingdom of God is not meat and drink, but righteousness, and peace, and joy in the Holy Ghost". (Rom_14:17) But unto those that are defiled by what comes from within them, and have no faith, (Rom_14:23) nothing is pure. Their mind and conscience, being defiled, defile everything they do. The words kayaron and miainw are the proper words for ceremonial "cleanness" and "defilement" respectively.

A great counter-Principle against this ascetic tendency.

"Unto the pure all things are pure: but to the defiled and unbelieving is nothing pure; but even their mind and conscience are defiled.

I THE PRIVILEGES OF THE PURE.

1. The pure are not those ceremonially pure, but those

a. justified from all sin by Christ"s righteousness;

b. clean through the Word spoken to them;

c. with hearts purified by faith;

d. with the graces of faith unfeigned, love without dissimulation, and hope without hypocrisy.

2. Their privilege, purchased by the blood of Christ, was the lawful liberty of using all meats under the gospel which were forbidden by the ceremonial law.

(1) Jesus had taught that defilement conies from the heart, not from the shambles. (Luk_11:39-41)

(2) The Church solemnly at Jerusalem decreed the abolition of this old distinction of meats (Acts 15).

1. The apostle elsewhere teaches the same truth. "For meat destroy not the work of God. All things indeed are pure, but it is evil for that man that eateth with offense". (Rom_14:20) All meats are pure to the pure in heart.

2. The distinction of meats among Roman Catholics tends to the neglect of the Divine Law altogether. People on the Continent go to balls on the Lord"s day who will feel their souls in danger from eating an egg on Friday.

3. The saying of the apostle has an almost proverbial east; for it asserts that "all things that is, more than mere food may have a purifying tendency in the case of the pure. Nothing is unclean of itself, but good, and to be received with thanksgiving. (1Ti_4:3-5)

II THE MORAL RETRIBUTION OF THE IMPURE. It is that they pollute all they touch, and everything becomes the means of increasing their depravity.

1. There is nothing impure or evil in creation; it is in the mind and heart of men; these can turn the choicest gifts of God into the means of moral defilement.

2. Unbelief is the fountain from which all the evil flows; for to the "defiled and unbelieving is nothing pure." The worshippers may, by their distinctions of food, only foster pride and self-righteousness; but all alike springs from unbelief, which disregards the authority of the Word of God.

3. The impurity is not merely external, such as many dread, but internal; for it extends to "the mind and conscience," to the whole intellectual, volitional, and moral nature of man. Thus the last safeguard of the soul disappears, as the retribution upon man"s neglect of God, truth, and purity. There is no longer a taste for the simple truth of the gospel, but a frightful facility for self-deception. T.C.

Pure-heartedness.

"Unto the pure all things are pure." The gospel centers morality as well as religion in the heart. Men of corrupt tastes cannot have correct morals, because a man may sin against himself as well as against society. An impure heart makes an impure world of its own within; and that, if it hurts none else, hurts the man himself, wrongs his own soul. Here we see that the eye sees what it wishes to see, or what the inward taste desires to see. A pure man does not under stand the double entendre; does not see the vision of evil beneath the veil of words or the disguise of art.

I THE FIRST REQUIREMENT. "A pure heart." Make the tree good. A bad man will find impure suggestion anywhere and everywhere even in religious literature, even in the unsuspecting words of holy men for his heart is not renewed. So possible is it for men to find evil even in things good.

II THE GREAT SAFEGUARD. "All things are pure." There is no false delicacy. No prudery, no affectation. In meditation or conversation they catch no stain of defilement from the subjects they are mentally brought into contact with. Their safety is from within; for "out of the heart are the issues of life. W.M.S.

Inner defilement.

"But unto them that are defiled and unbelieving is nothing pure; but even their mind and conscience is defiled." This is the worst Nemesis of evil; it hurts the man. We can injure the physical senses the eye, the ear; so we can injure the mind and the moral senses.

I THE DESCRIPTION OF CHARACTER. Why this couplet? "Defiled and unbelieving" seems at first a strange combination of ideas. Not so. To defile is to march off to file away from. So men leave the King"s highway of holiness, purity, truth, and righteousness; and they do this because they are unbelieving. They will not accept the revelation of God, that sin is loss, shame, misery, death; and that holiness is happiness and life eternal.

II THE DREAD ISSUE. Nothing is pure. All waters take the color of the soil over which they pass. The stained windows make a stained light. An impure heart colors everything thought, imagination, observation, conversation, and common life. And this is the doom! Their mind and conscience are defiled. They feel it. They know it, and at times they confess it. Many shrink from themselves who have never had resolution to seek him who can "create a clean heart and renew a right spirit within them. W.M.S.

Vers. 15, 16. The supreme importance of moral character.

"Unto the pure all things are pure: but unto them that are defiled and unbelieving is nothing pure," etc. We notice, at the outset, two facts suggested by the passage.

1. That there is an essential difference in the moral characters of men. There are some "pure" and some defiled," some holy and some unholy. What is the underlying inspiring principle that makes this difference? The predominant disposition. Perhaps there is no moral being in the universe who is not under the masterhood of some one sentiment or passion, to which can be traced, as to a mainspring, all the motions of his being. This controlling tendency is the moral monarch of souls, or, in Scripture language, is the moral "heart of the man." This supreme disposition exists in all men in two distinct and opposite forms, either in sympathy with the true, the right, and the spiritual, or in sympathy with the false, the wrong, and the material. That soul alone is pure whose governing sympathy is God and the true. Supreme love for the supremely good is the true life of the soul, and the fountain of all its virtues. He whose controlling sympathies run not thus, is impure and corrupt.

2. Pleat the outward world is to men according to this difference. The whole external universe is to a man according to the moral state of his soul. "As a man thinketh in his heart, so is he so is he in relation to himself, to all without, and to God. This being so, the text teaches the supreme importance of moral character. Let us look at

I THE MORALLY PURE IN RELATION TO ALL THINGS. "Unto the pure all things are pure." This is true in relation to three things.

1. In relation to appearance. The proverb goes that the greatest rogues are ever the most suspicious. A thoroughly selfish, ungodly soul will see but little good even in the best men. It is a law that man judges his fellow by himself, and the more corrupt a man is, the more severe his judgment on others. A good man is neither given to suspicion nor censoriousness; he sees some good in all men.

2. In relation to influence. The influence of all outward things upon men is dependent on their moral character. Our Lord says, "Not that which goeth into the mouth defileth a man, but that which cometh out of the mouth defileth a man." The moral character is an all-transformative power in the center of man"s being. It turns the unclean into the clean, and the reverse. A good man, like the bee, can extract honey from the bitterest plant; or, like the Aeolian harp, can turn the shrieking wind into music.

3. In relation to appropriation. As the body lives by appropriating the outward, so does the soul; and as the effects of the appropriation, whether universal or otherwise, depend on the condition of the body"s health, as the appropriation of a diseased body only increases the physical ailment; so with the soul. A corrupt soul appropriates, even from the most strengthening and refreshing means of spiritual improvement, that which weakens and destroys. Pharaoh and his host got moral mischief out of the ministry of Moses; and the men of Capernaum were pressed into a deeper and darker hell through the elevating and enlightening ministry of Jesus of-Nazareth. Mark, then, the supreme importance of moral character.

II THE MORALLY DEFILED IN RELATION TO ALL THINGS. "Unto them that are defiled and unbelieving is nothing pure; but even their mind and conscience is defiled." Here is the converse. Mark, in passing, three things.

1. The sphere of the defilement. "The mind and conscience." "The mind," says a modern expositor, "is the willing as well as the thinking part of man, as it has been well defined the human spirit (pneuma) in one of its aspects, not simply quatenus cogitat, et intelligit, but also quatenus vult. Defilement of this mind (nous) means that the thoughts, wishes, purposes, activities, are all stained and debased. The second of these, the conscience (suneidesis), is the moral consciousness within, and that which is ever bringing up the memory of the past, with its omissions and commissions, its errors, its cruel, heartless unkindness, its selfish disregard of others. When this is defiled, then this last safeguard of the soul is broken down. The man and woman of the defiled conscience is self-satisfied, hard, impenitent to the last. Every part and faculty of the soul is stained with sin. The body may be cleansed by ceremonial ablutions, and the external manners and speech kept pure by culture and civilization, but the soul be black; the outside of the "cup and of the platter clean," but inside full of corruption.

2. The cause of the defilement. "They profess that they know God, but in works they deny him." There is nothing, perhaps, so morally defiling to the soul as religious hypocrisy. The man who with the lip professes to know God, and who in the life denies him, gets deeper stains upon his soul than the agnostic who professes that he knows nothing about him. What millions in our churches every Sunday publicly, at each service, avow with their lip their belief in God, but in their week-day life "he is not in all their thoughts"! Thus souls get deeply dyed in corruption in Christian churches.

3. The hideousness of the defilement. "Being abominable and disobedient, and unto every good work reprobate." However fair their conduct in the religious observances, they are "abominable" within, hideous to the eye of God. However rigorous in their observances and religious ordinances, they are "disobedient" in heart, they outrage moral laws; however useful they regard themselves and appear to others, they are reprobate," they are rejected and worthless. These "defiled" in soul defile everything without; all outward things in their appearance, influences, and appropriation are to them corrupt.

CONCLUSION. Mark:

1. The natural sovereignty of the human son. We are not necessarily the creatures of the outward; we have within the power to bend circumstances to our will, to get good out of evil, to turn outward dissonance into music, deformity into beauty, poison into nourishment. Let us adore our Maker for this wonderful endowment an endowment which guards us from the coercion of outward forces, secures to us an inward freedom of action, and enables us to put all outward things in subjection to our own spiritual selves.

2. The dependency of the souls destiny on itself. A man"s destiny depends upon his moral character, and his character depends upon himself. As food, however nutritious, cannot administer strength to a man"s body without the digestive and appropriative power, so no external influences, however good and useful in themselves, can raise a man"s soul without the right action of its faculties. Man cannot be made good. His body may be borne to the summit of a lofty mountain without the use of his limbs, but if his soul is to ascend "the holy hill of the Lord," he must climb it every inch himself. Fortune or patronage may raise him to some eminent social position, but he cannot reach a single stage of moral dignity the true dignity of man apart from his own earnest endeavors. The transformative power of the soul is to external circumstances what the builder is to the materials out of which he rears his edifice. The choicest materials may be brought together gold, marble, and cedar but unless the builder use them with artistic skill they will never take the form of a beautiful structure. So the providence of God may gather around man all the facilities and elements for the raising of a noble character, but unless he use them with his own spiritual hand, he will never produce such a structure.

3. The grand end of true teaching. What is that? The supreme importance of every man obtaining a true moral character. "Marvel not that I said unto thee, Ye must be born again." In moral goodness of soul alone, can we not only find our heaven, but find our way safely and happily through this life. We live in a world of evil. We cannot escape its sinful influence by endeavoring, like the anchorite, to avoid its touch. Whilst no man should put himself in the way of temptation, no man should be afraid to confront evil, to go into its most malarial regions if duty call. In truth, if man"s wellbeing depended upon escaping outward evil, it could never be realized, because to live in the world he is bound to live in its midst, and evil must stream into him every day. How, then, is he to reach a blessed destiny? Not merely by endeavoring to frame his life according to the outward rules of morality and religion, but by a right use of his own spiritual powers. There is a power in the body, when in a healthy state, to appropriate whatever goes into it from external nature that is wholesome and necessary, and to expel that which is noxious and superfluous. The soul has a power analogous to this; a power to appropriate the wholesome and to expel the injurious. This power we call the transformative. Let us use it rightly use it as Noah used it, who, amidst the blasphemy and ridicule of a corrupt generation, walked with God, and fulfilled a noble destiny; as Paul used it at skeptical Athens, in dissolute Corinth, and in pagan Rome, who from experience left the world this testimony: "All things work together for good to them that love God. D.T.

The Pulpit Commentary (1880–1919), ed. H.D.M. Spence-Jones & Joseph S. Exell — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

To the pure - Those whose hearts are purified by faith this we allow. All things are pure - All kinds of meat; the Mosaic distinction between clean and unclean meats being now taken away. But to the defiled and unbelieving nothing is pure - The apostle joins defiled and unbelieving, to intimate that nothing can be clean without a true faith: for both the understanding and conscience, those leading powers of the soul, are polluted; consequently, so is the man and all he does.

John Wesley, Explanatory Notes Upon the Whole Bible (1754–1765) — public domain. Text via the GEBible commentary corpus.

Ver. 15. To the pure all things are pure: a great counter principle set over against that on which those Jewish semi-Gnostic sciolists were trading to the perversion of their own and other people’s consciences, Judaism in part, and Gnostic asceticism still more, associated moral good and evil with certain outward distinctions: “Touch not or take not this, and you are holy; touch or take it, and you are defiled.” No, the apostle virtually replies, these are but superficial distinctions; and even when they were to some extent of God, it was only as temporary and provisional arrangements—supplying for a season the lack of clearer light. All things which lie outside a man,—the things of whatever kind which he can use as articles of food, or turn into instruments of service,—these are in themselves indifferent; there is no power of intelligent and voluntary choice in them, and therefore no element of sanctity or corruption: this can only be where moral qualities reside, in the region of thought, desire, will; let there be but purity there, and then those external things assume a corresponding character, because they receive an impress and a direction from the spirit of him who uses them. It is but a fresh enunciation of the truth long before uttered by our Lord, and laid by Him as an axe to the root of the mistaken ceremonialism of the Pharisees. He told them that washed or unwashed hands, clean or unclean in food, had of themselves nothing to do with religious or moral purity: that for this everything depended on the state of the heart, from which proceed, as to good or evil, the issues of life (Mat 15:11-20; Mar 7:14-16). It is obvious, from the mere statement of this principle, that in the all things spoken of as pure to the pure, errors of doctrine and corrupt practices cannot be included, for these come from an impure source: they are what they are in spirit and character, as the soul is which gave them birth; they are not of God, but of the evil one. It is also obvious that the converse of the statement must hold equally good with the statement itself; as, indeed, the apostle expressly affirms: but to them that are defiled and unbelieving is nothing pure. Surely a solemn thought for persons of this class, who are not wholly steeled against conviction! They have within a fountain of pollution, which spreads itself over and infects everything about them. Their food and drink, their possessions, their employments, their comforts, their actions—all are in the reckoning of God tainted with impurity, because they are putting away from them that which alone has for the soul regenerating and cleansing efficacy. The apostle, however, carries it even further; he brings out the evil more distinctly on its positive side: but both their mind and conscience are defiled. In saying this, he no doubt indicates the reason why nothing external is pure to them: but he does not give it formally as a reason; he rather advances it as an additional disclosure of their defilement, showing how it embraces both the intellectual and moral parts of their nature, and lays alike the powers of thought and the workings of conscience under bias to evil.

Patrick Fairbairn — An Exposition of Ezekiel (1851), Jonah (1849), and The Pastoral Epistles (1874) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

Here our apostle intimates what those Jewish traditions and fables were, which those judaizing doctors and false teachers would intrude and impose upon persons at that time, namely, pretences that men were defiled by eating things unclean, by not observing their days, and keeping other ceremonial rites: but says the apostle, To the pure all things are pure; that is, to believers who are sanctified by the Christian faith,and purified from sin and guilt, all meats, and days, and things of this nature, are clean and lawful, and may without sin be used, every creature being sanctified by the word of God and prayer.

Here note, The honourable title which a gracious and merciful God puts upon good men, notwithstanding they have much impurity and sin inhering in them, and many sinful weaknesses and infirmities cleaving to them, yet God calls them pure; Unto the pure, & c. They are now initially so, and shall ere long be perfectly so.

Note, 2. A privilege purchased for them by the blood of Christ, and that is the lawful liberty and use of meats, &c. under the gospel, which were prohibited by, and forbidden under, the ceremonial law: Unto the pure, all things are now pure.

Mark, he doth not say, to the defiled all things are unclean, but, nothing is pure; they pollute all they touch. To an unsanctified man nothing is sanctified; whatever he does is unclean, either in the matter, in the manner, or in the end, of his doing it; and the reason follows, because their mind and conscience are defiled. No wonder the streams are polluted, when the fountains are poisoned. The mind and conscience are defiled, partly by blindness, partly by stupidity and senselessness.

William Burkitt's Expository Notes on the New Testament (1700–1703) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

15. Unto the pure all things are pure. In the “Jewish fables” just referred to were rigid regulations concerning foods and purifications. Hence Paul adds, “It is not food that makes one impure. To the pure all things are pure. When one is unbelieving and defiled, no food can make him pure.” See notes on Rom. 14:14 and 1 Cor. 8:4–8.

B. W. Johnson's The People's New Testament with Notes (1889–1891) — public domain. Electronic text from the Christian Classics Ethereal Library (CCEL) ThML edition.

To those who are pure, all things are pure

"If people are pure on the inside, everything they do will be pure"

To those who are pure

"To those who are acceptable to God"

to those who are corrupt and unbelieving, nothing is pure

Paul speaks of sinners as if they were physically dirty. AT: "if people are morally defiled and do not believe, they cannot do anything pure" (See: Metaphor)

they deny him by their actions

"how they live proves that they do not know him"

They are detestable

"They are disgusting"

translationWords

pure

disobey

conscience

unfoldingWord translationNotes — © Distant Shores Media and the Door43 World Missions Community, licensed CC BY-SA 4.0. Source: git.door43.org/Door43/en_tn.

15. πάντα. The rec. text (with אcD2cKL) adds μέν, possibly because of the δέ in the next clause (cp. Rom 14:20); but it is omitted by א*ACD2*E*GP and the Latins.

μεμιαμμένοις. This is the spelling of the best MSS.; D2bcE have μεμιασμένοις as in the rec. text.

15. πάντα καθαρὰ τοῖς καθαροῖς. For the pure all things are pure. τοῖς καθαροῖς is a dat. commodi, and conveys the sense not that all things are pure in the judgement of the pure, but that all things are pure for their use. St Paul had said the same thing before, Rom 14:20 (the whole chapter is a commentary on its meaning), πάντα μὲν καθαρά, ἀλλὰ κακὸν τῷ ἀνθρώπῳ τῷ διὰ προσκόμματος ἐσθίοντι; cp. also 1Ti 4:4; Mat 15:11 and Luk 11:41.

τοῖς δὲ μεμιαμμένοις καὶ ἀπίστοις οὐδὲν καθαρόν, but for the defiled and unbelieving nothing is pure. If it is true omnia munda mundis, it is also true omnia immunda immundis. “Honi soit qui mal y pense.” See again Rom 14:23 and the other references given in last note.

The intimate connexion between moral purity and soundness in the faith (cp. Act 15:9, τῇ πίστει καθαρίσας τὰς καρδίας αὐτῶν), which is so often assumed in the Pastorals (see esp. on 1Ti 1:5), is here again indicated; the ‘defiled and unbelieving’ form one class, not two, as the absence of the article before ἀπίστοις shews. Cp. 1Ti 4:3.

ἀλλὰ μεμίανται αὐτῶν καὶ ὁ νοῦς καὶ ἡ συνείδησις, but both their mind and their conscience are defiled. See for νοῦς and συνείδησις the notes on 1Ti 1:5; 1Ti 6:5.

Cambridge Greek Testament for Schools and Colleges (Cambridge University Press, 1896; 21 vols, various authors incl. Carr, Maclear, Plummer, Farrar, Lumby, Moule, M. R. James, Simcox) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

15.] The Apostle’s own answer to those who would enforce these commandments. All things (absolutely—all things with which man can be concerned) are pure to the pure (οὐδὲν ὁ θεὸς ἀκάθαρτον ἐποίησεν· οὐδὲν γὰρ ἀκάθαρτον, εἰ μὴ ἡ ἁμαρτία μόνη. ψυχῆς γὰρ ἅπτεται καὶ ταύτην ῥυποῖ, Chrys. ‘Omnia externa iis qui intus sunt mundi, munda sunt,’ Bengel. Cf. Mat 23:26: Luk 11:41. There is no ground whatever for supposing this to be a maxim of the false teachers, quoted by the Apostle, any more than the πάντα μοι ἔξεστιν of 1Co 6:12, where see note. The maxim here is a truly Christian one of the noblest order.

τοῖς καθαροῖς is the dat. commodi,—‘for the pure to use,’ not, as often taken, ‘in the judgment of the pure.’ This is plainly shewn by the use of the same dative in Rom 14:14, where to render it ‘in the judgment of’ would introduce an unmeaning tautology: τῷ λογιζομένῳ τι κοινὸν εἶναι, ἐκείνῳ κοινόν—‘to him (for his use) it is really κοινόν.’ As usual in these Epistles (see Prolegg. § i. 38), purity is inseparably connected with soundness in the faith, cf. Act 15:9,—and 1Ti 4:3, where our τοῖς καθαροῖς is expanded into τοῖς πιστοῖς καὶ ἐπεγνωκόσιν τὴν ἀλήθειαν), but to the polluted and unbelieving (cf. the preceding remarks) nothing is pure, but both (or ‘even,’ as E. V.:—but the other seems preferable, on account of the close correspondence of καὶ ὁ νοῦς with καὶ ἡ συνείδ.) their mind (their rational part, Eph 4:17, which presides over and leads all the determinate acts and thoughts of the man) and their conscience is polluted (ef. Dion. Hal. de Thucyd. 8,—κράτιστον δὲ πάντων τὸ μηδὲν ἑκουσίως ψεύδεσθαι, μηδὲ μιαίνειν τὴν αὑτοῦ συνείδησιν.

And therefore, uncleanness tainting their rational acts and their reflective self-recognitions, nothing can be pure to them: every occasion becomes to them an occasion of sin, every creature of God an instrument of sin; as Mack well observes, “the relation, in which the sinful subject stands to the objects of its possession or of its inclination, is a sinful one.” Philo de legg. spec. ad 6 Est_7 dec. cap. § 337, vol. ii. p. 333 f., has a sentence which might be a comment on our verse:—ἀκάθαρτος γὰρ κυρίως ὁ ἄδικος καὶ ἀσεβὴς … πάντα φύρων καὶ συγχέων διά τε τὰς ἀμετρίας τῶν παθῶν καὶ τὰς τῶν κακῶν ὑπερβολάς· ὥστε ὧν ἂν ἐφάψηται πραγμάτων πάντα ἐστὶν ἐπίληπτα τῇ τοῦ δρῶντος συμμεταβάλλοντα μοχθηρίᾳ. καὶ γὰρ κατὰ τὸ ἐναντίον αἱ πράξεις τῶν ἀγαθῶν ἐπαινεταί, βελτιούμεναι ταῖς τῶν ἐνεργούντων ἀρεταῖς, ἐπειδὴ πέφυκέ πως τὰ γινόμενα τοῖς δρῶσιν ἐξομοιοῦσθαι. Here again, the reference of the saying has been variously mistaken—ἡ ῥυπαρὰ διάνοια κακῶς περὶ τούτων λογιζομένη ἑαυτῇ συμμιαίνει ταῦτα, Œc.: and similarly Chrys., Thl., al.: ‘non placent Deo quæ agunt etiam circa res medias, quia actiones tales ex animo Deus æstimat,’ Grot.: ‘iis nihil prodest externa ablutio et ciborum dierumque observatio,’ Baldwin, Croc. in De W.).

Henry Alford, The Greek Testament (1849–1861) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

15. πάντα καθαρά] This goes further than the tradition of the elders; it abolishes the Mosaic law, which had served the purpose of separating the Jews from the heathen world.

τοῖς καθαροῖς] those who are pure—not, as the false teachers would say, by ceremonial washings, but by purity of heart. Cf. Mat 5:8, Joh 15:3, 1Ti 2:8 note. ἀκάθαρτος μόνη ἡ ἁμαρτία, Chrys.

πάντα κ. τοῖς καθαροῖς] has the ring of a proverb, and was perhaps a saying of the Lord Himself (so von Soden); cf. Luk 11:41 ἰδοὺ πάντα καθαρὰ ὑμῖν ἐστιν: cf. Pap. Oxyr. v. 840, ἐγὼ δὲ καὶ οἱ μαθηταί μου οὓς λέγεις μὴ βεβαπτίσθαι βεβάμμεθα ἐν ὕδασι ζωῆς αἰωνίου: and Rom 14:14, Rom 14:20 οἶδα καὶ πέπεισμαι ἐν κ. ἰησοῦ . . . πάντα μὲν καθαρά.

The thought, especially on the negative side, that the impure heart makes all things impure, was found in the prophets; cf. Hag 2:10-14, and was becoming a common-place of pagan philosophers, both Epicurean and Stoic; cf. Lucr. vi. 6:17-34; Hor. Ep. i. 2. 54, “Sincerum est nisi vas, quodcunque infundis acescit.” Seneca, de Benefic. v. 12, “quemadmodum stomachus morbo vitiatus … quoscunque accepit cibos mutat, ita animus cæcus quicquid illi commiseris, id onus suum et perniciem … facit. Nihil potest ad malos pervenire quod prodest, immo nihil quod non noceat; quæcunque enim illis contigerunt in naturam suam vertunt, et … profutura, si melioribus darentur, illis pestifera sunt,” and Philo, de Legg. Spec. iii. 209, p. 334 M, ἀκάθαρτος . . . ὁ ἄδικος καὶ ἀσεβὴς . . . πάντα φύρων καὶ συγχέων . . . ὥστε ὧν ἐφάψηται πραγμάτων πάντα ἐστὶ ἐπίληπτα τῇ τοῦ δρῶντος συμμεταβάλλοντα μοχθηρίᾳ καὶ γὰρ . . . αἱ πράξεις τῶν ἀγαθῶν ἐπαινεταί, βελτιούμεναι ταῖς τῶν ἐνεργούντων ἀρεταῖς, ἐπειδὴ πέφυκέ πως τὰ γινόμενα τοῖς δρῶσιν ἐξομοιοῦσθαι (Wetstein).

τοῖς δὲ μεμιασμένοις] (but μεμιαμμένοις, W.-H., Tisch., with א A C D * L ; cf. Blass, Gr. N. T., § 163), cf. Hag 2:13 ἐὰν ἅψηται μεμιαμμένος ἀκάθαρτος ἐπὶ ψυχῇ ἐπὶ παντὸς τούτων, εἰ μιανθήσεται; καὶ ἀπεκρίθησαν οἱ ἱερε͂ς καὶ εἶπαν Μιανθήσεται.

ἀπίστοις] This would apply (a) to the weak Jewish Christian, not believing that Christ is the end of the law, cf. Rom_14:esp.23 .; ὁ ψύχην ἔχων ἀσθέῆ πάντα ῥυποῖ, Chrys.; or (b) to the Gnostic, without faith in God’s creation of matter, cf. 1Ti 4:1-5; but here the reference is only to the former.

ὁ νοῦς καὶ ἡ συνείδησις] Their judgment is perverted: they will call evil good and good evil (cf. 1Ti 6:5, 2Ti 3:8); their con science is callous, not telling them when they have done wrong (cf. 1Ti 4:1), nor condemning them when they have done it.

International Critical Commentary — older volumes (1896–1929), various authors — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

Unto the pure [τοις καθαροις] . The pure in heart and conscience. See 2Ti 1:3.

All things are pure. Comp. 1Ti 4:4, 5; Act 10:15; Mr 7:15, 18, 19; 1Co 10:26, 30; Rom 14:20. The aphorism is suggested by the commandments of men, verse 14.

Unto them that are defiled [τοις μεμιαμμενοις] . Only here in Pastorals. See also Joh 18:28 (note); Heb 12:15; Jude 1:8. Only in Joh 18:28 in a ceremonial sense. Elsewhere of moral pollution. Nothing is pure. Their moral pollution taints everything with its own quality. The purest things become suggestors and ministers of impurity. Mind and conscience [ο νους και η συνειδησις] . For nouv see On Rom 7:23 : for suneidhsiv, on 1Pe 3:16.

Marvin R. Vincent, Word Studies in the New Testament (1887–1900) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.