John Calvin Commentary Titus 1:15

"To the pure all things are pure: but to them that are defiled and unbelieving nothing is pure; but both their mind and their conscience are defiled." — Titus 1:15 (ASV)

To the pure all things indeed are pure. He refers to one class of fictitious opinions. For the choice of foods (such as was temporarily commanded by Moses), along with purifications and washings, was insisted on as still being necessary, and they even made holiness consist almost entirely in these minute observances.

We have already explained how dangerous this was to the Church. First, a snare of bondage was laid on consciences. 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 they had not been accustomed to it, the Jews vehemently contended for it, as if it were the chief article of religion.

Therefore, not without good reason, Paul firmly opposes such corrupters of the gospel. Indeed, in this passage, he not only refutes their error but also wittily laughs at their folly in laboring anxiously, and to no purpose, about abstaining from certain kinds of food and similar things.

In the first clause of this verse, he upholds Christian liberty by asserting that to believers nothing is unclean. 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 commanded by the Law. Next, he chastises their hypocrisy in disregarding uprightness of heart and occupying themselves with useless exercises.

But as the subject at hand is not the health of the body but peace of conscience, he means nothing other than that the distinction of foods, which was in force under the Law, has now been abolished.

For the same reason, it is evident that those who impose religious scruples on consciences in this matter do wrong. 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 until the end of the world: that no kind of food is unlawful in the sight of God. Therefore, this passage is suitably and appropriately quoted in opposition to the tyrannical law of the Pope, which forbids eating flesh on certain days.

Yet I am not unacquainted with the sophistical arguments they employ. They affirm that they do not forbid eating flesh because they claim it is unclean (for they acknowledge that all kinds of food are in themselves clean and pure). Instead, they say that abstinence from flesh is commanded for another reason: that it has a tendency to tame the lust of the flesh—as if the Lord had forbidden eating swine’s flesh because He judged swine to be unclean.

Even under the Law, the fathers considered that everything God created is in itself pure and clean. But they held that certain things were unclean for this reason: their use was unlawful because God had forbidden it.

Therefore, all things are pronounced by the Apostle to be pure, meaning simply that the use of all things is free, regarding the conscience.

Thus, if any law binds consciences to a necessity of abstaining from certain kinds of food, it wickedly takes away from believers the liberty 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, simply by their touching those things which were otherwise pure, those things become "polluted."

To the "polluted" he adds the "unbelieving," not as 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 other than that of faith, it follows that all unbelievers are unclean. Therefore, by no laws or rules will they obtain the cleanness they desire, 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 defilement that spreads over a person's whole life. For unless the heart is well purified, although people consider works to have great splendor and a sweet fragrance, yet with God these works will provoke disgust by their abominable odor and defilement.

The Lord looketh on the heart (1 Samuel 16:7), and His eyes are on the truth (Jeremiah 5:3).

From this it arises that those things which are lofty before men are an abomination before God.

The mind denotes the understanding, and the conscience relates more to the affections of the heart. But here two things should be observed:

1. A person is esteemed by God not on account of outward works, but on account of the sincere desire of the heart.
2. The defilement of unbelief is so great that it pollutes not only the person but also everything that person touches.

On this subject, the reader should consult Haggai 2:11-14. Similarly, Paul teaches that all things are sanctified by the word (1 Timothy 4:5), because people use nothing in a pure manner until they receive it by faith from the hand of God.