Titus 1:15 - Explained

"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."

The Bible is giving you a comparison between two types of people — the person who is pure and the person who is defiled and unbelieving. When the Bible says the person is pure, I believe the primary application is people that are saved, although you can also make an application for unsaved people who are just living a clean and holy life.

But notice what the Bible says about the other type of person — the defiled and unbelieving person. This is not simply your normal everyday unsaved person. This is someone whose mind and conscience is defiled. The Bible speaks about in the book of Romans that we were all given a conscience. Even unbelievers who do not have the law of God will obey certain things and do what is right, because on the inside of their heart and in their conscience they realise what is wrong and would feel guilty and bad about doing certain things.

But the Bible speaks about people whose mind and conscience is defiled. This is speaking about a person known as a child of Belial — a reprobate, a child of the devil. Your normal everyday unsaved person is just an unbeliever, but they are not a child of the devil. And just as you become a child of God and you are a child of God forever, if you become a child of the devil — meaning you have completely rejected God to the point that he rejects you and you have no hope of salvation — the Bible says you are going to be a child of the devil forever. And a major mark of that moment is that your conscience becomes defiled. The Bible says your conscience is seared with a hot iron. And to them, nothing is pure.

Here is an example of what that means in practice. Imagine a newborn baby getting a diaper change, or a young child running around without their clothes on because they do not yet fully comprehend the idea of nakedness. To the pure person, they do not think anything weird or disgusting or perverse about it. They just think innocent thoughts — okay, let us get some clothes on this child, a little embarrassing but kind of funny and silly. But to the person whose conscience is seared with a hot iron, when they look at that same child, perverse and disgusting and reprobate thoughts come inside their head. Sexually explicit thoughts. You think of pedophiles and wonder — what is wrong with that person?

And here is the thing — when people look at serial killers like Jeffrey Dahmer or at pedophiles, it does not make sense to us. And it is not going to make sense to us, because if your mind and conscience is not defiled and not seared with a hot iron, you are never going to fully understand how a person can just have no conscience at all. But that person was not born without a conscience. They developed that state because they rejected God. They became reprobate. At that moment their conscience was seared with a hot iron, and from that moment forward everything is just disgusting and filthy. Nothing is pure.

Pastor Matthew Stucky