We have to do with the truth, not with fable; and we are under grace, not under commandment of men alienated from the truth. Neither imagination nor human morality can mingle with Christian revelation. Scripture alone furnishes a bright sense of its living relationships and its glorious prospects, with which fable and “the unspiritual” mind can never compare. Nor can human commandments rise above their source; they are of the world, and therefore perishable. The word of the Lord abides forever, and judges alike both fable and human commandment. “To the pure all things [are] pure; but to the defiled and unbelieving [is] nothing pure; but both the mind and the conscience are defiled” (ver.15).
Duty depends upon relationship, and relationship on the revelation of God in Christ our life. Otherwise we are only in our sins. Such once were we all—not all gross, nor all externally shameful, such were some; but now through grace we were washed, but we were sanctified, but we were justified, in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ, and by the Spirit of our God. Such is the source of Christian purity; and it is so much the more truly ours, because it is of God Who, as He has called, will also keep His own, through our Lord Jesus—loved in the world, and loved unto the end. To such all things are pure, because they themselves are pure. It is no question now of abstinence from this or that; of allowance of legal sanctity; of fleshly uncleanness. The will of God as expressed by His word directs the believer, as we see its perfection in the Lord Jesus. This is the true rule of life. Without Christ there can be nothing but a rule of death. And to the defiled and unbelieving nothing is pure. What was forbidden provoked the flesh to desire it. Stolen waters were sweet; and so it is still where Christ is unknown. Nothing is pure to the defiled and unbelieving, but both their mind and their conscience are defiled: an awful sentence morally, but most true. It is not only that their lower nature is corrupt, but the highest part of them, even that which ought to bring in good, and presumes to discuss divine things and God Himself, is wholly defiled. Religion in such a condition is at least as impure and profane as anything else.
It will be said, no doubt, that such persons know not God. This is undoubtedly true. They know neither the Father, nor Jesus Christ Whom He has sent; yet they may, or even do, profess to own God, as men now in Christendom, save the openly profane and unbelieving. “They profess to know God; but in works they deny [Him], being abominable and disobedient, and unto every good work reprobate” (ver. 16). This alas! is not religions progress. The germ of it was even then in apostolic days. The fruit abounds everywhere in our day; and it will be found advancing more and more to greater ungodliness. For their word will spread as a gangrene. It suits the fallen nature of man. His pride is pampered by it, and his will delights in it. Departure from the will of God in a moral way prepared for the gradual rejection of all revelation; for men are ashamed to profess what they evidently hate, as well as what condemns them. God's word sanctifies. It judges the will of man, as well as all its outward workings and effects. It brings in God and His will, which grace makes the directory and food and joy of the new man. Instead of this Satan presents fable on the one hand and commandments of man on the other, which shut out conscience as well as God Himself.
It is evident that these instructions of the apostle are in full accordance with the teaching of the Master in Matt. 15, especially ver. 10-20; Luke 6:40-45; 11:34-44, and elsewhere. Christianity in the practical sense works outwardly from within: unless the soul be purified in obeying the truth, as with all that believe, there is neither the Father's name hallowed, nor sin truly judged, nor unfeigned love of the brethren. Neither can there be the worship of God in spirit and truth, any more than drawing near to the Father. All must be superficial and of the natural man. There can be nothing divine till one is born of the Spirit; whereas the gospel carries the soul, in the sense of God's favor in Christ, far beyond into peace, liberty, and power. For Christ is not only life, but the Deliverer in the fullest sense, as He is the revealed object before the soul from first to last.
Thus He, the unchanging One, changes all things for us; and if any one is in Christ, it is a new creation: old things have passed away, behold, all things are become new; and all the things are of the God Who reconciled us to Himself by Jesus Christ, and gave us the ministry of reconciliation. Such is the nature, such the character and ways of, God as He has now made Himself known to us in the gospel. How hateful to Him, and ungrateful in man, and base and rebellions in itself, to turn back from a revelation, so wondrous and blessed and complete, to the beggarly elements of Judaism, yea lower still, to the filthy defiling puddle of human fable and commandments! It is man's religion using as much, or rather as little, of God's word as snits the deadly deceiver, who is behind it all, and avails himself of that little in order to claim divine authority and avoid the reproach of slighting the revelation of grace and truth in Christ the Lord. But the pure in heart, as they shall see God, are enabled to discern present dishonor done to His word, His Son, and the mighty work of redemption, before the light of which these religions efforts and vanities of men flee away as darkness before the day.
We are not in this immediate context directed to the person of Him who makes all this folly and evil manifest; nor have we dogmatic unfolding of the gospel; but grand moral principles of the utmost moment are laid down. There is room for all, but each in its season, as God is pleased to suit His word to every one who hears the Shepherd's voice. “To the pure all things are pure.” How plain and assuring to those who are subject to the Lord! How vain, in presence of such a declaration, to say that “the church” forbids flesh to be eaten on a Friday or in Lent! The value of a real fast is not denied thereby, but this is of grace in presence of adequate passing occasion; and never in the New Testament a general law, still less the sham of eating fish or eggs. Scripture, however, goes farther still, and, not content with maintaining the holy liberty of the Christian, denounces solemnly those who would infringe it. “But to the defiled and unbelieving nothing is pure, but both the mind and the conscience are defiled.” Having part neither in divine nature nor in divine light, to which they plainly prefer human thoughts, feelings, and authority, they necessarily become a prey to the enemy whose malicious pleasure it is to dishonor God in man's dark and alien ways. Defilement accordingly taints every spring of inward and moral affection, as it pervades their entire life, be they or not openly corrupt, or at any rate unbelieving.
It is in vain to boast in such a state of knowing God: as the Jews did of old, so do the superstitious now; but they alike prove the unreality of their boast, because “in works they deny Him, being abominable and disobedient, and to every good work reprobate.” Hypocrisy, or at the least self-deception, is the inevitable result of their false position and state. The pretension to extraordinary holiness which essays to exalt self by ignorantly slighting
God's creatures, instead of using them holily and thankfully to His glory, opens the door to Satan who drags such into all defilement of flesh and spirit, yea into abominations contrary to nature itself. Estranged from the truth and grace of God, and abandoned to self, what hope can there be of repentance? What more terrible moral sentence than what the apostle pronounces, “unto every good work reprobate” ?