The New Testament clearly reveals that the Old Testament dietary laws did not carry over into the New Covenant. However, some of the passages which people think eliminate the dietary laws, in fact, do not. One such verse is Mark 7:19 where many of our English Bibles say that Jesus “declared all foods clean.”
since it enters not his heart but his stomach, and is expelled?” (Thus he declared all foods clean.) (Mark 7:19 ESV)
This is a very direct statement, is it not? How could one say that this verse doesn’t teach that Jesus eliminated the Old Testament food laws? The problem is one of translation. As it turns out, translators are not in agreement on the proper way to translate Mark 7:19 into English. In addition, the context does not support the idea that the Old Testament food laws are under consideration in this passage.
In context, did Jesus declare all foods clean?
Before dealing with v. 19, we need to understand what Jesus is really talking about in Mark 7. Jesus made a statement in v. 15 which His listeners must have found both shocking and radical:
14 And he called the people to him again and said to them, “Hear me, all of you, and understand: 15 There is nothing outside a person that by going into him can defile him, but the things that come out of a person are what defile him.” (Mark 7:14–15 ESV)
Jesus made this statement in the context of Mark 7:1-13 which was concerning the legitimacy of the man-made tradition of washing hands before eating a meal. The Pharisees and all the Jews considered it a defiling act to eat a meal without first washing their hands.
Jesus told them that they were elevating their man-made traditions above the plain commands of God. That’s when He told them that nothing that a person eats, nor the manner in which they eat, can defile a person. A Jew of Jesus’s day would have recognized two kinds of defilement: ritual defilement, and moral defilement.1
What kind of defilement was Jesus talking about?
It is clear that Jesus was not speaking about ritual defilement which comes from eating unclean foods or eating with unwashed hands. We know this because He said that nothing outside a person which he or she ingests can cause defilement. The Old Testament food laws clearly said that eating unclean foods would ritually defile a person. Of course, Jesus knew this, therefore, we know He is talking about something else. Jesus went on to explain what kind of defilement He was talking about:
20 And he said, “What comes out of a person is what defiles him. 21 For from within, out of the heart of man, come evil thoughts, sexual immorality, theft, murder, adultery, 22 coveting, wickedness, deceit, sensuality, envy, slander, pride, foolishness. 23 All these evil things come from within, and they defile a person.” (Mark 7:20–23 ESV)
Jesus was speaking about moral defilement! A person’s speech and conduct is motivated by what is inside his or her heart. These sins are what defiles a person, not eating with unwashed hands. The Old Testament food laws are not what Jesus was talking about! Unclean foods and dietary laws are not even mentioned in this passage. What the passage does mention is violating the traditions of men (washing hands, etc. vv 1-5), not violating the food laws of the Torah.
Even a casual reading of the context reveals that the food laws are not under consideration. One doesn’t have to be an expert in ancient Koine Greek to realize that the wording of some English translations don’t fit the context. What then should we make of v. 19?
The Greek of Mark 7:19 is difficult to translate
The words “thus he declared” are not in the Greek text of Mark 7:19. Translators added these words in some English Bibles.
They did this to attempt to clarify what Mark was trying to communicate, but not all scholars and translators agree with this “clarification.”
The translation difficulty is due to the way v. 19 ends. It is unclear in the Greek who or what makes all the foods clean.2 The word translated “clean” (καθαρίζον) is a dangling participle and it is unclear if it connects back to Jesus or to something else. Therefore, it is not easy to tell what or who did the cleansing. There is a grammatical reason to link the cleansing to Jesus’s words. Therefore, some scholars consider this to be a narrator’s comment by Mark and thus enclose the end of the verse in parentheses.
The context does not support a parenthetical narrator’s comment
There are a couple of problems with this approach. First, as already noted above, there is nothing in the context about food which the Torah declared as unclean. The context is dealing with the traditions of the Pharisees.
The second problem is one of timing. Peter was part of Jesus’s inner circle during Christ’s earthly ministry. However, he was unaware that Jesus had supposedly declared all foods clean.
“Jesus certainly is not “declaring all foods clean” at this point in his ministry. Far from it. He who was ‘born under law’ (Gal 4:4) lived under the dietary restrictions of God’s old covenant till the end of his days. He expected the same of his Jewish disciples. Peter acknowledged this at Joppa: ‘I have never eaten anything impure or unclean’ (Ac 10:14). If Jesus were the one cleansing (καθαρίζον) all foods somewhat early in his public ministry, why would Peter so emphatically speak of them as unclean? No, it was only when his obedient life ended at the cross that our Redeemer cancelled the written code with all its regulations, including those that prohibited certain foods.”3
It is inconceivable, therefore, that Mark’s gospel is communicating anything about unclean foods being declared clean by Jesus. People are not in complete agreement about how this verse applies today. Nevertheless, just about everyone who has scrutinized this passage agrees that Jesus did not annul the Old Testament food laws in this verse.
What does Mark 7:19 mean?
The parallel passage from Mat 15:19-20 is more to the point and helps clarify what Jesus is teaching.
19 For out of the heart come evil thoughts, murder, adultery, sexual immorality, theft, false witness, slander. 20 These are what defile a person. But to eat with unwashed hands does not defile anyone.” (Matt. 15:19-20 ESV)
Washing before eating was a tradition, not a commandment of God (Mk 7:5). The religious elite had elevated many of their traditions above God’s commandments. Jesus is setting the record straight and pointing out that they were “majoring in the minors.” They were making tradition as important as commandments (v. 7).
The Christian Bible (a rare, out of print translation) renders v. 19 as follows. I have added parentheses to attempt to bring out what I think Jesus meant to convey.
Because it doesn’t go into his heart, (but into his belly, and goes out into the toilet); this makes all the foods clean.” (Mark 7:19 CB)
Parentheticals are phrases inserted into the main thought of a passage. They can add crucial information, but we can skip what is in parentheses and the sentence still works and makes sense. See how the thoughts outside the parentheses connect:
“Because it doesn’t go into his heart… this makes all the foods clean.”
All food is clean because it cannot change our hearts
I am persuaded that Jesus’s point was that all food is clean in the sense that it can’t do anything to corrupt a person’s heart or morals. Food goes into a person’s stomach and out into the toilet. A physical thing such as food cannot corrupt the immaterial nature of our hearts. Jesus is saying that something that might defile one ritually, cannot defile one morally.
The KJV and NKJV, like the CB, are a bit more conservative in the way they translate this verse:
Because it entereth not into his heart, but into the belly, and goeth out into the draught, purging all meats? (Mark 7:19 KJV)
because it does not enter his heart but his stomach, and is eliminated, thus purifying all foods?” (Mark 7:19 NKJV)
The KJV essentially reads the same as the NKJV, just with more archaic words. All food is clean in the sense that it can’t do anything to corrupt a person’s heart or morals.
Jesus did not declare all foods clean
Given the context, there is no good reason to conclude that the ending of v. 19 is a narrator’s comment inserted by Mark. The entire verse contains Jesus’s words. He is simply making the point that foods are all clean in the sense that they cannot corrupt a person’s morals.
Jesus’s teaching in Mark 7 is not about kosher foods. Mark does not mention the Old Testament dietary laws in this passage at all! To make it about Old Testament dietary restrictions is to miss the point. Jesus is contrasting weighty matters with petty matters. Jesus didn’t want them to focus on the condition of their hands, but rather on the condition of their hearts.