Have the Biblical Dietary Laws been Abolished? (Mark 7:18–19)

Mark 7:18–19 ESV And he said to them, “Then are you also without understanding? Do you not see that whatever goes into a person from outside cannot defile him, ₁₉ since it enters not his heart but his stomach, and is expelled?” (Thus he declared all foods clean.)

Mark 7:18–19 is often used to teach that the biblical dietary laws have been abolished. The saying, “Thus he declared all foods clean,” is popularly understood to mean that Jesus was overriding the biblical dietary laws by declaring that animals which were previously considered unclean according to the biblical dietary laws are no longer to be considered unclean. However, this popular Christian interpretation fails to take into account several important considerations.

1. Jesus’ Attitude toward the Biblical Law

Earlier on in the same chapter, Jesus had rebuked the Pharisees for enforcing their “traditions of the elders” on others at the expense of keeping God’s commandments as found in the biblical law:

Mark 7:6–8 ESV And he said to them, “Well did Isaiah prophesy of you hypocrites, as it is written,

“‘This people honours me with their lips,
but their heart is far from me;
₇ in vain do they worship me,
teaching as doctrines the commandments of men.’

₈ You leave the commandment of God and hold to the tradition of men.”

From this passage, we learn that Jesus affirmed that people should keep God’s commandments in the biblical law. Therefore, it would not be reasonable to interpret any of Jesus’ saying as if he were contradicting or disparaging any part of the biblical law, let alone the biblical dietary laws.

2. Jesus’ Saying in Context

In order to correctly understand what Jesus was saying in these verses and what it means that “he declared all foods clean”, we must read the passage in its entirety, and not take Jesus’ saying out of context.

According to verses 3–4, the Pharisees believed that if a person did not wash his hands ceremonially before eating food, then the food would become defiled, and the person who eats the food would also become defiled. However, this concept is not found anywhere in the Bible, and the writer is careful to clarify that the Pharisees were “holding to the tradition of the elders”.

In verse 5, when the Pharisees complained to Jesus about his disciples, it was not because they were eating the flesh of unclean animals, but because they were eating without first ceremonially washing hands “according to the tradition of the elders”. It was this unbiblical tradition of the Pharisees which Jesus was addressing in verses 14–15 and 18–19.

Therefore, the issue was not about whether it was permissible to eat the flesh of unclean animals, but about whether food eaten with ceremonially unwashed hands could defile a person. Thus, this passage has nothing at all to do with the biblical dietary laws. At no point at all throughout this entire passage are the biblical dietary laws even addressed, nor is their validity ever questioned.

3. Jesus’ Own Explanation of His Saying

In verses 18–19, Jesus explained why foods cannot defile a human being: Because the human body is able to expel it afterwards. According to Jesus himself, “whatever goes into a person from outside cannot defile him”—not because the biblical dietary laws had been abolished, but because “it enters not his heart but his stomach, and is expelled.”

Jesus’ explanation has been true since Creation; the human body has always been able to expel food, and there has never been a time when that was not the case. So, if Jesus was really talking about the biblical dietary laws here, then those laws could never have been valid in the first place. This would mean that when God said that touching or eating the flesh of unclean animals would make a person unclean (Lev. 11:24, 43–44), he must have been lying.

Notice also that according to Jesus, people who think that foods can defile a person are “without understanding” (v. 18). Was God also “without understanding” when he gave the biblical dietary laws? Could someone have rightly protested against God, “Lord, are you also without understanding? Do you not see that whatever goes into a person from outside cannot defile him, since it enters not his heart but his stomach, and is expelled?”

Something is terribly wrong if we manage to interpret Jesus’ word in such a way that it can be used against the word of God in the Bible.

4. Jesus’ Own Conclusion from his Saying

Verse 19 makes an application from Jesus’ saying. By exposing the fact that food cannot defile a person, contrary to the unbiblical teaching of the Pharisees, “he declared all foods clean.” Therefore, Jesus was not saying that the flesh of unclean animals was now clean contrary to the biblical law. Rather, in context, Jesus “declared all foods clean” in the sense that what he said affirmed something that has been true all the while: Contrary to the teaching of the Pharisees, food has always been clean and cannot defile a person because food cannot be defiled in the first place!

This is clear from Jesus’ own conclusion of his saying, as recorded in the parallel passage: “For out of the heart come evil thoughts, murder, adultery, sexual immorality, theft, false witness, slander. These are what defile a person. But to eat with unwashed hands does not defile anyone.” (Matt. 15:19–20 ESV)