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February 24, 2026 |
| Clean and the Christian | ||
Centuries ago, there was a man. I don't know who he was, so I'll call him Non Spiritu Ductus, NSD for short. NSD asked a good question, something like, "Why is the Old Testament full of instructions about unclean food, but we Christians eat whatever we want?" He was really asking what the theological basis was for Christians eating unclean food. Where in the Bible does it say that we can do that?
NSD came up with an answer that now pervades Christianity, but it was the wrong answer. I think his answer was accepted because no one had a better answer, and most Christians didn't want to follow all of those rules about being clean.
NSD found a passage where Jesus talks about eating clean foods, but it wasn't crystal clear what Jesus was saying. NSD found that, by adding only a few words to clarify it, Jesus was declaring that all foods are clean, and thus the clean food rules no longer apply.
This is the passage he found.
And He said to them, “Are you lacking understanding in this way as well? Do you not understand that whatever goes into the man from outside cannot defile him,
because it does not go into his heart, but into his stomach, and goes to the sewer?” (Thus He declared all foods clean.) (Mark 7:18-19 LSB)
The LSB translation, which comes from the NASB translation, normally marks any words that it adds to the text. Because Greek is different from English, it is sometimes necessary to add words, usually prepositions, so the meaning will be clear in English. They mark these added words with italics.
In this case, they have marked "Thus he" as added words. I've highlighted what they have actually added or changed. They have translated the Greek word "making" into "declared." That is not a valid translation. The translators are editorializing an explanatory commentary into the Bible. Nowhere else in the Bible is this done.
Some translations add even more words.
[…] Food doesn’t go into your heart, but only passes through the stomach and then goes into the sewer.” (By saying this, he declared that every kind of food is acceptable in God’s eyes.) (Mark 7:19 NLT)
By adding more text, this translation has actually shown the foolishness of translations that do this. If Jesus said that food "passes through the stomach and then goes into the sewer," how is that a declaration that all foods are clean? It's a declaration that the digestive process functions as it should.
Fortunately, not all translations inject that idea that Jesus was declaring something about food.
[…] Because it doesn't go into his heart but into his stomach, and then into the sewer, thereby expelling all foods." (ISV)
You might wonder how this translation can be so different … and so much shorter. I can't speak for that translation, but it's easy to imagine those translators asked themselves if it made any sense to translate it as Jesus making a declaration about food, and decided the answer was no. They still aren't exactly correct, as we'll see later, but they are far closer.
By not using these added words, the ISV translation and others like it have no Biblical explanation for why it is OK for Christians to eat unclean food.
We've already seen that there is no logical connection between the previous sentence, where Jesus is saying that food goes into the stomach and then into the sewer, and the idea that Jesus is declaring something about food.
There are other problems. Matthew speaks of the same event, but his account lacks this editorializing.
Do you not understand that everything that goes into the mouth passes into the stomach, and goes into the sewer? (Matthew 15:17)
That is very similar to the ISV's version of Mark's verse. The only meaningful difference between Mark and Matthew is these words, "purifying all the food." We'll see later what Jesus means by these words.
There is another problem: Jesus is saying these things to his disciples only. He didn't explain the details to the crowd. If Jesus had just made all food clean, wouldn't he tell everyone the wonderful thing he had done for them?
Also, Peter was one of those disciples who were there to hear these details from Jesus. Yet, later, in Peter's vision about the sheet (Acts 10:9-16), he says he has never eaten anything unclean and wouldn't. Clearly he didn't believe that Jesus had declared all food clean.
There is yet another problem. Even if the translations that say Jesus was declaring something were right, that wouldn't solve the problem. NSD only considered unclean food, but there were many other things that could make a person unclean.
I'm going to use Noah as an example here, but I could use many others instead, even most people from our time.
When Noah was born, someone cut and tied his umbilical cord, cleaned him up, and gave him to his mother, who said, "What a beautiful baby you are."
I wasn't there, obviously, so how do I know this? I know this because every mother says the same thing.
Then God looked down on the newborn boy and thought, "Oh yuck! Gross! Phew!"
Why the difference of opinion? God sees something that we do not. The Bible calls it uncleanness. It is the nature of mankind that every baby is born unclean. It was true for Cain, and it is still true now. Unlike the uncleanliness that comes from eating unclean food, this kind of uncleanliness isn't excreted. It sticks to a man.
When God brought the people of Israel out of Egypt, he said that he wanted to be with them, even to walk among them. For that to be tolerable to God, they were going to have to obey some rules about keeping clean. In those rules, we see all the different ways a person can become unclean and how each is to be handled.
For some, it was as easy as washing and staying away from people until bedtime. We need to think about that for a moment though.
Consider the case of Naaman, who was a great man, but he had leprosy.
And Elisha sent a messenger to him, saying, “Go and wash in the Jordan seven times, and your flesh will be restored to you and you will be clean.” 11 But Naaman was furious and went away and said, “Behold, I said to myself, ‘He will surely come out to me and stand and call on the name of Yahweh his God, and wave his hand over the place and cure the leper.’ 12 Are not Abanah and Pharpar, the rivers of Damascus, better than all the waters of Israel? Could I not wash in them and be clean?” So he turned and went away in wrath. 13 Then his servants approached and spoke to him and said, “My father, had the prophet spoken with you to do some great thing, would you not have done it? How much more then, when he says to you, ‘Wash, and be clean’?” (2 Kings 5:10-13)
Was there something magical about the Jordan River that would heal Naaman? No. So how was Naaman healed? By faith, demonstrated by obedience. God healed him because he trusted God enough to follow God's instructions.
The same was true of the washing for uncleanness. There was nothing special about the washing. The uncleanness was washed away by God because the person had been obedient to follow God's instructions. Someone who did not believe in God could wash themselves in the same way, but remain unclean.
The process for removing the uncleanness from birth requires a priest and a functioning temple. Because those do not exist now, most people go through their lives being unclean, but they are not aware of it.
So, where is the Biblical basis that allows Christians to eat any food they want and to be clean? More to the point, what cleans Christians from all the other kinds of uncleanliness they might encounter?
We know the Holy Spirit is in us. How can that be tolerable to him if we are unclean?
Old Testament prophecy speaks about a big change that was coming and which we now know as Christianity.
Then I will sprinkle clean water on you, and you will be clean; I will cleanse you from all your uncleanness and from all your idols. 26 Moreover, I will give you a new heart and put a new spirit within you; and I will remove the heart of stone from your flesh and give you a heart of flesh. (Ezekiel 36:25-26; Isaiah 1:16; Malachi 3:3; Zechariah 13:1; Jeremiah 33:8)
These verses say this change will have parts. The part we are interested in is "I will cleanse you from all your uncleanness." This part speaks of an ongoing washing that keeps the believer clean.
We were unclean until we believed. At that time we were cleaned and the Spirit entered us. The Spirit now keeps us clean.
The apostles dealt with the topic of unclean food in various places. We'll look at the one I find the clearest.
There is one who believes that he may eat everything, and he who is weak eats vegetables. 3 But let not him who eats despise him who does not eat, and let not him who does not eat judge him who eats, for God has accepted him. (Romans 14:2-3)
We need to understand who this person is who eats only vegetables. He is a Jew who has become a Christian. When a Jew eats with people who may be serving unclean food, he will eat only vegetables.
As a Jewish convert, he has never eaten unclean food, but he sees other Christians eating unclean food. If he were to eat that food, he would feel guilt and therefore sin. He hasn't yet come to the understanding that Christians can eat unclean food. Therefore, Paul calls him weak.
Paul says, in this situation, the one who eats what is unclean should not despise the other because he is weak. Also, the one who is weak should not consider the one who eats unclean food to be a sinner.
Paul continues on in this passage to make the point that the church is going to have differences in levels of understanding like this. That wasn't true of Judaism. Each young boy was trained in the same law of God. At his Bar Mitzvah, he became responsible for living according to that law. Christianity is not like that.
Paul says don't judge one another over these things. Each of us is individually responsible to God. He emphasizes that we should not become a stumbling block to another Christian
For I know and I am persuaded by the Lord Yahweh Yeshua that there is nothing that is defiled in his presence. But to the one who regards anything impure, it is impure to him alone. 15 But if you grieve your brother because of food […] (Romans 14:14)
Paul says it straight out here. There is no food that is defiled for a Christian. We'll deal with the second sentence in verse 14 later.
And let us not destroy a servant of God because of food, for everything is pure, but it is evil to a man who eats with offense. (Romans 14:20)
Paul repeats the point - all food is pure.
Therefore, we who are strong are indebted to bear the infirmities of the weak and not to please ourselves. (Romans 15:1)
In the previous section, I mentioned that, for a Christian who believes it is wrong to eat unclean meat, it is a sin if he does eat it, even if the Christian beside him is eating the same food but is not sinning because he does not believe it is a sin. This is a guilt sin, something most Christians know nothing about.
For whoever is doubtful and eats is condemned because it is not in faith, for everything that is not from faith is sin. (Romans 14:23)
It is a rare thing in our time and country to find a Christian who is in that transition from not eating unclean foods to eating them. It's important that these people be comfortable about doing it before they do it.
[…] but let every person be certain in his own mind. (Romans 14:5)
No Christian does anything wrong by not eating unclean foods.
Here are the verses we started with, but from a better translation.
He said to them, “Are you also stupid? Do you not know that nothing entering from outside a man can defile him? 19 Because it does not enter his heart, but his belly, and is discharged by excretion, which purifies all foods. 20 But the thing that proceeds from a man, that defiles the man.” (Mark 7:18-20 AEINT)
Jesus is speaking about spiritual defilement, not physical uncleanliness. He says food does not enter your heart (spirit). Food goes into the stomach and is excreted. The people he was speaking to already understood that uncleanliness from unclean food was quickly washed away.
Now we get to the difficult part of that verse, the part that was twisted into a declaration. It says, "which purifies all foods." Jesus' point is subtle, and I will also be delicate. If it was pork when it went into your mouth, it wasn't pork when it was excreted. If it was unclean when it went in and was clean when it came out, then it was purified in the process.
We've seen that Christians do not need to worry about any of the Old Testament laws about being clean. Most Christians already do not worry about that. Most of those do not understand why they don't need to have that concern.
A few think it's because Paul said they could eat unclean food. Paul did say that, but that isn't a satisfying answer. It wasn't satisfying for NSD, and it isn't for us, because it doesn't explain why there was a change from the Old Testament to the New.
A few people think Jesus declared all foods to be clean, but the verses from Mark that they use do not support that idea, as we've seen. Also, those verses only speak about unclean food, not about all the other types of uncleanliness that are possible.
The reason Spirit-filled believers can eat the foods that were unclean in the Old Testament and be in contact with the other things that made a person unclean is that the Spirit cleans the home where he lives. That is necessarily so. If we were to become unclean, even without knowing it, we would become intolerable to the Spirit as a residence, and he would have to leave.