Did Jesus declare all foods clean?
Did Jesus declare all foods clean when he said what goes into a person does not defile them?
Jesus says, “It is not what goes into the mouth that makes a person unclean. It is what comes out of the mouth that makes a person unclean” (Matthew 15:11; Mark 7:15).
Looking at these verses in context, Jesus is responding to the Pharisees accusing his disciples of being defiled because they ate with unwashed hands (Mark 7:1-4). There was never a divine instruction to wash hands before eating, but the Pharisees practiced hand washing before meals because it was a tradition of their elders (Mark 7:5). The passage has nothing to do with Jesus permitting all forms of animal cruelty or saying anything about what should or should not be eaten. Instead it has to do with the manmade tradition of washing hands before eating and he uses the opportunity to teach about the importance of having our heart set first and foremost on following God rather than on keeping human traditions.
After his exchange with the Pharisees, Jesus explains to his disciples what he meant: “those things which proceed out of the mouth come from the heart, and they defile a man. For out of the heart proceed evil thoughts, murders, adulteries, fornications, thefts, false witness, blasphemies. These are the things which defile a man, but to eat with unwashed hands does not defile a man” (Matthew 15:18-20). Jesus thus makes it clear that he is talking specifically about handwashing, not food, and that he is highlighting the relative unimportance of handwashing compared to having the heart set on following God. Jesus further elaborates on this point of the heart and mouth being connected when he says: “A good man out of the good treasure of his heart brings forth good; and an evil man out of the evil treasure of his heart brings forth evil. For out of the abundance of the heart his mouth speaks” (Luke 6:45).
Furthermore, Jesus does not say every act is justified as long as the dead bodies that result from the act are eaten. Instead he says what comes out of a person defiles them. So ask yourself this: When it comes to how you treat God’s beloved animals (Psalm 147:9, Psalm 104:27) that have been entrusted to humanity’s care (Matthew 24:45, Isaiah 11:6), do you exhibit the fruit of the spirit: “love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control” (Galatians 5:22-23)?
Or is what comes out of you instead: cruelty (Proverbs 12:10), indifference to the suffering of your animal neighbors (Luke 10:36-37), unconcern for the distress caused to others by your food choices (Romans 14:15), neglect of divinely ordained responsibility of earthly stewardship (Genesis 2:15), tightening yokes rather than loosening them (Isaiah 58:6), and uncontrollable desire to consume flesh (Philippians 3:19), causing animals to live in fear (Habakkuk 2:17, Genesis 9:2)?
There were still plenty of food prohibitions among his followers after Jesus made this statement. For instance, Paul says in The Book of Acts to stay away from consuming the flesh of strangled animals, from blood, and from food offered to idols (Acts 15:29). And in Revelation it says false teachings mislead the church into eating food offered to idols (Revelation 2:20). And nobody, I hope, is trying to justify cannibalism or consumption of deadly poisons based on what Jesus says about not being defiled by what goes into you. So clearly it is not referring to all things that can fit down the throat, and certainly not permission to murder someone to eat their dead body since murder is specifically mentioned as one of the things coming out of a person that defiles them (Mark 7:21). So how then can it be reasonably interpreted to mean Jesus was changing the law (Deuteronomy 14:8) to, for instance, permit killing pigs to eat their bodies?
Even though it had nothing to do with justifying which kinds of food are acceptable to eat, let’s assume for the sake of argument that we can derive some underlying principle from the exchange to base our dietary decisions on. What logical conclusion would that lead us to? If you say you do everything in love, as it says to do in 1 Corinthians 16:14, yet your attitude and actions toward animals suggest anything but love, then what is coming out of your mouth are hypocritical lies and it is those lies that defile you.
Since God is love (1 John 4:8;16), we should be very careful not to forsake love in favor of violence and serving the desires of the flesh (Galatians 5:17). And since God’s word is truth (John 17:17) and the devil is the father of lies (John 8:44), we should likewise be just as careful not to cover up what we are doing with lies. Instead we should confess our mistakes (James 5:16) and turn away from them (Proverbs 28:13; 1 John 1:9). We should love mercy (Micah 6:8) rather than the bloodthirsty appetites of the flesh (Galatians 5:24).
Videography by Keven Whang
I’ve been active in ministry, missionary work, Bible study groups, animal advocacy, community outreach, and in many other callings of the spirit. In 2013 I started swords2plowshares.com, where I began posting important things I learned throughout my years of service, focusing on topics that are often overlooked, under-emphasized, or misunderstood by the church today.
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