Mark 7:14

And he called to him the multitude again, and said unto them, Hear me all of you, and understand: there is nothing from without the man, that going into him can defile him; but the things which proceed out of the man are those that defile the man.

God's dealings with ancient Israel had indeed forbidden the eating of certain meats, the regulations regarding clean and unclean creatures having had practical as well as symbolical value to the chosen people; and the words of Christ in this place are not to be understood as any kind of denial of the validity of the Law of Moses, which Christ equated with "the word of God" in Mark 7:13, immediately preceding. Christ here did for the law concerning defilement exactly what he did with regard to the Decalogue itself in the Sermon on the Mount, claiming his own authority as sufficient right to extend, change, and modify God's ancient Law. Inherent in these words of the Master is the affirmation of his own deity.

The thing to which Christ addressed his remarks here was the gross externalism which had grown to characterize the Pharisees' interpretations of the sacred Law, their fantastic charge that Christ's disciples had become defiled by their violation of Pharisaical rules concerning washing of hands being a glaring example of it. Taking a great leap forward into the future dispensation, already dawning, Jesus here announced the abrogation of the divine rules regarding clean and unclean meats, which abrogation necessarily included all derivatives and corollaries of such regulations. In the Sermon on the Mount, Christ abolished the commandment which says, "Thou shalt not kill," substituting another in its place; and making anger in the heart to be the equivalent of murder (Matthew 5:21,22). In this exceedingly significant passage, Jesus abolished the laws of diet and ceremonial uncleanness, for the simple reason that these were only external to begin with, designed for teaching spiritual realities, and having been made even more useless and burdensome by the Pharisaical interpretations fastened upon them. Jesus substituted in the place of those ancient rules the holy requirement of moral and spiritual purity, internal cleanness instead of external observances.

This is as good a place as any to notice a hurtful and illogical deduction which some have made, basing it, as they have supposed, on Jesus' teaching in this passage. Barclay wrote:

There is no commoner religious mistake than in identifying good with certain so-called religious acts. church-going, Bible reading, careful financial giving, even time-tabled prayer do not make a man a good man. ... We must have a care that we never allow rules and regulations to paralyze the claims of charity and love.[7]

The implication of such a view is that God's rules and regulations, in some cases, are capable of paralyzing the claims of love and human need; and that implication is false. God's "commandments are not grievous" (1 John 5:3); it is the ridiculous and burdensome commandments of men which are grievous and burdensome (Matthew 23:4; Luke 11:46). The very strictest observance of God's rules and regulations is impossible of becoming grievous or burdensome.

The other implication, in such interpretations as those of Barclay, which is sinful and unjustified is that divine law may be set aside wherever and whenever "human need" or "love" might require it. There is no sin which clever rationalists may not justify upon such a premise. The error here is twofold: (1) It supposes that ANY MAN may contradict divine law to fulfill what is called "human need," thus usurping a prerogative which pertains to the divine Son of God only. There is a world of difference in what Christ here did and what any mortal would be doing if he attempted the same thing. It was Christ's right to change divine law; man does NOT have that right; (2) Church attending, Bible-reading, and prayer were specifically cited by Barclay as things which cannot, when taken alone, make people good; and this is true in a limited sense. However, the implication that people can be "good" in the Christian sense without doing such things is a base lie. Significantly, it is these very basic Christian duties that are denied and repudiated by the people who want to be "good" without obeying rules and regulations. Mere humanism can never be an adequate substitute for the holy faith that is in Christ Jesus; and it may be dogmatically affirmed that people who will not study the Holy Bible, and never attend church, and who do not pray have, by such omissions, placed themselves outside the promise of eternal life that is in Christ Jesus.