Mark 7:14 Commentary and Bible Study

The Lord now calls all the crowd to him. ‘And when he had called all the people unto him he said unto them, Hearken unto me, everyone of you, and understand.’ He didn't say that kind of thing very often. This is so important, and it went against the prevailing understanding of so many of the Jews. ‘There is nothing from without a man,’ – foodstuffs, things you eat – ‘that entering into him can defile him: but the things which come out of a man’ – his words and his actions – ‘those are they that defile the man. If any man have ears to hear, let him hear.’ The food laws had been given to Israel through Moses and formed part of the ceremonial law. They restricted what Israel was allowed to eat. Certain species were not to be consumed, and the distinction between clean and unclean animal was expressed in terms of two things: whether they had cloven hooves, and whether they chewed the cud (Deuteronomy 14:6-8). Bunyan has Faith interpret this in Pilgrim’s Progress: ‘This brings to my mind that of Moses, by which he describeth the beast that is clean (Lev. 11; Deut. 14). He is such a one that parteth the hoof and cheweth the cud; not that parteth the hoof only, or that cheweth the cud only. The hare cheweth the cud, but yet is unclean, because be parteth not the hoof. And this truly resembleth Talkative, he cheweth the cud, he seeketh knowledge, he cheweth upon the word; but he divideth not the hoof, he parteth not with the way of sinners; but, as the hare, he retaineth the foot of a dog or bear, and therefore he is unclean..’ These laws were not given for health reasons as if there was anything intrinsically bad about these foods, for God had previously allowed a wider selection of food (Genesis 9:3-4). These Mosaic restrictions were to teach the people spiritual lessons: to teach them to distinguish clean from unclean in spiritual matters. Christ in effect cancels these restrictions with this statement, and that cancellation is confirmed by the teaching of the apostles (Romans 14:14; 1 Corinthians 8:8). The saying is enigmatic, but the disciples should have understood it, and he tells them so in (verse 18). They should have understood that it is the heart that must be involved if there is to be real sinful behaviour, for the heart consists of the mind, the will, and the affections and it is necessary for these to participate for there to be moral guilt.