Where the Argument Collapses
This verse is about defilement, not about diet. Yahushua is answering a question about what makes a man unclean, and He answers it by naming where each kind of uncleanness lives.
Ceremonial uncleanness stops at the body. Breaking the Law starts in the heart. That is the whole teaching.
The Claim
Mark 7:19 is where the Messiah cancelled the food laws. Most modern Bibles end the verse with something like thus he declared all foods clean.
The Verse
Because it entereth not into his heart, but into the belly, and goeth out into the draught, purging all meats?
— Mark 7:19, KJV
He Names Where It Goes
The verse begins with because. It is the reason for the sentence before it, not a new statement.
What enters a man goes to the belly. It does not go to the heart.
He is not saying nothing happens. He is naming the place it never reaches.
Two Kinds of Unclean
Scripture uses the word unclean for two different things. The Pharisees were arguing about one of them. Yahushua answered about the other.
The First Kind Stops at the Body
The first kind is a condition, not a wrong.
A man who touched a dead body was unclean (Numbers 19:11). A woman was unclean after childbirth (Leviticus 12). A son who buried his father was unclean for seven days.
Not one of them sinned. This kind was about the sanctuary — who could come near, and when. It had a set length. It ended with washing.
It never touched the heart. That was never what it was for.
This is the kind the Pharisees brought to Him. They said unwashed hands put a man in this condition.
The Second Kind Starts in the Heart
The second kind is breaking the Law. Something is wrong inside the man. Washing does not touch it and time does not end it. He has to repent.
This kind does not come in from outside. It comes out from within.
This is the kind Yahushua answered them about.
The Answer He Gave
For from within, out of the heart of men, proceed evil thoughts, adulteries, fornications, murders, thefts, covetousness, wickedness, deceit, lasciviousness, an evil eye, blasphemy, pride, foolishness.
— Mark 7:21–22
Thirteen things. Every one of them breaks a commandment. Murder. Theft. Adultery. Covetousness. Blasphemy.
Not one of them is a ceremonial condition. Not one is contracted by touch. Every one comes out of the heart, and every one is a violation of the Law.
So the man who defiles himself is the man who breaks the Law. That is what Yahushua said stains a man, and He said it by naming the commandments one after another.
What He Did Not Say
He did not say the first kind never existed. The sanctuary rules were real and He kept them.
He said the Pharisees were watching the wrong one. They guarded a man’s hands and left his heart alone.
The Clause at the End
The last words of the verse are the translator’s, not Mark’s. To get thus he declared all foods clean, a translator has to add a subject the Greek does not have and a verb that is not there. The word is katharizon, from katharizo (G2511), to cleanse, and in the Greek it can attach to the body passing the food through. That is how the King James translators read it. They wrote purging all meats.
One warning about how this is often argued. Some say the words are missing from the oldest manuscripts. That is not true and should not be used. The words are there.
And the clause can be granted in full without cost. Clean is what makes a thing food in the first place. Foundation F-10 carries that.
The Verdict
Mark 7:19 answers where defilement comes from.
What a man takes in reaches his belly and stops there. What breaks the Law comes out of his heart, and that is what defiles him.
Foundations Cited
F-10 Common Is Not Unclean