Every parent knows the battle of getting kids to wash their hands before dinner. We fight over germs and hygiene because we know what happens when we ignore them. But Jesus warns us about a far more dangerous kind of contamination, one we cannot fix with soap and hot water. Mark 7 records a confrontation between Jesus and the Pharisees that uncovers a deeply uncomfortable reality about all of us. The issue was not dirty hands at the dinner table, but dirty hearts before a holy God.
The Pharisees were deeply concerned with “spiritual hygiene.” They had seen Jesus’ disciples eating with hands that had not been washed:
“Now when the Pharisees gathered to him, with some of the scribes who had come from Jerusalem, they saw that some of his disciples ate with hands that were defiled, that is, unwashed.” (Mark 7:1–2)
Mark then gives an explanatory comment:
“For the Pharisees and all the Jews do not eat unless they wash their hands properly, holding to the tradition of the elders… and there are many other traditions that they observe, such as the washing of cups and pots and copper vessels and dining couches.” (Mark 7:3–4)
They had developed a wide network of religious traditions intended to protect moral purity. They washed pots, cups, couches, and hands with meticulous care. These additions to God’s law were not necessarily malicious at first. Many were born out of a desire to obey and remain “clean” before God. Over time, however, these man-made rules became equal to Scripture itself. Soon religion was no longer about internal devotion to God, but external performance before others.
Jesus cut through the veneer and quoted the prophet Isaiah:
“This people honors me with their lips, but their heart is far from me; in vain do they worship me, teaching as doctrines the commandments of men.” (Mark 7:6–7)
Their problem was not that they cared about holiness, but that they sought it through the wrong means. They believed defilement came from the outside in; Jesus said it comes from the inside out.
Legalism always ends up there. It assumes that if we control the outside, the inside will follow. It believes rules, restrictions, and rituals can produce righteousness. It focuses on what can be seen, measured, and managed. It praises outward conformity.
Behavior modification can clean the hands, but it cannot cleanse the heart.
And this is not just a Pharisee problem. It is a human problem. We try to manage the mess from the outside, but none of these things deal with the deeper issue: the sinful heart beneath the surface.
Jesus insists that moral pollution works from the inside out:
“Hear me, all of you, and understand: There is nothing outside a person that by going into him can defile him, but the things that come out of a person are what defile him.” (Mark 7:14–15)
Evil thoughts, sexual immorality, greed, pride, foolishness, envy, and slander are not imported from the world; they are exported from the heart. Jesus said, “What comes out of a person is what defiles him.” (Mark 7:20) We are not sinners because we sin. We sin because we are sinners.
This passage confronts us with a humbling and liberating truth. Our biggest problem is not what others have done to us, nor what we have been exposed to, nor the culture we live in. Our biggest problem is that we are born with hearts that are defiled by sin (Romans 3:9–10, 23). That is why rules and rituals can never fully work. They may restrain behavior, but they cannot regenerate the heart that is dead in sin. They may create moral people, but they cannot create true worshipers.
This is why Christianity is not primarily about making bad people behave better. It is about making dead people alive.
“And you were dead in the trespasses and sins in which you once walked… but God, being rich in mercy… made us alive together with Christ.” (Ephesians 2:1–5)
The gospel does not come to reform the old heart, but to replace it entirely. The prophet Ezekiel promised that God Himself would remove the heart of stone and give a heart of flesh (Ezekiel 36:26–27). Paul preached that salvation is by grace alone through faith alone in Christ alone. Not by works. Not by rituals. Not by rule-keeping. Not by discipline. Only Christ, the Clean One, can make the unclean clean.
I have been thinking about this recently as it relates to parenting children. Nowhere is this distinction more practical, and more easily forgotten, than in parenting. Parents often feel the pressure to produce “well-behaved” children. We correct speech, monitor actions, and discipline disrespect. We enforce rules: clean your room, speak kindly, stop hitting your sister. And these things matter. God cares about obedience, order, respect, and honor within the home.
But if we are not careful, we could succeed in raising very polite, yet unregenerate children. They may learn to behave, but not to believe. They may learn to fear parental punishment, but not the Lord. They may master self-control for the sake of avoiding consequences, yet still love the sin in their hearts. It is entirely possible for a child to obey externally while despising God internally.
Paul Tripp captures this well: “When you address only behavior, you are responding to the overflow, not the source. The goal of parenting is not simply to control behavior, but to help your child understand what rules the heart.” (Shepherding a Child’s Heart, p. 6)
For teenagers, this becomes particularly urgent. Teens can mimic Christian behavior for years while inwardly living for approval, pleasure, or self-rule. Many who “lose their faith” in college never had living faith at all. They were trained in Christian manners, but never trained to love and delight in Christ. They had clean hands, but untouched hearts.
Mark 7 is not a text about hygiene, but about salvation. Jesus did not come to produce moral reform or external cleanliness. It is true that a heart transformed by the gospel will lead to a changed life, but that is not the starting point. Jesus came to make hearts new. Christianity works from the inside out. Religion works from the outside in. Christ stands ready to cleanse you. Not with water, but with His blood. Not by rules, but by grace. Not by behavior modification, but by heart transformation.
Only the gospel can do that.
