because it does not go into his heart, but into the stomach, and it goes out and cleanses all that was eaten.”
Here Christ explains a natural process and by it shows the moral distinction. Food does not enter a person’s heart as a moral principle, but passes through the natural course of the body’s functions and comes out of it. Thus it cannot, in itself, defile a person. This statement also corrects the mistaken notions that external substances can determine a person’s spiritual condition. Taking in food pertains to the body and does not act upon a person’s inner moral reality.