Mark 7:18
And he saith unto them, Are ye so without understanding also? Do ye not perceive, that whatsoever thing from without entereth into the man, it can not defile him; And he saith unto them, Are ye so without understanding also? Do ye not perceive, that whatsoever thing from without entereth into the man, it can not defile him;
Jesus spoke these words as His answer to the Pharisees and certain scribes who charged His disciples with transgressing the tradition of the elders by eating bread with unwashen hands. Neither He nor His disciples observed those ceremonial washings. What enters a man from without cannot defile him in the sense of causing ceremonial defilement under the traditional precepts of purification.
Those precepts had encumbered the law of God, professing to guard its observance while being regarded as more sacred than the law itself, so that when tradition collided with the commandments given from Sinai, tradition was given the preference. Ceremonial purification before eating was among the observances most strenuously enforced, hedged about with numberless rules for washings and purifications. Neglect of it was counted a heinous sin to be punished both in this world and in the next, making life under such requirements one long struggle against ceremonial defilement in an endless round of observances. Occupation with these trifling distinctions which God had not required turned the attention of the people away from the great principles of His law.