Anchor My Faith

New Wineskins/New Covenant

Scripture: Mt 9:16; Lk 5:36-39

In the previous lesson, Jesus was explaining why his disciples did not fast like other disciples. In his explanation he claims to be a Bridegroom and while he is with them there is to be celebration and not fasting. As Jesus continues with his explanation, ^{“Lk 5:36} He also told them a parable:” Let us move ahead and see what that parable was.

^{“Mt 9:16} “No one puts a piece of unshrunk cloth on an old garment, for the patch tears away from the garment, and a worse tear is made.” ^{Lk 5:36} “No one tears a piece from a new garment and puts it on an old garment. If he does, he will tear the new, and the piece from the new will not match the old. ³⁷ And no one puts new wine into old wineskins. If he does, the new wine will burst the skins and it will be spilled, and the skins will be destroyed. ³⁸ But new wine must be put into fresh wineskins. ³⁹ And no one after drinking old wine desires new, for he says, ‘The old is good.’”’

First, some comments on the physical aspects of the parable. An old garment would have been washed many times and would have shrunk to a smaller size. The unshrunk cloth would represent a new unwashed cloth, which will shrink when washed. The new unwashed patch would get smaller when washed and would put stress on the old garment where it was used as a patch.

In the next illustration, in the parable, the question of why would someone tear a piece from new cloth to patch the old. Why not use old to patch the old? Applying new to the old will not solve the problem because we know from the first illustration that the new will shrink and tear away and you still have a torn garment, but you also have wasted some new cloth.

The third illustration of the parable indicates that new wine will expand as it ferments, causing old weakened wineskins to fail, destroying the wineskin and wasting the new wine. As in the first two illustrations, the idea is not to mix the old and the new.

The point of the parable is that you cannot mix the old and the new covenant. A very complete comparison of the old and new covenants can be found at this link. The old covenant was established at the Exodus and the new covenant at the crucifixion of Jesus. The old covenant was between God and the nation of Israel and the new covenant was between God and Christians. Both were to redeem people from bondage. The first from bondage in Egypt and the second from the bondage of sin. Check this link to learn more.

The new covenant being inaugurated by Jesus will require repentance (Matthew 4:17), regeneration (John 3:3), and new forms of worship (John 4:24). The problem Jesus is facing is that the Pharisees preferred the old when in the parable they said of the old wine, “The old is good.”

Prayer

Father, how resistant we are to change and with the Pharisees we tend to say that the old is good enough. There is much about Christianity that makes no sense to the world because to the one who is not spiritually born from above, many of its principles are to them as foolish. Even for some Christians, there are aspects that may make them feel foolish when they rub shoulders with those in the world. Father, we need to sharpen our focus on heavenly things, not being more friendly with the world.