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Luke 5:36–39
“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. But new wine must be put into fresh wineskins” (vv. 37–38).
Many first-century Jews expected fasting to always accompany repentance. Some Jews held this expectation because in the Old Testament, fasting is often an outward expression of repentance (e.g., see Dan. 9:1–3). Other first-century Jews such as the Pharisees had added extrabiblical traditions that mandated fasting as necessary for repentance, so they thought one could not really repent without fasting. Both groups would have been perplexed by a call to repent without a call to fast, and so objections were raised when the disciples of Christ feasted instead of abstaining from food and drink (Luke 5:32–33).
Jesus responded by pointing out that there was a right time for fasting to accompany repentance, but His earthly ministry was not that occasion (Luke 5:34–35). In today’s passage, He goes on to make a more fundamental point: the expectations that the people had for the work of Jesus were off base. They thought that fasting must go hand in hand with repentance because they expected the messianic era to be merely a repeat of the old age. Yet while there is continuity between the old covenant and the new covenant, things are not entirely the same, as we see in verses 36–37.
Our Savior makes this argument by telling a parable. If an old garment needs patching, one does not simply sew a new, unshrunken piece of cloth over the whole. The new patch would shrink once the mended garment was washed, and it would tear away from the older cloth, damaging it (Luke 5:36). The point is that one cannot patch the new onto the old. Jesus came not to maintain everything about the old covenant but to create a new structure for God’s people.
Similarly, one cannot put new wine into old wineskins. Old wineskins, made from animal hides, have been stretched almost to their bursting point and are brittle. New wine continues to ferment, releasing gases as it does so. If new wine were put into old wineskins, the fermentation would cause the old wineskins to rupture, and the wine would pour out and be lost. The point is that Jesus does a new work, and only a new covenant can accommodate it (Luke 5:37).
Some things, such as God’s moral law, are the same under the old and new covenants. Other elements of the old covenant, such as the ceremonial law of sacrifices and certain rituals, pass away (e.g., see Eph. 2:15). Jesus brings something genuinely new to God’s people.
Coram Deo Living before the face of God
The new covenant is not merely the repetition of the old covenant. While we must maintain that there is strong continuity between the old and new covenants, Jesus nevertheless brings something new. Let us thank God for the new covenant in Christ and trust in Him to bring it to its full consummation in a new heaven and earth.
for further study
- Isaiah 43:16–21
- Jeremiah 31:31–34
- Mark 2:18–22
- 1 John 2:7–11
the bible in a year
- Deuteronomy 20–22
- Mark 14:32–52