Transcript: Can you help me understand the parable of the patches and wine skins? Well, let’s talk about that. And they said to him, the Disciples of John fast often and offer prayers, and so do the Disciples of the Pharisees, but yours eat and drink. So here’s a complaint that they have about the work of the Disciples of Jesus: they’re not doing those outward things of fasting and offering prayers. It doesn’t just mean praying, but it means that there was some sort of a ritual dualistic prayer offering that was happening more often, and Jesus’s disciples don’t—they eat, they drink, they travel around and talk, you know, he heals people and stuff. But then when you actually look at them, they don’t look like the normal religious leaders of the time. They’re not like—and like John is especially known for fasting. He wore sackcloth, and he ate wild honey and locust and stuff like that. So Jesus says to them, can you make the wedding guests fast while the bridegroom is with them? I mean, obviously, the answer is no. You’re not going to fast when it’s party time when the bridegroom is there. It’s like a celebration. This is the time to enjoy each other and the company and food and all that. The days will come when the bridegroom is taken away from them, and then they will fast in those days. Now, people miss this, but Jesus, of course, in this passage is referring to himself as the bridegroom. That’s huge. That’s a big deal. John wouldn’t have called himself that; the Pharisees wouldn’t have called themselves that. Jesus calls himself the bridegroom because he’s aware of his status, of who he is, that this is the son of God. This is God the Son who is there with them. So, yeah, this is a season when they’re not going to fast; that’s the point.

He also told them a parable, and here’s your question. 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. And no one puts new wine into old wine skins. 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 wine skins. And no one after drinking old wine desires new, for he says the old is good.

All right, let’s tear this down—no pun intended, but it was not a very good one. All right, so no one tears a piece from a new garment and puts it on an old one. Why is this? Because, you know, when you get clothes, you put them through the wash, and they shrink. So what you don’t do is take a brand new piece of cloth, use it to patch an old one, then you wash it, it shrinks, and it actually tears and ruins the cloth, right? If he does, he will tear the new, and the piece from the new will not match the old. That’s a second issue. The piece from the new is not going to match the old. You have an old, worn-out garment. Why would you ruin a new thing and attach it to an old one?

Why is Jesus talking about old and new stuff here? Because he’s talking about the Old Covenant and the New Covenant. He’s talking about pre- and post-Christ. He’s talking about the situation of Israel being under the law, being brought to repentance, realizing they’re in sin—and that’s what John represents, right? He’s sackcloth and ashes, fasting, like we’re sinners, we’re sinners, we have to repent, repent, repent. Jesus brings the salvation, brings the new life, and he introduces us into a new thing where we, of course, do repent, but then we enter into the joy of the Lord, and we’re in his kingdom, and we’re celebrating with him, and he’s with us like the bridegroom. This is a distinction between the old and the new. The law brings the awareness of sin; it brings us to a place of repentance. Jesus brings us into the kingdom of God, and so we experience the joy of the Lord and the fellowship of the Holy Spirit and all of the blessings that we have in Christ. So that doesn’t just get attached to the old. You don’t just take Jesus and this New Covenant and attach it to the Old Covenant. No, no, it’s a New Covenant. It fulfills the old, but you don’t go back; you move forward, not backward.

So no one puts new wine into old wine skins. If he does, the new wine will burst the skins, and it will be spilled, and the skins will be destroyed. Now, I don’t know much about the fermentation of wine. My understanding is that as you put new wine in, it’s still fermenting, and things are still happening. Stretching and moving will go on as it increases the capacity and stretches the wine skins so that wine skins that are old—they’re harder, they’re more firm, they’re not flexible—they’re going to burst, and you lose the skin and the wine. And this is what happens if you take the Gospel of Jesus, and you try to just say, “Just add that to your Judaism,” instead of seeing it as fulfillment. The Gospel of Jesus is Jewish, but it’s not going into the law of Moses; it’s stepping into something new. It fulfills the law and enters into a new covenant and a new kingdom, a new thing. So new wine must be put into fresh wine skins.

And no one after drinking the old wine desires the new, for he says the old is good. What’s that last part about? That’s these Pharisees. Pharisees, you see, they just think, “No, I don’t want the New Covenant.” Ultimately, that’s what they were saying—not fully aware of what they were doing, but that was what they were saying in effect. “I don’t want the New Covenant; I got the old. Jesus, I want you to be just like John. I want you to be just like the Pharisees. I don’t want you to introduce us to this new thing. We want the old. We want the typology of the Old Testament, but we don’t want the one that it stood for.” That was kind of where they were at. And so, yeah, I think this shows us our human desire to avoid change. We don’t like change, but for so many of us, change is what we need the most. And when it comes to you and your faith in Christ, maybe you need to change. Maybe this is where you need to put your trust in Christ and let your life actually change, and not just let this sort of stubborn, “I don’t want my life to be different” keep you from experiencing these truths.

See original video here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7bIYND1XedY