Luke 5:27-39 - The New Garment and the New Wine

Matthew the tax collector, also called a publican in the New Testament, had just been saved and called by Jesus to be His disciple. Obviously, this formerly despised sinner is excited and wants his old publican friends and others to rejoice with him. He prepares a great feast and even invites Jesus and His disciples. The critical Pharisees, who must have been nearby, are quick to criticize the disciples of Jesus for eating and drinking with such a group of terrible sinners. Jesus answers their criticisms with four illustrations.   First, Jesus basically says just like sick people need a physician, sinners need a Savior, and that is what I came for. Next, when they asked why His disciples didn’t fast and make prayers like John’s did, Jesus gave them the illustration of a bridegroom. You don’t fast at a wedding, you celebrate. Jesus might have been reminding them of what John the Baptist had said in John 3:29 about rejoicing as a friend of the bridegroom, referring to Jesus.   “Then” Jesus gave the illustration of patching the old garment with a piece from a new garment (v. 36). Everyone knew that nobody patches an old garment with a piece of new cloth. The tough new cloth only makes the tear in the old, worn-out garment worse. Jesus had not come to patch up Judaism by darning some new religious ideas on to that old threadbare system. The worn and faded Judaism, so beloved by the rabbis, was beyond repair. His plan was to give people a new garment altogether. His own teaching, so rooted in God's Word and so new, vital, and refreshing, could never be tacked on to rabbinical ramblings. Interestingly and significantly, when the Lord died, Old Testament Judaism died with Him. God reached down from heaven and tore the temple veil in two (Matt. 27:51), signifying that Judaism was null and void.   Next, the Lord took His critics into the wineshop. If unfermented wine is put into brittle old wineskins, the gas will burst the skins and both the skins and the wine will be lost. The new life of the Spirit could not be forced into the old wineskins of Judaism. Jesus was revealing that the ancient Jewish religion was getting old and would soon be replaced (see Heb. 8:13). Most of the Jews preferred the old and refused the new. It was not until A.D. 70, when the Romans destroyed Jerusalem and the temple, and scattered the people, that the Jewish religion as described in the Law came to an end. Today, the Jews do not have a priesthood, a temple, or an altar; so they cannot practice their religion as their ancestors did (see Hosea 3:4).   The things in the ceremonial Law were fulfilled by Jesus Christ, so there is no need today for sacrifices, priests, temples, and ceremonies. All of God's people are priests who bring spiritual sacrifices to the Lord (1 Peter 2:5, 9). The tables of Law have been replaced by the tables of the human heart, where God's Spirit is writing the Word and making us like Jesus Christ (2 Cor. 3:1-3, 18).   Jesus Christ still offers "all things new" (Rev. 21:5). As the Physician, He offers sinners new life and spiritual health. As the Bridegroom, He brings new love and joy. He gives us the robe of righteousness and the wine of the Spirit (Eph. 5:18; also see Acts 2:13). Life is a feast, not a famine or a funeral; and Jesus Christ is the only one who can make that kind of a difference in our lives.   Today, is Jesus and the Holy Spirit making a difference in your life?   God bless!