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The Book of Luke, Parable of the New upon the Old – Lesson 65
Chapter 5 of Luke is a chapter where Jesus Christ is accused by the Pharisees and scribes of bringing into Israel new and controversial doctrine.
That which the Pharisees and scribes had invested their lives in was being attacked by the very words of this preacher.
In their minds this Jesus was a blasphemer who claimed to be able to forgive sins, who kept company with sinners, and who healed by the power of Beelzebub.
They could not by any means accept the fact that this was the Christ, the promised Messiah, sent by God the Father.
They were not interested in repentance which would have brought them into conformance with Jesus Christ but their interest lay in bringing this man Jesus into conformity with their system of belief.
They did not wish him to begin to form any new religious system which would upset the structure that Israel enjoyed within the Roman occupation.
They were not boat rockers, they were not apple cart upsetters.
The people were pacified within the religious system that had evolved over the many years of Roman occupation and their purpose was to keep the status quo.
Truth was not in their vocabulary and its pursuit would only cause them harm.
The Lord Jesus Christ knew what was in their hearts and would have nothing to do with their purpose and motives.
So he continued to teach after they questioned him as to why his disciples did not fast.
For they had put themselves up as the standard and they expected all others to conform to the so called righteous standard that they met.
This is not an unusual position for the natural man (the man without God) to take is it?
For on many occasions we put ourselves up as the standard as we judge others for not doing what we do.
So in Luke 5:36-39 Jesus Christ challenges their position by speaking parables to them:
And he spake also a parable unto them; No man putteth a piece of a new garment upon an old; if otherwise, then both the new maketh a rent, and the piece that was taken out of the new agreeth not with the old. 37And no man putteth new wine into old bottles; else the new wine will burst the bottles, and be spilled, and the bottles shall perish. 38But new wine must be put into new bottles; and both are preserved. 39No man also having drunk old wine straightway desireth new: for he saith, The old is better.
The Pharisees represented and defended the “old order” or so they thought.
In these parables they were the old garment, they were the old bottles.
They were the promoters and preservers of the law.
They looked at the law as an end and not as a beginning.
They looked at the law as the place to find righteousness and Jesus came and proved this a wrong position.
Paul in Hebrews enlightens us on this position.
Hebrews 10:1-6, For the law having a shadow of good things to come, and not the very image of the things, can never with those sacrifices which they offered year by year continually make the comers thereunto perfect. 2For then would they not have ceased to be offered? because that the worshippers once purged should have had no more conscience of sins. 3But in those sacrifices there is a remembrance again made of sins every year. 4For it is not possible that the blood of bulls and of goats should take away sins. 5Wherefore when he cometh into the world, he saith, Sacrifice and offering thou wouldest not, but a body hast thou prepared me: 6In burnt offerings and sacrifices for sin thou hast had no pleasure.
Jesus came to fulfill the law and to institute a new covenant.
He came to keep the law for you and me and to be a worthy sacrifice for you and me.
But to the Pharisees and scribes the law was their bread and butter.
Everything in and about the law established their position.
But Christ is now on the scene and things are changing and we know from Paul’s epistle to the Galatians what the purpose of the law was.
And that purpose is now fulfilled because the Messiah is on the scene.
This realization of the presence of the Messiah, which was rejected by the Pharisees and scribes, blinded them to the great change that was taking place.
Paul writes: Galatians 3:24, Wherefore the law was our schoolmaster to bring us unto Christ, that we might be justified by faith. 25But after that faith is come, we are no longer under a schoolmaster. 26For ye are all the children of God by faith in Christ Jesus. 27For as many of you as have been baptized into Christ have put on Christ. 28There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither bond nor free, there is neither male nor female: for ye are all one in Christ Jesus. 29And if ye be Christ’s, then are ye Abraham’s seed, and heirs according to the promise.
So underlying this struggle between Jesus and the Pharisees was a contest between the old and the new.
He pictured old garments and new patches, old wine skins and new wine.
The Pharisees wanted Jesus to adopt the old, or at least to adapt his message to the old.
Jesus could not do this for he came to fulfill the law by living in perfect obedience to it, and by dying to its demands.
But He also came to institute the new covenant.
If the Pharisees and scribes had been better students of the Word of God they would have known that something new was coming for Jeremiah wrote of this new covenant hundreds of years before.
Jeremiah 31:31-34 Behold, the days come, saith the LORD, that I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel, and with the house of Judah: 32Not according to the covenant that I made with their fathers in the day that I took them by the hand to bring them out of the land of Egypt; which my covenant they brake, although I was an husband unto them, saith the LORD: 33But this shall be the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel; After those days, saith the LORD, I will put my law in their inward parts, and write it in their hearts; and will be their God, and they shall be my people. 34And they shall teach no more every man his neighbour, and every man his brother, saying, Know the LORD: for they shall all know me, from the least of them unto the greatest of them, saith the LORD: for I will forgive their iniquity, and I will remember their sin no more.
The Pharisees and scribes wished to preserve the old; they wished to keep on keeping the law in their own self righteous ways that they thought would appease God.
In this they saw life but life is only in Christ.
Jesus presented himself as the Life giver
To accept Him, people would have to admit that what they had known was not really life.
To accept this, people would have to admit that what they were now living was not God’s way of life.
So as part of this change in thinking Jesus, by these parables tells them the old has no value to the new, the old cannot be incorporated into the new.
The old has completed its mission in Jesus Christ and now the new must come apart from the old.
So by means of parables, Jesus explained why the new could not adopt or adapt to the old.
To put a new patch on an old garment would be foolish.
The patch of unshrunk cloth pulls to pieces the bordering cloth of the old, badly worn garment, so that a worse tear results.
The message is clear.
To try to patch up the old and disappointing garments of Jewish practice by adding to them pieces of the new faith would only spoil them both.
Jesus had not come to repair an old system.
He had not come to mix the new with the old; instead he brought a new, strong, vigorous, joy-imparting teaching and salvation that only he could bring.
A mixture of the austere ritualism of the old with the spiritual freedom of the new disfigures and destroys both the old and the new.
Why should the followers of the new covenant try to be like the slaves of the old?
There might be fastings but they would be voluntary or self imposed fastings for a specific purpose.
The message of the new covenant is that the law was being put in your inward parts and being written in your heart.
With the joy that Jesus and his teaching bring to those who are transformed by it there is no room for Judaistic, legalistic fasting.
In a similar way, you cannot put new wine into old wineskins, for the old skins would burst and be ruined and the wine would be lost.
To place unfermented wine in old wineskins would be a foolish act for the increasing pressure within the leather containers would burst the skin.
The wineskin was usually made of the skin of a goat or sheep.
After being removed from the animal it was tanned, and after the hair had been cut close the skin was turned inside out.
The neck opening became the mouth of the “bottle.”
The other openings at the feet and the tail were closed with cords.
There was no way to use the new to salvage the old.
The “new wine” must be put into new wineskins (Luke 5:38).
Old wineskins are no match for the new, still fermenting wine.
Such wine would burst the skins which would result in the loss of both wineskins and wine.
The new covenant which Jesus was instituting must bring with it new structures, new forms, new practices.
Pharisaism, which was committed to preserving the old way, could not accept this.
The reason for this Jesus explained in the last verse of chapter 5:
Luke 5:39, No man also having drunk old wine straightway desireth new: for he saith, The old is better.
Jesus is explaining, in this statement, the mindset of the ultraconservative, for Pharisees were ultraconservatism incarnate.
They were not subject to change even if the change was prophesied in the Word of God
They were the group that was of ingrained and inflexible traditionalism based upon extra-biblical teachings.
They had tasted the old and found it good enough.
They were the old garments; the were the old wineskins.
They were satisfied in their self righteousness.
They had no wish to try the new, even though it might be better.
The conservatism of the Pharisees had become a kind of “preservatism” which attempted to save their way of life, but which was found to have rejected the God they claimed to serve.
Jesus in reality had not brought something that was entirely new or un-foretold but because they had so corrupted the Old Testament scriptures, what he was bringing appeared to be entirely new and against their beliefs.
Jesus knew he needed new men in which to store this new wine.
Jesus could not put the new wine in the Pharisees and he therefore went to the sea shore and found new wineskins in Peter, James and John and Andrew and then he found Levi.
These men were suitable for the new wine for they had repented of their sins and were yielded to the Word of God in Jesus Christ.
All things had become new to these men and they were new wine skins for the new wine of Jesus Christ.
The message here is also that nothing is to be viewed as better only because it is old.
Likewise, nothing should be automatically viewed as better simply because it is new.
The message is that something is better if it is in line with the Word of God.
Old or new is not the standard, but the Word of God is the standard.
But the Pharisees had buried the Word of God beneath their man-made traditions.
Their traditions had been passed from generation to generation and they could not breathe the fresh air of the pure unadulterated Word of God brought by the Lord Jesus Christ. |