And he spoke also a parable to them No one puts a piece of a new garment upon an old garment, otherwise he will both rend the new, and the piece which is from the new will not suit with the old.
John's disciples and the Pharisees fasted, but the Lord's disciples ate and drank. Jesus answers the complaint with a picture of cloth: what He brings will not fit onto what came before.
The argument is not about food. It is about two systems that produce two kinds of life.
From verse 33 onwards into chapter 6, another thing begins to emerge: grace leads out of bondage and into liberty. The Pharisees disliked grace. They were very strict about the fastings and prayers and other ceremonies the law prescribed. The law produces bondage and grace brings liberty... Being the true Messiah, He was the "Bridegroom." His presence with His disciples ruled out such restrictions for them.
Jesus chose this picture to show that the two cannot mix. A patch taken from new cloth and sewn onto worn fabric ruins both pieces at once.
He points out that it is impossible to make the principles of grace blend with the old system... He sets this out first with the picture of the garment. There can be no harmony between the old thing and the new: law and grace will never mix.
Luke adds a detail: the man first tears the piece out of a new garment. So he ruins two garments, not one.
Here the Lord tells His hearers that no one would be foolish enough to tear a piece from a new garment to patch an old one. To do so would spoil the new garment; and the new patch would only expose the wretched nature of the old garment.
The absurdity in the illustration is exactly what people try in religion. They sense their own covering will not stand before God, so they look for an improvement rather than a replacement.
Isaiah had said, "We have all become like one who is unclean, and all our righteous deeds are like a polluted garment" (Isa. 64:6). But men are unwilling to accept this verdict... They know that their own garment will not do for God's presence. They think that if it could only be improved a little, they could stand before God in it. They think that a little of God's righteousness, added to their own self-righteousness, will make them fit for the holiness of God's eye. But God's righteousness comes to us as a beautiful garment. It is the best robe kept ready for the prodigal son on his return (Luke 15). It is the wedding garment provided for the marriage feast of the king's son (Matt. 22).
So the patch will not do. The Lord's answer is a whole garment, and this chapter has already shown four people receiving it.
The new garment of the grace of Christianity is not meant merely to patch up the old garment of a broken law. It is not meant to improve man in the flesh. This is a misuse of grace and will be of no help to the law. The two principles are distinct. What people need is the new garment, which means discarding the old one altogether. Four cases in this chapter show this: Peter, the man with leprosy, the paralysed man and Levi. Each one receives the completely new garment.
For a person, this rules out self-improvement. God does not mend.
In Luke 5 we are warned against outward patching and inward mixing. God does no patching or mixing... With God it is new creation, not reformation. We are beyond mending as sinners, and now believers are looked at as having put on the new man. We are to be clothed in an altogether new character. It is not an improved or mended self that will do for God; it has to be Christ now, and nothing but Christ.
This new thing is more than an inward change.
Christianity has an inner principle of its own, which flows from the revelation of God in Christ. It also claims and creates forms suited to its own nature. It is not a mere system of ordinances and rules. It has living power, and that power makes new vessels for itself.
- Old — The old garment is the law system, worn out and torn. The Pharisees wanted it patched, and their complaint about fasting showed it.
- New — What Christ brings is not a repair of the old. It is grace, and grace will never blend with law.
- Torn — Cut a piece from the new to mend the old, and you ruin both. The patch only shows how poor the old is.
- Clothed — People do not need a better self. They need a whole new garment, given to them. Peter, the man with leprosy, the paralysed man and Levi each received one.
- Living — The new is not just a better set of rules. It carries its own power and makes its own vessels.
And no one puts new wine into old skins, otherwise the new wine will burst the skins, and it will be poured out, and the skins will be destroyed;
Someone had just asked the Lord why His disciples do not fast like the disciples of John and the Pharisees. He answers with two pictures: a garment and a wineskin. Both say one thing. What He brings cannot be forced into the old containers without wrecking them.
The question about fasting revealed more about the people asking than about fasting.
As always, the Lord does more than answer their question. He proves that their question exposes their complete incapacity to enter into the new ways of God in grace. The new character of grace shown in life and walk and ways could not be attached to the older order. You could no more do that than sew a piece of new cloth onto an old garment. And the old vessels cannot hold the inner life, or the power of this new life. New wine demands new vessels.
The container was not glass or clay. It was skin, and its stretch is the whole point.
In the New Testament the word is ἀσκός, and it means a wineskin, or skin-bag. So new wine must be put into new skins, which are more or less elastic. Matthew 9:17; Mark 2:22; Luke 5:37-38. The Lord was teaching that the new principles of the kingdom would not suit the old forms of Judaism: everything must be new.
The new wine has a force in it. That force is what wrecks the old skin.
He shows that there is an energy in the new thing which is destructive to the old. The new wine would burst the old skins. The drink would be lost and the skins ruined. It is the same with what Christ brings in the gospel. If anyone tries to tie grace to anything of the law, the old loses its true use, and the new completely evaporates. "New wine is to be put into new skins." Christianity has an inner principle of its own, which flows from the revelation of God in Christ. It also claims and creates forms suited to its own nature.
The verse names a double loss: the wine spills and the skins are ruined. One writer adds that people have actually tried the mixture.
There is more: you cannot pour the spirit of the gospel, the free, expansive power of Christianity, into the old skins of ceremonial Judaism. Here both the wine will be lost and the skins will perish. And this has been proved by experience: the thing has happened. Ritualism of every kind is just such an experiment. The result is that we have neither Judaism nor Christianity left. The living organism can only clothe itself with the tissues woven by the life itself.
Commentators also read the skins as people, not only as systems. Then the question becomes personal: can you hold what God is giving?
This is a picture of the vessels — the people — receiving the new ministry of the grace of God. The vessels too must be new. If people are not born again by the power of the Spirit of God, they cannot hold the living reality of the grace of God in Christ Jesus. Old vessels — those not born anew — will have no proper appreciation of grace: it will prove too much for their capacity and "burst" them. But the new vessel is capable of preserving the new wine. And the vessel itself, because it is new, is also preserved.
The ESV says the skins are "destroyed." Older translations say they "perish." One writer explains the word behind both.
"Destroyed" and "perish" are simply two translations of one Greek word. Scholars tell us that "its basic thought is not annihilation, but ruin, loss." Take a few examples. In Luke 5:37 our Lord says that new wine put into old skins will burst them, and the skins will "perish." He did not mean that from then on they would stop existing in any form. The point is that as wineskins they would be spoiled and ruined.
- New. Cloth and wineskin answer one question about fasting. Both say the same thing: God has begun something new that will not be patched onto the old.
- Skin. The container was animal skin, not glass. A new skin can stretch; an old one cannot. So "old" here means capacity.
- Burst. The bursting comes from the energy of the new wine itself — grace has an expanding power that the forms of law cannot hold.
- Both. Mixing gives no compromise, only a double loss: the wine spilled, the skin ruined, neither the old kept nor the new gained.
- Preserved. Only a new vessel keeps the new wine, and keeps itself; a person born again can both hold grace and be held by it.
but new wine is to be put into new skins, and both are preserved.
Jesus answers a question about fasting with a picture from daily life: wine, and the skins that hold it. The new thing He brings does not fit the old religious system. It needs vessels of its own.
The containers here are not glass. People stored wine in animal hides, and only an unused hide could stretch as the wine worked.
In the New Testament the word is askos, and means a "wineskin" or "skin-bag." So new wine must be put into new skins, which are more or less elastic. The Lord was teaching that the new principles of the kingdom would not suit the old forms of Judaism: everything must be new.
Two different Greek words lie behind the single English word "new" here, and each carries its own shade.
There are two Greek words, kainos and neos, translated in our New Testament by the word "new." Kainos is new in kind, in contrast to what existed before, so taking its place. In that sense kainos looks backward, while its synonym neos looks forward… The two words come together in Matt. 9:17 and Luke 5:38. There the new (neos) wine goes into new (kainos) skins… The skins had never been used before, unlike those which had lost their strength and stretch through age. The new (neos) wine was of that vintage, looking forward for future use.
The wine works, and it destroys whatever cannot stretch with it. So the Lord does not stop at saying the old skins fail. He says where the wine belongs.
He shows that the new thing has an energy that destroys the old… Try to connect grace with anything of the law, and the old no longer keeps its true use, while the new evaporates completely. "But new wine must be put into fresh wineskins." Christianity has an inner principle of its own, flowing from the revelation of God in Christ. It also claims and creates forms suited to its own nature. It is not a mere system of rules and ceremonies. It has living power, and that power makes new vehicles for itself.
Try to hold the gospel inside the old ceremonial frame and you lose both. What is left is a religion of neither kind.
The new wine is the Gospel of grace. The old skins are the law, the Levitical institutions and everything connected with them… So Gospel and Judaism, law and grace, do not belong together. The Gospel of grace enclosed in ceremonial Judaism will mean the loss of the new wine, and ceremonial Judaism, the old skins, will be gone as well. And that is exactly what ritualistic Christendom is; it is neither Christian nor Jewish… If men hold only the form of godliness and deny its power, the result is always outward religion, legality, self-righteousness, and turning away from grace and from the Lord Himself.
The trouble is not only with the system. People used to the old order find the new hard to take, in any age.
Judaism could not receive sovereign grace or be its vessel. Nor could people used to Judaism easily receive the new wine of the gospel and Spirit of God. And so it is in every age.
Applied to people, the fresh skin is not an improved version of the old one.
With God it is new creation, not reformation. We are past mending as sinners… It is not an improved or mended self that will do for God. It has to be Christ now, and nothing but Christ. Nor can new wine be put into old wineskins. The old vessel is incapable of receiving the joy of the Holy Spirit. For that there must be a new vessel, new creation.
This also explains why the believer's happiness puzzles onlookers. It takes a new life to enjoy it.
The Christian who truly enjoys his heavenly portion is a puzzle to the man of the world… "But new wine must be put into fresh wineskins." This explains everything. A man must be born again and so receive a new life from God. Until then he is completely unable to understand and value divine joys.
The new skin is not used up by what it holds.
Old vessels — those not born anew — will have no proper appreciation of grace: it will prove too much for their capacity and "burst" them; they will perish. But the new vessel is able to preserve the new wine. Further, the vessel itself, because it is new, is also preserved. The pure grace of God is perfectly suited to one who has been born of God.
- New words. The skins are stretchable animal hides, not glass. The wine is fresh from the harvest; the skins have never been used.
- New wine. It stands for the gospel of grace, and it has an energy that bursts anything rigid it is forced into.
- New skins. Grace creates forms fitted to its own nature — and, in a person, a new creation rather than a mended old self.
- No mixing. Tie grace to the old ceremonial system and you lose both. The wine spills and the skins tear.
- Both preserved. Matched to the vessel God has made, the wine is kept and the vessel is kept with it.