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.
And no one having drunk old wine [straightway] wishes for new, for he says, The old is better.
Luke's Gospel alone records this closing line of the Lord's answer about fasting, and it lands not on the wine but on the drinker. It is the sharpest word in the passage.
Why did the new thing from God meet such resistance? The answer is in what man already prefers.
Only Luke's Gospel records this. When God brings in something new, man prefers his old religious feelings, thoughts, ways, doctrines, habits, and customs. He prefers the way the law deals with him, with all its dimness, uncertainty, and distance from God. He prefers it to grace, which is far more blessed. In Christ, grace shows God to man, and by the blood of His cross it brings man to God.
Translations differ in the last words: "The old is good," or "The old is better." Either way, the drinker is not just praising the old. He is ranking it above the new.
Why does the old suit man so well? A system of law flatters the person under it.
The law suits fallen human nature far better. It makes a man feel important, it demands his obedience, and it fits his own reasoning. Even a natural conscience admits that the law is right. But grace is supernatural. Faith sees that grace suits God perfectly, and suits the new man too. Faith sees that grace is the only hope for a sinful man who repents towards God. Still, grace is completely above man's reasoning, and those who do not know its value and power always suspect it.
There is also the weight of what a person has been drinking since birth.
This fits the character of this Gospel. It uncovers another great secret in human nature: the power of a man's habits and associations. Humanly speaking, they get in the way of God's work in his soul. We have been drinking the old wine — what the flesh has supplied to us from birth. So our appetite is spoiled for the new wine, the wine the Son of God brought with Him. We are all conscious of this. "Can the Ethiopian change his skin, or the leopard his spots?" says the prophet. "Then also you can do good, who are accustomed to do evil."
This taste explains what happened to Christ Himself.
The teaching of the Lord Jesus opened up the Father's grace to men. But natural man could gain nothing from what God revealed. Divine blessing and divine joy was not to the natural taste of man… This accounted for the rejection of the Son of God and His ministry. When the Holy Spirit made the things of God known, the result was the same. Paul wrote, "The natural person does not accept the things of the Spirit of God, for they are folly to him, and he is not able to understand them because they are spiritually discerned" (1 Cor. 2:14).
The same principle keeps working after a person comes to Christ. It explains ruined appetites in the Christian life.
The two natures are complete opposites. The sad part is that feeding the flesh destroys the appetite for the things of God. We read the solemn words, "No one after drinking old wine [that is, after indulging in the activities of the flesh] desires new [that is, the enjoyment of divine and spiritual things], for he says, 'The old is good'" (Luke 5:39). Reading the sexual novels that pour from the press today takes away the appetite for the Word of God. Going to the cinema, the theatre, and the like destroys the desire for the prayer meeting and the Bible reading.
What we drink shapes what we want next. So the small choices of a day matter.
Every thought we allow, every desire we indulge, tastes of either the old or the new. It is a drink — a small one, perhaps, but still a drink of one or the other… What are you thinking of? What are you tasting now? We may ask our souls this through the day. Are you making provision for the flesh, or are you walking in the sanctuary?… "Walk by the Spirit, and you will not gratify the desires of the flesh" — that is the divine security. A little of that walking should be enough to change our words, so that we say instead: the new is better.
- Taste, not truth. The verse does not tell us that the old wine really is better. It only reports what the drinker says. Luke alone records it, and it explains why men prefer old religious habits to the new thing God brings in Christ.
- Taste flatters. Law suits fallen nature: it makes a man feel important and fits his reasoning. Grace is supernatural, so those who do not know its worth suspect it.
- Taste is trained. Habits formed from birth spoil the appetite for what the Son of God brought. Reversing that is as hard as a leopard changing its spots.
- Taste rejected Christ. Divine joy was not to man's natural taste. That is why men refused the Son of God and His ministry, and why the natural person still cannot receive the things of the Spirit.
- Taste can change. Every thought we indulge is a sip of the old or the new. Walking by the Spirit keeps the appetite fresh, until the believer says instead: the new is better.