Then come to him the disciples of John, saying, Why do we and the Pharisees often fast, but thy disciples fast not?
The Lord has just called Matthew and eaten with tax collectors and sinners. Now John the Baptist's own followers raise a question about fasting. Their master fasted, so why does this Teacher's table look like a feast?
These men bring their problem to the right person, and they bring it plainly.
John's disciples were having a difficulty. Their master had made much of fasting and had told them to do it, but the disciples of Jesus were not fasting. Were they not with Him in the tax collector's house, eating and drinking? It is a straightforward question they bring. They do not come as faultfinders or complainers, like the Pharisees. They come as thoughtful inquirers, looking for light. So the Lord meets them and solves their difficulty by a gracious answer. He is still the same, ever ready to teach and instruct the person who sits at His feet. The trouble is that we are often so unlike these disciples of John, though we know more and stand in a better place than they did. Instead of taking the straight path and coming to Him first, we look for the answer to our problems somewhere else.
Their question aims at the disciples, not at the Master.
They may ask why His disciples do not fast. They could not put such a question about the Lord Himself.
Behind the question lies a contrast between two men who lived very differently.
John the Baptist came neither eating bread nor drinking wine; the Son of man came eating and drinking. Who was right?
They also believed judgment was about to fall.
They believed that the axe was laid at the root of the tree, and everything was ready for the baptism of the fire of Jehovah's judgment (Matt. 3:11-12). They repented; and was not fasting fruit worthy of repentance? John fasted, and should not the disciples be as their master?
The question links John's disciples with the Pharisees, but the two groups were not fasting for the same reason.
As to Pharisees, their fasting was generally a matter of spiritual pride, that is, of doing something they thought to be of human merit. John and his disciples had different motives, for they felt the sad desolation of Israel's spiritual condition, and this sorrow led to fasting.
Scripture records fasting at moments of grief and humbling. The law itself required only one fast day.
The first national fasting came when Benjamin defeated Israel: the people went to the house of God, wept, sat there before the Lord, and fasted that day until evening. Here, as in other places, fasting goes with humbling... The only fast the law required was the one connected with the Day of Atonement. The word 'fasting' does not appear there, but it is taken to be part of the command to afflict yourselves.
The Lord does not argue. He points to who stands among them — and John had already told his own followers this.
Who was present? Around whom were the disciples gathered? The answer to that would settle the matter. John's disciples could have learned this, if only they had remembered what John himself said in John 3:29: "The friend of the bridegroom, who stands and hears him, rejoices greatly because of the bridegroom's voice." Joy should reign under such circumstances.
Not everyone there could feel the joy of His presence.
Those who were only disciples of John had no real appreciation of the Bridegroom's presence, and the Pharisees, full of forms and self-righteousness, had even less. It was joy to the believing disciples of Jesus. Feeble as they were, they had left their all for Him, and they tasted a divine bliss in Him wholly unknown to the others... The joy of Messiah's presence made fasting altogether inappropriate.
His answer reaches past the question of timing.
So He shows how completely out of place fasting was at that moment. The point was not only that men were going to reject Him. It was that His teaching and His will could never be fitted to the old thing. What He was bringing in could not mix with Judaism. So the problem was not only the evil heart of unbelief in the Jew. Law and grace cannot be yoked together.
- Ask Him. John's disciples took their problem straight to the Lord, not to His followers. He answered them with grace.
- Ask why. The same fast came from two hearts: Pharisee pride, and honest sorrow over Israel's condition.
- Ask when. Fasting goes with humbling and grief; the law itself commanded only one fast, on the Day of Atonement.
- Ask who. What settles it is not what the disciples did. It is who stood among them: the Bridegroom, as John himself had said.
- Ask what's new. His answer goes past timing. What He was bringing could not mix with the old: law and grace cannot be yoked together.
And Jesus said to them, Can the sons of the bridechamber mourn so long as the bridegroom is with them? But days will come when the bridegroom will have been taken away from them, and then they will fast.
John's disciples asked a fair question: they and the Pharisees fasted often, so why did Jesus' disciples not fast? His answer does not defend a practice — it points to a Person who will one day be taken away.
Jesus does not argue about fasting. He gives Himself a title, and that title points forward to a wedding day.
A title which the Lord applies to Himself. Matt. 9:15; Matt. 25:1-10; cf. John 3:29. It looks ahead to the joy of Christ — the marriage-day, when He will take to Himself all that He suffered so much for.
Older translations call the wedding guests the sons, or children, of the bridechamber — the people invited to the celebration. Once you see who stands among them, the demand that they fast falls apart.
Christ had come to His own: and what would be the spirit of those who realised this? The Bridegroom had come to the bride. Should the children of the bride-chamber — the invited guests — dress themselves as mourners? Anyone who really knew Him would find that impossible. There would be time enough for fasting when the Bridegroom was taken from them. This, of course, implies His rejection. In those days fasting would be entirely fitting.
John's disciples fasted, and so did the Pharisees. Jesus' disciples did not — and one writer traces the difference to what had taken hold of them.
But the disciples of the Lord had advanced one step further. They were not taken up with the badness of the flesh, much less with any supposed goodness in it. Their hearts had been won by Him who was all the delight of the heart of God. So the Lord answered, "Can you make the children of the bridechamber fast, while the Bridegroom is with them?" He Himself filled their hearts with joy. There was no fasting in His presence.
The objection exposed the objectors.
Those who were only disciples of John had no real sense of the Bridegroom's presence. Still less did the Pharisees, who were full of forms and self-righteousness. It was joy to the believing disciples of Jesus. They were weak, yet they had left everything for Him. In Him they tasted a divine happiness that the others knew nothing of... The joy of Messiah's presence made fasting completely out of place. Those who tasted none of it were blind to Him whom God's grace had given and sent.
"Taken away" is not a gentle word. Very early in His ministry, Jesus tells His followers what is coming. He also tells them where the sorrow ends.
At that time the Lord's disciples had good reason to rejoice, because the Hope of Israel was with them. But the days would darken again before the dawn of the thousand-year kingdom. The Bridegroom would be taken away; then they would have reason to fast. So, early in His ministry, the Lord told His own in veiled but meaningful language that He must be taken from among them. As a result a sorrow would fill their hearts, and only His second coming would turn that sorrow into joy (see John 16:17-22).
Commentators differ on which days the Lord had in view. The same writer ties them to the time just before Christ's public appearing:
The coming days are marked by the absence of the Bridegroom. They are strictly the days just before His public appearing to bless Israel and the nations. Those will be days of unequalled tribulation for the Jews. Then the faithful ones might well fast.
Others read the words as describing the Christian's life now, where the two things run side by side:
From this we gather that the presence of Christ is the only source of joy to His disciples... They cannot fast, therefore, in His presence. It is true that for us, since He has gone, the fasting and the rejoicing go on together. We pass through a scene already judged, where Christ is not, and so we fast. At the same time we live in His presence and have Himself always with us, and so we rejoice.
- Person. Jesus answers a question about fasting by naming Himself the Bridegroom. Everything turns on who is present.
- Presence. Because He was there, joy was the only fitting response. Mourning clothes at a wedding would deny who He is.
- Poverty. Those who demanded fasting had never tasted the joy they criticised. Forms and self-righteousness had left them blind to Him.
- Parting. "Taken away" is His early, veiled warning of His rejection — and the promise that the sorrow ends at His return.
- Practice. Fasting has its season, set by His absence, not by a calendar. Writers differ: some read those days as the tribulation before His appearing, others as the whole time since He left.
But no one puts a patch of new cloth on an old garment, for its filling up takes from the garment and a worse rent takes place.
People have just asked Jesus why His disciples do not fast, as John's disciples and the Pharisees do. He answers with a picture from any home: a torn coat, a scrap of new cloth, and a verdict on law and grace.
The question was about fasting. The Lord's answer reaches much further.
He points out how morally out of place fasting was at that moment. And He hints at more than His coming rejection: bringing His teaching and His will into line with the old thing was hopeless. What He was introducing could not mix with Judaism. So the problem was not merely an evil heart of unbelief in the Jews; law and grace cannot be yoked together.
Matthew's picture turns on the type of cloth in the patch.
The unmilled cloth in Matthew 9:16 and Mark 2:21 has not been shrunk, so it would make the tear in the old garment bigger once it shrank. In Luke 5 the Lord speaks instead of a new garment: 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.
What does the worn coat stand for? One writer names it plainly.
The old garment is Judaism with its legal righteousness. It is no good, and it had proven itself to be so. There is no value in it at all; it is fit only to be thrown away, put aside completely. God was about to give a new garment, a better righteousness. He whose name is "The LORD is our righteousness" had come, and God's whole order of things was about to change. Now that the change has come, the old is gone; it no longer exists.
So why should the better material make things worse?
The garment of legal righteousness was in fact wearing out, and man stood exposed as just what the prophet had declared him to be. What good is there in patching up something so far gone? Between the new righteousness of the gospel and the old legal one there can only be a clash of contradictory principles. The two cannot be fused: every such attempt only makes the tear worse.
The same mistake takes a personal form:
Isaiah had said that all our righteous deeds are like a polluted garment, but people are unwilling to accept this verdict from God through the prophet. They know that their own garment will not do for God's presence. Yet 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.
If patching will not do, only one option remains.
God does no patching or mixing. "No one tears a piece from a new garment and puts it on an old garment," the Lord said. With God it is new creation, not reformation. As sinners we are past mending, and believers are now seen as having put on the new man. We are to be clothed in an altogether new character. An improved self or a mended self will not do for God. It has to be Christ now, and nothing but Christ.
The warning is not only about the past. Writers see the same stitching long after the Pharisees were gone.
The new character of grace, shown in life and walk and ways, could not be attached to the older order. It fitted there no better than a piece of new cloth on an old garment… When the new comes in, we cannot go back to the old. Sadly, Christendom has tried to go back, by attaching the forms of Judaism to Christianity. People have accepted the doctrines of grace, while in practice they have adopted the forms of the law.
- Old. The worn garment is the legal system and the righteousness it offered. It was already wearing out and proven worthless.
- Unshrunk. The patch is new cloth that has never been shrunk. It pulls tight and makes the very hole it was meant to close bigger.
- New. Christ did not bring a repair kit. He brought a better righteousness and a whole new garment.
- Unmixable. Law and grace cannot be yoked; any fusion leaves the tear worse than before.
- Recreated. God does not patch or mix. With Him it is new creation, not reformation — and the same warning still meets every try at adding a little of God's righteousness to our own.
Nor do men put new wine into old skins, otherwise the skins burst and the wine is poured out, and the skins will be destroyed; but they put new wine into new skins, and both are preserved together.
John's disciples have just asked Jesus why His disciples do not fast, as they and the Pharisees do. He answers with two pictures from ordinary home life: a patched coat, and wine in skin bags. The real question is bigger than fasting. Can what Christ was bringing in fit inside the religious system that was already there?
The container matters to the picture. A Bible dictionary explains what it was made of, and what the Lord meant by it.
In the New Testament the word is ἀσκός. It means a wineskin, or skin-bag. So new wine has to go into new skins, which can stretch. The Lord was teaching that the new principles of the kingdom would not suit the old forms of Judaism: everything must be new.
English uses one word twice, but the Greek uses two, and they do not mean the same thing.
Two words are translated "new," and the difference between them is important. One is καινός. It means "new" in the sense of never having existed or been used before — that is, new in the sense of "different." The other is νέος, "new" in the sense of "fresh, youthful." The new (νέος) wine goes into new (καινός) skins.
So the wine is fresh, and the skin is of a kind never used before.
The Lord's answer goes past fasting itself, to why the two systems cannot mix.
He shows how out of place fasting was at that moment. The reason was not only that they were going to reject Him. It was that no one could ever make His teaching and His will fit the old thing. What He was bringing in could not mix with Judaism. So the trouble was not only an evil heart of unbelief in the Jew in particular. Law and grace cannot be yoked together… The spirit, as well as the form, was alien.
One writer names what each stands for, and the double loss that follows a wrong mix.
The new wine is the Gospel of Grace. The old skins are the law, its ceremonies and everything connected with them… Put the new wine into old skins, and the skins burst. Then there is no wine left, and the skins are useless too. The two no longer belong together. Gospel and Judaism, law and grace, do not belong together… And that is ritual-bound Christendom: neither Christian nor Jewish. It does not have Judaism, and it has lost the new wine.
The skins are not only religious systems. They also picture people, and what a person is able to hold.
reason: restores "both are preserved" and the reason old skins fail; splits long sentences
The Lord's words are not only about a system that has passed. They test how we hold worship now.
You can no more shut worship up in forms than you can keep new wine in old skins. People have tried it countless times, for again and again even true believers have drifted back in mind and understanding to the days before Christ. But the result must be one of two things. Keep true worship, and the forms burst and are thrown away. Hold on tightly to the forms, and the new wine of true worship spills and soon disappears.
- New in time, new in kind. The wine is fresh; the skins are of a sort never used before. Both words matter — freshness needs a container made for it.
- New content. The wine stands for the gospel of grace; the old skins are the law and its ceremonies.
- New vessel. A person not born again cannot hold grace; it overwhelms and bursts him. The new birth makes a container that fits the contents.
- Mixing loses both. Force the new into the old, and the wine spills and the skins perish. What is left is a religion that is neither Jewish nor Christian.
- Both preserved. Match the wine to the skin and nothing is lost. Keep true worship in forms shaped by the new life, not in forms it will always burst.