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.