OUT WITH THE OLD … IN WITH THE NEW

Posted by Pastor Greg Allen on January 29, 2020 under AM Bible Study |

AM Bible Study Group: January 29, 2020 from Luke 5:33-39

Theme: The New Covenant realities we enjoy in Jesus cannot fit into Old Covenant forms.

(All Scripture is taken from The New King James Version, unless otherwise indicated).

Some people seem to think that spiritual maturity and joyful living just don’t go together—that when it comes to true piety, it would be out of place to throw a party.

That seemed to be the attitude of the scribes and Pharisees who watched Jesus as He and His disciples enjoyed a celebratory meal at the home of the tax-collector named Levi (who was also known as Matthew). Jesus had called Levi from his tax-collector’s table, and invited him to become one of His followers. Levi left all and followed Jesus. And in joyful appreciation, Levi put on a big feast in Jesus’ honor. He not only invited Jesus and His disciples, but also a lot of his tax-collector colleagues. As far as the religious leaders were concerned, it was wrong for Jesus to eat with such people. They asked how Jesus could eat with tax-collectors and sinners. But those tax-collectors and sinners were celebrating Jesus’ love for them—and so was Jesus.

This led to another question from those scribes and Pharisees. Luke 5:3-39 tells us;

Then they said to Him, “Why do the disciples of John fast often and make prayers, and likewise those of the Pharisees, but Yours eat and drink?” And He said to them, “Can you make the friends of the bridegroom fast while the bridegroom is with them? But the days will come when the bridegroom will be taken away from them; then they will fast in those days.” Then He spoke a parable to them: “No one puts a piece from a new garment on an old one; otherwise the new makes a tear, and also the piece that was taken out of the new does not match the old. And no one puts new wine into old wineskins; or else the new wine will burst the wineskins and be spilled, and the wineskins will be ruined. But new wine must be put into new wineskins, and both are preserved. And no one, having drunk old wine, immediately desires new; for he says, ‘The old is better’” (Luke 5:3-39).

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To really appreciate what Jesus is saying in this passage, we need to see it in the light of the Bible’s teaching about the differences between the Old Covenant and the New Covenant.

The idea behind a ‘covenant’ is basically that it is an ‘agreement’. God had established an agreement with the people of Israel on Mount Sinai. He gave them His law and said, “if you will indeed obey My voice and keep My covenant, then you shall be a special treasure to Me above all people” (Exodus 19:5). He gave them His commandments and ordinances; and if they obeyed them and were faithful to them—keeping true to them—then they would be blessed. That was the covenant He entered into with them.

But they were not able to keep their part of that old covenant. They disobeyed; and as a result, they went into captivity. But even as they were being punished for having broken the old covenant, God let them know that He was bringing about another covenant—a new covenant. In Jeremiah 31:31-34—at a time when He promised that they would go into captivity—God said to them;

“Behold, the days are coming, says the Lord, when I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel and with the house of Judah—not according to the covenant that I made with their fathers in the day that I took them by the hand to lead them out of the land of Egypt, My covenant which they broke, though I was a husband to them, says the Lord. But this is the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel after those days, says the Lord: I will put My law in their minds, and write it on their hearts; and I will be their God, and they shall be My people. No more shall every man teach his neighbor, and every man his brother, saying, ‘Know the Lord,’ for they all shall know Me, from the least of them to the greatest of them, says the Lord. For I will forgive their iniquity, and their sin I will remember no more” (Jeremiah 31:31-34).

God was the Creator of both covenants. But there’s a great difference between them. Bible tells us, “For the law was given through Moses, but grace and truth came through Jesus Christ” (John 1:17). The focus of the Old Covenant was obedience to the law. But the focus of the New Covenant was upon God’s grace through Jesus. As Paul wrote, the New Covenant is “not of the letter but of the Spirit; for the letter kills, but the Spirit gives life” (2 Corinthians 3:6). Jesus “has obtained a more excellent ministry” than Moses, inasmuch as He is also Mediator of a better covenant, which was established on better promises” (Hebrews 8:6). This New Covenant results in a better outcome for us; and that’s because it doesn’t depend upon us, but rather upon Jesus. Jesus fulfilled the terms of the agreement for us perfectly; and therefore He is “the Mediator of the new covenant, by means of death, for the redemption of the transgressions under the first covenant, that those who are called may receive the promise of the eternal inheritance” (Hebrews 9:15).

And that brings us back to our story in Luke 5. You might say, that those tax-collectors and sinners at the dinner party were basking in the joy of the New Covenant—with the Mediator of that covenant in their midst. But the Pharisees and scribes were, you might say, ‘standing outside looking in’; and were evaluating it all from the perspective of the patterns and forms of the Old Covenant.

This passage teaches us an important lesson—especially important to religiously-minded people. We must not take the joyful New Covenant realities that are ours through Jesus and try to make them fit into Old Covenant patterns. The Old Covenant and its patterns are gone. That Old Covenant was meant by God to lead people to the New Covenant joys God’s grace through faith in Jesus. As Paul said, the law of the Old Covenant law was ‘our tutor to bring us to Christ, that we might be justified by faith” (Galatians 3:24).

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Now; look first at …

1. THE QUESTION THAT THE RELIGIOUS LEADERS ASKED (v. 33).

The scribes and Pharisees had just listened to Jesus explain why He was eating with the tax-collectors and sinners. He did so because He did not come to call the righteous, but sinners to repentance (v. 32). So; of course it would make sense that He ate with them and drew close to them. They needed to be redeemed—and He is their Redeemer.

But this must have motivated these religious leaders to ask another question. “Then they said to Him, ‘Why do the disciples of John fast often and make prayers, and likewise those of the Pharisees, but Yours eat and drink?’” (v. 33). Other people had noticed this too. Jesus once commented that His critics just couldn’t be satisfied: “For John came neither eating nor drinking, and they say, ‘He has a demon.’ The Son of Man came eating and drinking, and they say, ‘Look, a glutton and a winebibber, a friend of tax collectors and sinners!’ But wisdom is justified by her children” (Matthew 11:18-19). Jesus’ actions didn’t fit in with their Old Covenant ‘wisdom’. They thought His followers should be fasting—and instead, they were feasting!

But why did the disciples of John behave with fasting and prayers rather than feasting and joy? It was because they were still in an Old Covenant frame of things. John the Baptist was an authentic Old Covenant man. He was, in fact—as Jesus said—the greatest of the Old Covenant men (Matthew 11:11); and so, it was appropriate that he fasted and prayed like one. He came, as the final prophet of the Old Covenant—at that particular time of history—to point Jesus out as promised Mediator of the New Covenant. But as he did so, John still operated within a context of Old Covenant forms and practices. And so did the Pharisees, and scribes, and religious leaders of the Jewish people. That’s why they asked why Jesus didn’t make His disciples do those things as well.

What a lesson this is to us! That Old Covenant is gone. Jesus has brought in the New Covenant. And we must be careful not to try to be New Covenant people who hold on to Old Covenant ways—living by the letter of the law rather than by the grace of God through Jesus.

So; that was the question. And now, notice …

2. THE ANSWER THAT JESUS GAVE (vv. 34-39).

Luke tells us that Jesus answered their question with another question. And this question is, it seems, meant to put the attention—not on the scribes and Pharisees—but on the disciples of Jesus. “And He said to them, “Can you make the friends of the bridegroom fast while the bridegroom is with them?” (v. 34).

If you were invited to a wedding to serve as a friend of the bridegroom (literally “a son of the bridegroom”; something like a best man); and you stood up in the wedding party with a sad and gloomy look upon your face—refusing to eat because you were ‘fasting’—that would be an utterly inappropriate way to behave. It would almost be an insult to the bride and groom and all the guests. So long as the bridegroom is there—beaming with joy—the friends of the bridegroom should be beaming with joy too. It’s a time for feasting—not fasting.

Jesus—the Mediator of the New Covenant; the Lamb who takes away the sin of the world—was right there with this group of sinners. They were drawing close to Him. They were experiencing His grace. The disciples of Jesus—of whom Levi was now one—were rejoicing at the sight of sinners drawn to Him. Those sinners would be redeemed by Him; and would constitute His ‘bride’. How could they fast? How could they do anything but celebrate?

There would be a time when they’d fast, though. Jesus said, “But the days will come when the bridegroom will be taken away from them; then they will fast in those days” (v. 35). But it wouldn’t last long. Jesus told His disciples later—on the night that He was betrayed—that He would be taken from them for a while. He would be betrayed, arrested, tried and nailed to the cross. But they would have overwhelming joy after He was raised from the dead. He told them;

“Most assuredly, I say to you that you will weep and lament, but the world will rejoice; and you will be sorrowful, but your sorrow will be turned into joy. A woman, when she is in labor, has sorrow because her hour has come; but as soon as she has given birth to the child, she no longer remembers the anguish, for the joy that a human being has been born into the world. Therefore you now have sorrow; but I will see you again and your heart will rejoice, and your joy no one will take from you” (John 16:20-23).

We live today in the bright and glorious light of that resurrection—and of the joys of the New Covenant that His sacrifice on the cross brought about for us. To help us understand this, He went on to teach further. He gave three more illustrations to the Pharisees and scribes.

First, He gave the illustration of a new cloth on an old garment. Luke tells us, “Then He spoke a parable to them: “No one puts a piece from a new garment on an old one; otherwise the new makes a tear, and also the piece that was taken out of the new does not match the old” (v. 36). The piece from the new garment is meant to symbolize the realities of New Covenant grace; and the old garment is meant to symbolize the forms and practices of the Old Covenant law. We now walk in God’s favor by grace through Jesus—not in the old letter of the law. But it just won’t work to put New Covenant realities upon the forms of the Old Covenant practices. The joys of the New Covenant will—as it were—shrink; and the patterns of the Old Covenant will tear. One will not match the other. And the answer is not to only stick with one or the other. The answer is to abandon the Old Covenant patterns completely; and to enter into the full joy of the New Covenant in Christ.

Second, He gave the illustration of the new wine and old wineskins. When the juice of grapes had been pressed out, it was stored in the skins of a goat or a sheep. The skins were supple; and were able to stretch as the wine fermented and expanded. Jesus said, “And no one puts new wine into old wineskins; or else the new wine will burst the wineskins and be spilled, and the wineskins will be ruined” (v. 37). What a picture this is of the inappropriateness of trying to put the old patterns and practices of the Old Covenant law into the new context of the New Covenant in Christ. It just won’t work. The old practices will be wasted; and the joy of the new life in Christ will be spoiled and broken. Jesus went on to say, “But new wine must be put into new wineskins, and both are preserved” (v. 38). Note that He doesn’t also say that old wine must be put in old wineskins. There’s no point in keeping either the old wine or the old wineskins. That Old Covenant—with its rituals and regulations—was meant to serve only for a time. It was meant to point us to Jesus; and now it’s purpose is fulfilled, and it is gone. We should enjoy the new wine of the glorious grace of the New Covenant through Jesus alone.

And third, note the illustration of the preference for the old over the new. Jesus says in verse 39, “And no one, having drunk old wine, immediately desires new; for he says, ‘The old is better.’” It may be that many found it hard to fit in with the New Covenant of grace; but some eventually did. The book of Acts tells us that the Jewish Christians had a very hard time making the transition. They thought that Gentile Christians needed to be circumcised to be acceptable to God. They thought that they had to keep the Sabbath; and to eat only what was permissible in the law of Moses. Some eventually came along. Some still said, “The old ways are better.” But those old ways are not better. The joys of the grace of God through Jesus are infinitely better.

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It’s always a temptation to fall back into those old ways. But Paul once said; “Stand fast therefore in the liberty by which Christ has made us free, and do not be entangled again with a yoke of bondage” (Galatians 5:11).

And the best way to do this is to do what the tax-collectors and sinners did. Draw close to Jesus, and stay in deep fellowship with Him. He’s the Mediator of the New Covenant; and in Him, we find enough grace to celebrate forever!

EA