THE REVELATION OF JESUS CHRIST: The Patch and the Wineskins

Matthew 9:16 - King James Version (KJV)

¹⁶No man putteth a piece of new cloth unto an old garment, for that which is put in to fill it up taketh from the garment, and the rent is made worse.

FAITH-IN-ACTION through THE SYNOPTIC GOSPELS

Letting the LIFE of the Holy Spirit Bring Faith’s Works Alive in Us!

void imposing past traditional structures on present renewals. – Jesus is teaching that the old forms of Judaism could not contain the spiritual freshness of the gospel. Grace cannot be sewed onto nor poured into the system of legalism. Rather than patching up a brittle, worn-out, and obsolete system, Jesus came to offer a new life imparted by faith in HIM.

· The study of Matthew 9:16 teaches: There were among the Jews not only sects of the Pharisees and Essenes, who led an austere life, but also schools of the prophets, who frequently lived in mountains and deserts, and were many of them Nazarites; they had also private academies to train men up in a strict discipline; and possibly from these many of John’s disciples might come, and many of the Pharisees; whereas Christ’s disciples, being taken immediately from their callings, had not been used to such religious austerities, and were unfit for them, and would by them be rather unfitted for their other work.

a) Note: Some duties of religion are harder and more difficult than others, like new cloth and new wine, which require most intenseness of mind, and are most displeasing to flesh and blood; such are religious fasting and the duties that attend it.

b) The best of Christ’s disciples pass through a state of infancy; all the trees in Christ’s garden are neither of a growth, nor all his scholars in the same form; there are babes in Christ and grown men.

c) In the enjoining of religious exercises, the weakness and infirmity of young Christians ought to be considered: as the food provided for them must be such as is proper for their age (1 Cor. 3:2; Heb. 5:12), so must the work be that is cut out for them. Christ would not speak to his disciples that which they could not then bear, John 16:12. Young beginners in religion must not be put upon the hardest duties at first, lest they be discouraged. Such as was God’s care of his Israel, when he brought them out of Egypt, not to lead them by the way of the Philistines (Exod. 13:17, 18), and such as was Jacob’s care of his children and cattle, not to overdrive them (Gen. 33:13), such is Christ’s care of the little ones of his family, and the lambs of his flock: he gently leads them.

For want of this care, many times, the bottles break, and the wine is spilled; the profession of many miscarries and comes to nothing, through indiscretion at first. Note: There may be over—doing even in well—doing, a being righteous over-much; and such an over—doing as may prove an undoing through the subtlety of Satan.

Reflection

[36] He told them this parable: "No one tears a patch from a new garment and sews it on an old one. If he does, he will have torn the new garment, and the patch from the new will not match the old. [37] And no one pours new wine into old wineskins. If he does, the new wine will burst the skins, the wine will run out and the wineskins will be ruined. [38] No, new wine must be poured into new wineskins. [39] And no one after drinking old wine wants the new, for he says, 'The old is better.' "

The new wine represents the inner aspects of a Christian life, and the new cloth pictures outward conduct and conversation. A person's behavior reflects his commitment, seen in the illustration of attaching new cloth to old clothing. The old clothing—our sinful, selfish life—cannot be mended but must be replaced. The new cloth is a righteous life. The Pharisees' ritual fasting was an old garment for which a new piece of cloth was useless.

It is untenable to attach Christ's doctrine to the old corrupt doctrines of this world's religions. The righteous system Christ came to establish cannot be forced into an old system. To attempt to force His teachings into the ways of Judaism, Protestantism, Catholicism, or any other of this world's religions causes confusion. Christ is warning against syncretism of beliefs; it simply does not work (Matthew 24:4-5, 24; Romans 6:5-6; 16:17-18; Galatians 1:6-10; Ephesians 4:14; 5:6-11; I Timothy 6:3-5; Hebrews 13:9).

Our Savior teaches that life cannot be a mixture of two opposite principles. We cannot serve two masters (Matthew 6:24). We cannot trust in our own works for salvation in Christ, nor follow the world and God. His new way must completely replace our old worldly ways so that we walk in newness of life. Amen.