Luk 5:35-39 | KingComments | STEP | The stubborn righteous do not acknowledge they are defeated. They have another question for Him. They know that John has disciples and that he has given his disciples strict living conditions, including fasting and offering prayers. This is entirely in keeping with their thinking, for this is also how they teach their own disciples. Now when they look at His disciples, they see a behavior that is not appropriate in their eyes. His disciples do nothing but eat and drink. Just look at the big reception that Levi made and in which they did partake well. This too is a reaction of people who don’t understand anything of grace. People of the law always begrudge the freedom in which the Lord leads His disciples. By the way, in the next section ( ) we see that this kind of meals is not a daily meal for the disciples, because there we see that they are hungry. Freedom which the Lord gives never leads to debauchery, but to an enjoyment of what He gives. Those who live in freedom refuse to accept food from the hand of the devil, as the Lord Jesus has shown when He was tempted in the wilderness ( ). The Lord explains why He does not let His disciples fast. The reason is that He is with them. He is the Bridegroom. The bride is not mentioned. He does talk about the attendants of the bridegroom. These are His disciples. The Lord points out that there will come days when He will not be with them. By this He means the days of His death and His stay in the tomb as He will have been expelled from the world. These will be days of deep sorrow for His disciples ( ). Then they will fast.

‏ Luke 5:35-39

Fasting

The stubborn righteous do not acknowledge they are defeated. They have another question for Him. They know that John has disciples and that he has given his disciples strict living conditions, including fasting and offering prayers. This is entirely in keeping with their thinking, for this is also how they teach their own disciples. Now when they look at His disciples, they see a behavior that is not appropriate in their eyes. His disciples do nothing but eat and drink. Just look at the big reception that Levi made and in which they did partake well.

This too is a reaction of people who don’t understand anything of grace. People of the law always begrudge the freedom in which the Lord leads His disciples. By the way, in the next section (Lk 6:1) we see that this kind of meals is not a daily meal for the disciples, because there we see that they are hungry. Freedom which the Lord gives never leads to debauchery, but to an enjoyment of what He gives. Those who live in freedom refuse to accept food from the hand of the devil, as the Lord Jesus has shown when He was tempted in the wilderness (Lk 4:4).

The Lord explains why He does not let His disciples fast. The reason is that He is with them. He is the Bridegroom. The bride is not mentioned. He does talk about the attendants of the bridegroom. These are His disciples. The Lord points out that there will come days when He will not be with them. By this He means the days of His death and His stay in the tomb as He will have been expelled from the world. These will be days of deep sorrow for His disciples (Jn 16:16-22). Then they will fast.

Old and New Things

To make clear to His opponents the difference between His service and that of John and the whole Old Testament, He speaks to them in a parable. He compares what He says and what He has come to bring on earth, with a new garment. This new garment does not match the old one. The old is Judaism in which everything is regulated by the law. The law has not brought blessing to the people, but loss of blessing and condemnation; for the law has been broken by the people.

The Lord has not come to tell people to keep to the law. He could have done that, for He Himself kept the law perfectly. But if He had taught the people the law, nothing would have changed to man’s nature. Man, with his whole being, is a lawbreaker and therefore guilty of punishment. He can only receive blessing if he is approached on a totally different basis, namely on the basis of grace. That grace Christ came to bring. In Him the grace of God appeared, bringing salvation to all men (Tit 2:11). This grace is the essence of Christendom, just as the law is the essence of Judaism.

It is impossible to insert the new garment of Christendom into the old garment of Judaism. They completely exclude each other. The new must replace the old and not be linked to it. It is as with the old covenant that must be replaced by the new covenant (Heb 8:13). Law and grace do not go together. Where attempts are made to mix law and grace, neither is taken seriously and both are violated. Then law is no longer law, and grace ceases to be grace. In grace the power and the joy of the Spirit, of which wine is a picture, is active, just as in the law the power of man is active.

The new wine of the Spirit cannot be done in the old packaging. The old packaging represents a person who lives on the basis of the law. The power of the Spirit of God in grace cannot be locked up within the statutes of the law. The old things are the forms of man according to the flesh. The new is the power of God according to the Holy Spirit. The old man must make way for the new man.

The new wine must be put into fresh wineskins. This means that the new power and joy of the Holy Spirit only suits those who have received the grace for lost sinners. They no longer try to be righteous before God on the basis of the law, for they have realized that life according to the law is impossible because man is a sinner. For those who acknowledge this, Christ has come with His grace. He who has accepted grace is a new creation, a new skin, in which the Holy Spirit as a fresh wine brings strength and joy.

The Lord knows how difficult it is for a human being, and certainly for a Jew, to depend on grace alone. It means that man condemns himself and acknowledges that he is not able to do anything good. It is very difficult for a person to come to that conclusion. Much rather he wants to achieve himself, commit himself to keep the law, earn the salvation himself. As long as he says “the old is good [enough]”, he rejects grace.

The Bridegroom is present and although this should have been a cause of joy, because the power of God is present, man prefers the old because it makes man important. The power of God doesn’t do that. The old is so familiar that we are afraid to hand it in to get instead something new that is unknown. We only hand in the old if we recognize the Lord in the new. The standard should not be how we have always seen it, but the standard should be the light that God gives through His Word. If we shut ourselves off from the power of God’s Word we will freeze in traditions.