Old Wine, New Wine Skins (Mark 2:18-22) - Christopher G. Brenyo

Mark chapter 2, beginning at verse 18. This is God's holy and infallible word. The disciples of John and of the Pharisees were fasting, and they came and said to him, Why do the disciples of John and of the Pharisees fast, but your disciples do not fast?

And Jesus said to them, Can the friends of the bridegroom fast while the bridegroom is with them? As long as they have the bridegroom with them, they cannot fast. But the days will come when the bridegroom will be taken away from them, and then they will fast in those days.

No one sews a piece of unshrunk cloth to an old garment, or else the new piece pulls away from the old, and the tear is made much worse. And no one puts new wine into old wineskins, or else the new wine bursts the wineskins, the wine is spilled, and the wineskins are ruined.

But new wine must be put into new wineskins. Let the Lord bless the reading, hearing of his word. Let's pray together. Lord Jesus, I pray that your gospel would be at the forefront of our thinking today.

Lord, we recognize our own tendency to pursue means of self-righteousness. Lord, I pray that we would be humble and teachable, and unlike the Pharisees who were so hard-hearted to hearing Christ and hearing his gospel, may it not be so with us.

We pray and ask these things in Jesus' name. Amen. Please be seated. Last week we had the privilege of considering that section that dealt with Jesus eating and drinking and having fellowship with tax collectors and sinners.

And of course this flew in the face of that hard-heartedness that I prayed of in the Pharisees. They would never be caught hanging out with such scandalous people. At this point, we are at the third of five controversies in this section that Jesus answers.

And the question that's being asked is, why don't your disciples fast on the schedule of the Pharisees and John's disciples? By this time, the Pharisees and John's disciples were fasting twice a week as a ritual, every week.

That practice is nowhere prescribed as normative in the scripture. They had come up with that, and they thought it was very wise and very holy and very pious to fast two days a week. And in essence, the teaching about this is, if you don't fast two days a week, you're not righteous.

If you don't do it like we do, you're not righteous. You're not part of the righteous people of God, because the people who love God's law, who love his word, they fast twice a week. I hope you catch the irony in that statement, because the law doesn't prescribe fasting twice a week.

In fact, there's only one fast prescribed in scripture, and we'll talk about that in just a little bit. Interestingly, John the Baptist, the forerunner to Jesus, as we know those first four disciples at least, came from John's camp, and they became the first four disciples of Jesus' ministry.

And these disciples were also following the two fast per week principle. John the Baptist's disciples were fasting twice per week. The Pharisees were fasting twice a week. Now, at the outset, I'd like to point out a very practical matter, a very important consideration.

If you, by conviction, feel it would be beneficial to your soul, the edification of the body, to fast twice a week, fast twice a week. So fasting is not prohibited here. Jesus doesn't say, fasting is stupid, don't fast.

But he does have a response and a challenge to the Pharisees who are putting their stock in fasting. You and I can put our stock in a lot of things. We can say, we sing from the Psalter, therefore, we are righteous.

And I thought we were going to sing a cappella today, so my illustration kind of got messed up. If we sang the Psalms, only sang them with no music, a cappella, it could have been like the Covenanters.

We could say, we're righteous today because we didn't use those musical instruments. We were righteous today because we only sang Psalms. That would be what made us righteous today. There are a host of things that we could say.

This is what makes us righteous. We keep the Sabbath. We go to church every Sunday. We read our Bibles devotionally. There's a lot of things we can say. This is our righteousness. And the fundamental error of the Jews is they didn't recognize, particularly the Pharisees, they didn't realize that they needed the righteousness of Jesus.

Jesus is our righteousness. Our righteousness comes from him. Because that's true, we go and we practice godly practices. We go and have disciplines in our lives that are reflective of that, but we could never confuse those facts.

Jesus is our righteousness. Our righteousness comes from Jesus alone. It doesn't come from fasting. It doesn't come from Bible reading. It doesn't come from our prayers. It comes from Christ alone. There's something else.

There's a tendency for us who are not convicted about certain things, or who are convicted about certain things, to look down their nose. Let me start that over. When we have no conviction about an issue, we tend to look down our nose at another who has a greater conviction.

This is a very bad thing. We should always encourage people who want to obey Christ and follow him in obedience. However they believe, they're taking scriptural principles, and they're trying to put those in practice.

We shouldn't look down our nose at them. There's two sides to this now. On the one hand, we can't say fasting is what makes us righteous. That's very much at the heart of Jesus' teaching, refuting the Pharisees.

He's saying to them, you need to look to me. You need to hear from me. You need my righteousness. The Pharisees are saying, we've got fasting. We've got our religious practice. That's our righteousness.

But the danger for us is to look down our nose at those who may be fasting two times a week. If someone is under conviction that they need to fast to be pleasing to God, fasting is not a bad thing. Maybe we need to instruct them in some of their liberty.

Maybe we need to make sure and check that they're not being Pharisees and saying they're righteous because they fast twice a week. But our tendency is really, when someone has these kind of convictions, is to look down our nose at them and say, these people are foolish.

They're stupid. Why would they do that? It's not healthy or appropriate either. So what's happening here in our text today? What is the message? Well, we're looking at the third of five controversies between Jesus and the religious rulers, leaders of his day, the Pharisees.

The first is found in Mark chapter 2 and goes through verse 12, beginning at verse 1. It was about Jesus' ability and role and authority to forgive sins. The Pharisees did not believe that Jesus had that authority.

And so the healing of the paralytic becomes the occasion when Jesus would declare to him in verse 5, son, your sins are forgiven you. That was the first controversy. The second controversy was last week, and it was about Jesus fellowshipping with sinners.

And he responds to all of this. He has apparently a feast with Levi and his friends. And he says, in verse 17, those who are well have no need of a physician, but those who are sick. I did not come to call the righteous but sinners to repentance.

And again, the Pharisees didn't catch the irony of the statement. They felt they were well. They felt they were self-righteous. So Jesus says, yeah, I'm not coming to religious people like you who are perfectly well.

I'm going to the sinners to preach my gospel to them. The Pharisees didn't recognize that they were sinners, that they needed the gospel, that they needed the Messiah, they needed Christ. So they missed the lesson.

And here they are again. And I believe contextually we can make this inference. I think this comes right on the heels of the fellowship that Jesus had with the tax collectors and sinners. I think they were feasting on one of the days that the Pharisees fasted.

So they're fasting, they're pious. Jesus is living it up, drinking some wine with the tax collectors and sinners. And they're saying, he can't be righteous because righteous men fast on Tuesdays. He's over there partying with the sinners, the tax collectors.

And Jesus gives a really powerful lesson to them in response. Today we consider the third conflict over fasting. We couldn't accuse Jesus of being anti-fasting. He himself is coming off a 40-day fast in the wilderness, but something happens here.

What are the three short parables that Jesus teaches in answer to this question about fasting? First is the parable of the bridegroom. Parable of the bridegroom. Look at verse 19. And Jesus said to them, can the friends of the bridegroom fast while the bridegroom is with them?

Can the friends of the bridegroom fast while the bridegroom is with them? Have you ever been to a wedding? Most everybody has. Is it a funeral? Is it like a funeral? Almost every wedding I've ever been to, the people are very happy.

They're having a very nice time. They're celebrating. They're joyful. They're filled with hope for the future. And Jesus says to them, why would you fast and mourn when the Messiah is in your presence?

I'm ushering in the new covenant. All the promises are being realized. Everything's being fulfilled. Why would you go and fast when I'm here? It's time to celebrate. It's time to throw a party. The bridegroom has come.

And the Pharisees in their hardness of heart say we would prefer to fast. So the first parable is the bridegroom. What do you do in the presence of the bride? Bridegroom, you have a party. There is one fast prescribed in the law of God.

Let's turn to Leviticus 16 really quickly. Leviticus 16. I'm trying to find a good place to start. Try to cut it down a little bit. I'm going to start reading in verse 11 of chapter 16. This is the day of atonement.

And Aaron shall bring the bull of the sin offering, which is for himself, and make atonement for himself and for his house, and shall kill the bull as the sin offering, which is for himself. They shall take a censer full of burning coals of fire from the altar before the Lord with his hands, full of sweet incense beaten fine, and bring it inside the veil.

And he shall put the incense in the fire before the Lord that the cloud of incense may cover the mercy seat that is on the testimony lest he die. He shall take some of the blood of the bull and sprinkle it with his finger on the mercy seat on the east side.

And before the mercy seat, he shall sprinkle some of the blood with his finger seven times. Then he shall kill the goat of the sin offering, which is for the people, bring its blood inside the veil, do with that blood as he did with the blood of the bull, and sprinkle it on the mercy seat and before the mercy seat.

So shall he make atonement for the holy place because of the uncleanness of the children of Israel and because of their transgressions for all their sins. And so shall he do for the tabernacle of meeting, which remains among them in the midst of their uncleanness.

There shall be no man in the tabernacle of meeting when he goes in to make atonement in the holy place until he comes out that he might make atonement for himself, for his household, and for all the assembly of Israel.

And he shall go out to the altar that is before the Lord and make atonement for it and shall take some of the blood of the bull and some of the blood of the goat and put it on the horns of the altar all around.

And he shall sprinkle some of the blood on it with his finger seven times, cleanse it and consecrate it from the uncleanness of the children of Israel. When he has made an end for atoning for the holy place, the tabernacle of meeting and the altar, he shall bring the live goat.

Aaron shall lay both his hands on the head of the live goat, confess over it all the iniquities of the children of Israel and all their transgressions concerning their sins, putting them on the head of the goat and shall send it away into the wilderness by the way hand of a suitable man.

The goat shall bear on itself all their iniquities to an uninhabited land and he shall release the goat in the wilderness. Now I want to stop here because this idea of expiation is largely neglected in our time.

The sacrifice that's here making atonement for the people, this very special occasion, this is the only solemn occasion where fasting is absolutely prescribed. There are other things that happen, other occasions where fasting happened, but this is the one that is most prominent in Scripture, the day of atonement.

And when we think about expiation, we also have to understand that not only does Christ bear our guilt as a scapegoat, but he removes that guilt from us and takes it away. This is very picturesque when the goat is taken outside of the camp, the people were to recognize that symbolically really here, in a somewhat sacramental way, the goat is taking their sins out of the camp, taking it away from the presence of God that they might have perfect communion with God.

Now let's keep reading. We'll hear something about the scapegoat now. Starting again in verse 22, the goat shall bear on itself all their iniquities to an uninhabited land. He shall release the goat in the wilderness.

The Aaron shall come into the tabernacle of meeting, take off the linen garments which he put on when he went into the holy place, and shall leave them there. He shall wash his body with water in a holy place, put on his garments, come out after and offer his burnt offering and the burnt offering for the people, and make atonement for himself and for the people.

The fat of the sin offering he shall burn on the altar, and he who released the goat as the scapegoat shall wash his clothes and bathe his body in water, and afterward he may come into the camp. The bull for the sin offering and the goat for the sin offering, whose blood was brought in to make atonement in the holy place, shall be carried outside the camp, and they shall burn in their fire, their skins, their flesh, and their offal.

Then he who burns them shall wash his clothes and bathe his body in water, and afterward he may come into the camp. This shall be a day, a statute forever for you in the seventh month, on the tenth day of the month.

You shall afflict your souls and do no work at all, whether a native of your own country or a stranger who dwells among you, for on that day the priest shall make atonement for you to cleanse you that you may be clean from all your sins before the Lord.

It is a Sabbath of solemn rest for you, and you shall afflict your souls. It is a statute forever. And the priest who is anointed and consecrated to minister as priest in his father's place shall make atonement and put on linen clothes, the holy garments.

Then he shall make atonement for the holy sanctuary. He shall make atonement for the tabernacle of meeting and for the altar, and he shall make atonement for the priests and for all the people of the assembly.

This shall be an everlasting statute to make atonement for the children of Israel and for all their sins once a year. And he did as the Lord commanded Moses. Now, in the interest of time, I don't want to take too much here, but I'd like us to think about this.

The whole system, the whole sacrificial corpus, everything about the Jewish religion centered around this day. It was a day of great solemnity, great reverence. Holy fear, no doubt, struck terror in the land when this was happening.

Everything's kind of riding on this priest getting this right to people's sins. And so you can see the seriousness and sobriety of the moment and why fasting would be appointed to go along with this. But in our text today, I want us to think about who Christ is.

I want to think now moving ahead to his finished work. You and I never live any longer in the precarious state about wondering where we are in relationship to God and our sinfulness. So in the New Covenant, I believe there is now a tone of joyfulness and rejoicing and thanksgiving that is fresh and new.

There's no sacrifice to be offered any longer. All of these things need to be studied in scrupulous detail that we might understand the mind of God and all that went into this. But we also have to have a gospel perspective about this.

Christ's sacrifice is a final and finished sacrifice. We don't need another sacrifice. We don't need an altar. We don't need this altar. It's been accomplished in the heavens. And so when we think about Christ, our eyes and our hearts should leap with joy within us, because when we think about him, we're thinking about a finished work.

We're thinking about the bridegroom being united to his bride in this course, the great picture that we'll experience here of communion. Our sins have been taken away. They've ridden out of the camp on the backs of that scapegoat.

Our sins have been atoned for. The blood has been shed. The blood has been applied. We're forgiven. And Jesus is saying, I'm the one who's come to accomplish all this work. I am the sacrifice. I am the prophet.

I am the priest. I am the king. We should be rejoicing. There's gonna be a time for fasting, but this isn't it. Now, interest time, let's go back to our text. Mark chapter two, the appearing of the Messiah.

The bridegroom is an occasion for rejoicing. Can you imagine if the Hebrew scholars, the scribes, the Pharisees, if they would have known all of those books that they were so knowledgeable in? All of that hope and all of that anticipation, all of that fulfillment, all of the blessing that would be ushered in is standing in their presence, and they missed it.

This also speaks to the supernatural and spiritual character of having faith in Christ. The Holy Spirit has to give us eyes to see and ears to hear. Learned men, knowledgeable in the scriptures, they were missing that the Messiah had come.

You and I better not miss that the Messiah has come. Let's continue on the next parable. And remember, these guys needed atonement. They needed to look to Jesus for their righteousness, but instead they looked to themselves, to their practices, seeking to be self-justified, to be self-righteous.

The second parable, little parable in this third controversy, Jesus appeals to logic. Verse 21, no one sews a piece of unshrunk cloth on an old garment or else the new piece pulls away from the old and the tear is made worse.

I've never sewn anything in my life, but logic tells me if I've got frayed garments, threads exposed, and I take a new piece of fabric with new strong thread and attach it to that, the old garments going to be ripped and torn apart.

I couldn't put a big patch in the middle of a threadbare garment and hope it would all stay together. What Jesus is saying here is this, your old modes of attempting to have self-righteousness and your extra biblical code that you've created is not going to be able to contain or hold my gospel.

My gospel cannot be confined or constrained to these man-made commandments and traditions. I can't be held by them. So a picture, something that would be familiar to them. We don't patch up our clothes, probably like they did.

We have probably a greater access to garments. But in former times, if your skirt had a hole in it, you would probably patch it first before trying to buy a new one. He says none can add or sew a piece of unshrunken cloth to an old garment or else the new piece pulls away from the old and the tear is made worse.

Jesus is ushering in the new covenant. New things are coming in the realization of all these promises and the Pharisees are trying to keep the old ways. Now I want to be very careful here. The old ways that they were keeping wasn't the law of Moses.

It wasn't obedience to the command of God. It was their traditions. They were trying to hold on to their traditions. You remember in the Galatian conflict, the Pharisees were saying in effect or the Judaizers were saying you have to be circumcised in order to be a Christian.

The Pharisees are saying here you have to fast in order to be a righteous person. And Jesus says fasting is not the issue. I'm the issue. Come to me. I will make you righteous. So the Pharisees are blinded to their own sin.

And then finally, third, the most famous of this section, new wine into old wine skins. Look at verse 22. And no one puts new wine into old wine skins or else the new wine bursts the wine skins. Now, are you guys familiar with what wine skins are?

They're made out of animal skins. Now this is gonna be a little bit different than what you're used to. Moms who are concerned about germs and stuff, I don't know how you deal with this. But they had these animal skins and in some cases they were up to 40 gallons in size.

And they would put wine into these skins. And as you can imagine, this flesh was, particularly in its new state, fresh state, was highly malleable. Would move and expand and change. But over time, as the sun would shine on it, it would start to dry up.

It would become hard and brittle. So here's the picture. You have some wine skins. They've been hanging around for a while. They're dry and they're brittle. Wine is in the process of fermenting. It's expanding.

Have you ever seen something ferment? It starts to bubble up. It starts to move. It starts to have activity. And here's the picture. The new living way that Christ is bringing in could no way be confined in those old bottles, those old skins.

Again, not the law of God, not the Old Testament, these traditions of the Pharisees. And in fact, if we put new wine into those old wine skins, we'd look over in the corner, we'd hear some rumblings, and eventually the wine skins would burst because they're no longer, they've lost their elasticity.

They're no longer able to stretch. Something else. There's a reason we use wine and not grape juice in communion. Does anybody have any couple of reasons why in your mind about why we do that? First, obviously, that's what they used, the third cup, cup of blessing, and the Passover meal.

But wine is alive. There's activity. There's life happening inside the wine. In fact, there's no such thing as grape juice in the natural world. Did you know that? You squeeze a grape, it's becoming wine.

Instantly in that moment. A guy had to create a way through pasteurization to kill the natural living process of what happens when you squeeze grapes. Grapes, God created them special yeast on them. As soon as they're squeezed, they turn into wine.

And I believe in some way we can take today using that information we have and knowledge we have then, new wine was of a lower alcoholic content when it was first put in the bottle. But guess what happens?

Over time, it becomes more mature wine. It becomes more strong, more alcoholic in its content. And that fresh, living, growing, maturing wine could never be held in those old wineskins. They would break.

Jesus is saying to the Pharisees, essentially, your system is bankrupt. Your system doesn't provide the righteousness that's required. Now, I want you to think back to the last image, the last section from last week.

We have tax collectors who are defrauding the people, scandalous people. I'm imagining all the tax collectors, all the harlots and prostitutes and all the bad people in town gathering at Levi's house.

Jesus is there and they're listening to his teaching. They're listening to the person and work and teaching of Christ. They're eager, it seems, to hear the gospel. The Pharisees, the religious leaders, the scribes, the theologians, they're saying righteous people fast two times a week.

You're not righteous because you don't do what we do. Jesus says, this new wine is going into new wineskins. You will not receive the gospel. It would make you explode, would burst. New wine is rapidly fermenting and expanding.

The old religious rituals of the Pharisees couldn't keep in the life of Christ and his gospel. It could be said here in the most beautiful way, the old things have passed away. The new has come. A sharp breach and difference from the religiosity of the Pharisees is needed.

Again, he's not abandoning the law of God. They've perverted the law of God. And people have began to identify them with the law of God. And he's having to say the Pharisees are not the law of God. They're not teaching or practicing what's taught in the law of God.

Come to me and hear my gospel. Repent and believe. Look to me for your righteousness. Don't look to the Pharisees and their religious practice. Look unto Jesus. It's a pretty powerful little section when you think about it.

They just ask a little question about Jesus. We've got a problem with you. You're telling people you can forgive sins. Only God can do that. First instance, we don't like the company that you keep. You're over there with Levi and the tax collectors having a feast.

And we don't know about your disciples because our disciples and John the Baptist disciples, they fast twice in a week. And Jesus says this new wine can't go into your old wineskins. What a terrible rebuke.

What a horrible thing. The Messiah has come. You're not ready for the Messiah. The gospel has come. Salvation has come. Propitiation. Satisfaction of God's wrath has come. Expiation. Your sins being taken out of the camp.

That's come and you're rejecting it. I've got to go take it to people who will worship me in spirit and in truth. A couple of words of application. We'll close. First, I should stop and point something out.

When I was under some heavy conviction going into Presbyteria in that sermon to preach on worship, and I mentioned to you this a couple of weeks ago, I believe, but I think it was last week. I think Jesus should be the reason that the biggest smile comes on your face.

You should be most excited about Jesus. And I unofficially polled some people and I knew the questions to answer and they got real excited about their causes. They got real excited about the things that they liked.

Like you might get excited about your sports team or something like that. But when I talked about Jesus, I talked about worshiping in the presence of God, the people's faces didn't light up. In fact, it went from happy and joyful and excited, exuberant to very plain, emotionless.

So the first application of this message, I believe, is for us to rejoice. The bridegroom has come. Why would we be fasting when the party is on? You think it was crazy for someone to start their very strict monastic dietary plan at the wedding?

Why would you do that today? Wait till tomorrow. Today is a wedding. It's a celebration. Rejoice. The bridegroom has come. So I'm going to ask the question of you. Are you rejoicing because the bridegroom has come?

Is Jesus the person that makes your heart jump or is it something else? I was talking to Savannah and I don't know if she's told you, but she's getting married soon. She talks about it a lot. I was talking to her about this and I said, when she talks about Tim, she's so excited and everything.

I told her, I said, and she knows I'm saying this to you, so I'm not picking on her. I said, you're more excited about Tim than you are about Jesus. And she agreed. These are moments, very important moments, and I think she should be excited.

But I said, it just perfectly illustrates it. Something good, getting married to a godly guy, something to be excited about. There's something better. Your life is filled with things that you're excited about.

But Jesus isn't really at the top. That's what I hope the Reformation will happen in us. That Christ will be the thing that really gets us going. That Christ will be our consuming passion. His gospel will be what we're zealous about.

We're zealous about everything else, but not Christ. So today, don't be like the Pharisees. When the bridegroom comes into the room, rejoice. Be glad that he's come. Second, very important because of our tendency, do not attempt to employ extra biblical rites and rituals in order to find yourself right with God.

I would never do that. All the religious people in history have done that. Our spiritual forefathers, the nation Israel, they had the oracles of God. God spoke to them on the mountain. They saw the thunderings and the lightnings.

They saw the pillar of cloud and the pillar of fire. They still made idols. They still look to something else. These Pharisees in our text today said, fasting, that's what makes us righteous. Jesus rebukes them.

I'm the one who makes you righteous. Look to Christ and to union with him. He is your life and your righteousness. Third, we need to drink deeply from the new wine of the gospel. We need to be a gospel centered, gospel focused, gospel preeminent people.

Drink deeply from the new wineskins, the new wine of the gospel. And finally, today, the bridegroom has invited us to the feast, has invited us to his table. I don't think you should have a funeral mindset right now.

I don't think you should be fasting. Therefore, let us keep the feast. Let's pray together. Lord, we mock the Pharisees and their unbelief while we do the same things. Lord Jesus, I pray that you would be our all in all, that you would be everything to us.

Christ, you are our life and you are our righteousness. Forgive us for forgetting that moment by moment and day by day. We pray that today that we will be realigned into this great purpose, that we would seek you first, that we would exalt you first above everyone and everything else.

Lord Jesus, we need your Holy Spirit to stir up holy affections in our hearts. We know that we're prone to wander. We know that we're prone to coldness of heart. Lord, we're asking you to cause us to love you the way we ought, knowing your spirit only can make it possible.

Holy Spirit, cause us to love Christ more, cause us to see more of his beauty, more of his holiness, more of his love, more of his grace. Oh, Holy Spirit, cause us to love our bridegroom as is befitting a bride.

Lord Jesus, we pray that hearts would be transformed and that you would be glorified in our midst in a way that you haven't before. And we ask these things in Jesus name. Amen.