Commentary - Luke 5:33-39

Bird's-eye view

In this passage, Luke presents a direct confrontation between two clashing kingdoms and two clashing outlooks. The scribes and Pharisees, along with the disciples of John, represent the old order. Their piety is measured by external observances, disciplines like fasting and formal prayers. They come to Jesus with a "gotcha" question, designed to highlight the apparent laxity of His disciples. Jesus, in response, does not merely defend His disciples' behavior. He announces the arrival of an entirely new era. He is the Bridegroom, and His presence inaugurates a wedding feast. To demand fasting in the middle of a wedding is to fundamentally misunderstand what is happening. The kingdom has arrived. The King is here. This is a time for wine, not for water.

Jesus then drives the point home with two sharp, memorable parables. You don't patch an old, brittle coat with a piece of brand new, unshrunk cloth. You don't pour fermenting, expanding new wine into old, inflexible wineskins. The result in both cases is destruction. The new thing God is doing in Christ is not a patch-up job on Judaism. It is not a reform movement. It is a new creation, bursting with life, and it requires entirely new structures to contain it. The gospel is not an addition to the old way of life; it is a new way of life altogether.

Outline

The Text

33 And they said to Him, “The disciples of John often fast and offer prayers, the disciples of the Pharisees also do likewise, but Yours eat and drink.”

The question comes from the religious establishment, and it is dripping with accusation. Notice the comparison they set up. On the one side, you have the truly devout: John's disciples and the Pharisees. Despite their other differences, they are united in this, they take their religion seriously. They fast. They offer prayers. Their piety has a certain aesthetic, it is rigorous, disciplined, and somber. On the other side, you have Jesus' disciples. What do they do? They eat and drink. They are feasting with tax collectors and sinners. The implied charge is one of worldliness, of spiritual flippancy. They are not behaving how religious people are supposed to behave. This is a classic example of men judging by outward appearance, assuming that a long face is the only indicator of a serious heart.

34 And Jesus said to them, “Can you make the attendants of the bridegroom fast while the bridegroom is with them?

Jesus answers their question with a question of His own, and in so doing, He completely reframes the situation. They think the issue is about the proper rules for piety. Jesus tells them the issue is about recognizing the Man in front of them. He is the Bridegroom. This is messianic language. God, in the Old Testament, is the husband of Israel. Christ is now here, in the flesh, to claim His bride. And when the bridegroom arrives for the wedding, what is the appropriate response? A wedding is a time of unadulterated joy, of feasting and celebration. To demand that the wedding party put on sackcloth and ashes in the middle of the festivities is ludicrous. It shows you don't know what time it is. The presence of the Bridegroom changes all the rules. The central reality is not the disciples' discipline, or lack thereof, but the presence of Christ Himself. He is the feast.

35 But the days will come; and when the bridegroom is taken away from them, then they will fast in those days.”

Here Jesus acknowledges that fasting does have its place. He is not abolishing the discipline. But He defines its proper context. Fasting is a discipline of longing, of yearning for something absent. The disciples will fast, He says, when the Bridegroom is "taken away." This is a clear foreshadowing of His crucifixion and ascension. In this present church age, we live in a tension. The Bridegroom has come, and He has secured His bride. We feast in honor of that victory every Lord's Day. But He is also physically absent, and we long for His return. So there is a place for fasting, not as a way to earn God's favor, but as an expression of our deep yearning for the final consummation of all things, for the day when we see Him face to face. Fasting is for the "already, but not yet."

36 And He was also telling them a parable: “No one tears a piece of cloth from a new garment and puts it on an old garment; otherwise he will both tear the new and the piece from the new will not match the old.

Jesus now sharpens the point with two parables that are really one. The Pharisees want to take this new thing, this teaching and power of Jesus, and simply sew it onto the existing fabric of their religious system. Jesus says this is impossible. The new cloth is vibrant, strong, unshrunk. The old garment is worn, brittle, and set in its ways. If you try to patch the old with the new, the first time it gets wet, the new patch will shrink and rip a gaping hole in the old garment. You ruin both. The gospel of grace is not a patch for the religion of works. The kingdom of God is not an add-on to the traditions of men. You cannot simply "add Jesus" to your pre-existing life. He is not a patch. He demands a whole new garment.

37 And no one puts new wine into old wineskins; otherwise the new wine will burst the skins and it will be spilled out, and the skins will be ruined.

The second image is even more potent. New wine is alive. It is fermenting, bubbling, expanding. It is full of power and life. Old wineskins are leather that has already been stretched to its limit. They have become hard, brittle, and inflexible. If you pour the dynamic, expanding new wine into a container that cannot give, the result is explosive. The wineskin bursts, the wine is lost, and the container is ruined. The new life of the Spirit, the joy of the gospel, the liberty of grace, cannot be contained by the rigid, external regulations of Pharisaical Judaism. The old covenant forms were designed for a particular time and purpose, but they cannot hold the effervescent reality of the new covenant. The gospel creates its own forms, its own structures, its own culture. It is a living thing, and it must have a living container.

38 But new wine must be put into fresh wineskins.

The solution is simple and radical. New wine requires new wineskins. The gospel requires new hearts, new minds, new communities. It requires the Church. The new covenant people of God are the new wineskins, made flexible and able to contain the life of the Spirit through regeneration. This is not about reform, but about rebirth. God is not interested in renovating the old structures; He is building something entirely new from the ground up, founded on Christ Himself.

39 And no one, after drinking old wine wishes for new; for he says, ‘The old is good enough.’ ”

Jesus concludes with this poignant, almost melancholy, observation. Why do people resist this glorious new wine? Because they have acquired a taste for the old. The old wine is comfortable, predictable, and smooth. It doesn't challenge you. The religious system of the Pharisees, for all its burdens, was familiar. It gave them a sense of control and self-righteousness. They had grown accustomed to it. The new wine of Christ's grace is wild, untamed, and intoxicating. It demands surrender, not management. And so, many will taste it, wrinkle their noses, and go back to what they know. "The old is good enough," they say. This is the verdict of every traditionalist who prefers the comfort of dead religion over the glorious, disruptive life of the gospel.

Application

The fundamental lesson here is about the radical nature of the gospel. Christianity is not a self-improvement program. It is not a set of new rules to tack onto our old lives. It is a new creation. The Lord Jesus Christ did not come to patch up our problems; He came to give us a new life altogether. This means we must be constantly on guard against the temptation to create old wineskins. We do this every time we turn grace into a new law, every time we substitute external performance for heartfelt love, every time we value our traditions more than the truth.

We are called to be new wineskins. This means we must be people of the Spirit, flexible, and ready to be filled with the new wine of His kingdom. This life is a feast, because the Bridegroom has come and has won the victory. We should live in that joy. Our churches should be characterized by this bubbling, expansive life. And when we do fast, it should not be with the sour face of a Pharisee trying to impress God, but with the hopeful heart of a bride who longs for the return of her husband. The old is not good enough. The new wine has come, and we are privileged to drink it.