Matthew 9:14 ¶ Then came to
him the disciples of John, saying, Why do we and the Pharisees fast oft, but
thy disciples fast not? 15 And Jesus
said unto them, Can the children of the bridechamber mourn, as long as the
bridegroom is with them? but the days will come, when the bridegroom shall be
taken from them, and then shall they fast. 16
No 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.
17 Neither do men put new wine into old
bottles: else the bottles break, and the wine runneth out, and the bottles
perish: but they put new wine into new bottles, and both are preserved.
Before we look at the parable Jesus relates it is important to
understand that at the time the King James Bible was translated a bottle did
not have to be just glass, as it is today, but any container that carried a
liquid, such as a leather bag. This can be confirmed by going to Lexicons of
Early Modern English online and doing a search by which you will find Thomas
Cooper’s 1578 Thesaurus Linguae
Romanae et Britannicae and Thomas Thomas’ 1587 Dictionarium
Linguae Latinae et Anglicanae and several other sources that refer to a
bottle as simply a vessel of some sort with glass bottle being used for that
specific container material.
In the following a bottle
can be rent or torn so common sense tells you these wily Canaanites were not
just carrying around shards of broken glass.
Joshua
9:4 They did work wilily, and went and
made as if they had been ambassadors, and took old sacks upon their asses, and
wine bottles, old, and rent, and bound up;
The question presented of why the Pharisees, with their long list
of traditions, fast a lot and Jesus’ disciples do not was an important note
about the dead religion the Pharisees followed. Christ was present and so His
followers were joyful. He is the bridegroom and they will celebrate now but He
will be taken from them.
One way of looking at this parable is that the joy of those who
receive Christ cannot be contained in the old and decayed vessels of dead
religion. Each of us comes to Christ with a lot of baggage; sins we have
committed, and sins committed against us, and this baggage often hampers our
walk with Christ even after we are saved by the sins that so easily beset us.
We are raised in a culture that, even if conservative and acknowledging of
Christ, often carries with it false doctrine and incorrect assumptions about
what God wants. Our walk with Christ, our very understanding and interpretation
of Scripture is colored by those things. We see the Bible through a lense
formed by our own personality, preferences, bigotry, prejudices, and opinions,
and, yes, experiences. In order to see Christ clearly we must put our faith in
new bottle, without cracks and tears and fissures, coming to the Bible without
the weight and the chains of our false beliefs, expectations, and assumptions.
For instance, many Christians will tell you that God would never
do anything that would hurt you, so if you are hurt or sick or harmed in any
way it must be the work of the Devil opposing God.
But, the book of Job teaches us that the Devil can do nothing to
us which God does not permit. And see;
Job 2:10 But he said unto
her, Thou speakest as one of the foolish women speaketh. What? shall we receive
good at the hand of God, and shall we not receive evil? In all this did not Job
sin with his lips.
And Jeremiah will write;
Lamentations
3:38 Out of the mouth of the most High
proceedeth not evil and good?
We bring the false doctrine that we cannot receive anything
hurtful at the hand of God and our faith and understanding is colored by that
in opposition to the Bible. Old skins, rotten and torn, keep us from holding
the doctrine of new wine.
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