What is the meaning of Jesus' image of new wine in new wineskins?

Answer 1

This illustration follows the answer to the question about why his disciples wouldn't fast, as the disciples of John and the pharisees used to do.

His answer was that, while the disciples of Jesus have the groom with them, they have no reason to fast, however when the groom will be taken away from them, then they would have to fast again.

Fasting was a formalism used by the Jews to soften God's heart in prayer, by showing their repentance through penitence. For instance, the King David fasted during his son's sickness, because he was trying God to have mercy upon the boy and not kill him. He had determined the boy's death as a compensation for David's sin with the boy's mother, Batsheva.

Therefore fasting is an expression of grief and repentance, in the form of a personal sacrifice or penitence. Christians continued the practice of fasting after Jesus' death. However, the mandatory fasting days were not an obligation anymore. The same happened with the strict dietary laws. They became an issue of personal decision if one wanted to follow God's law more closely, but Christians understood that salvation does not depend on observing the ordinances of the law, but on grace by Jesus sacrifice.

When Jesus argues that his disciples have no reason to fast he is really saying that he is establishing a new law, an updated form of worship to God, based on a new covenant with spiritual Israelite, that would do the right things based on their faith in the blood of Christ and not in a written law that no one could follow.

Therefore, putting the rituals of the "Old Law" into Christianity would be similar to putting new wine into old skins. The new wine represents Christianity, and the old skins, the Law of Moses.

This way, he foresaw that Christianity would function in a completely new organizational and ritual structure, which would harmonize with the new teachings that he was revealing to humankind.

While all Jewish rituals pointed to his first coming as a savior, and were a "shadow of what was to come" (PAUL), with this illustration Jesus Christ predicted to be eventually eliminated as an obligation for true worshipers.

This was probably part of the argument against the judaizers during the council of Jerusalem, when the matter of circumcision and other legal ordinances were debated by the apostles and elders in Jerusalem.

It was resolved that the non-Jewish Christians were no longer under those obligations. Had the apostles and elders not decided the way they did, the propagation of Christianity would have been slowed down dramatically. It was no longer to impose stringent restrictions to the gentiles, but to allow them to accept Jesus with a clean heart, as soon as possible.

This did not mean that the restrictions of the law had no merit and that it would be a sin to try to follow them, for Paul strongly recommended to free ourselves from uncleanness of the spirit and of the flesh; which is an obvious allusion to the dietary laws, specially those ratified by the Prophets and Jesus himself.

Eventually, specially after the Jewish temple was destroyed in 70 AC, even Christians of Jewish origin stopped following the ordinances of the mosaic law.

This way the prophetic images of the new cloth and new wineskin was fulfilled.

It has been fact that Eclesias that try to impose the mosaic law to the brethren do not grow as much as those that follow the advice contained in this illustration.

Now, one would argue with merit that if the wine has become old or mature, then the use of old skins would not pose any problem. One can see that when a Christian choose to abstain from pork, reptiles, shrimp and other unclean meats, without imposing his personal convictions to other fellow Christians.

Another View:

Jesus is using the picture of marriage in Matthew 9:15-17 to illustrate God's relationship with Israel (see Isaiah 54:1-8; Jeremiah 3:1-20 and Hosea 2:1-3; 5). Jesus is the bridegroom or Messiah here. He is describing how the minutia the Scribes and Pharisees were making of the Law of God ( burdensome, finely tuned interpretations of it - old wineskins) and the enlarging of that same law by Christ with its proper spiritual meaning (How God intended His Law for everyone to be - new wine), would need all disciples to leave the old ways of Pharisaical or self-righteous burdens of the letter of the Law and live by the fuller word and spirit of the Law Jesus was manifesting.

Matthew 9:16-17

New International Version (NIV)

16 "No one sews a patch of unshrunk cloth on an old garment, for the patch will pull away from the garment, making the tear worse.

17 Neither do people pour new wine into old wineskins. If they do, the skins will burst; the wine will run out and the wineskins will be ruined. No, they pour new wine into new wineskins, and both are preserved."

Many try to use this to discontinue all of the 'Law of Moses' but this isn't what Jesus did - He followed and obeyed the entire 'letter' of the Law and magnified its spiritual components (see Matthew 5:19-28). Jesus came to magnify God's law - not to annul it (Isaiah 42:21The LORD is well pleased for his righteousness' sake; he will magnify the law, and make it honourable.

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Matthew 5:17). He did not come to change the Sabbath to Sunday, for example - He came to support the Sabbath just as He supported and magnified the other commandments in His sermon on the mount.

As our new eternal High Priest, who intercedes on our behalf before the Father, there was no longer any need for sacrifices as in the past. Some other minor administrative laws were therefore done away with. But the Commands of God where not changed by one jot or tittle will be disgarded from the Law:

Matthew 5:18

New King James Version (NKJV)

18 For assuredly, I say to you, till heaven and earth pass away, one jot or one tittle will by no means pass from the law till all is fulfilled.