The old system was passing and on our behalf Jesus sought to institute the new system based on His sacrifice and forgiveness. The Old Covenant sought our obedience in pursuit of our salvation and our acts were unable to produce any form of righteousness or salvation. His coming meant that the Old Covenant was coming to a close. He alone would be worthy to bear the burden of our punishment and He alone would be able to save mankind. The solution came in the person of Jesus Christ. With no amount of sin being acceptable and no sacrifice being perfect, no solution to the issue of sin and imperfection could be found. However, humanity was still unable to meet the requirements of either. Thus, the law provided the roadmap for righteousness and the perfect sacrifices provided the path to forgiveness. Sin’s cost required that blood be spilt, a cost the people could not pay themselves and survive. The temple provided the people with the opportunity to sacrifice animals for the sins of the people. The Old Covenant primarily hinged on adherence to the law of God and to meet the standards of holiness and righteousness to approach God. Even for you and me today, through our faith in Jesus Christ, we step into our new life and put to death the old life. Thus, the relationship between God and His people would not only stretch and expand but also would not fit within the confines of the Old Covenant. The Old Covenant was not bad, but people were unable to fully meet its requirements, let alone the additional requirements of the Pharisees. Throughout the courses of Jesus’ life, He simultaneously fulfilled the requirements of the Old Covenant while instituting the New Covenant. When new wine would be added, the wineskin would tear, unable to hold the contents. After their use, the old wineskins would be brittle and unable to stretch anymore. As wine fermented, the wineskin would stretch and expand according to the wine. This is an example of how the old and the new systems were incompatible. The clothes must either both be new or both be shrunk. Since the old cloth had already shrunk, putting new cloth on the old cloth would shrink according to its use and wear, and tear the cloth even more. Thus, Jesus explained the coming New Covenant that he would establish through two metaphors the people would have understood: clothing and wine.Ĭlothes oftentimes would tear and requiring patching. This was no time for fasting, but for celebration. The Savior had come to be with them and live with His people. The disciples were not required to fast because their teacher, their rabbi, was the ultimate authority. Jesus, though, being the Word of God and understanding it fully, had no need or desire to obey man’s religious customs. The Pharisees added this feast, sometimes up to twice a week of full fasting. The law only required that the people fast on the day of Atonement, which this day was not. Thus, on this particular day, the Pharisees had set this day apart for fasting. The God who had once tabernacled with the people was now a far-off sight that the people were unable to approach. More and more, as the religious leaders of the day, they tightened the noose of sin and unrighteousness around the necks of the Israelites by making holiness even further off and God less and less approachable. Rules were tightened or added so as not to even come close to rebelling against God. The problem arose when they began to teach and require things beyond the scripture. They memorized the Torah, knew it forwards and backwards, and studied to understand their glorious God greater and greater. The Pharisees had, at first, sought to be the primary teachers and instructors of the truth of God. No, they pour new wine into new wineskins.” ( Mark 2:21-22, NIV) This conversation came on the heels of Jesus being questioned by the Pharisees as to why the disciples were not fasting. Otherwise, the wine will burst the skins, and both the wine and the wineskins will be ruined. And no one pours new wine into old wineskins. Otherwise, the new piece will pull away from the old, making the tear worse. “No one sews a patch of unshrunk cloth on an old garment. One of the first comparisons that Mark includes in his Gospel record comes in the form of explaining wine and wineskins. In Mark’s Gospel, many of these parables are recorded as a part of the Gospel record. In understanding the truth, the people could apply it to their lives and grow in their faith. The parables allowed the complex, unfathomable truths of God to be simplified and understood by all people to bring them closer to God. Throughout the Gospels Jesus employed parables, or stories, to communicate the complex truths of the nature of God, the Kingdom of Heaven, and what faith looks like expressed in the world.
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