Mark 2:21-22 (NIV): “No one sews a patch of unshrunk cloth on an old garment. If he does, the new piece will pull away from the old, making the tear worse. And no one pours new wine into old wineskins. If he does, the wine will burst the skins, and both the wine and the wineskins will be ruined. No, he pours new wine into new wineskins.”
Some take this passage as license to completely throw out the traditions of the Church, and some even take it so far as to believe that Jesus is giving them clear grounds for antinomianism, disregarding the laws of God like the 10 Commandments. These ignore Jesus’ clear statement that He did not come to abolish the law and the prophets (God’s word in what we call the Old Testament), but to fulfill them (Matthew 5:17). And fulfill doesn’t mean get rid of. Jesus followed up this statement by saying that until heaven and earth disappear, not the smallest letter, not the least stroke of a pen, will by any means disappear from the law until everything is accomplished (Matthew 5:18). Some take the “until everything is accomplished” to mean until Jesus’ death and resurrection. But it would be odd for Jesus to be anticipating the requirements of the law going away in less than 2 years, but preceding that statement with “until heaven and earth disappear”!
Jesus’ death and resurrection was the key event in the history of the world, the hinge-point on which everything else moves. But the end is not yet, because everything is not yet accomplished. Jesus Himself said that before the end comes the gospel must be preached to the whole world as a testimony to all nations (Matthew 24:14). There are still billions who have never heard the gospel even once. Millions in America! That was why Jesus sent ALL of His followers out to make disciples of all nations (Matthew 28:18-20), to preach the good news to all creation (Mark 16:15, Luke 24:46-47). Until everything is accomplished, God’s people are still expected to live lives of obedience that glorify Him and that serve as a testimony to those around us.
So if Jesus isn’t talking about getting rid of the law here, what is He talking about? The context of this saying, in both gospels that include it, is specifically the tradition of fasting that many of the Jewish people participated in. It was believed that those who fasted twice a week were better people, more holy than those who only fasted once a week, who were better people, more holy than those who fasted rarely or never. And those who fasted in remembrance of the captivity in Babylon were expected to get extra blessings from God. But God did not set up those fasts; they were not part of His law or His commands. Jesus was all about obeying the actual commands that God had set in place, living a genuinely holy life in God’s sight, and leaving the mere traditions of men alone, no matter what the men thought of Him. But this new emphasis, this new focus on following the actual commands of God, could not be contained within the structures and traditions that had grown up and strangled it in the first place. If Jesus had tried to accommodate all of those traditions, it would only shatter and tear to pieces the old forms, and do damage to the lives of those trying to live with the new focus.
From time to time in the Church, forms and traditions have succeeded in nearly smothering the actual relationship with God that results from real faith. And, at those times, God’s people are right in throwing those forms off. But when we do that, we need to make sure that we don’t throw off at the same time the actual righteous requirements of God’s law.
Father, it is sometimes easier than it seems to lose the baby while throwing out the bath water! Only a solid understanding of Your word and the clear leading of Your Spirit can help us to differentiate between Your righteous requirements for us and the traditions of men that are allowed to grow up into them, sometimes even supplanting them altogether. Give us discerning hearts and minds all the time. Amen.