Old Wine

One of the most misunderstood passages in the New Testament is found in Luke 5. It is commonly known as the parable of the wineskins. Jesus states that no one puts new wine into old wineskins because the new wine will burst the skins and ruin them.

The way this passage is almost universally understood among Christian commentators is that the message of Jesus is represented by the new wine. It’s incompatible with the old wineskins of Judaism, and needs new structures to contain its dynamism.

This is a nice-sounding interpretation, and I can understand why people would want to see their faith as new and unique. But it’s impossible that this is what Jesus was intending to convey. In fact, it seems to be almost the exact opposite of what Jesus was really saying. Let’s take a look at the context and see what’s really going on.

Jesus’ remarks are initiated by people asking him about fasting. They point out that the disciples of John and of the Pharisees participate in fasts often, while the disciples of Jesus do not. There seems to be a question in the air, likely unspoken. “Are you teaching something different than our religious leaders? Something new?”

Jesus seems to respond with an unequivocal “No!” First he points out that he’s not against fasting; it’s just that his presence on earth is like a bridegroom at a wedding feast, an inappropriate time for fasting.

Then, to respond to the implied question about a new message, he offers two metaphors in reply. First, he says that nobody patches an old, torn garment with a new patch because it will shrink and tear. And then, as further illustration, he says that nobody puts new wine into old wineskins because they will burst.

It’s possible to imagine Jesus endorsing the new in the second metaphor, the wineskins. But there’s no possibility of it in the first metaphor, the torn garment. If we applied the majority view to the garment metaphor, we’d be saying something like, “We’ve got a new patch, and we’ve got to find a new garment to apply it to.” This is clearly ludicrous; new garments don’t need patching. We also need to realize that the first metaphor offered is the primary one; the second is offered in support of it.

In these metaphors, the old garment, or the old wineskin, is the given. The question is what (or what not) to do with them to make them useful. Jesus responds emphatically in the negative, pointing out what you don’t do. You don’t fix something old with something new.

The old garment and old wineskin represented the Judaism of his day. It had been around a long time, and was getting tattered around the edges. But replacing it with something new was absolutely the wrong approach. Better to fix it with the old, the scriptures that they already had, and his role in fulfilling them.

Jesus seems to want to make sure we don’t misunderstand him by following the metaphors with a statement that nobody who has tasted old wine wants the new, because he realizes that the old is better.

I think it’s significant that Jesus chose wine to use in his metaphor, one of the few things that’s clearly superior when it’s old. In order to further make sure that we don’t misunderstand Jesus’ meaning, the author of Luke has set the account as a three-part grammatical parallel: No one patches… No one pours… No one prefers… This paralllism is even more pronounced in the original language. But the majority view destroys the parallelism. The first two items are thought to show that no one does it because it’s irrational, while the third is taken to indicate that no one does it, but they really should.

These are two very strong reasons to understand that Jesus was affirming the old wine rather than the new. The first of the metaphors would make no sense with that understanding. And Jesus makes a point of stating that old wine is universally preferred. The core of Jesus’ teaching here can be summed up with the words, “You don’t repair an old coat with a new patch!”

Correctly understanding Jesus’ teaching in this passage is crucial to understanding how Jesus saw himself and what he was trying to accomplish in his ministry. It’s also critical for those who claim to be followers of Jesus to know what he was all about and what his priorities were.

I’ve named this blog, “Old Wine”, because I want to bring attention to the centrality in Jesus’ message of the old wine, the promises and commands that God gave his people in the Hebrew scriptures. I don’t believe that it was Jesus’ intent to start a new religion, but to present himself as the realization of expectations from centuries before.

Jesus’ first-century followers, including Paul, also saw the previous scriptures as the core of their faith, as we will point out in future postings. It is my hope and prayer that this blog will help in bringing followers of Jesus back to the scriptures as the source of their faith. You don’t fill old wineskins with new wine.