Luke 5:33

Luk_5:33-34

And they said unto Him, Why do the disciples of John fast often, and make prayers?

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Christian mutual tolerance

The whole passage illustrates the breadth and tolerance of our Lords teaching. He is claiming for His disciples that their spiritual life be left to unfold itself naturally, that they be not fettered by forms, that they be not judged by religious traditions and old habits, that they be free to show themselves glad when they have cause of gladness, and that their expressions of sorrow and their self-discipline follow their feeling of sorrow and their need of discipline. He adds also a plea for the sincere among the Pharisees and Johns disciples; He tells His own followers that they must be tolerant of these. No man accustomed to old wine will readily relish new. These parables have a perpetual application. They affirm the propriety of all forms of religious life that are the true outcome of spiritual experience, and they plead for consideration of one another in the differences which perpetually arise between Christians of varying experience and habitude.

I. CHRISTS VINDICATION OF FREEDOM TO ALL HIS DISCIPLES.

II. CHRISTS PLEA FOR CONSIDERATION OF ONE ANOTHER. (A. Mackennal, D. D.)

Wisdom justified of her children

The outward religious life of Christ differed from that of John. One was social, the other ascetic. To the astonish ment created by this difference among worldly people and Pharisees, Jesus voucheared no reply but wisdom is justified of her children. Once, however, He did condescend to explain the difference between His life and the life of John. And the reply goes deep into the grounds of a religious life.

I. THE REASONS FOR THE ASTONISHMENT WHICH CAUSED THE QUESTION,

1. The Divine life was social, whereas the popular conceptions of religious life are drawn naturally from those evidences which are most visible, fasting and prayers.

2. There is a tendency in disciples to copy and idolize the peculiarities of a master. Matthew tells us that it was Johns disciples who put the question of the text.

3. The indifference of Christ to ascetic forms astonished, because there is a real influence in asceticism. The principle of Christianity is from within outwards. The ascetic principle reverses this.

II. THE REASONS FOR WHICH JESUS DID NOT IMPOSE THE ASCETIC LIFE ON HIS DISCIPLES.

1. Because it is unnatural Can the children of the bridechamber mourn? &c.

2. Because of the results. The result of the forcing system is twofold:

(1) The destruction of religion. The weak old wine-skins, the weak old cloth, are rent.

(2) Hypocrisy. The piece agreeth not. No harmony between the form and the life. (F. W. Robertson, M. A.)

Privileges as well as duties to be attended to

When Dr. John Mason Good, the distinguished and excellent author of the Book of Nature, was on his death-bed he said, I have taken what unfortunately the generality of Christians too much take. I have taken the middle walk of Christianity. I have endeavoured to live up to its duties and doctrines, but I have lived below its privileges. Is not this, alas l but too true of the great body of those of us who call ourselves Christians, and who may indeed be so? Are we not living below the spirituality, and of course without the enjoyment, which God designs for His children, and so without the example and usefulness that should mark the life of every Christian? Far better, with Whitefield, to pray that he might be an extraordinary Christian, and to endeavour, by Gods grace, so to live as to be an example to all of a true and living Christianity.

Luk_5:33-38

No man putteth a piece of a new garment upon an old

The patched garment

We appreciate easily the offensiveness of what is incongruous.

It is fatal alike to beauty, to symmetry, and to effectiveness. A sparrow is not as beautiful as a bird of Paradise, yet the little brown bird is a pleasant sight. Try to fasten upon him the gorgeous plumage of the other bird, and you make him ridiculous at once. His beauty consists in being simply himself. An inferior thing that is constant to its own ideal, consistent, true, is a far more useful and a far more pleasurable thing than when you try to make it look like something else, or do the work of something else, or take it out of its place and put it in circumstances to which it has no adaptation. Take a plain stone wall, for instance. There is nothing very artistic about it, but if it be well and truly built, a simple wall and nothing else, it is not an unpleasing object. But now go to the ruins of that Gothic church, and bring away the sculptured keystone of an arch, the fragments of a carved screen, a column with an elaborately cut capital, and sundry pinnacles and gargoyles, and work these into the masonry of your wall, and set up your pinnacles along the top, and let your gargoyles protrude their hideous heads at intervals: you have made a ridiculous thing out of your stone wall. People at once see that something is there which belongs to quite another order of things. Everybody acknowledges the difference between the church and the plain wall, and the difference offends no one so long as each keeps its place and is simply itself. But the attempt to patch one with the other emphasizes the difference offensively. The rent is made worse: the beauty is taken from the church, and the wall is made ugly. (M. R. Vincent, D. D.)

Theology must tally with experience

I remember an old farmer who, when he was about sixty years of age, professed faith in Christ. He was full of zeal, and, for a time, was like a flaming torch in the neighbourhood. I never saw a man who seemed to feel so keenly the awful risk he had run in delaying his salvation so long. He could not be in a prayer-meeting without rising to warn his fellow-men against his mistake. But he was also an ignorant man, and his new experience only deepened his sense of his ignorance of the things of God; and he used to shut himself in his room with volumes on systematic theology, and painfully wade through their contents, and then come down to the prayer-meeting and attempt to reproduce what he had read; and you can easily imagine the result. So long as he kept to his own experience, so long as he was just himself, speaking of what he knew and felt, he spoke with power. The moment he cried to patch the theologian upon the plain farmer, he spoiled it all. The theology was ruined, and so was the personal experience. The ignorance which no one would have thought of in the plain man speaking out of a full heart, was thrust into prominence by the ridiculous attempt to play the part of a theological teacher. The rent was made worse. (M. R. Vincent, D. D.)

The unity of the gospel

The gospel is a unit, one and inseparable. It is sufficient unto itself. It asks no aid from any source outside of itself. It needs no combination to develop its peculiar virtues. The great truth it sets before men is Christ all, and in all. And it does its work for and in man upon the condition that it be received as it is; entire, adding nothing and subtracting nothing. It does not engage that there shall be virtue in its fragments apart from the whole. You may take up the lock of that rifle, and pull and snap it as much as you please, and it will be a good while before you shoot anything. You must combine it with the barrel and the stock, Neither lock, stock, nor barrel is good for anything, except as they together make up a rifle. Similarly, 1 cannot answer for the effect of a single Christian precept or doctrine disjoined from the whole. It is only a patch, cut out from a good, solid garment, and refusing to match with any other fabric. (M. R. Vincent, D. D.)

No patch-work morality

You say, and say honestly no doubt, that you want to be right and to do right, but you can accept the gospel only in part. Christs moral code is all very well, but the doctrine of the new birth you cannot accept. So you go to cutting patches again. You cut the moral code clean from the new birth. You will keep Christs precepts without being a new creature. You will sew the new code upon the old nature. Very well. Some people in a city think they will build a fountain. They engage an engineer, and a noted sculptor. A beautiful design is carried out in stone or bronze. The water is to pour from vases in the hands of sea-nymphs, and to spout from the horns of tritons. At last all is ready. The crowd assemble to witness the opening of the fountain. The signal is given, there is a little spirt from a jet here and there, and then all is dry as before. The stupid engineer has drawn his water from a point almost as low as the base of the fountain, and there is no head to send the water through the pipes. But a more competent workman comes to the rescue. He lays a large main. He leads it to a deep lake or reservoir far up above the town; and now, at the signal, the crystal waters shoot high into the air, and drape the beautiful forms with their falling spray. Oh, my friend, I greatly fear you have not rightly estimated that moral system of Christ. It is grander than you think; higher than you are aware; and to make your life flow through it to refresh the world, you will need something besides the pressure of your feeble will. Your reservoir is too low down. If your life is to fill that godlike out-line of virtue, its impulse must be Divine. If your impulse is earthly, your life will be earthly. That moral code was meant for a new man, and nothing but a birth from above, nothing but an impulse generated and maintained by God Himself, will ever enable you to live it. The new code and the new man will not be separated. If they shall not go together the gospel will be caricatured by you, and the new precepts will break loose continually from the old will and the old passions and the old habits, and the rent will be worse. (M. R. Vincent, D. D.)

Worthlessness of a patched character

Men talk of turning over a new leaf--of beginning over again. How many times you hear it. Yes, I have been careless, self-indulgent, hasty and passionate; I am going to try to do better. Never does the old year strike its last hour, that hundreds and thousands of people are not lying wakeful and thoughtful upon their beds, or sitting with sober meditation in their closets, and gathering up their faculties into mighty resolutions for the year to come. I will swear no more. I will drink no more. I will go to the house of God. I will begin to read my Bible. The resolutions are good and honest, no doubt. It is a good thing that ones attention has been called to those faults. It will be a better thing if he can carry out his resolution and master them; but, alas, neither the good resolutions nor their accomplishment go far enough. It is patch-work still; patching pieces of the gospel on the old nature; a temperance piece, and a Bible-reading piece, and a church-going piece, upon a nature which, in its very quality and essence, is estranged from God. The man gives up an indulgence here and there, says to God in effect, Your moral law may come and occupy this ground which has been occupied by my misdoing; but such an entrance of Gods law is like the occupation of some remote outpost of a fortified town by an invader. The citadel is still unreached. The situation is commanded by the garrison of the town. There is no conquest until the invader gets in there. (M. R. Vincent, D. D.)

Christianity will not amalgamate with Judaism

If any of the Pharisees, moved by the miracles which Christ wrought, had felt disposed to receive Him as a teacher from God, the thing which they would most naturally have attempted would have been the making a compound of their own religion and the Christian, so that, whilst they kept what they liked most in their tenets and observances, they might have the advantage of the new revelation; and therefore, what Christ had to denounce in the case of these Pharisees was the lurking notion that Christianity might admit some admixtures from other religions, so that men might bring into its profession their own favourite theories, and find them amalgamate very well with its doctrines. This notion Christ denounces most emphatically. Christianity, though far enough from being a new revelation, required that the scene should be swept clear for its institutions, peremptorily refusing that there should be blended with the revealed mode of a sinners acceptance anything of ceremonial ordinance, demanding to be received without admixture, or rejected without reserve. And it is against this that men in every age have rebelled. They have wanted not only to keep some part of their own favourite systems, but to keep it for the very end which, according to their own theory, it had heretofore answered. Thus generally with good works. It does not content them that Christianity demands good works, that it makes salvation impossible without them, and thus transfers to its system the favourite part of their own; they have been accustomed to account their works meritorious, and they would fain have Christianity account them so too; and this Christianity will not do. If it require and retain fasting and almsgiving, it will not allow them any justifying merit; it may be said to alter their character in granting them admission. Thus, whilst it has much in common with other systems, it is wholly against the being compounded with those systems, in order that the produce may give a mixed mode of obtaining salvation. (H. Melvill, B. D.)

Christianity a new dispensation

Our Lord is referring to the proposal to enforce the ascetic leanings of the forerunner, and the pharisaic regulations which had become a parasitic growth on the old dispensation, upon the glad simplicity of the new dispensation. To act thus was much the same thing as using the gospel by way of a mere adjunct to--a mere purple patch upon--the old garment of the law. The teaching of Christ was a new and seamless robe which would only be spoilt by being rent. It was impossible to tear a few doctrines and precepts from Christianity, and use them as ornaments and improvements of Mosaism. If this were attempted

(1) the gospel would be maimed by the rending from its entirety;

(2) the contrast between the new and the old system would be made more glaring;

(3) the decay of the evanescent institutions would only be violently accelerated. (Archdeacon Farrar.)

Suitable external forms

Jesus here applies a great principle to all external rites and ceremonies. They have their value. As the wineskin retains the wine, so are feelings and aspirations aided, and even preserved, by suitable external forms. Without these, emotion would lose itself for want of restraint, wasted like spilt wine, by diffuseness. And if the forms are unsuitable and outworn, the same calamity happens, the strong new feelings break through them, and the wine perisheth, and the skins. The coming of a new revelation meant the repeal of old observances, and Christ refused to sew His new faith like a patchwork upon ancient institutions, of which it would only complete the ruin. Thus He anticipated the decision of His apostles releasing the Gentiles from the law of Moses. (Dean Chadwick.)

A mixed garment

Just as it was forbidden by the law of Moses to wear a mixed garment of linen and of wool, so there was a deeper and a more essential incongruity involved in every attempt to patch the old and tattered garments of the law with the new and seamless robe of the gospel. Just as the insertion of a piece of undressed cloth, which shrinks when wetted, and takes along with it a part of the old and worn garment, does but increase the rent which it is designed to mend; just as the unfermented wine put into old skins, bursts the skins and perishes with them, even so our Lord declares that all attempts to combine the bondage of the law with the liberty of the gospel involves a fundamental ignorance of the nature and design of both. The two similitudes employed by our Lord seem to exhibit this truth in different ways.

1. The similitude of the old garment patched with a piece of new cloth seems more immediately applicable to external rites and ceremonies, such as the observance of those prescribed days and months and years which caused St. Paul to stand in doubt of the Galatian Church.

2. The similitude of the new wine seems to have reference to the inner life and spirit--the very life and soul of the Christian dispensation which could not be restrained within the trammels of the worldly sanctuary of Judaism. The history of the Church, in all after ages, teaches how greatly this lesson was needed, and how imperfectly it has been learned. (C. J. Elliot, M. A.)

New cloth on an old garment

This, we may add, is what the Church of Christ has too often done in her work as the converter of the nations. Sacramental ordinances, or monastic vows, or Puritan formulae, or Quaker conventionalities, have been engrafted on lives that were radically barbarous or heathen, or worldly, and the contrast has been glaring, and the rent made worse. The more excellent way which our Lord pursued, and which it is our wisdom to pursue, is to take the old garment and to transform it, as by a renewing power from within, thread by thread, till old things are passed away and all things are become new. (Dean Plumptre.)

The broken bottles

The doctrines of religion demand a certain suitableness, or preparedness, in the persons to whom they are taught; and if there be no attempt in the persons to fit themselves for the doctrines--to adapt the bottles to the wine--there is nothing to be looked for but that the doctrines will be wasted, and the persons, like the bottles, be only injured by what they have received. It may be the pure, the generous wine which is poured forth--the preacher may dispense nothing but the unadulterated gospel of the Lord Jesus Christ. But the great mass of hearers come up to Gods house without the smallest preparation of heart, with scarce a thought given beforehand to the solemn duty in which they are about to engage. In place of having been secretly in prayer that God would give unto them the hearing ear and the understanding heart; in place of having been endeavouring to purge out the old leaven of worldliness and prejudice, that so they might bring with them candid and unoccupied minds; they rush to the sanctuary, as they would to some scene of business or pleasure; conversing, perhaps, up to the moment of entering it on politics, or scandal, or commerce, or fashion; and continuing to give the same things their thoughts, when restrained by the place from giving them their tongues. And what is to be looked for from the attempt to pour the new wine into these unseasoned bottles, but that the wine will be lost and the bottles themselves broken? Yes--you are not to overlook this peculiarity in the parable--the bottles are broken through the action of the wine; not through any external violence, but simply through the workings of the generous liquid. It is thus with the moral facts which the parable illustrates. The preaching of the gospel is no inefficient thing, producing no injury where it produces no benefit is the savour of death unto death, where it fails to be the savour of life unto life. This may be little thought of by numbers who, perhaps, attend church regularly on Sundays, and spend the intermediate days as those who are ignorant of judgment to come. Yet it is of all hardening things the most hardening, to remain unrenewed under the preaching of the gospel. Alas l for an audience accustomed to hear the gospel, but to hear it only with the understanding whilst they shut up the heart! I may pour in the wine--but, at every fresh pouring, there is, so to speak, a fresh rent in the bottles. Every Sunday does but make the matter worse, dismissing the hearers to their engrossing pursuits, and their ensnaring amusements, but with another unimproved opportunity for which to account, another warning neglected, another effort on Gods part resisted, and, therefore, another nerve added to the power of resistance. (H. Melvill, B. D.)

New wine in old bottles

As the action of organized churches has too often reproduced the mistake of sewing the patch of new cloth on the old garment, so in the action of enthusiastic or mystic sects, in the history of Montanism, Quakerism in its earlier stages, the growth of the so-called Catholic and Apostolic Church, which had its origin in the history of Edward Irving, we have that of pouring new wine into old bottles. (Dean Plumptre.)

Permanence of the old

When Mr. Lincoln was a young man, he was awakened one night by the good deacon with whom he boarded, and told that the stars were falling and the world coming to an end. He looked out of the window, and saw the air full of meteors, but, looking beyond, he saw the grand old constellations firm in their places where he had always seen them from childhood; and he went to bed, feeling that all was well so long as the old constellations were unmoved. (D. E. Lancing, D. D.)

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The Biblical Illustrator, edited by Joseph S. Exell (c. 1880s–1900s) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

Luk 5:33-39. The contents of these verses occur Mat 9:14-17, where they are explained at large. The disciples of John fast and make prayers — Long and solemn prayers: but thine eat and drink — Freely, though thou professest a high degree of righteousness. And he said, Can ye make, &c. — That is, Is it proper to make men fast and mourn during a festival solemnity? My presence and converse render this a kind of festival to my disciples: for, as John taught his hearers but a little before his confinement, I am the bridegroom of my church; you cannot, therefore, in reason, expect I should command them to fast now, or that they should do it without such a command. But the days will come — And that very soon; when the bridegroom shall be taken away from them — And shall leave them exposed to much toil, hardship, and suffering; “with their hearts full of sorrow, their hands full of work, and the world full of enmity and rage against them.” — Henry. Then shall they fast in those days — They shall have great need, and even shall be compelled so to do. They shall both hunger and thirst, and even be destitute of clothing, 1Co 4:11. They shall also keep many religious fasts; shall serve the Lord with fastings, Act 13:2-3; for Providence shall call them to it. He spake also a parable unto them — Taken from clothes and wine, therefore peculiarly proper at a feast. See on Mat 9:16-17. No man having drunk old wine — As people, who have been accustomed to drink wine made mellow with age, do not willingly drink new wine, which for the most part is harsh and unpleasant; so my disciples, having been accustomed for some time to live without practising any of the severities for which John’s disciples and the Pharisees are remarkable, cannot relish that new way of life which they recommend. They are not yet so fully acquainted with and established in my doctrine as to submit cheerfully to any extraordinary hardships. To this purpose is Le Clerc’s interpretation of the verse; but Wolfius and others apply it to the Pharisees, who were much better pleased with the traditions of the elders than with the doctrines of Christ; because the latter prescribed duties more difficult and disagreeable to the corrupt natures of men than the former. Perhaps the general sense of the sentence may be, that men are not wont to be soon or easily freed from old prejudices. As if Christ had said, Judge how fit it is that I should not oblige my disciples to a new course of severities at once, but should rather gradually form their characters to what the duty of their future profession, and the usefulness of their lives, may require.

Joseph Benson's Commentary on the Old and New Testaments (1811–1818) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

CRITICAL NOTES

Luk_5:33.—St. Luke here omits the remarkable fact, noted by St. Matthew and St. Mark, that disciples of John the Baptist joined with disciples of the Pharisees in putting this question. Fast often, etc.—I.e. follow the ascetical example of their master. Make prayers.—Rather, “make supplications” (R.V.).

Luk_5:34. Children of the bride-chamber.—The groomsmen or friends of the bridegroom: they accompanied him to the house of the bride, and escorted the newly married pair to their new home. This was followed by a feast: hence fasting and mourning would be out of place. The figure is a singularly appropriate one, as the Baptist himself had spoken of Jesus as the Bridegroom (Joh_3:29).

Luk_5:35. Taken away.—A violent death is here hinted at, as in the earlier conversation with Nicodemus (Joh_3:14). Then shall they fast.—I.e, have reason for fasting and mourning: outward expressions of grief will be appropriate. Neither here nor in any other part of the New Testament is fasting prescribed.

Luk_5:36.—The R.V. is much clearer: “No man rendeth a piece from a new garment and putteth it upon an old garment; else he will rend the new, and also the piece from the new will not agree with the old.” In the parallel passages in St. Matthew and St. Mark the figure is slightly varied: in them stress is laid upon the idea of patching the old garment with a piece of new, unfulled cloth, which in course of time will shrink and do harm to the hitherto uninjured part of the old. Here a new garment is spoiled in order to get a patch for the old, which does not agree with it. The idea of this and of the following verses is that the new life of Christianity is not adapted to the old forms of Judaism: it will have its own fasts and festivals, but these will correspond to its own distinctive character.

Luk_5:37. Bottles.—I.e. wine-skins. The old skins would be rent, if filled with new fermenting wine.

Luk_5:38. New wine … new bottles.—Rather, “New wine … fresh wine-skins” (R.V.). And both are preserved.—Omitted in R.V.

Luk_5:39. Straightway.—Omit: omitted in R.V. The old is better.—Rather, “the old is good” (R.V.). This is a very kindly apology, as it were, for those who had become habituated to the old religious system and could not as yet accept and enjoy the “new wine “of Christianity. The old is not better in itself, but better in their estimation.

MAIN HOMILETICS OF THE PARAGRAPH.—Luk_5:33-39

A Lesson in Religious Liberty.—From the question here put we learn incidentally that in the matter of fasting the school of the Baptist and the sect of the Pharisees were agreed in their general practice. As Jesus told the Pharisees at a later date, John came in their own “way” of legal righteousness. But it was a case of extremes meeting; for no two religious parties could be more remote in some respects than the two just named. But the difference lay rather in the motives than in the external acts of their religious life. Both did the same things—fasted, practised ceremonial ablutions, made many prayers—only they did them with a different mind. John and his disciples performed their religious duties in simplicity, godly sincerity, and moral earnestness; the Pharisees, as a class, did all these works ostentatiously, hypocritically, and as matters of mechanical routine. Jesus made reply to the question, remarkable at once for originality, point, and pathos, setting forth in lively parabolic style the great principles by which the conduct of His disciples could be vindicated, and by which He desired the conduct of all who bore His name to be regulated. Jesus does not blame John’s disciples for fasting, but contents Himself with defending His own disciples for abstaining from fasting. He takes up the position of one who virtually says, “To fast may be right for you, the followers of John: not to fast is equally right for My followers.” In His reply He makes use of three beautiful and suggestive similitudes.

I. The children of the bride-chamber.—His reply is to this effect: “I am the Bridegroom, as John said; it is right that the children of the bride-chamber come to Me; and it is also right that, when they have come, they should adapt their mode of life to their altered circumstances. Therefore they do well not to fast, for fasting is the expression of sadness; and how should they be sad in My company! As well might men be sad at a marriage festival. The days will come when the children of the bride-chamber shall be sad, for the Bridegroom will not always be with them; and at the dark hour of His departure it will be natural and seasonable for them to fast, for then they shall be in a fasting mood—weeping, lamenting, sorrowful, and disconsolate.” The principle is that men should fast when they are sad, or in a state of mind akin to sadness—absorbed, preoccupied—as at some great solemn crisis in the life of an individual or a community, such as that in the history of Peter, when he was exercised on the great question of the admission of the Gentiles to the Church, or such as that in the history of the Christian community at Antioch, when they were about to ordain the first missionaries to the heathen world. Christ’s doctrine is that fasting in any other circumstances is forced, unnatural, unreal—a thing which men may be made to do as a matter of form, but which they do not with their heart and soul. “Can ye make the children of the bride-chamber fast while the bridegroom is with them?” He asked, virtually asserting that it was impossible.

II. The new patch on the old garment, and the new wine in old skins.—The design of these parables is much the same as that of the first part of His reply, viz. to enforce the law of congruity in relation to fasting and similar matters—that is, to show that in all voluntary religious service, where we are free to regulate our own conduct, the outward act should be made to correspond with the inward condition of mind, and that no attempt should be made to force particular acts or habits on men without reference to that correspondence. “In natural things,” He meant to say, “we observe this law of congruity. No man putteth a piece of new cloth on an old garment. Neither do men put new wine into old skins, and that not merely out of regard to propriety, but to avoid bad consequences. The good cloth would be wasted, the patchwork would be unseemly and unsatisfactory, and the old skin bottles will burst under the fermenting force of the new liquor, and the wine will be spilled and lost.” The old cloth and old bottles in these metaphors represent old ascetic fashions in religion; the new cloth and the new wine represent the new joyful life in Christ, not possessed by those who tenaciously adhered to the old fashions. The parables were applied primarily to Christ’s own age, but they admit of application to all transition epochs; indeed, they find new illustration in almost every generation. New wine is always in course of being produced by the eternal vine of truth, demanding in some particulars of belief and practice new bottles for its preservation, and receiving for answer an order to be content with the old ones. Without going the length of denunciation or direct attempt at suppression, those who stand by the old often oppose the new by the milder method of disparagement. They eulogise the venerable past, and contrast it with the present, to the disadvantage of the latter. “The old wine is vastly superior to the new: how mellow, mild, fragrant, wholesome, the one! how harsh and fiery the other!” Those who say so are not the worst of men: they are often the best; the men of taste and feeling, the gentle, the reverent, and the good, who are themselves excellent samples of the old vintage. Their opposition forms by far the most formidable obstacle to the public recognition and toleration of what is new in religious life; for it naturally creates a strong prejudice against any cause when the saintly disapprove of it. Observe, then, how Christ answers the honest admirers of the old wine. He concedes the point; He admits that their preference is natural. It is as if He had said, “I do not wonder that you love the old wine of Jewish piety, fruit of a very ancient vintage. But what then? Do men object to the existence of new wine, or refuse to have it in their possession, because the old is superior in flavour? No; they drink the old, but they carefully preserve the new, knowing that the old will get exhausted, and that the new will mend with age. Even so should you behave towards the new wine of My kingdom. You may not straightway desire it, because it is strange and novel; but surely you might deal more wisely with it than merely to spurn it, or spill and destroy it!” Too seldom for the Church’s good have lovers of old ways understood Christ’s wisdom, and lovers of new ways sympathised with His charity. When will young men and old men, liberals and conservatives, broad Christians and narrow, learn to bear with one another, yea, to recognise each in the other the necessary complement of his own one-sidedness?—Bruce.

SUGGESTIVE COMMENTS ON Luk_5:33-39

Luk_5:33. “Thy disciples eat and drink.”—The second accusation is still levelled against the disciples: it is that not only do they sometimes feast with publicans, but do not observe either the Jewish fasts or those practised by the disciples of John the Baptist, and do not engage in stated actions of prayer and fasting. The form in which the objection is cast leaves the question open as to whether the disciples of Jesus were inattentive to rules they had received from Him, or acted as they did in accordance with the spirit of His teaching.

Luk_5:34-35. The Present and the Future.—The reply of Jesus is virtually that these devotional actions (though He mentions fasting only) should be spontaneous—the expression of actual feeling—and not the subjects of legislation and commandment. He does not speak of fasting as an unnecessary piece of asceticism, but as a practice inappropriate for His disciples at that stage of their religious life. While He was with them their joy was complete, and fasting would be out of place: a time would come when He would be taken away from them, and they would be in the mood for fasting. [In like manner He did not impose forms of prayer; but when the disciples, moved by His example, requested Him to teach them to pray, He at once acceded to their desire (Luk_11:1-4).] The time of mourning to which Christ refers must not be limited to the short period after His death and before His disciples were assured of His resurrection. It is to be understood of the whole period of His separation from the Church—the time during which, in the absence of the heavenly Bridegroom, the Church is exposed to trials and oppression (cf. Luk_18:7). The contrast between the thoughts of Luk_5:34 and Luk_5:35 is very striking: in the one Jesus speaks of the present time as joyous—the Bridegroom rejoicing in the bride; in the other the shadow of death falls upon the scene, and He depicts the grief of separation.

Jesus the Bridegroom.—It is worthy of being noted that Jesus compares Himself to a bridegroom. He thus takes up the representation of His relationship that was made by John himself, and not unlikely in the hearing of those very disciples who were now questioning Him (Joh_3:29). He also, as it were, takes home to Himself those frequent Old Testament representations which culminate in the Forty-fifth Psalm and the Song of Solomon, and which reappear so interestingly in the Epistle to the Ephesians (Luk_5:22-33) and the Book of Revelation (Luk_19:7-9; Luk_21:9). The Church is the bride of Jesus. Jesus is the Bridegroom of His believing people. The love between them is ineffable; but the holy wooing and the winning have been all on His side.—Morison.

The Messianic Consciousness of Jesus.—These verses clearly show that from the very beginning of His ministry Jesus

(1) realised the fact that He was the Messiah,

(2) that He identified His coming with that of Jehovah, the husband of Israel and of humanity (Hos_2:19), and

(3) that even then He foresaw and announced a death by violence which He was to suffer.—Godet.

Luk_5:36-39. Garments and Wineskins.—By these illustrations our Lord conveyed a lesson on—

I. The charm of naturalness, and the law of congruity in religion.—Times of transition are critical. Jesus teaches that He had not come to patch up Pharisaism, or garnish Rabbinism, or pour His doctrines into the rigid forms of later Judaism. From Him was to date a new era.

II. A forced junction of the old and the new would be injurious to both.—The new force is disruptive of the old. Let the law of congruity be observed. The Christian life needed its own forms of development.—Fraser.

Luk_5:36. “A piece of a new garment.”—Jesus now contrasts the spirit of the old dispensation with that of the new; and suggested as the conversation had been by the feast in the house of Matthew, the figures He employs, of robes and wine, are appropriate to the occasion. The figure as St. Luke gives it is that of tearing off a piece of a new garment with which to patch an old one. The injury done is twofold:

(1) the new garment is injured, and

(2) the patch does not agree with the old garment, and gives it an odd look, so that no one would care to wear it. St. Matthew gives it under the form of the rent in the old garment which has been repaired in this way being made worse by the new “unfulled cloth” shrinking and breaking away from the material in which it has been inserted. The point of the figure is that the Jewish system was now becoming “old and ready to vanish away” (Heb_8:13), and Christ was about to replace it by something new. The Pharisees had multiplied fasts and ceremonies, which were like patches upon the whole system; and even John the Baptist had nothing better to suggest, but had followed the same method in his work of reformation. Christ did not purpose to repair the old garment, but to give a new one. “The whole Pauline system, what the apostle himself calls his gospel, the contrast between the two covenants, the mutual exclusion of the rule of the law and that of grace, the oldness of the letter and the newness of of the spirit (Rom_7:6), which form the substance of the Epistles to the Romans and the Galatians, are here contained under the homely image of a garment patched with a piece of cloth or of another garment that is new” (Godet). There is something very wonderful in the simple way in which these new and great ideas are thrown out by Jesus—in the ease with which they are suggested—without effort, without elaboration, and yet containing an infinite depth of meaning.

Luk_5:37-38. “New wine … old bottles.”—From the difference of principle between the old dispensation and the new Jesus passes to the persons representing the two. For in these consecutive figures of the robes and of the wine and wine-skins we have, as in all the double parables, fresh ideas suggested. The robes refer to differing forms of religious life, the new wine to an inward life, and the wine-skins to the persons to whom that life is imparted. Those whom He chose to receive His teaching and to become organs of it were “new men”: they were not those who had grown old and stiff in religious ceremonialism, whose religious life had taken a definite set, and could not be disturbed without being shattered. But they were marked by great receptivity; and if they had much to learn, they had nothing to unlearn. They are indeed “babes,” but to them that is revealed which has been hidden from “the wise and prudent.” The disastrous result of putting the new wine into old bottles is illustrated in the later history of the Church, when “certain of the sect of the Pharisees who believed” (Act_15:5) imported into the Christian society their former prejudices and practices, and attempted to compel all to conform to the ceremonial law of Moses. The history of this controversy and of the course followed by the Judaizing party are a commentary on the words, “The new wine will burst the bottles, and be spilled, and the bottles will perish.”

Luk_5:39. “No man … desireth new.”—Jesus here counsels consideration to be shown toward those who are not able instantly to appreciate the worth of the new life and principle. It may be and is better than that to which they have been accustomed, but they will need time to become acquainted with its merits. Often there is something acrid and restless in the enthusiasm of the new convert which is unwelcome to those whose minds are not like his, in a ferment with fresh ideas and emotions. Let him not count those as his enemies, and enemies to the truth, who cannot appreciate his fervour. There are always those who cling to the old ways, just as there are always those who strike out new ways. Both are needed to make up the world—the conservative and the progressive parties. After a little the new wine becomes old—it grows mellow and improved in tone, and will get full credit for the good qualities it possesses. There is a touch of bright humour in the picture of the connoisseur—“for he saith, The old is good.’ ”

The Preacher's Complete Homiletical Commentary (gen. ed. Joseph S. Exell; Funk & Wagnalls, c. 1892) — public domain (pre-1929). A full-Bible homiletical/sermon-outline anthology covering 65 of 66 books (2 John is absent from the source module). Text from a community e-Sword module.

5:33 John the Baptist’s disciples: Most rabbis had students who learned from them and served them (see also Acts 19:1-7). • fast and pray regularly: Many pious Jews fasted two days a week (Luke 18:12). Fasting was associated with spiritual preparation (Esth 4:16) and repentance (2 Sam 12:22; Joel 1:14; Jon 3:5). Fasting is not a means of righteousness (Isa 58:4-5; Jer 14:12) but a spiritual discipline for cultivating intimacy with God. Fasting is often linked with prayer and spiritual retreat. • Why are your disciples always eating and drinking? The point was that they did not fast regularly.

Tyndale Open Study Notes — © Tyndale Open Resources, licensed CC BY-SA 4.0. Text via the HelloAO Bible API.

Luk 5:33. Δεήσεις) Solemn supplications.

Bengel's Gnomon of the New Testament — English translation (T&T Clark, Edinburgh, 1860) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

Luk 5:33-39 . Fasting (Mat 9:14-17 , Mar 2:18-22 ).

Luk 5:33 . οἱ δὲ connects what follows with what goes before as a continuation of the same story. Not so in Mk.: connection there simply topical. The supposed speakers are the Pharisees and scribes (Luk 5:30 ). In Mk. Phar. and John’s disciples. In Mt. the latter only. If the Pharisees and scribes were the spokesmen, their putting John’s disciples first in stating the common practice would be a matter of policy = John held in respect by Jesus, why then differ even from him? πυκνὰ (neuter plural, from πυκνός , dense), frequently. δεήσεις ποιοῦνται , make prayers, on system; added to complete the picture of an ascetic life; cf. Luk 2:37 ; referred to again in Luk 11:1 ; probably the question really concerned only fasting , hence omitted in the description of the life of the Jesus-circle even in Lk. ἐσθίουσιν καὶ πίνουσι , eat and drink; on the days when we fast, making no distinction of days.

The Expositor's Greek Testament, edited by W. Robertson Nicoll (1897–1910) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

3 d. Luk 5:33-39. Instruction concerning Fasting.

Frédéric Louis Godet — Commentaries on Luke, John, Romans, and 1 Corinthians — English translation (T&T Clark, Edinburgh, 1870s–1890s) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

It is the point of hypocrites and ignorant men to put an holiness in fasting, and in things indifferent.

Geneva Bible (1599) marginal notes — public domain. Text via Bolls.life.

(33-39) Why do the disciples of John fast?—See Notes on Mat_9:14-17, Mar_2:18-22. St. Luke is less definite than the other two in stating who the questioners were. It is only from St. Mark that we learn that they included the two classes to whom the question referred.

A Bible Commentary for English Readers, edited by Charles John Ellicott (1878–1897) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

33. And they said] St Luke here omits the remarkable fact that the disciples of John, who still formed a distinct body, joined the Pharisees in asking this question. It is clear that they were sometimes actuated by a not unnatural human jealousy, from which their great teacher was wholly free (Joh_3:26), but which Jesus always treated with the utmost tenderness (Luk_7:24-28).

the disciples of John fast often] They would naturally adopt the ascetic habits of the Baptist.

and make prayers] Rather, supplications. Of course the disciples prayed, but perhaps they did not use so ‘much speaking’ and connect their prayers with fastings. The preservation of these words by St Luke alone, in spite of the emphasis which he lays on prayer, shews his perfect fidelity.

the disciples of the Pharisees] Those who in Jewish writings are so often spoken of as the ‘pupils of the wise.’ See on Luk_18:12, “I fast twice in the week.” Our Lord points out how much self-seeking and hypocrisy were mingled with their fasting, Mat_6:16, and the prophets had forcibly taught the utter uselessness of an abstinence dissociated from goodness and charity (Isa_58:3-6; Mic_6:6-8; Amo_5:21-24).

The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges (gen. ed. J. J. S. Perowne; Cambridge University Press, 1878–1918) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

And he said unto them,.... The disciples of John, or the Scribes and Pharisees:

can ye make the children of the bride chamber fast, while the bridegroom is with them? signifying, that he was the bridegroom, and his disciples the children of the bride chamber; and that as it is unreasonable to expect, and morally impossible, that persons, attending the festivals of a nuptial solemnity, should be engaged in severe fastings; so it was not to be thought, that whilst Christ was corporeally present with his disciples, that they should be prevailed upon to live such an austere and mortified life.

John Gill's Exposition of the Whole Bible (1746–1763) — public domain (CC PDM 1.0). Text via the HelloAO Bible API.

30 But their scribes and Pharisees murmured against his disciples, saying, Why do ye eat and drink with publicans and sinners?

31 And Jesus answering said unto them, They that are whole need not a physician; but they that are sick.

32 I came not to call the righteous, but sinners to repentance.

33 And they said unto him, Why do the disciples of John fast often, and make prayers, and likewise the disciples of the Pharisees; but thine eat and drink?

Ver. 33. {See Trapp on "Mat 9:14"} {See Trapp on "Mar 2:18"}

John Trapp, A Commentary or Exposition upon All the Books of the Old and New Testament (1647–1656) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

See this passage illustrated in the notes at Mat 9:14-17.

Luk 5:39

Having drunk old wine ... - Wine increases its strength and flavor, and its mildness and mellowness, by age, and the old is therefore preferable. They who had tasted such mild and mellow wine would not readily drink the comparatively sour and astringent juice of the grape as it came from the press. The meaning of this proverb in this place seems to be this: You Pharisees wish to draw my disciples to the “austere” and “rigid” duties of the ceremonial law - to fasting and painful rites; but they have come under a milder system. They have tasted the gentle and tender blessings of the gospel; they have no “relish” for your stern and harsh requirements. To insist now on their observing them would be like telling a man who had tasted of good, ripe, and mild wine to partake of that which is sour and unpalatable. At the proper time all the sterner duties of religion will be properly regarded; but “at present,” to teach them to fast when they see “no occasion” for it - when they are full of joy at the presence of their Master - would be like putting a piece of new cloth on an old garment, or new wine into old bottles, or drinking unpleasant wine after one had tasted that which was more pleasant. It would be ill-timed, inappropriate, and incongruous.

Albert Barnes' Notes on the Bible (1834–1885) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.

St. Matthew says, it was St. John the Baptist’s disciples themselves that objected this to Christ. Most probably both they and the Pharisees endeavoured all they could to press this objection. (St. Augustine, de cons. Evang. lib. ii. chap. 27) --- Why do you not fast, as is customary with all that wish to regulate their lives according to the law? The reason why the saints fasted was, that they might, by afflicting their bodies, subdue their passions. Jesus Christ, therefore, had no need of fasting, being God, and of course free from every, the least, disorderly motion of concupiscence. Neither did his attendants stand in need of fasting, for being enriched with his grace, they were strengthened in virtue, without the help of fasting. When, therefore, Christ fasted forty days, he fasted to set an example to carnal men. (St. Cyril) --- As long as the Spouse is with us, we are in joy, we cannot fast, we cannot mourn. But when he has been driven away by sin, then we must both fast and weep. (Ven. Bede)

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George Leo Haydock (1774–1849), Haydock's Catholic Family Bible and Commentary, 1859 edition — public domain. Excludes Psalms (Douay-Rheims chapter numbering differs from Protestant) and Deuterocanonical books (Catholic canon only).

We have also both in Matthew and Mark met with this piece of history. See Poole on "Mat 9:14", and following verses to Mat 9:17; See Poole on "Mar 2:18", and following verses to Mar 2:22. Both Matthew and Mark say, that they were the disciples of John who came, and thus said to our Saviour. In our notes upon the two former evangelists, we have fully opened this piece of history. John the Baptist was of a more severe deportment than our Saviour thought fit to show himself; and complying more with the practices of the Pharisees (though in much more sincerity) in their exercises of discipline, the Pharisees did more easily get his disciples to join with them in this address to our Saviour; though probably John’s disciples did it more out of infirmity, and the Pharisees out of malice, that they might have whereby to lessen Christ’s reputation amongst the people: thus weak, though good, men are often drawn in by those who are more subtle and malicious to promote their designs. Besides, we naturally desire to be the standard to all, and that others should take their measures from us, and possibly John’s disciples might have a little of that envy for their master’s sake, which we find them sick of, Joh 3:26. Our Lord, who might have told them that he was to be their exemplar, and not they his, dealeth more gently with them, and gives them sufficient reason why, as yet, he did not inure his disciples to those severer acts of religion:

1. Because this was all the rejoicing time they were like to have. He was now with them; when he should be gone from them, before which it would not be long, they should have time to mourn.

2. That they were but newly entered into his discipleship, and therefore not at first to be discouraged, that they might not have a temptation upon them to leave off as soon as they began. But see the notes more fully upon the same history in Matthew and Mark.

Matthew Poole's English Annotations on the Holy Bible (1683–1685) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.

Vers. 33-39. The teaching of the Lord concerning fasting.

And they said unto him, Why do the disciples of John fast often, and make prayers, and likewise the disciples of the Pharisees; but thine eat and drink? We learn from the parallel passage in St. Mark that "they" who asked the Lord this question were the disciples of John the Baptist and the Pharisees, who united on this occasion. These disciples of John do not seem at first to have regarded Jesus with altogether friendly feelings. Such a jealousy was only too natural, and the rigid, unbending truthfulness of the evangelists compelled them to tell the story of the way the early foundations of the truth were laid without concealment of error or mistake. The Baptist himself practised the sternest asceticism, and required doubtless of his nearest followers that they should imitate his example. The Lord"s way of life, his presence at feastings and merry-makings, his consorting with publicans, his choice of one of them as his disciple and friend, no doubt surprised and disturbed not a few of the followers of John; hence such a question as the one we are now considering, and such a querulous complaining as we hear of in the Fourth Gospel. (Joh_3:25, Joh_3:26) The practice of fasting among the Jews was as follows: In the Law of Moses only one appointed fast in the year was enjoined that on the sole Day of Atonement. (Lev_16:29 Num_29:7) After the Exile the one fast was increased to four. But the prophets gave no sanction to this added ritual. (see Zec_7:1-12 Zec_8:19) In the time of our Lord, rigid Jews used to fast twice a week (Luk_18:12) on Monday and Friday (the day on which, according to tradition, Moses went up Mount Sinai). It is evident that our Lord himself never observed or even approved of these fasts of the Pharisee sect. In the well-known and often-quoted passages, Mat_17:21 Mar_9:29 Act_10:30 1Co_7:5 in many of the older authorities, the word "fasting" does not occur at all. In the Revised Version in each of these instances "fasting" does not appear in the new text. While, then, we must unhesitatingly conclude that fasting is no rite commanded by the Blessed One, still the Church has practised it with signal advantage and profit on certain solemn occasions; but it must ever proceed from the impulse of the sorrow-stricken heart, it must be no penance or duty imposed by authority, least of all must it be regarded as pleasing in the eye of the Almighty, or in any sense a substitute for the practice of the higher virtues really loved of God justice, mercy, and truth.

Vers. 33-38. Christian naturalness.

We have here

I AN HONEST DIFFICULTY FAIRLY AND EFFECTUALLY MET. It was in no carping spirit that the disciples of John came to Jesus. We do not detect a trace of ill will in their question. It was a spirit of surprise and perplexity that dictated it. They had always thought that fasting was an essential feature of true piety. Their master John had encouraged them in this idea; but they looked in vain for this feature in the doctrine of Christ. What could it mean? Our Lord met this inquiry in a very different way from that in which he might have done so. He might have said, "Where, in the books of Moses, is fasting enjoined on the people of God? On what day in all the year, excepting the Day of Atonement, is this practice prescribed? Is it not a tradition of men rather than a commandment of God?" But Jesus did not meet them thus. He said that his disciples did not fast because fasting on their part would be untimely, unsuitable, and therefore unacceptable. "Can the children of the bride-chamber," etc.? "You would not have men fast when they have every reason for feasting? you would not have men show themselves miserable when there is every ground for gladness? you would not have my disciples do such violence to their spiritual nature? You do not act," Christ goes on to say, "with such unnaturalness and incongruity in other departments of life; you do not bring together things that do not agree with one another; you do not put unwrought cloth on an old garment; you do not put new unfermented wine in old skins that will not stretch; if you did, you would pay the penalty in spoiled clothes and spilled wine. Why should, you do anything that is unfitting and incongruous in the realm of religion? If you do, you will have a serious penalty to pay. No; let my disciples rejoice while they have occasion to be glad; the days will come soon enough when they will have a heart for grieving: then will they fast in those days.

II AN INDICATION OF THE TRUE TONE OF CHRISTIAN SERVICE. The disciples were glad of heart because their Master was "with them." To be the close companions of Jesus Christ is reason enough for a prevailing spiritual joy. As his disciples, indeed, there are certain special sources of sorrow grief at the sin and misery of mankind, regret at our own slowness of growth and slackness of zeal, etc. But for us as his followers is

(1) the joy of faith;

(2) the joy of fellowship;

(3) the joy of service, the delight of doing good, the blessedness of giving health and peace and hope to those in spiritual weakness and trouble;

(4) the joy of hope, of immortal blessedness. Is it for us, with such a heritage in possession, and with such a prospect as this, to comport ourselves as if we were fatherless, friendless, portionless? Is it for us to go on our way homewards and heavenwards as if we were being conveyed to prison or were going into exile? Not gloom but gladness, not dreariness but delight, should be the prevailing note of our Christian life.

III THE IMPORTANCE OF THE FITTING IN THE SPHERE OF THE SACRED. We learn this, in the text, from the unwisdom of the unfitting in the sphere or" the secular. "No man putteth," etc.; if he does, he spoils his garment, and he spills his wine. So in the sphere of the spiritual: if we force the sorrowful spirit to assume the tone of the happy; or if we reverse this unnatural process, and compel the happy to affect to be sorrowful; or if we require the young to manifest piety in the forms that are suitable to the mature; or if we insist on those who have been trained in godly and virtuous habits showing the same form of repentance which we demand of the vicious and the gross; we may secure a result which gives us momentary satisfaction, but we shall have a penalty to pay further on. The unnatural is always a mistake. God does not desire to be served in ways which are not fitted to the spirit which he has made, or are not appropriate to the circumstances in which his providence has placed us. Let there be no forcing in the sphere of the sacred. Do the fitting, the congruous thing, and you will do the right and the acceptable thing. "Is any merry"? let him sing psalms. Is any afflicted? let him pray." Is any filled with a sense of the value of this life? let him give himself heartily to holy usefulness. Is any weary and worn with the strife and burden of life? let him find cheer and comfort in anticipating the rest which remaineth for the people of God. Do not try to regulate your spiritual life by any calendar; let it flow on in joy or sorrow, in active service or patient waiting as the hand of God is laid on the springs of your human spirit, and is directing the course of your earthly life. Not the hard, cast-iron service of constraint, but the free, spontaneous service of the full and overflowing heart, is that for which our Lord is looking, and with which he is well pleased. C.

The Pulpit Commentary (1880–1919), ed. H.D.M. Spence-Jones & Joseph S. Exell — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

Make prayers - Long and solemn. Matt. ix, 14; Mark ii, 18.

John Wesley, Explanatory Notes Upon the Whole Bible (1754–1765) — public domain. Text via the GEBible commentary corpus.

A question of fasting:

v. 33. And they said unto Him, Why do the disciples of John fast often, and make prayers, and likewise the disciples of the Pharisees, but Thine eat and drink?

v. 34. And He said unto them, Can ye make the children of the bride-chamber fast while the bridegroom is with them?

v. 35. But the days will come when the bridegroom shall be taken away from them, and then shall they fast in those days.

The Pharisees had allies, more or less openly, in the disciples of John. Misunderstanding the austere manner of living of their Master and imitating it in a false way, they believed such conduct necessary for a devout Jew. And therefore some of these, representing both parties, came to Jesus with a question concerning some of these strict observances in frequent fasting and the practice of prayer, which the disciples of the Lord in no way observed. The implication was a laxness of morals and a disregard of the proper customs. Note: Observances of this kind are well enough in themselves, are, as Luther expresses it, a fine outward training. But to ascribe any other power and value to them as works of merit in the sight of God is foolish, and therefore the attitude of the Pharisees was foolish. Jesus gives His answer in figurative language. He is the Bridegroom; His disciples are the sons of the bridal feast, the best men at the wedding. The time of Christ’s sojourn on earth is the wedding-feast. Now it would obviously be altogether wrong for the chief guests at a marriage-feast to give any evidence of mourning, such as fasting. Only joy and happiness should fill their hearts at this time, and find expression in their actions, Joh 3:29; Son 5:1. But in the days when the Bridegroom would be taken from them, when Christ would have to enter upon the path of suffering and be taken from them, as to His visible presence, by death, then they would mourn, Joh 6:20, then they would give evidence of sorrow.

Paul E. Kretzmann, Popular Commentary of the Bible (1921–1924) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

An objection is here made against the disciples of our Saviour, that they did not fast so much and so often, as John Baptist’s disciples did. John’s disciples imitated their master, who was a man of an austere life; Christ’s disciples imitated him who was of a more free conversation.

Observe, therefore, our Saviour’s defense, which he makes for the not fasting of his disciples; he declares, that at present it was neither suitable nor tolerable; not suitable, in regard of Christ’s bodily presence with them, who being their bridegroom, and his disciples children of the bride-chamber, it was now a day of joy and rejoicing to them, and mourning and fasting would be very improper for them. But when the bridegroom shall be taken away, that is, Christ’s bodily presence removed, then there will be cause enough for the disciples to fast and mourn.

Learn hence, 1. That Jesus Christ is the bridegroom of his spouse the church.

2. That this bridegroom was to be taken away.

3. That because of the bridegroom’s removal, the church did, shall, and must fast: The days will come when the bridegroom shall be taken away, then shall they fast.

Again our Saviour declares, that this discipline of fasting was not at present tolerable for his disciples, for they were at present but raw, green, and tender, unable to bear the severities and rigors of religion, any more than an old garment can be a piece of new cloth to be set into it, or any more than old bottles can bear new wine to be put into them. The sense of our Saviour’s words seems to be this, "My disciples at present are tender and weak, newly called and converted, they cannot therefore at present undergo the austerities of relgion, fastings, weepings, and watchfulness; but before long I shall leave them, and go to heaven, from whence I will send down my Holy Spirit upon them, which will enable them to all the duties that the gospel enjoins."

The lesson of instruction which we may probably gather from hence, is this, that it is hurtful and dangerous for young converts, for weak Christians, to be put upon the severe exercises of religion, or to be urged to the performance of all such duties as are above their strength, but they ought to be treated with that tenderness which becomes the mild and gentle dispensation of the gospel.

Our Saviour, says one, does here commend prudence to his ministers, in treating their people according to their strength, and putting them upon duties according to their time and standing. We must consult what progress our people have made in Christianity, and manage accordingly.

William Burkitt's Expository Notes on the New Testament (1700–1703) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

They said to him

"The religious leaders said to Jesus"

Can anyone make ... with them?

Jesus uses this question to cause the people to think about a situation that they already know. This can be written as a statement. AT: "No one tells the wedding attendants of the bridegroom to fast while he is still with them" (See: Rhetorical Question)

wedding attendants

"guests" or "friends." These are friends who celebrate with a man who is getting married.

the wedding attendants of the bridegroom fast

Fasting is a sign of sadness. The religious leaders understood that the wedding attendants would not fast while the bridegroom was with them. (See: Assumed Knowledge and Implicit Information)

the days will come when

"soon" or "some day"

the bridegroom will be taken away from them

Jesus is comparing himself to the bridegroom, and the disciples to the wedding attendants. He does not explain the metaphor, so the translation should explain it only if necessary. (See: Metaphor)

translationWords

John (the Baptist)

fast

pray

bridegroom

unfoldingWord translationNotes — © Distant Shores Media and the Door43 World Missions Community, licensed CC BY-SA 4.0. Source: git.door43.org/Door43/en_tn.

EXCURSUS III

ON PUTTING NEW (νέον) WINE INTO FRESH (καινοὺς) BOTTLES

It is usually considered a sufficient explanation of this passage to say that the ‘bottles’ of the ancients were skins, and not bottles of glass; and that whereas fermenting wine would burst old, worn, and suncracked skins, it would only distend new skins.

It is exceedingly doubtful whether such an explanation is tenable.

α. It is quite true that the ‘bottles’ of the East were skins, as the Greek word ἀσκὸς implies[430]. They are still made in the East exactly as they used to be made thousands of years ago, by skinning an animal from the neck, cutting off the head and legs, and drawing off the skin without making a slit in the belly. The legs and neck are then tightly tied and sewn up, and the skin with the hair on it is steeped in tannin and pitched at the sutures (Tristram, Nat. Hist. Bib., p. 92).

[430] The root is sk, found also in skin.

β. It is also quite true that ‘wine’ must here mean the juice of the grape which has not yet fermented, ‘must,’ as this explanation implies. For ‘still wine’—wine after fermentation—may be put in any bottles whether old or new. It has no tendency to burst the bottles that contain it.

γ. But unfermented wine which was intended to ferment certainly could not be kept in any kind of leather bottle whether old or new. The fermentation would split open the sutures of the leather, however new the bottle was.

δ. It seems, therefore, to be a very probable conclusion that our Lord is not thinking at all of fermented, intoxicating wine, but of ‘must’—the liquid which the Greeks called ἀεὶ γλεῦκος—tuns of which are kept for years in France, and in the East; which (as is here stated) improves by age; which is a rich and refreshing, but non-intoxicating beverage; and which might be kept with perfect safety in new leather bottles.

ε. Why, then, would it be unsafe to put the must in old bottles? Because if the old bottles had contained ‘wine’ in the ordinary sense—i.e. the fermented juice of the grape—or other materials, “minute portions of albuminoid matter would be left adhering to the skin, and receive yeast germs from the air, and keep them in readiness to set up fermentation in the new unfermented contents of the skin.… As soon as the unfermented grape-juice was introduced, the yeast germs would begin to grow in the sugar and to develop carbonic dioxide. If the must contained one-fifth sugar it would develop 47 times its volume of gas, and produce an enormous pressure which no bottle, new or old, could withstand.”

Unless, therefore, some other explanation can be produced, it is at least possible—if not most probable—that our Lord, in speaking of ‘wine,’ here means must.

Thus much is at any rate certain:—the conditions of our Lord’s comparison are not fulfilled either by fermented wine, or by grape-juice intended for fermentation. Fermented wine could be kept as well in old bottles as in new; and grape-juice intended to ferment would burst far stronger receptacles than the newest leathern bottle. See Job 32:19. “The rending force of the pent-up gas would burst even the strongest iron-bound cask.” When fermentation is intended, it goes on in the wine-vat.

Columella, an almost contemporary Latin writer, describing the then common process of preserving grape-juice in the form of unfermented must, lays the same stress on its being put into a new amphora.

33. οἱ μαθηταί. Omit διατί with אBL, Ti[112] W.H[113] &c.

[112] Ti. Tischendorf.

[113] W.H. Westcott and Hort.

33. οἱ δὲ εἶπαν. St Luke here omits the remarkable fact that the disciples of John, who still formed a distinct body, joined the Pharisees in asking this question. It is clear that they were sometimes actuated by a not unnatural human jealousy, from which their great teacher was wholly free (Joh 3:26), but which Jesus always treated with the utmost tenderness (Luk 7:24-28). The question may very likely have been put on one of the bi-weekly Pharisaic fasts—Monday and Thursday (Luk 18:12), and this may explain the ἦσαν νηστεύοντες of Mar 2:18.

οἱ μαθηταὶ Ἰωάννου νηστεύουσιν πυκνά. They would naturally adopt the ascetic habits of the Baptist.

δεήσεις ποιοῦνται. ‘Make supplications.’ St Paul twice uses the same phrase, Php 1:4; 1Ti 2:1. Of course the disciples prayed: but perhaps they did not use so “much speaking” nor connect their prayers with fastings. The preservation of these words by St Luke alone, in spite of the emphasis which he lays on prayer, shews his perfect fidelity.

οἱ τῶν Φαρισαίων. Those who in Jewish writings are so often spoken of as the ‘pupils of the wise.’ See on Luk 18:12, “I fast twice in the week.” Our Lord points out how much self-seeking and hypocrisy were mingled with their fasting, Mat 6:16, and the prophets had forcibly taught the utter uselessness of an abstinence dissociated from goodness and charity (Isa 58:3-6; Mic 6:6-8; Amo 5:21-24).

Cambridge Greek Testament for Schools and Colleges (Cambridge University Press, 1896; 21 vols, various authors incl. Carr, Maclear, Plummer, Farrar, Lumby, Moule, M. R. James, Simcox) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

33.] On the difference in the persons who ask this question, see on Matt. and Mark.

καὶ δεήσεις ποι.] See ch. 11:1. These prayers must be understood in connexion with an ascetic form of life, not as only the usual prayers of devout men.

Henry Alford, The Greek Testament (1849–1861) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

33. οἱ δὲ εἶπαν. The same who asked the previous question, viz. the Pharisees and their scribes (ver. 30). Mt. says that it was the disciples of John who came up and put this question. Mk. states that both the disciples of John and the Pharisees were keeping a fast at that very time, and joined in asking why Christ’s disciples did not do so also. We know from Joh 3:26 how jealous the Baptist’s disciples were of Christ, and therefore ready to criticize. Perhaps they were also jealous of the freedom from legal restraints which His disciples seemed to enjoy. They leave an opening for the reply, “You have no need to fast.” The four words which follow νηστεύουσιν, viz. the words πυκνὰ καὶ δεήσεις ποιοῦνται, are peculiar to Lk. They imply that Christ’s disciples habitually neglected the frequent fasts which the disciples of John and of the Pharisees kept The fasts on Mondays and Thursdays are probably meant, which were not obligatory, but which some Pharisees observed (18:12). Moses was believed to have gone up Mount Sinai on a Thursday and to have come down on a Monday. The Day of Atonement was the only fast of universal obligation. For ποιεῖσθαι δεήσεις comp. 1Ti 2:1; it refers to prayers at fixed times according to rule. The disciples of Jesus seemed to have no rule respecting such things. A late tradition fixes the number of the Baptist’s disciples as thirty, answering to the days of the month, as the Twelve are supposed to answer to the months of the year (Clem. Hom. ii. 23).—καὶ πίνουσιν. These words also are peculiar to Lk. in harmony with καὶ πίνετε in ver. 30.

International Critical Commentary — older volumes (1896–1929), various authors — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

Often [πυκνα] . Only here, Act 24:26; 1Ti 5:23. The word literally means close - packed, as a thicket, or the plumage of a bird.

Prayers [δεησεις] . Used by no other evangelist. From deomai, to want, and hence distinctively of petitionary prayer. In classical Greek the word is not restricted to sacred uses, but is employed of requests preferred to men. Rev., more correctly, supplications.

Marvin R. Vincent, Word Studies in the New Testament (1887–1900) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.