29  The Uniqueness  of the Gospel  (Luke 5:33–39)

And they said to Him, “The disciples of John often fast and offer prayers, the disciples of the Pharisees also do the same, but Yours eat and drink.” And Jesus said to them, “You cannot make the attendants of the bridegroom fast while the bridegroom is with them, can you? But the days will come; and when the bridegroom is taken away from them, then they will fast in those days.” And He was also telling them a parable: “No one tears a piece of cloth from a new garment and puts it on an old garment; otherwise he will both tear the new, and the piece from the new will not match the old. And no one puts new wine into old wineskins; otherwise the new wine will burst the skins and it will be spilled out, and the skins will be ruined. But new wine must be put into fresh wineskins. And no one, after drinking old wine wishes for new; for he says, ‘The old is good enough.’” (5:33–39)

In an age of religious pluralism and postmodernist relativism, the Christian gospel is unique. It stands alone, and is incompatible with any and all other religions. Any form of syncretism is unacceptable; the Christian gospel, the “gospel of God” (Mark 1:14; Rom. 1:1; 15:16; 2 Cor. 11:7; 1 Thess. 2:2, 8, 9; 1 Peter 4:17), cannot be mixed with any man-made religion or humanistic philosophy. That is the clear teaching both of the Lord Jesus Christ and the apostles. Jesus said, “I am the way, and the truth, and the life; no one comes to the Father but through Me” (John 14:6; cf. 1:17). On trial before Israel’s supreme court, the Sanhedrin, Peter and John fearlessly testified that “there is salvation in no one else [other than Jesus Christ]; for there is no other name under heaven that has been given among men by which we must be saved” (Acts 4:12). When it comes to salvation, “no man can lay a foundation other than the one which is laid, which is Jesus Christ” (1 Cor. 3:11). There are not many paths to the top of the mountain, as those who maintain the essential unity of all religions falsely imagine; on the contrary, there is “one mediator also between God and men, the man Christ Jesus” (1 Tim. 2:5).

Unfortunately, many who claim to be evangelicals seem to have forgotten those foundational, nonnegotiable truths. Embracing the radical skepticism about the possibility of absolute truth that marks postmodernism, many in the emerging church movement apply that skepticism to biblical truth. The idea that there could be certainty regarding what Scripture teaches makes them uncomfortable; they, to accommodate their sinful indulgence, view the Bible’s meaning as vague, indistinct, uncertain, and probably ultimately unknowable. Further, under the guise of religious tolerance, they are scornfully intolerant of those who hold to biblical absolutes. Such uncertainty leads to apathy. Since truth either does not exist or cannot be discovered, why bother about it? They prefer instead to focus on fulfilled living and social causes. But without a commitment to the clear truth of Scripture, there can be no standard by which to fulfill God’s priorities.

Such agnosticism regarding biblical truth is the antithesis of true faith. It is nothing more than love of self and sin in religious garb, masquerading as humility. Scripture teaches that absolute truth exists and that every person is accountable to it. As Paul wrote in 2 Thessalonians 2:10, failing to love the truth is the mark of unbelievers, who are damned by their unbelief. On the other hand, believers are those who know the truth and have been set free by it (John 8:32). In the prologue to his gospel Luke declared that he had done careful research (1:3) so that his readers “may know the exact truth about the things” of which he wrote (v. 4). Jesus taught that acceptable worship of God must be consistent with the truth (John 4:23–24), that the Holy Spirit is the Spirit of truth (John 14:17; 15:26; 16:13), that God’s Word is truth (John 17:17, 19), and that He came into the world to testify to the truth (John 18:37). Paul taught that those who refuse to obey the truth will face God’s wrath (Rom. 2:8), that the gospel is “the message of truth” (Eph. 1:13), that the “truth is in Jesus” (Eph. 4:21), that salvation comes through “faith in the truth” (2 Thess. 2:13; cf. 1 Tim. 2:4), that the church is “the pillar and support of the truth” (1 Tim. 3:15), that unbelievers are “deprived of the truth” (1 Tim. 6:5), “have gone astray from the truth” (2 Tim. 2:18), are “always learning and never able to come to the knowledge of the truth (2 Tim. 3:7), “oppose the truth” (2 Tim. 3:8), and “turn away their ears from the truth” (2 Tim. 4:4; cf. Titus 1:14).

The scandal of the gospel is, as Francis Schaeffer said years ago, that Christians preach an exclusive Christ in an inclusive age. But now, as noted above, the world’s inclusivism and pluralism has infiltrated the church. Shockingly, some voices within the church are even suggesting that adherents of other religions can follow Jesus Christ without leaving their religions or identifying with Christianity. In fact, some argue that those in non-Christian religions may actually be aided in coming to God by those false religions. Clark Pinnock writes,

Then, shockingly, he adds,

The theme of this closing section of chapter 5 is an appropriate one in this age where diversity of belief, openness to other religious views, and inclusivism are seen as the primary religious virtues. In His confrontation with the Jewish religious leaders over the question of fasting, the Lord Jesus Christ set forth clearly the uniqueness and exclusivity of the gospel. He did not come as merely another rabbi within the framework of contemporary Judaism. Nor did He come to make a few minor tweaks to the existing religious system of His day. Jesus came to preach the gospel, which fulfilled the Old Testament and was incompatible with the Jewish religion of His day. Judaism was concerned with self-righteousness (Luke 16:15; 18:11–12) the gospel with heart righteousness; Judaism was concerned with what men thought (Matt. 6:2, 5, 16; 23:5), the gospel with what God thinks; Judaism was concerned with external behavior (Matt. 23:25–28), the gospel with internal attitudes.

It was Jesus’ uncompromising insistence on the gospel’s exclusivity that lay at the heart of His ongoing conflict with the Jewish religious leaders. That hostility, already evident in two earlier incidents in chapter 5, the healing of the paralytic (vv. 17–26) and the confrontation at Matthew’s banquet (vv. 30–32), escalates in this passage. All three Synoptic Gospels place this incident immediately after the banquet given by Matthew, suggesting that it happened shortly afterward. The text contains three simple elements: the inquisition, the interpretation, and the illustrations.

THE INQUISITION

And they said to Him, “The disciples of John often fast and offer prayers, the disciples of the Pharisees also do the same, but Yours eat and drink.” (5:33)

Luke’s failure to specify the antecedent of they further links this passage to the previous one. If this incident took place at a different time, Luke would have needed to identify the people who were speaking. According to Matthew’s account, the disciples of John the Baptist were the ones asking the question (Matt. 9:14). There is no contradiction between Matthew and Luke, however, since Mark 2:18 records that both the Pharisees and John’s disciples approached Jesus. No doubt individuals from both groups fired the same question at the Lord.

That the disciples of John appeared with the scribes and Pharisees is surprising. After all, John was Jesus’ forerunner, who pointed Him out as “the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world!” (John 1:29; cf. v. 36) and pointed his own disciples to Jesus (John 1:37; cf. 3:28–30). Why would his disciples be associated with Jesus’ bitter enemies?

It must be remembered that not all of those who followed John were present when Jesus was baptized, or when John pointed Him out as the Lamb of God. Nor were they all convinced that Jesus was the Messiah; even John had his moment of doubt (Luke 7:19), and years later Paul encountered some disciples of John who did not even then know that Jesus was the Messiah (Acts 19:1–7). Since John was by this time in prison (Luke 3:20), he was not available to confirm to his disciples that Jesus was the One he heralded. Many of John’s followers who did not believe Jesus was the Messiah had nonetheless made a serious spiritual confession when they were baptized. They had acknowledged their sin and sought forgiveness, in an effort to prepare themselves for Messiah’s coming kingdom. It was natural for such committed people to associate with the religious elite, the Pharisees and scribes.

John’s disciples and the Pharisees reproached Jesus’ disciples for violating Jewish religious custom by failing to fast and offer ritual prayers. Fasting was one of the three major practical expressions of Jewish piety, along with prayer and giving alms. All three were done publicly and ostentatiously by the religious elite to showcase their supposed godliness before men. In the Sermon on the Mount Jesus warned against such hypocrisy:

Though the Pharisees fasted twice a week (Luke 18:12) on Monday and Thursday, there is only one fast mandated in the Old Testament. On the Day of Atonement, the Lord commanded the people of Israel to humble or afflict their souls (Lev. 16:29, 31), which is a reference to fasting (cf. The Zondervan Pictorial Encyclopedia of the Bible, s.v. “Fasting”). The rabbinical writings forbade eating—even as much as a single date—or drinking on the Day of Atonement. On a day set aside for mourning over and repenting from sin, eating was deemed inappropriate. There are nonrequired fasts mentioned in the Old Testament (e.g., Judg. 20:26; 1 Sam. 7:6; 31:13; 2 Sam. 1:12; 12:16; 1 Kings 21:27; 2 Chron. 20:3; Ezra 8:21, 23; Neh. 1:4; 9:1; Est. 4:1–3; Ps. 69:10; Dan. 9:3; Joel 1:13–14; 2:12, 15), but they were spontaneous, associated with grief, mourning, and humbly seeking God.

What outraged the scribes, Pharisees, and disciples of John was that the disciples of Jesus ignored the traditional ritual fasts and continued to eat and drink. Accosting Jesus, they demanded an explanation for that egregious breach of Jewish custom.

THE INTERPRETATION

And Jesus said to them, “You cannot make the attendants of the bridegroom fast while the bridegroom is with them, can you? But the days will come; and when the bridegroom is taken away from them, then they will fast in those days.” (5:34–35)

Jesus defended His disciples’ failure to fast, interpreting their behavior in its true light. Using a familiar experience, He reminded them that the attendants, the close friends of the bridegroom involved in a wedding, could hardly be expected to fast while the bridegroom was with them. After all, no one fasts at a wedding; that would be completely inappropriate. A wedding is a time for joyous feasting, not mournful (cf. Matt. 9:15) fasting. It is a time to laugh, not to weep; a time to dance, not to mourn (Eccl. 3:4). The Old Testament never refers to Messiah as a bridegroom (though it refers to Israel as the bride of the Lord; e.g., Isa. 62:4–5; Jer. 2:2; Hos. 2:16–20); that is a New Testament concept introduced here by Jesus (cf. Matt. 9:15; Mark 2:19–20 and John the Baptist’s use of a similar analogy in John 3:29). Later in Revelation, the church is depicted as the bride of Christ (19:7; 21:2, 9; 22:17).

So it was equally ridiculous to expect Jesus’ disciples to fast and mourn while He was present with them. But the bridegroom would not always be with them. The days will come, Jesus said, when the bridegroom is taken away from them, then they will fast in those days. The time of joy would end when the bridegroom was suddenly taken away in the midst of the celebration. In the future, the Lord pointed out, He would be executed, and the disciples would lose Him. (This is the first time in Luke’s gospel that Jesus referred to His death.) When that happened they would be overcome with fear and grief; the prophecy of Zechariah 13:7, “strike the Shepherd that the sheep may be scattered” would be fulfilled (cf. Matt. 26:31; Mark 14:50). The disciples did not understand Jesus’ repeated predictions of His death (cf. Mark 9:31–32), since it did not fit into their preconceived notion that the Messiah would conquer Israel’s enemies and set up His kingdom. Even their leader, Peter, missed the point. When

But what Isaiah had predicted centuries earlier concerning the Messiah, “By oppression and judgment He was taken away” (53:8), would come to pass. After Jesus was taken from them, His disciples did fast (cf. Matt. 6:16–18; Acts 13:2–3; 14:23).

THE ILLUSTRATIONS

And He was also telling them a parable: “No one tears a piece of cloth from a new garment and puts it on an old garment; otherwise he will both tear the new, and the piece from the new will not match the old. And no one puts new wine into old wineskins; otherwise the new wine will burst the skins and it will be spilled out, and the skins will be ruined. But new wine must be put into fresh wineskins. And no one, after drinking old wine wishes for new; for he says, ‘The old is good enough.’” (5:36–39)

To illustrate the uniqueness of the gospel, Jesus told a parable (parabolē; a figurative example, metaphor, analogy, or story), or more specifically, a series of three parables. First, He pointed out that no one tears a piece of cloth from a new garment and puts it on an old garment. To do so would be foolish for a couple of reasons. In the first place, tearing a piece of cloth from a new garment obviously would ruin that garment. Nor would the new patch work if sewn in the old garment, since the piece from the new will not match the faded color or the pattern of the old. Even worse, after the patched garment is washed, “the patch [from the new, unshrunk garment] pulls away from the [old, patched] garment, and a worse tear results” (Matt. 9:16). The end result is two ruined garments.

The Lord’s point is that the gospel cannot be patched into Judaism (or any other system of salvation by work). His teaching was completely at odds with that of the Jewish leaders. They viewed themselves as righteous (Luke 16:15); He preached the necessity of repentance (Luke 5:32; cf. Matt. 4:17). They were proud of their supposedly exalted religious status (Luke 20:46–47); He proclaimed the need for humility (Matt. 5:3). They focused on external ceremony, ritual, and outward observance of the law; He focused on the heart (Matt. 15:7–9; Luke 11:39–52). They loved the approval of men; He offered the approval of God (Matt. 23:5–7; John 12:43).

The old garment in the Lord’s illustration is not the Old Testament. It is not God’s eternal law, which is holy, righteous, and good (Rom. 7:12), and which Jesus came to fulfill, not to replace (Matt. 5:17–19). Rather, it is the ritualistic, legalistic religion based on rabbinic tradition, with its man-made regulations (Matt. 15:3–6) that obscured the Law of God. Jesus did not come to patch that system, but to replace it with the garment of salvation (Isa. 61:10)—the good news of salvation by faith in Him. No works-righteousness system can be patched into the gospel of grace and faith.

It would be just as foolish and futile to put new wine into old wineskins; because the new wine will burst the skins and it will be spilled out, and the skins will be ruined. Wine was typically stored in containers made of animal skins. As the new, fresh wine fermented, gas would be released and the skins would expand. If anyone was foolish enough to put new wine into old, stretched-out wineskins, the new wine would burst the skins, the wine would be spilled out and lost, and the skins would be ruined. New wine had to be stored in fresh wineskins, which were still supple enough to expand during the fermentation process.

Like the first illustration, this one also highlights the futility and impossibility of mixing the gospel of grace with any system of works-righteousness. Grace is antithetical to and not compatible with any such system (Rom. 11:6; Gal. 5:4).

The Lord’s final illustration describes the tragedy of those who reject the gospel of grace and cling to their false system of works-righteousness. Jesus likened such people to those who are content with the old wine they have been drinking, and have no desire to taste the new. No one, Jesus said, after drinking old wine wishes for new; for he says, “The old is good enough.” False religion deadens the spiritual senses. Far enough into the drinking experience, the drinker does not care about the taste of the wine. It is one of the chief ways that the “god of this world [blinds] the minds of the unbelieving so that they might not see the light of the gospel of the glory of Christ, who is the image of God” (2 Cor. 4:4). Like wine drinkers sloshing their familiar drink, people stubbornly cling to their comfortable religious traditions, and have little or no interest in the new, fresh saving truth of the gospel.

For those unwilling to leave their false religions and embrace the gospel, there is no hope of salvation (John 14:6; Acts 4:12). The church’s goal is not to make unbelievers comfortable in their false religious systems or to help them assimilate Jesus into those systems. The commission the Lord gave to the church is to “go therefore and make disciples of all the nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all that I commanded you; and lo, I am with you always, even to the end of the age” (Matt. 28:19–20).