Luke 5:33-38 And they said to him, Why do the disciples of John fast often, and make prayers, and likewise the disciples of the Pharisees… 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.) Parallel Verses KJV: 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? |
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