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Jesus was criticized repeatedly during His three-year earthly ministry for not conforming to the old religious standards of the day. The religious leaders criticized Him for eating with tax collectors and sinners, for healing people on the Sabbath, and for allowing His disciples to violate man-made religious regulations.
In responding to these complaints, Jesus told a parable concerning new wine and old wineskins. He says:
“Neither is new wine put into old wineskins. If it is, the skins burst and the wine is spilled and the skins are destroyed. But new wine is put into fresh wineskins, and so both are preserved” (Matthew 9:17).
New wine would still be fermenting to some extent when placed in the wineskins for storage. This fermentation would produce gas and pressure that would burst the old, dry, aged wineskins. New, more pliable wineskins would stretch and expand, not burst, as the new wine aged in them.
Jesus was the new wine that the old wineskins (religious leaders) could not contain. Instead of stressing the old ways of the religious leaders, slavishly trying to keep man-made regulations surrounding God’s Law, Jesus stressed a relationship of faith and trust in Him. He invited all who were weak and heavy laden under the burden of the Law to come to Him and find rest for their souls (Matt. 11:28). He emphasized relationship, not ritual. He emphasized mercy, not sacrifice. Thanks be to God for His new wine and for making us His new wineskins!
Jesus came to do something new, wonderfully new! He came not to be served, but to serve and give His life as a ransom for many (Matt. 20:28). Now, by God’s grace, through faith in Jesus, our future includes a “new heaven and new earth” (Rev. 21:1) where God declares, “Behold, I am making all things new” (Rev. 21:5).
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