Mark 2:18-22

Legalism vs Jesus

English Standard Version Chapter 2

18 Now John’s disciples and the Pharisees were fasting. And people came and said to him, “Why do John’s disciples and the disciples of the Pharisees fast, but your disciples do not fast?” 19 And Jesus said to them, “Can the wedding guests fast while the bridegroom is with them? As long as they have the bridegroom with them, they cannot fast. 20 The days will come when the bridegroom is taken away from them, and then they will fast in that day. 21 No one sews a piece of unshrunk cloth on an old garment. If he does, the patch tears away from it, the new from the old, and a worse tear is made. 22 And no one puts new wine into old wineskins. If he does, the wine will burst the skins—and the wine is destroyed, and so are the skins. But new wine is for fresh wineskins.”

OPENING REMARKS

We’re drawing close to the end of chapter 2 now in our walk through the Gospel of Mark. Todays pericope covers the third of four clashes with the scribes and pharisees.

In fact, Matthew’s gospel records that it was the disciples of John who came to ask Jesus this question about fasting wheras Mark simply tells us that ‘some people’, Luke seems to connect this event with the feast at Levi’s house and that it was the scribes asking the question.

There is no reason to think that the gospels are at odds with one another here. We’re told in each gospel that a group of people came to ask Jesus this question about fasting; it’s quite reasonable to infer that in that number were some disciples of John, some scribes and some pharisees.

It would seem sensible to connect this question about fasting with the feast at Levi’s house. Luke records it like this;

English Standard Version Chapter 5

30 And the Pharisees and their scribes grumbled at his disciples, saying, “Why do you eat and drink with tax collectors and sinners?” 31 And Jesus answered them, “Those who are well have no need of a physician, but those who are sick. 32 I have not come to call the righteous but sinners to repentance.”

A Question About Fasting

33 And they said to him, “The disciples of John fast often and offer prayers, and so do the disciples of the Pharisees, but yours eat and drink.”

Remember there were no chapters, verses or headings orignally, these have been added!

“Why do John’s disciples and the disciples of the Pharisees fast, but your disciples do not fast?”...

There are questions which are posed in honest pursuit of information, and then there are other sorts of questions. Questions which the inquirer wishes to look like an honest query, but are intended to wrong foot their target. It’s what is known as ‘a loaded question.’

Jesus and his disciples might still have been tucking in to the feast that Levi had prepared for them at then comes this question about fasting.

It was intended to show Jesus, His ministry and His disciples in a bad light. ‘Here are John’s disciples and the Pharisees piously observing a fast to the Lord, being diligent, holy and reserved, and here you are stuffing your faces! And people say you’re someone special?!”’

Commentary on a Harmony of the Evangelists Matthew, Mark, and Luke Matthew 9:14–17; Mark 2:18–22; Luke 5:33–39

indeed, there is no room to doubt that the Pharisees maliciously endeavoured, by this stratagem, to draw the disciples of John to their party, and to produce a quarrel between them and the disciples of Christ.

CALVIN

For a little bit of background, the Pharisees came onto the scene around 200 years before Jesus was born, and by this point they were really the dominant force of orthodox Judaism. Observing not only the law but also many other traditions and rituals which had been added over the years.

The law prescribed just one fast per year on Yom Kippur (The Day of Atonement), however the Pharisees fasted religiously on Mondays and Thursdays every week. We know from the scriptures that they made a big fuss about it too; disfiguring their faces so that people would know they were fasting and such like.

The point being, Jesus wasn’t breaking God’s law by not fasting. He wasn’t being disobedient or licentious. The Pharisees were angry because he wasn’t obeying their traditions; man-made traditions, added on to God’s law.

This is really the very essence of what we call legalism. It’s a word that gets thrown around a fair bit and sometimes unfairly. Being rigourous in applying the scriptures isn’t being legalistic. To preach the scriptures and to hold one another accountable in love to the standards set out within isn’t to be legalistic. True legalism is not holding people accountable to the word of God but rather holding them accountable to the traditions of man.

Legalism is expansive in it’s practice but reductive in it’s theology. It always maximises man and minimises God. It makes more of what you need to do and less of what God has done. You’ll know if you’re sat under a legalistic ministry because you’ll constantly feel you aren’t doing enough, you’ll never feel true joy, only pride when you attain the standard being set or despair when you don’t. You’ll feel always on the edge of a breakthrough which never comes.

In contrast to that Jesus compares His own ministry to a wedding feast and Himself as the bridegroom.

And Jesus said to them, “Can the wedding guests fast while the bridegroom is with them? As long as they have the bridegroom with them, they cannot fast...

At a big jewish wedding friends and guests had no responsibility but to enjoy the festivities. It wasn’t like our weddings where if you’re a groomsman you’re actually pretty busy. It would have been unconscionable for the wedding guests to be busy with anything else other than enjoying themselves!

The contrast here is stark; between following dead, dry religious practices and following Jesus. Fasting and feasting. Jesus is saying; my people aren’t students in a classroom but guests at my wedding! To follow Jesus is to celebrate with Him, to enjoy Him, to feast with Him.

Does that mean there won’t be times of pain, confusion and loss in this life? No, since He immediately follows it with; when the Bridegroom is taken from them, then they will fast in that day. Surely a forewarning of His being taken from them at the cross and their subsequent sorrow.

For us, there will be days of loss, days of confusion, days of sadness, but we will NEVER lose Jesus. His sheep will never be taken from Him and He will never be taken from His sheep. Though a Christian, just like Job might lose many things in this life, they will always have the Holy Spirit, the seal of the promise.

In days of suffering, fasting as Jesus says, is of great use to us. Depriving our physical body of food for a period of time causes us to build strength in the spiritual man. Fasting and prayer are two great friends to us in our spiritual development, God has embued these disciplines with life giving power. We are never to allow them to become dry, religious practices to us.

21 No one sews a piece of unshrunk cloth on an old garment. If he does, the patch tears away from it, the new from the old, and a worse tear is made. 22 And no one puts new wine into old wineskins. If he does, the wine will burst the skins—and the wine is destroyed, and so are the skins. But new wine is for fresh wineskins.”

Who or what is representend by the unshrunk piece of cloth and the old garment and the new wine and the old wineskins? Is the unshrunk piece of cloth synonymous with the new wine and the old garment with the old wineskin?

The unshrunk piece of cloth and the new wine are indeed a picture of the same thing, as are the old garment and the old wineskins.

The chief impression of both parables is their finality. The unshrunken patch “will pull away” from the old garment, “making the tear worse.” The Greek word for “pull away,” airein, is the root of the word in v. 20 describing the bridegroom being “taken from them” (Gk. apairein). Likewise, the wineskins will be “burst” and “ruined” (Gk. apollymi, “destroyed”). In both instances something once serviceable is destroyed and of no further worth.39

Some have taken the unshrunk cloth and the new wine to signify the Kingdom of God, others have felt that these two pictures relate to Jesus’s disciples and their unfitness for following the practices of the pharisees. Some wheel out this figure of speech to bolster a new church vision or a perceived new thing that God is doing. Yet Jesus isn’t talking about a fresh vision or speaking about some general new thing that God is doing, Jesus is speaking particularly of Himself of His ministry and ultimately of Christianity.

Christ is the unshrunk cloth, He is the new wine. It is Christ and Christianity that cannot be amalgamated into pre-existing religious structures. To make His own disciples observe the traditions laid out by the Pharisees would have been to put new wine into old skins, destroying both.

The Galatian Church were rebuked by the apostle Paul for attempting to do this exact thing. They attempted to add works of the law to what they had received by faith apart from works. They were being led astray by a group of false teachers who taught that these new Galatian believers needed to be circumcised according to the law in order to be accepted by God.

Galatians 5:2-4 - Look: I, Paul, say to you that if you accept circumcision, Christ will be of no advantage to you. I testify again to every man who accepts circumcision that he is obligated to keep the whole law. You are severed from Christ, you who would be justified by the law; you have fallen away from grace.

Christianity stands apart from every other religion in the world since it stands not on the works of man but on the finished work of Christ. Religion says do, Christianity says done. The enemy knows that if he can get confessing Christians to meld their faith in Christ with some form of works based religion then the new wine of the gospel of grace in them will be destroyed. So he has raised up false teachers in every generation to lead Christians away from the truth and back into dead religion.

In the first century it was the Judaizers, then came the Gnostics mixing Christianity with pagan religion, then came Rome mixing Christianity with pagan philosophy, now we have a plethora of false teachers teaching adherance to extra biblical traditions; whether it be the social justice gospel, the political gospel or the prosperity gospel, all these teach that the grace of God is not enough, you must add to it.

That is why in this church we proclaim the Gospel of Jesus Christ as the only way by which anyone may be saved. We join with the reformers in stating the 5 solas; that you are saved by grace alone, through faith alone, in Christ alone, according to scripture alone, to the glory of God alone.

The new wine of the covenant of grace is this; that God wins, that He gets what He paid for and no one will prevent Him from glorifying Himself in the salvation of sinners. To drink the new wine of grace is to know that your sin can never outrun God’s grace, it’s to know that God’s love for you is completely unstoppable, because you stand justified before Him not on account of anything you have done or will do for Him but solely on account of what Christ has done for you.

To stand before God on the basis of anything else save the work of Christ is to stand condemned. Your faith must rest on Jesus Christ and on Him alone, not Him plus your works, not Him plus your ministry, not Him plus your testimonies, not Him plus your activism. Just Jesus.

Pray