#40 LU. 5:36-39 CHRISTIANITY, A BRAND NEW RELIGION

Introduction:

    As it stands today Christianity is not a new religion.  It is nearly
2000 years old.  However, in our text it was a brand new religion.  In our
text Jesus uses two illustrations which show Christianity to be is a brand
new religion.  He then uses a third illustration to show why the scribes and
Pharisees were rejecting the new religion.
    The disciples of John and the Pharisees come together to Jesus asking
Him why He and His disciples did not fast often like they did.  Jesus first
answered their question.  He told them that it was not appropriate for His
disciples to fast often while He was with them.  The time would come when He
would be taken from them and then they would fast.  He was speaking about
the time of His arrest, His trial and His crucifixion.  Then in that time of
great distress His disciples would fast.
    After answering their question, Jesus went on to point out to them
something about which they had not inquired.  He pointed out that one reason
He did not attempt to do things as the others before Him had done, is that
He did not come to the world to reform the old Jewish religion.  Rather He
had come into the world to start a brand new religion.  Christianity is not
merely a patching up of Mosaic Law system of worship.  It is whole new
system of worship.
    I wish people of our day would all understand this.  There are all too
many who think that even the Christian has got to keep the law of Moses or
some part of it before he can qualify for heaven.  This simply is not so.
Christianity, at the time that it was started was a brand new religion and
was not just an improvement of the law system of worship.  In other words,
we are not under the law system of worship.  We are not required to fast
often.  We are not required to fast at all.  We are not required to keep any
of the laws in order to be saved.
    Let us look to our text and see the two illustrations which Jesus used
to show that Christianity is brand new system of worship.

I.  No new cloth on an old garment

    Note the first illustration in verse 36.  V. 36, "And he spake also a
parable unto them; No man putteth a piece of a new garment upon an old; if
otherwise, then both the new maketh a rent, and the piece that was taken out
of the new agreeth not with the old."  In this parable Jesus compared
religion to the cloth of a garment.  He said that no man uses a piece of new
cloth to patch an old garment.  In that day and time new cloth was not pre-
shrunk.  If someone were to take a piece of new unshrunk cloth and use it to
patch a rip in an old garment which was shrunk he would soon find that he
had made a grave mistake.  The new stronger cloth would soon shrink.  It
would shrink the first time it was washed or the first time it got wet for
any reason.  After it shrunk it would not fit the area that it was supposed
to fit on the old garment and it would put a strain on the older and weaker
material.  Pretty soon there would be a new hole which would be larger than
the original rip.  Since this kind of patch would actually make the hole
larger than the original, nobody would patch garments that way.  But if
somebody who did not know better were to do so, they would regret it.
    The point that Jesus was making was that He had not come to patch up the
old law system of worship and to make improvements on the law.  In the first
place, the law system did not need any improvement.  The law was a perfect
measurement of righteousness.  No system could have better served the
purpose for which the law was given.
    It was never given to save anybody.  The law was given to set a perfect
standard of righteousness and to show all men that they have failed to
measure up to that standard.  Galatians 2:21 reads, "...if righteousness
come by the law, then Christ is dead in vain." The point is that
depraved men could never become righteous by trying to keep the law.  They
would fail every time.  However, by trying to keep the law they will see
themselves as guilty sinners in the sight of God and they will know that
they need to be cleansed from their sin.
    The weakness of the law system of worship was never in the law itself.
The weakness of the law system is in man.  Some men just refuse to see
themselves as guilty sinners.  In spite of the fact that the law of God
clearly shows every man to be guilty, some men are so self-righteous that
they are blind to their own guiltiness.  They think they are doing great.
They think that if anybody will make it to heaven they surely will.  They
fail to see that they are not only guilty in the sight of God but they are
lost and on the road to hell.
    Christianity, on the other hand, does not set before men a set of rules
that they cannot keep.  The law gives man a set of rules that in his
depraved condition he cannot keep.  The gospel message, which is the very
heart and soul of Christianity, does not give the sinner another set of
rules.  Rather it gives the guilty sinner a means whereby he can be cleansed
of all his guilt of sin.  Christianity does not say to a man, you have got
to prove that you can stop sinning in order to go heaven.  Rather, it says,
"The blood of Jesus Christ can cleanse you from all your sin and by that
means you can go to heaven."
    Christianity is not a patching up of the old law system which still
leaves one under the law.  If it did, even after one becomes a Christian he
would still be in danger of hell fire.  Because even after one becomes a
Christian he will still fail to measure up to the perfect standard of the
law of God.  He will still sin every day.  He would break the law every day
and fail to be accepted before God.
    But Christianity says that the blood of Jesus Christ cleanses the
Christian from every sin and through the blood of Jesus the Christian does
measure up every day to the perfect standard of the law.  Even the holy law
of God cannot condemn him because in Jesus he stands before God as
completely without sin.  He is cleansed from very sin.
    The scribes and Pharisees had the wrong idea about the law of Moses.
They thought that one had to keep the law in every way every day or you
would never make it to heaven.  They also had the wrong idea about Jesus and
Christianity.  They failed to see that Jesus is the Christ of God and that
He offers to lost sinners the only way of salvation that man has ever had.
Men did not get saved by the law in Old Testament times and men cannot get
saved today by keeping the law.  If righteousness could come to anybody by
the keeping of the law it would have been foolish for God to send His Son to
the cross to suffer untold agony.

II.  No new wine in old bottles

    The second illustration that Jesus used to show that Christianity is a
brand new religion is found in verses 37 and 38.  V. 37-38, "And no man
putteth new wine into old bottles; else the new wine will burst the bottles,
and be spilled, and the bottles shall perish.  But new wine must be put into
new bottles; and both are preserved."  Actually both the wine and the bottle
would perish.
    The Greek word here that is translated wine refers to the juice of the
grape whether it is fresh or fermented.  However, the term "old wine" refers
to that which is has fermented from the natural sugars in the grape juice.
No additional sugars were added.  It has a sweet mellow taste.  I understand
that the older it gets, the more mellow and sweet the taste becomes.
    The term "new wine" refers to the fresh grape juice.  It has a taste
that is somewhat sour from acids in the fresh juice.
    The bottles that they used for storing the grape juice in those days
were not glass bottles.  They used leather bottles made from the fresh skins
of an animal.  The fresh skin was soft and flexible.  The leather bottle was
tied shut very tight at the top so that none of the liquid could leak out.
Then when the natural sugars of the fresh grape juice would begin to ferment
inside, the soft skin would stretch with the liquids and the gasses were
sealed tightly inside.
    On the other hand, if someone were to use an old bottle, by that time
the skin of the animal would be hard and brittle.  Thus, when the juice
inside would begin to ferment and put off gasses, the old dry hard brittle
skin would not stretch and expand.  Therefore, as the pressure would build
up inside from the gasses, there would eventually be an explosion and grape
juice would go in all directions.  Both the bottle and the juice would be
lost.  So nobody used old bottles to put up the fresh juice.  Instead, they
would use fresh flexible bottles that would expand.
    The point of the illustration is the same.  Jesus did not come to
organize a religion that would work under the old Mosaic Law.  He came to
establish a religion that would work completely free from the law.  The
Christian should know that he is not required to keep the law in order to
qualify for heaven.  He could never measure up to the perfect standard of
the law by his own efforts.  The only way he can measure up to the perfect
standard of the law is through faith in the Christ as his Savior.  Through
his faith in Jesus Christ he is cleansed from all sin and he measures up to
the perfect standard of the law.  This is what qualifies him for heaven.
    Christianity is not under the Law of Moses.  It never has been and it
never will be.

III.  New wine rejected in preference to the old

    In verse 39 Jesus used a third illustration to show why Christianity is
rejected by the scribes and Pharisees.  Even this illustration shows that
Christianity is not a re-vamping of the old law. This, too, shows that it is
a totally new religion.  V.  39, "No man also having drunk old wine
straightway desireth new: for he saith, The old is better."  That is, it
tastes better.  It is more to his liking.  It is more to his liking because
it has mellowed with age and is sweeter.  The new wine is not at all the
same to the taste as the old.  It is new and different.  It is sour to the
taste.
    It is because it is new and sour to the taste that the new wine is
rejected.  It is because it is new and different.
    So it was with Christianity in the opinion of the scribes and Pharisees.
They liked the old religion under the Mosaic law better than they did the
new.  Christianity was not at first acceptable to the majority of the Jews.
Even to this day it is not acceptable to them.  It will not be until
Christianity is fully aged that it will become accepted to the Jews.  They
like the old law system which could not provide the salvation of the soul
better than the new.  The old law system could point the way to salvation,
if men would only rightly heed the law, but it could never provide
salvation.
    The new religion which Jesus Christ established is based on the shedding
of His own blood.  It is the one and only way of salvation for the souls of
lost sinners.

IV.  A new religion for those who repent and trust in Jesus Christ

    Let us turn our thoughts away from the scribes and Pharisees for a few
moments.  Let us turn our thoughts to people in our own time and in our own
community.  Men are just naturally religious.  This is built into their
nature.  But as a general rule the religion that an individual has for the
first part of his life is that of an unsaved person.  He may or may not be a
member of a church, but he is religiously inclined.  He has religion, but he
is not saved.  He is lost in sin.  He is not prepared to meet God.  Like the
scribes and Pharisees, he is usually depending in one way or another on his
own good works to keep him out of hell and get him into heaven.  It is a
difficult thing for him to break from his old religion to which he has
become accustomed and to turn to Christ and trust Jesus Christ as his
Savior.
    One can even be a member of a Christian church and still not be a
Christian himself.  He can be a member of a true New Testament church and
still not be a Christian himself.  He can have his name on the roll of a New
Testament church and still be lost and on the road to hell.
    In order to truly be a Christian one must repent of his sin and trust in
Jesus Christ for salvation.  You cannot still be on the road to hell and be
a Christian.  You can be a church member and still be lost, but if you are
truly a Christian, you are no longer on the road to hell.  You are on the
road to heaven.
    Then when one does turn to the Lord Jesus Christ and get saved, so far
as he is concerned as an individual, he has a brand new religion.  He is not
the same person that he was when he was lost and his religion is not the
same.  It is not new in the sense of being a new system of religion.  As I
said earlier, as a religious system, Christianity started nearly 2000 years
ago.  But so far as the individual is concerned, it is brand new when he
turns to Jesus and trust Jesus to save his soul.
    What about you?  What kind of religion do you have?  Do you have an old
flesh motivated religion or do you have a religion that comes from God
Himself?  Are you just a member of a Christian church, or are you a genuine
born again Christian?
    If you are not a born again Christian, why not?  Why is it that you are
content to stay on the road to hell when God has given you an opportunity to
get on the road to heaven?