#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?