On This Day: When ‘The Old is (NOT) Good' Enough

   He also told them a parable: “No one tears a piece from a new garment and puts it on an old garment. If he does, he will tear the new, and the piece from the new will not match the old. And no one puts new wine into old wineskins. If he does, the new wine will burst the skins and it will be spilled, and the skins will be destroyed. But new wine must be put into fresh wineskins. And no one after drinking old wine desires new, for he says, ‘The old is good.’” (Luke 5:36-39)

   My personal reaction to reading those last words, “‘The old is good,’” was that I know too many church folk like that! 

   The above conversation took place while Jesus was at Matthew’s house having a meal with “tax collectors and sinners”. At the same time, “some Pharisees and their scribes” were peeking in to see what was going on and “grumbled” at Jesus’ disciples why Jesus would hang out with such people. 

   Jesus never played favorites or showed partiality to his friends. He alone was without sin; everyone else needed the “good news of great joy” that could only be found in him. So, Jesus customized a parable for both groups of people, the “sinners” who had come to dinner and the religious devotees who were judging everyone.

   Because Jesus’ illustrations for the religious devotees are easy to understand, our focus must be on how we are doing at receiving the “new covenant in my blood”. Jesus didn’t die merely so we could have a fire-insurance policy for when we die. He died to make a new covenant between God and sinners. Through Jesus’ death, God “has delivered us from the domain of darkness and transferred us to the kingdom of his beloved Son, in whom we have redemption, the forgiveness of sins” (Colossians 1:13-14). 

   So, “when we were dead in our trespasses,” and God “made us alive together with Christ” (Ephesians 2:5), he brought us into the new covenant. It is a binding relationship in which God is the adoptive Father who has made us his adopted sons.1  

   What I want to leave with everyone is the reminder that the new covenant cannot be added to anything and cannot be replaced by anything. It doesn’t supplement our systems of good works, and it doesn’t pale in comparison to “the old is good”. It is the only relationship by which sinners can receive eternal life. Period. 

   Do you lean more to the religious devotee who struggles to give up self-reliance to trust in Jesus Christ alone for salvation and restoration to God? Or are you more tempted to settle for the drunken stupor of sin that thinks the old is quite good enough? Either way, in Jesus “was life, and the life was the light of men. The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it” (John 1:4-5). 

   So the only question is, are you one of the people who “walk in the light, as he is in the light,” so “we have fellowship with one another, and the blood of Jesus his Son cleanses us from all sin” (I John 1:7), or are you one of those who “loved the darkness rather than the light because their works were evil” (John 3:19)? 

   Jesus still comes to tax collectors and sinners by any name or label. He still calls religious devotees to leave their sin and follow him. No matter where we are in relation to Jesus, we all have the same call to deny ourselves, take up our cross daily, and follow Jesus Christ into the fullness of life.

© 2025 Monte Vigh ~ Box 517, Merritt, BC, V1K 1B8

Email: in2freedom@gmail.com 

Unless otherwise noted, Scriptures are from the English Standard Version (The Holy Bible, English Standard Version. ESV® Text Edition: 2016. Copyright © 2001 by Crossway Bibles, a publishing ministry of Good News Publishers.)

Footnote 1: Yes, “For those whom he foreknew he also predestined to be conformed to the image of his Son, in order that he might be the firstborn among many brothers” (Romans 8:29), which is why “all who are led by the Spirit of God are sons of God” (Romans 8:14), “in Christ Jesus you are all sons of God, through faith” (Galatians 3:26), “For it was fitting that he, for whom and by whom all things exist, in bringing many sons to glory, should make the founder of their salvation perfect through suffering” (Hebrews 2:10). The expressions of “brothers and sisters” or “sons and daughters” is NOT in the Bible and is NOT what God means by “sons”. We all have the exact same status with God in our spiritual identity, the same status as Jesus, which can only be conveyed through “sons” and “brothers”. It is a horrible mistake to tell people the Bible SAYS there are two categories when God himself breathed out one category of “sons” who are “brothers” to Jesus Christ as our Firstborn.