Monday, November 30, 2020

The Old and The New

 

DEVOTION

THE GOSPEL ACCORDING TO MARK

THE OLD AND THE NEW

Mark 2:21-22

21 "No one sews a patch of unshrunk cloth on an old garment. If he does, the new piece will pull away from the old, making the tear worse. 22 And no one pours new wine into old wineskins. If he does, the wine will burst the skins, and both the wine and the wineskins will be ruined. No, he pours new wine into new wineskins." 

NIV

This is a continuation of the discussion with the Pharisees and their disciples fasting, while Jesus and his disciples did not fast. We already looked into the doctrines of the Pharisees as according to their rabbinical writings in the Ta’anit with its thirty-five various reason and days of fasting. This is in essence under what Jesus referred to their doctrine as the old covenant, which he is now comparing to an old garment and an old wineskin. His doctrine is new and it cannot be contained or matched up with the old doctrines. If his new doctrine were to try to patch up the old doctrine it would tear it wide open making it worse than the hole that is already in that old doctrine. It is the same with the wineskin as it is old it is soft and already stretched out, a new wine as it ferments would put too much strain on the old skin and it would burst. Again the new and the old are incompatible. This is all about Jesus establishing a new covenant with the two greatest commands of loving the Lord our God with all our being and loving our neighbor as ourselves. If we were to examine all the laws in the Old Covenant we would find that all of them would be covered under the doctrine of love. We could even take the Ten Commandments, which although we regard as sacred, are still under the Old Covenant which is completely covered under the doctrine of love. If we loved the Lord with our whole being, we would have no other gods, no idols in this world. If we loved others as ourselves then we would not dare to commit adultery, besides, Jesus actually expanded that concept as well as many others of the Old Covenant, the Ten Commandments, by saying that if we even look at another with lust in our mind, we have committed adultery. Again, if we loved each other, and our love was ever on the increase as Paul tells us in his letter to the Thessalonians, then we would not even lust, ever. When it comes to not stealing, how could we steal anything from someone we love as ourselves? If we loved everyone as ourselves we would never even think of testifying with a lie about them or give false witness, that is gossip. Again, if we loved each other as we love ourselves then we would not covet anything of theirs’ in the least little bit. On and on we could go through all of the Ten Commandments and see how Jesus replaced them or covered them under his New Covenant of love. It always comes down to the New Covenant is not compatible with the Old Covenant. This does give us a reason to ponder why we were given all the Old Testament as part of the canon, except this Old Testament reveals who God is and how God works in his creation, with his creation, and how his creation should live in compatibility with Him. However, because they and we cannot possibly live under the Old Covenant and by trying to do so we will never be compatible with God and that is why much of that old record is showing us the need for Jesus and His New Covenant of love. The Old was sent to show us the New.

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