From Old to New

When it comes to my relationship to God, how will I know if I’m good enough or have done enough to be accepted by God? How can I know God loves me? This was the spiritual climate at the time of Jesus. Can you imagine the hope that Jesus Christ brought to a whole class of people that believed they were always on the outside?

Right in front of everyone and especially the religious leaders, he cast out demons from possessed people, touched a man full of leprosy and healed him. Then He heals a paralyzed man, forgiving him of his sin, restoring him physically and lifting him up. Afterwards Jesus leaves Capernaum and heads for the edge of town, near the lake to meet and eats with what the religious people would call the lowest of the low, a tax collector named Levi.

Luke 5:27 - 39

27 After this, Jesus went out and saw a tax collector by the name of Levi sitting at his tax booth. “Follow me,” Jesus said to him, 28 and Levi got up, left everything and followed him.

29 Then Levi held a great banquet for Jesus at his house, and a large crowd of tax collectors and others were eating with them. 30 But the Pharisees and the teachers of the law who belonged to their sect complained to his disciples, “Why do you eat and drink with tax collectors and sinners?”

31 Jesus answered them, “It is not the healthy who need a doctor, but the sick. 32 I have not come to call the righteous, but sinners to repentance.”

33 They said to him, “John’s disciples often fast and pray, and so do the disciples of the Pharisees, but yours go on eating and drinking.” 34 Jesus answered, “Can you make the friends of the bridegroom fast while he is with them?

35 But the time will come when the bridegroom will be taken from them; in those days they will fast.” 36 He told them this parable: “No one tears a piece out of a new garment to patch an old one. Otherwise, they will have torn the new garment, and the patch from the new will not match the old.

37 And no one pours new wine into old wineskins. Otherwise, the new wine will burst the skins; the wine will run out and the wineskins will be ruined. 38 No, new wine must be poured into new wineskins. 39 And no one after drinking old wine wants the new, for they say, ‘The old is better.’” (Luke 5:27 - 39)

Jesus’ Call to Follow

When Jesus went to the shore he ‘saw’ Levi a tax collector sitting with his tax collector friends by the customs house. It means that Jesus did not just notice Levi, He was observing him intently as a spectator. And when He saw Levi He called him to follow.

What was the thing about tax collectors that offended religious and upright citizens in society? They were disreputable, greedy, charging people way more than they should to put money in their own pockets. They were traitors because they worked for the Roman government who was considered the enemy of the Jewish nation. No one had anything to do with tax collectors except other people in that profession because people despised and looked down on them. They were stigmatized by society, just like people turn their noses down on any dishonorable or shady type of profession today.

These people were not allowed in the synagogues or the temple as they were considered worse outcasts than lepers, they were considered untouchables. Jesus knew this and these tax collectors knew what people thought about them as well.

The Pharisees only saw people’s failures, but Jesus saw Levi’s need and went after him as an outsider (verse 27) and called him to follow Him.

Levi responded to Christ’s call to follow Him; salvation had come to his house. In that moment He was no longer defined by his past, nor his sin, nor by what people said about him.

In response, Levi threw a lavish banquet at his house and invited all his friends, who happened to be tax collectors and sinners, the lowest of the low to meet with and eat with Jesus.

But the Pharisees and the teachers of the law who belonged to their sect complained to his disciples, “Why do you eat and drink with tax collectors and sinners?” (Luke 5:30)

This was significant because:

To share a meal with another person was, in effect, to extend an offer of friendship and acceptance... sharing a meal was “an offer of peace, trust, brotherhood, and forgiveness; in short, sharing a meal meant sharing life.” (Joachim Jeremias, New Testament Theology, trans. John Bowden (New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1971))

Jesus ate with sinners. He was extending grace to them, acceptance, open arms — before they had repented or changed anything about their lives.

Brought the cure

“It is not the healthy who need a doctor, but the sick. I have not come to call the righteous, but sinners to repentance.” (Luke 5:30-31)

Jesus was talking about the spiritually sick (unsaved), who desired healing (to be reconciled in their relationship to God). What he wasn’t talking about were people who know they are living in sin and continue in their destructive lifestyle that hurt themselves and others. Those who turn from their sin and to God like Levi did will find mercy, forgiveness, restoration, hope, and peace.

As they follow him, God will give them the power to be changed. Do you know what happened to Levi after he left his old profession and lifestyle? He became one of the 12 apostles and wrote the Gospel of Matthew.

They said to him, “John’s disciples often fast and pray, and so do the disciples of the Pharisees, but yours go on eating and drinking.” (Luke 5:33)

In verse 33 - What appears to be a question is more like an accusation. Why is it that we fast and pray, and John’s disciples fast and pray but You and your disciples don’t? Why are they enjoying their lives? In the OT, fasting was often associated with repentance and grief.

But the Pharisees went beyond what fasting was intended for - to be in close fellowship with God, they made it part of their religious observations. For them, fasting was an outward act of proving their spirituality and one way to gain acceptance from God. Their concept of God was so far from the truth and they were actually upset that Jesus and his disciples were joyful and celebrating life.

But Jesus defends His actions, describing a relationship with God as cause for celebration:

“Can you make the friends of the bridegroom fast while he is with them? But the time will come when the bridegroom will be taken from them; in those days they will fast” (Luke 5:34-35).

Jewish weddings are not like our western weddings that just last a few hours. Their weddings and receptions lasted up to a week and were times of great joy, feasting, and celebrating. No one would think about fasting at a wedding.

There will be a time to fast, but not when the Messiah is present. Jesus was making a stark distinction between the dry formality of the old existing religion which appeared glorious on the outside but was lifeless on the inside and powerless to change any life, as compared to this radically new life that He was talking about.

Call to the new

“No one tears a piece out of a new garment to patch an old (worn out and decrepit) one. Otherwise, they will have torn the new garment, and the patch from the new will not match the old. And no one pours new (in quality) wine into old wineskins. Otherwise, the new wine will burst the skins; the wine will run out and the wineskins will be ruined. No, new wine must be poured into new wineskins (Luke 5:36-39).

Luke emphasized the word new 7 times in these four verses. Those that place their faith in Christ will experience a radically new life in quality and in time. Jesus made a new and living way to God. 

Therefore if anyone is in Christ [that is, grafted in, joined to Him by faith in Him as Savior], he is a new creation [reborn and renewed by the Holy Spirit]; the old things [the previous moral and spiritual condition] have passed away. Behold, new things have come [because spiritual awakening brings a new life] (2 Corinthians 5:17).

The idea that the Christian gospel can mix with or blend with any other religious system in any way is absolutely wrong.  You cannot mix the Gospel with legalism, liberalism, Buddhism, Hinduism, Islam, Mormonism or Jehovah's Witness, New age, Christian Science or any other religion. It is not inclusive of other religions, it is not the same as other religions - in other words, all paths do not lead to God.

Luke, the author of this Gospel makes it clear that salvation only comes through Christ when he later recorded in the book of Acts.

And there is salvation in no one else; for there is no other name under heaven that has been given among people by which we must be saved [for God has provided the world no alternative for salvation] (Acts 4:12 AMP).

The apostle Paul made it clear that salvation is apart from works when he wrote,

God saved you by his grace when you believed. And you can’t take credit for this; it is a gift from God. Salvation is not a reward for the good things we have done, so none of us can boast about it (Ephesians 2:8-9 NLT).

He saved us, not because of the righteous things we had done, but because of his mercy. He washed away our sins, giving us a new birth and new life through the Holy Spirit (Titus 3:5).

Jesus is the only one who paid for the sins of the world. He is the only one who was raised from the dead and promises that if we make the decision to respond to this glorious gospel, that we will also one day be resurrected from the dead, to live in His presence in heaven forever and ever.

Unfortunately, even after all that Christ has done to make salvation possible, to bring in the new and better way, we see that there are some, like the religious Pharisees, who choose to reject His call, His cure for sin because they would not turn from their old ways of thinking and living. They are not even willing to taste the new wine because they are so set in their old ways.