Vintage skins are incompatible with fresh wine (Mat. 9:17). Old, crusty wine skins may maintain the flavor of their native juice, but not this year’s crop. In fact, putting new wine into those old skins would cause a rupture and the fresh juice would be wasted. The container and the wine must be compatible.
When Jesus came on the scene neither Pharisee-ism nor Sadducees-ism could accommodate the dispensation of the Spirit. Those prevailing systems were antagonistic to God’s new covenant.
Traditionalism, bound by the rules of dead men, would not tolerate LIFE incarnate. Jesus’ doctrines could never be integrated into the old system. Even though the Temple sacrifices had ceased, Jewish orthodoxy focused on the preservation of external observances. Overlooking the heart of atonement was justified because their religion was mechanical, mental, and manipulative. Jesus posed a threat to the establishment, so He had to go.
At the same time the “progressive” Sadducees had abandoned “truth” and supernaturalism. Rationalism and pragmatism could never countenance miracles or the unexplainable, so Jesus had to go!
Think about this, the theological arch-rivals, the Pharisees and Sadducees, joined forces to eliminate the threat posed by the New Wine.
The flesh will always manifest itself in one of two ways; legalism or libertinism. Neither is better than the other because both are devoid of the Spirit. Death is the inevitable result either way.
Here we are 2,000 years later and history is repeating itself. The moldy, musty religious wine skins of both sorts still resist, reject, and refuse the Holy Spirit because He is outside of each respective system.
If periodic refreshings do not occur in a local church, then lifeless religion becomes institutionalized, and the personal presence of Christ is lost. Look at what happened to those churches in Revelation 2 and 3. Though initially ablaze with Holy Spirit power, they lost the Glory.
As much as things change, they stay the same. Do we need the new wine of the Spirit? and the flexible structure to accommodate Him? or what?
Harold Vaughan
