THE sad tendency for Christians to wander into error and so do harm to their souls and to the Gospel is revealed in these next few verses. This danger is presented to us in the question of fasting and whether the practice of fasting was right in the Christian church or not. Straight away we need to understand what is being talked about in these verses under the heading of fasting. When we read passages like Acts 13:2,3 and Acts 14:23 we read that Paul and the early church fasted and prayed when they wanted to know the guidance of God in a particular matter. Fasting was engaged in, together with prayer, for the purpose of giving themselves freedom and time to seek and discern the will of God. In such cases fasting was not a regular activity but engaged in for a special purpose. It was not a work of righteousness or self denial, but rather a means of enabling them to more firmly concentrate on God and for knowing his will. The case in the passage before us was that fasting was looked on as a regular religious practice, and that it had merit in itself as a means of gaining and practicing righteousness which would then make God more pleased with the one fasting, and so accept them.

Fasting had grown up in the Jewish church which had this pattern and use. It was felt that God would be more propitious towards those who fasted on a regular basis. It was not something commanded in the law of Moses.

Such fasting has the idea of a religious work, which somehow gains merit, and is therefore pleasing to God, and also a means of earning more grace and acceptance before God. The Pharisees commended and practiced fasting in this way, and John the Baptists disciples did also, though in their case it was more a sign of repentance and the expression of accepting punishment for sins.

Jesus speaks in a parable. He says "How can the guests of the bridegroom mourn when the bridegroom is with them". Jesus recognises the prevalent view of fasting as an acting of mourning over sin as a sign of repentance. Jesus points out that when the bridegroom has come there is no need of fasting. The meaning here is that Christ the bridegroom had come, and he had come to purchase and provide forgiveness of sins. Here is free forgiveness offered freely as a gift of grace, and so there was no need of fasting as a meritorious work by which forgiveness could be earned.

The fact is that Christ the bridegroom has come never to depart. It is true he left his disciples when he ascended into heaven, but he returned to them and to the church by the coming of the Holy Spirit, where in John 14:16-18 Jesus speaks of the coming of the Holy Spirit as his coming. What is true, and which is relevant in this argument with regard to fasting, is that because Christ has come, he has provided, by his works of righteousness, all the righteousness his people need for acceptance before God, and so our efforts to gain merit before God by our efforts of righteousness are redundant. We don't cease to seek to be righteousness in all our acts and thoughts, but we do this out of thanksgiving to Christ who has saved us, and to please him and show forth his glory.

When Jesus speaks of the bridegroom being taken away he is speaking of all those, like the Jewish nation, who reject the bridegroom, and so are left to their own resources. However Jesus does not suggest that works of righteousness and self-denial like fasting achieve anything before God, and this is because there is no work we can do that is free from falling short of God's glory in some way.

The fact is that the way of gaining acceptance before God by our own works and efforts is totally incompatible with the Gospel. The two can't mix, for if we try do mix them, things only get worse.

Jesus illustrates this in the parable of the new and old cloth and the new and old wine skins. The new cloth will always damage old cloth if it is used to patch a tear or hole. The new cloth will tear away from the old, and the old will be too fragile to bear the strength of the new clothe, and so the garment with a tear or a hole will only find itself with a larger and worse tear in it. The same is true of wine skins. Wine skins were used like we use glass bottles to hold wine. When the leather of the wine skin gets old, it become brittle and fragile. If new wine which is still fermenting is place in an old bottle, the old wine skin will not have enough stretch or suppleness to hold the expanding wine, and so split, and the wine will be lost.

The wine of God's grace in Jesus Christ must not be mixed with the old order of Moses and the law. Christ has fulfilled all that and it is now not needed. We must embrace Christ alone, and renounce all reliance on our own efforts and works of righteousness, which includes fasting.

The fact is that the old order, which is the natural order, that we have to atone for our sins by our own effort, we find so difficult to let go. We feel that if we do let it go, then we are doing wrong. The truth of the matter is that while we hold on to any idea that we can atone for our own sins, or that we must seek to atone in some way, we cut ourselves off from Christ who alone can be a full propitiation for our sins.