Thursday, June 25, 2015

Interesting tidbit - 21 (Mark 2:22)

Q:  Is the new wine in Mark 2:22 the dispensation of grace?

And no one puts new wine into old wineskins. If he does, the wine will burst the skins—and the wine is destroyed, and so are the skins. But new wine is for fresh wineskins Mark 2:22).


A:  No, the dispensation of grace was a mystery that was not revealed until Paul (Eph 3:1-3). That means it cannot be found hidden in the Lord’s parables, for it was still "not made known" at that time (Eph 3:1-9).

Wine is a type of the Holy Spirit, for both are associated with joy (Zech 10:7; 1 Thes 1:6), and new wine is a type of the coming of the Spirit at Pentecost. You’ll remember that when the apostles were "filled with the Holy Spirit" (Acts 2:4), men thought that they were “filled with new wine" (Acts 2:13). 

With the parable of the wineskins, the Lord was saying that the new wine of the Holy Spirit could not be put into the "old wineskins" of Israel's religious leaders; it must rather be put in the "fresh wineskins" of His "little flock" (Luke 12:32). 

New wine is first mentioned in the Bible when Israel was gathered back into her land after her captivity (Neh 10:39; 13:5,12), a type of Israel's future gathering back into her land for the kingdom, and so it is associated with the kingdom that was taken from Israel's apostate leaders and given to the little flock (Matt 21:43). New wine was withheld from Israel when she rebelled against God (Isa 24:7; Hos. 9:2; Joel 1:5,10; Hag 1:11) and was given when she was obedient (Prov 3:5-10), and so it will be given in the kingdom (Joel 3:18; Zech. 9:17; Matt 26:29) when God's Spirit will "cause" them to walk in His ways (Ezek 36:27).