Matthew Study 9:17

"... but they put new wine into new wineskins, and both are preserved.."

The life that Jesus gives is completely different than anything we've ever experienced. It is fresh, unpredictable, joyful, pure, hopeful, and purposeful. The old wine - the Old Covenant - is no longer adequate for salvation. The Righteous Standard demanded of the Law is now completely fulfilled in the One person who came in fulfillment of the Law, Jesus Christ. So, in essence, as we place our faith in Christ, we have fulfilled the Old Testament bases for salvation.

Sometimes it's difficult to take the New WIne in Christ and know exactly what to do with it. Some of us take the Life and seek to infuse it into the old system of "works of righteousness."  We say, "I couldn't keep the Law before Christ but now, with the power of the Holy Spirit in me, I can keep the Law." And we fail miserably. Doing this sort of thing is like trying  to fit a square peg into a round hole. In addition it develops a renewed spirituality based on performance (howbeit better performance) of the Law - which is the very thing Grace came to free us from. The Law, is death, says Paul.

Jesus says this New Wine is an altogether completely different animal (though the Law has now become this animal's skeletal structure). It needs a different "cage" to hold it. We are no longer under the "if/then" formulas of yesterday. The Life of the Spirit is living. He has a will, a personality, an agenda of his own. He can't be confined to the old ways. And his people are called to loose themselves from a works-based righteousness and step out into a faith-based righteousness freely given us in Christ Jesus.  For it is by grace that you have been saved, not of works, so that no man can boast.

This is called living in the Spirit, praying in the Spirit, and being in the Spirit - unfurling your sails fully to the mysterious winds of Grace and trusting in his every move, even when others may be operating under the Old Skin. The righteous shall live by faith.

There is risk involved. If I move away from the Law, could I slide into a subjective experience of God that is un-Orthodox. Unlikely. The Law is now written in your heart, and the Spirit has become your life. If you are faithful to following the Peace of Christ ruling in your heart then you will know where God is saying yes, and when God is saying no. Salvation is Grace in Christ. And Christ is the fulfillment of the Law.

"How come your disciples don't fast?" In this passage, Jesus is asked why his disciples weren't fasting, but the disciples of John the Baptist were fasting.  Jesus wasn't arguing his disciples were better than John's disciples. He was questioning their entire religious paradigm.  He was saying that the New Wine doesn't always coincide with the ways of the past. This is a new life, a new way of being. Be assured, they will fast. But not now. It's not what the Spirit is doing at this time.