John’s disciples came to Jesus with a question. They asked, “Why do we and the Pharisees fast often, but Your disciples do not fast?” (Matthew 9:14-17). The implications of this question are relevant to us today.
First, I can imagine church-goers today asking similar questions. “Why do we wear suits while you dress casual?”
“Why do we we quote our denomination’s founder to make a point, but you don’t quote yours?”
“How come we pray to the saints for help, but you don’t?”
Jesus answered the question in two different ways. In verse 15, He addressed fasting directly. “Can the friends of the bridegroom mourn as long as the bridegroom is with them? But the days will come when the bridegroom will be taken away from them, and then they will fast.”
When the bridegroom came to pick up his bride, it was accompanied by feasting. The bridegroom has come—celebrate! So fasting was out of the question. But after the bridegroom and his bride leave, then scheduled religious fasting can commence.
Why would Jesus’ disciples fast? The Jews were to hold solemn fasts in mourning for sin or to entreat God fervently for something. Why should the disciples fast when the glory of God was in their midst? They were daily witnessing the love and power of God. Why should they mourn when they saw displays of the forgiveness of God through Jesus again and again?
Jesus in their midst was a time of celebration. The disciples could speak directly to the Messiah. Their questions were heard and answered. They were communing with the King of kings. Their hearts were warmed by the words of eternal life. How could fasting have improved the communion they were enjoying?
This means that John’s disciples did not see who Jesus was. John’s ministry was to point people to Christ and prepare them to follow Him. They missed the purpose of John’s work. We will touch more on this later in our third point.
Second, He answered their question with a general spiritual principle. With the illustration of wine and wineskins in verse 17, Jesus was sharing something that was beyond their comprehension to receive it. They could not receive it because the Spirit was not yet given to open their eyes to the spiritual reality behind His words. There was nothing in their life experiences by which they could compare it.
Jesus came bringing the wine of the Kingdom of God, of grace instead of works, of living by faith and not laws, of dead to sin but alive to God, of the Holy Spirit and power, of eternal life. These ideas of the new wine were completely unknown to His hearers. They would never expect God to work with them this way.
New wine needs new wineskins. Old wineskins have hardened. Put new wine in them and close them up. The wine expands, but the brittle skins can’t expand with the wine, so they rip and lose the wine.
God’s wine is ever-expanding. It is always new. It increases because God’s life never ends, and the knowledge, abilities, favor, and power He bestows on His own children causes unlimited growth, though these bodies age and fade away.
But it requires a person who is attuned to God and not to laws and church rules. Who has the liberty of faith and not the oppressiveness of peer pressure and herd mentality. Who trusts in God alone instead of wearying himself with tiresome work and schedules.
The people were focused on laws, not realizing that the laws were to bring them to rest in faith in God when they found themselves failing. But they tried harder instead, and built up a complicated system of rules that made everyone’s lives difficult to bear.
When certain rule-following believers in the days of the apostles accepted Christ, they said they should keep the laws of Moses and be circumcised. Peter’s reaction? “Now therefore, why do you test God by putting a yoke on the neck of the disciples which neither our fathers nor we were able to bear?” (Acts 15:10; also see verse 5). They missed the point of the law. God wanted to do a work in their lives that could only be done by faith in Him.
This faith principle must be impressed on each child of God individually by the Holy Spirit. He wants to turn us from the law to faith in Jesus as a mark of daily living. “The just shall live by faith” (Romans 1:17). When that happens, it becomes a breakthrough in the believer’s life that expands him and opens up new vistas of growth and expectation of what God is willing to do.
Every single breakthrough in spiritual growth happens because the Spirit opens the eyes of our understanding. The more we continue in the Word and focus on Jesus, the greater and more significant these breakthroughs will be throughout life.
Third, let’s note what the opening verse said about John’s disciples: “The disciples of John came to Him” (Matthew 9:14). They were still John’s disciples. They had not moved on to Jesus, to be His disciples. John’s work was to prepare the way of the Lord’s coming (Mark 1:2-4), to soften the people’s hearts to hear and respond to Jesus. (That’s why many churches preface preaching with worship, and why large evangelistic rallies work in the neighborhood well in advance of coming to the area.)
When John knew that this Man Jesus was the reason for his ministry, he pointed the people to Him, saying, “And looking at Jesus as He walked, he said, ‘Behold the Lamb of God!'” (John 1:36). What happened to those who understood what John was doing? “The two disciples heard him speak, and they followed Jesus” (John 1:37). They responded appropriately. Turning people to Jesus was John’s ministry. (What’s yours?)
His ministry was specific. John knew his ministry was finished when Jesus came, for he said, “He must increase, but I must decrease” (John 3:30). This wasn’t self-deprecation talk. Jesus came. John therefore handed the baton to Jesus to continue. Then King Herod imprisoned him. Perhaps God shut John in prison to get him out of the way so the people could turn from him to Jesus.
But John’s disciples committed idolatry and followed the cult of personality. “We believe in John!” They did not understand John’s purpose—really, any preacher’s purpose—and surrender their lives to the God of heaven, who was coming again to overthrow all sin, and set up His kingdom in their midst.
Paul, a preacher sent by God to point the people to Jesus, wrote of this idol-worship in the early church. “Now I say this, that each of you says, ‘I am of Paul,’ or ‘I am of Apollos,’ or ‘I am of Cephas,’ or ‘I am of Christ'” (1 Corinthians 1:12).
He then corrected their understanding of God’s ministers, telling them that they were all fellow workers; one plants, another waters, but God gives the increase; one lays the foundation and another builds on it (1 Corinthians 3:5-9). The cult of personality in the church is evidence that we don’t get it; we have not detached from them to consecrate ourselves to Jesus. They are only workers for the Lord, but Jesus is the Lord Himself.
But perhaps there was hope for John’s disciples. Notice how they began the question with, “Why do we fast?” They used “we.” Were they second-guessing themselves? “Why do we do this?” That was healthy; perhaps the work of the Spirit to draw them to faith was already at work.
If you feel dissatisfied with your religious life, perhaps you should start asking questions (“Why do I do this?”). Jesus came to give us life and that more wonderful (John 10:10). If that doesn’t match your experience, why doesn’t it? Do you think that going through the same physical motions of religious exercises will really impart spiritual life? If you keep doing the same thing, would the outcome be different? How is that working for you?
I encourage you to respond to Jesus’ own invitation, and drink deeply: “‘If anyone thirsts, let him come to Me and drink. He who believes in Me, as the Scripture has said, out of his heart will flow rivers of living water.’ But this He spoke concerning the Spirit, whom those believing in Him would receive; for the Holy Spirit was not yet given, because Jesus was not yet glorified” (John 7:37-39).
With the giving of the Holy Spirit, Jesus gives us the blessing of spiritual intelligence, of seeing Him, of entering into the blessed realities that are now but dimly seen.
You have the Spirit, but still feel you’re in a rut? Confess your sins and idolatry, and stand against them. Yield yourself wholly to Him. Ask the Lord for a fresh outpouring of life, for a fresh vision of the Savior. When you read the Scriptures, pray over the words, asking the Lord for clarification, and asking for the promise be given to you. “Ask, and you will receive, that your joy may be full” (John 16:24).
