Going back to the original quotation: \u201cI do not believe that He mingled them together, for that would be pouring new wine in old wineskins and making spiritual adulterers\u00a0<\/i>of those He was expecting to obey His words. I don’t think we ever see a\u00a0<\/i>time in the Bible when two contradictory laws are being taught at the same <\/i>time.\u00a0<\/i><\/p>\n
This proposition can be analyzed into the following premises:<\/p>\n
Jesus\u2019 revealing NT teachings applicable to us today before the cross would:<\/p>\n
\n
- constitute \u201cmingling\u201d two laws together,<\/li>\n
- create a situation of \u201cspiritual adultery,\u201d and<\/li>\n
- constitute pouring new wine in old wineskins.<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n
Jesus would not do these things.<\/p>\n
Therefore:<\/p>\n
Jesus did not reveal NT teaching applicable to us today before the cross.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n
Generally, we agree with the minor premise. Let us examine the validity of the three assumptions of the major premise.<\/p>\n
A mingling of the laws<\/h2>\n
If Jesus taught any doctrine applicable to His New Kingdom while the Law of Moses was still in force, would this cause two laws to be \u201cmingled together?\u201d Consider Acts 7. Is this a mingling of Old Testament with New? Perhaps, depending on the definition of \u201cmingling.\u201d The point is that we have been given a command to \u201crightfully divide\u201d or to \u201chandle aright\u201d the word of God (II Timothy 2:15). As long as the average reader is able to discern the difference, as surely is the case in Acts 7, then the Lord cannot be accused of so mingling the laws together that we have no ability to tell the one from the other. No one argues that certain passages, such as John 3:16 and John 6 apply to us today. However, when confronted with this, those claiming MML&J to be OT have admitted the applicability, but have called such passages \u201cprophecy.\u201d However, they have the very same problem in \u201crightfully dividing\u201d to determine what is their \u201cprophecy\u201d as we do in determining the difference between Jesus\u2019 OT and NT teachings. We will go into more detail on the \u201cprophecy\u201d argument later.<\/p>\n
Spiritual adultery<\/h2>\n
Would Jesus teaching things applicable to ourselves today while the Law of Moses was still in effect cause Jesus or the Jews to commit \u201cspiritual adultery?\u201d First, let us say that this term is rather inflammatory and we need to be objective about it. If, in fact, we have no way of determining which of Jesus\u2019 teachings are OT and which are NT, then this term might apply. However, the arguments given above show that this is not the case.<\/p>\n
The issue of binding new laws while the OT law is still in effect is a valid concern. It seems clear that Jesus did say things new that the hearers then would have to respond to (i.e. figuratively \u201ceat my flesh and drink my blood\u201d from John 6). The big question is: would obedience to this violate the OT law? Clearly, Jesus commanded his disciples: \u201cFollow me.\u201d Their response can hardly be considered a violation of OT law. If the objection of Jesus giving commands in addition to the OT while on this earth is to hold up, then it must apply to all of the commands that Jesus gave. One might say: \u201cwell it is obvious that this was just to those that Jesus was addressing.\u201d That makes the point perfectly: the context has been established by the Holy Spirit in order to enable us to rightfully divide these things today.<\/p>\n
There has always been \u201claw\u201d even from the very beginning. If there were no law, then there would be no sin. Romans 4:15 says \u201cbecause the law brings about wrath; for where there is no law there is no transgression.<\/em>\u201d There was some kind of law that the patriarchs were under before the Sinai law was given. Thus, while Moses and Israel were under what we call the \u201cPatriarchal Law,\u201d Moses gave Israel additional instructions to keep the Passover (Exodus 12). His instructions were to be obeyed right then while the Patriarchal Law was still in effect. Was Moses forcing a situation of \u201cspiritual adultery\u201d here? It is obvious that this statute was to be carried on and incorporated into the coming Sinai covenant. It was not \u201cprophesied.\u201d The OT shows that it was obeyed immediately. So, if Moses was a prophet and could enjoin a new statute while one law was still in effect, then the \u201cprophet like unto <\/i>Moses\u201d (Deuteronomy 18:15f), could do the same. If not, why not?<\/p>\n
So, what would constitute \u201cspiritual adultery\u201d? In the pre-Sinai situation, were not the Israelites under Patriarchal Law and\u00a0at the same time<\/i> also responsible to God\u2019s directions through Moses? Some try to solve this by saying that Moses was a patriarchal prophet. This does not change the fact that his instructions applied to Israel who did not yet have their new codified law. They were still subject to Patriarchal Law and Moses\u2019 instructions would be the basis for what they would always keep, even after Sinai. What Moses commanded in Exodus 12 was not<\/i>\u00a0a new addition to Patriarchal Law that would be discarded once the new law was given at Sinai. His instructions became part of the Sinai law. Israelites would be right in saying \u201cWe keep the Passover because Moses commanded it before they left Egypt\u201d in that they would still be respecting the authority of God through Moses. They did not have the mentality that \u201cwe can only keep what was delivered at Sinai because it was delivered at Sinai.\u201d They recognized that certain things that Moses taught were uniquely their instructions from God because it applied to them, even though it was delivered before Sinai. They did not reason that whatever Moses instructed before Sinai cannot apply. Their Passover feast would be forever practiced because of what happened in Egypt before Sinai. Israel was a nation in development.<\/p>\n
As a developing nation, the \u201cspiritual adultery\u201d principle did not apply to Israel due to the special circumstances that required time to establish national identity and law. Israel\u2019s new Passover command in Exodus 12 was unique, but not yet part of a fully developed national law for Israel. Yet, Israel was already under Patriarchal Law. By giving them this instruction, was He putting them under two laws at once? Or, were these temporary instructions that belonged to the Patriarchal Law and would be discarded at Sinai? If, after Sinai, an Israelite kept the Passover because<\/i> Moses commanded it in Egypt, would they be putting themselves under Patriarchal Law and Mosaic Law at the same time? If an Israelite, after Sinai, kept the Passover because it was commanded when they were in Egypt, would they be committing \u201cspiritual adultery\u201d by keeping \u201cPatriarchal Law\u201d and \u201cMosaic-Sinai law?\u201d We cannot see that it would be spiritual adultery. If it is argued that the Passover was entirely \u201cprophetic,\u201d it would only establish that things were kept because pre-Sinai \u201cprophecies\u201d have binding authority. The children of Israel would always keep the Passover feast because of what happened and what was commanded before Sinai. In like manner, since Jesus was \u201ca prophet like unto Moses,\u201d His miracles established His right to command just like Moses\u2019 signs established his right to command. Everyone agrees that Jesus had the right to forgive sins while on this earth. Who among us will limit Jesus\u2019 authority not only to interpret the OT law but also to fulfill and extend some of its principles to apply to ourselves today?<\/p>\n
Pouring new wine into old wineskins<\/h2>\n
The proposition being conveyed by this argument is as follows:<\/p>\n
Jesus taught against pouring new wine into old wineskins, which was figurative of something in the context of Matthew 9:14-17.<\/p>\n
If Jesus were to teach anything that applies to us today then he would be pouring new wine into old wineskins.<\/p>\n
Therefore:<\/p>\n
Jesus did not teach anything that applies to us prior to the cross.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n
In this case, we agree with the major premise. However, the minor premise is false and therefore the conclusion does not follow. Let us here examine the passage and context of the \u201cnew wine\/old wine-skins\u201d reference.<\/p>\n
“Then the disciples of John came to Him, saying, “Why do we and the Pharisees fast often, but Your disciples do not fast?” And Jesus said to them, “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. No one puts a piece of unshrunk cloth on an old garment; for the patch pulls away from the garment, and the tear is made worse. Nor do they put new wine into old wineskins, or else the wineskins break, the wine is spilled, and the wineskins are ruined. But they put new wine into new wineskins, and both are preserved<\/em>” (Matthew 9:14-17 NKJV).<\/p><\/blockquote>\n
The question Jesus is addressing is: “Why do we and the Pharisees fast often, but Your disciples do not fast?”\u00a0<\/i>Something new was happening right then. What? Jesus\u2019 disciples were not now fasting. Why? The bridegroom was now with them. It was now time to be happy, not sad and fasting.<\/p>\n
Illustration #1<\/i>: The unshrunk cloth. Fasting while Jesus was present would be as inappropriate as putting a new, unshrunk piece of cloth on an old garment. It is counter-productive. It was a new and exciting thing to have the bridegroom present with them. If they tried to attach this new experience to the old garment of Judaism and fast through this blessed experience, it would be counter-productive. Would the Jews think it appropriate to fast before or during a wedding? The figure here is clear.<\/p>\n
Illustration #2<\/i>: The Wineskins. Fasting while the bridegroom was present would be out of place. It would be like putting new wine in old wineskins. The new wine would burst out. The old wineskin was no longer elastic enough to expand with the new wine. The joy of having the bridegroom present was like new wine. The excitement of having Jesus present would burst out of the old form of fasting. The context is not about differences in the Old and New Testaments. It is not about Jesus pouring the NT into the OT system.<\/p>\n
Here are J.W. McGarvey\u2019s comments on this passage.<\/p>\n
[Question about Fasting,\u00a0<\/i>14-17 (Mark ii. 18-22; Luke v. 33-39.)<\/p>\n
14.\u00a0 the disciples of John.-The fact that the question about fasting was propounded by the disciples of John should not be overlooked. It shows that the question was not intended as a captious objection, but as an honest inquiry: for although the disciples of John were not, as yet, identical with those of Jesus, we can not class them among the enemies of Jesus. Fasting twice in the week was regarded by the Pharisees as a mark of superior piety (Luke xviii. 12), and the disciples of John seem to have agreed in this matter with the Pharisees. Indeed, John himself practiced what may be regarded as a continual fast, eating only locusts and wild honey, and this was well calculated to impress his disciples with great respect for fasting. It appeared to them, therefore, as a serious defect in the religious life of Jesus and his disciples, that they paid no respect to the regular fast days. The feast at Matthew’s house, which occurred on a fast day (see note on Mark ii. 18), very naturally brought the matter up for consideration, because it shocked the sensibility of the objectors.<\/p>\n
15-17.\u00a0 Jesus said unto them.— Jesus reduces the objection to an absurdity by three arguments from analogy. First,\u00a0<\/i>he refers to the wedding customs of the day, and demands, “Can the children of the bridechamber”–that is, the invited guests at a wedding-“– mourn, as long as the bridegroom is with them?” While he remained with his disciples, they were enjoying a wedding feast, and it would be absurd if they were mourning. But when he should leave them they would fast, because that would be a time of sorrow.\u00a0Secondly,\u00a0<\/i>he draws an argument from the absurdity of putting a patch of\u00a0new\u00a0<\/i>(properly rendered unfulled) cloth on an old garment. The unfulled piece, never having been shrunk, would shrink the first time it got wet, and would tear open the rent still wider.\u00a0Thirdly,\u00a0<\/i>it would be equally absurd to put new wine into old bottles. The bottles being made of goat skins, an old one had little strength and no elasticity, and therefore the fermentation of new wine would burst it. The argument drawn from these two examples is not, as some have supposed, that it would be absurd to patch the old Jewish garment with the unfulled cloth of the gospel, or to put the new wine of the gospel into the old Jewish bottles; for the question at issue was not one concerning the proper relation of the gospel dispensation to the Jewish law, but one concerning the propriety of fasting on a certain occasion. Moreover, in Luke’s report of this answer we find the additional argument, “No man, having drunk old wine, straightway desireth new; for he says the old is better.” (Luke v. 39.) To carry out the interpretation just named, would make Jesus here argue that the old dispensation was better than the new. But the argument is the same as in the first example. It shows that it would have been absurdly inappropriate to the occasion for his disciples to fast, as much so as to mourn at a wedding, to patch an old garment with unfulled cloth, or to put new wine into old bottles. The arguments not only vindicated his disciples, but taught John’s disciples that fasting has value only when it is demanded by a suitable occasion].<\/p><\/blockquote>\n\t\t\t\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\tPrior Section\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/a>\n\t\t\t\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\tMatthew, Mark, Luke, and John: Old Testament or New Testament?\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/a>\n\t\t\t\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\tNext Section\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/a>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
1.3 Proposition 3: The Problem of “Mingling” Going back to the original quotation: \u201cI do not believe that He mingled them together, for that would be pouring new wine in old wineskins and making spiritual adulterers\u00a0of those He was expecting to obey His words. I don’t think we ever see a\u00a0time in the Bible when…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"parent":5797,"menu_order":4,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"advanced_seo_description":"","jetpack_seo_html_title":"","jetpack_seo_noindex":false,"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"footnotes":""},"class_list":["post-5840","page","type-page","status-publish","hentry"],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":5870,"url":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/bible-studies\/matthew-mark-luke-and-john-old-testament-or-new-testament\/jesus-teachings-as-prophecy\/","url_meta":{"origin":5840,"position":0},"title":"Jesus\u2019 Teachings as \u201cProphecy\u201d","author":"Jeffrey Hamilton","date":"July 16, 2003","format":false,"excerpt":"Chapter 3 Jesus\u2019 Teachings as \u201cProphecy\u201d Time and time again when we point out that there are obvious teachings of Jesus that were not Old Testament elaboration but were clearly intended for us today, those who want to contend that MML&J are Old Testament books will counter that this was\u2026","rel":"","context":"Similar post","block_context":{"text":"Similar post","link":""},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":5804,"url":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/bible-studies\/matthew-mark-luke-and-john-old-testament-or-new-testament\/the-basic-argument\/","url_meta":{"origin":5840,"position":1},"title":"The Basic Argument","author":"Jeffrey Hamilton","date":"July 14, 2003","format":false,"excerpt":"Chapter 1 The Basic Argument The controversy over Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John turns on the basic argument that Jesus lived His life under the Law of Moses and therefore could not have given any commands that would uniquely go into the New Testament before His death. To do so,\u2026","rel":"","context":"Similar post","block_context":{"text":"Similar post","link":""},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":5797,"url":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/bible-studies\/matthew-mark-luke-and-john-old-testament-or-new-testament\/","url_meta":{"origin":5840,"position":2},"title":"Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John: Old Testament or New Testament? (Benton and Brown)","author":"Jeffrey Hamilton","date":"July 14, 2003","format":false,"excerpt":"Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John: Old Testament or New Testament? A Discussion of this Question in Light\u00a0of Scriptural Teaching by Terry W. Benton and\u00a0Dave Brown January 29, 1999 Preface The Basic Argument Proposition 1: Law Went Forth Proposition 2: When Did Jesus Cease Teaching the Law? Proposition 3: Problem of\u2026","rel":"","context":"Similar post","block_context":{"text":"Similar post","link":""},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/09\/Old-Bible-233x300.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":5836,"url":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/bible-studies\/matthew-mark-luke-and-john-old-testament-or-new-testament\/proposition-2-when-did-jesus-cease-teaching-the-law\/","url_meta":{"origin":5840,"position":3},"title":"Proposition 2: When Did Jesus Cease Teaching the Law?","author":"Jeffrey Hamilton","date":"July 16, 2003","format":false,"excerpt":"1.2 Proposition 2: When Did Jesus Cease Teaching the Law? The statement was made above as to the importance of:\u00a0\u201cAt what point did Jesus cease to teach the Law of Moses and begin to teach His will?\u201d\u00a0This is based on the following proposition: In order for Jesus to reveal NT\u2026","rel":"","context":"Similar post","block_context":{"text":"Similar post","link":""},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":5815,"url":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/bible-studies\/matthew-mark-luke-and-john-old-testament-or-new-testament\/proposition-1-the-law-went-forth\/","url_meta":{"origin":5840,"position":4},"title":"Proposition 1: The Law Went Forth","author":"Jeffrey Hamilton","date":"July 14, 2003","format":false,"excerpt":"1.1 Proposition 1: The Law Went Forth The statement was made above: \u201cThe thing we need to know is: at what point did the law of the Lord go forth?\u201d The premises of this proposition are as follows: No part of the New Testament could not be delivered before the\u2026","rel":"","context":"Similar post","block_context":{"text":"Similar post","link":""},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":5843,"url":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/bible-studies\/matthew-mark-luke-and-john-old-testament-or-new-testament\/the-summary-argument\/","url_meta":{"origin":5840,"position":5},"title":"The Summary Argument","author":"Jeffrey Hamilton","date":"July 16, 2003","format":false,"excerpt":"1.4 The Summary Argument The summary of the argument stated: \"I don't think we ever see a time in the Bible when two contradictory laws are being taught at the same time.\"\u00a0This argument implies that Jesus could contradict His own teachings on the Old Law if He waited until after\u2026","rel":"","context":"Similar post","block_context":{"text":"Similar post","link":""},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]}],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/5840","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/page"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5840"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/5840\/revisions"}],"up":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/5797"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5840"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}