Matt 9:14–17 — The New Wine of the Kingdom

The new wine of the kingdom is the reality of Jesus’ own presence as the King. He is the kingdom-bearer who brings the kingdom to his people. Matthew 9:14–17 first explains this new wine and then shows how its arrival shapes the atmosphere of new covenant piety, including the way Christians celebrate the Lord’s Supper and practice prayer and fasting.

Why Do Jesus’ Disciples Not Fast?

Verse 14 says, “Then the disciples of John came to him, saying, ‘Why do we and the Pharisees fast, but your disciples do not fast?’” This question follows immediately after the account of Jesus eating and drinking with tax collectors and sinners. The disciples of John observe a basic feature of Jesus’ ministry: rather than emphasizing fasting and commanding his disciples to fast, he appears to emphasize feasting. He eats and drinks with sinners and tax collectors.

It is significant that John’s disciples raise the question. In the preceding paragraph, the Pharisees asked, “Why does your teacher eat with tax collectors and sinners?” Here, however, the objection comes from the followers of John the Baptist, whose ministry was characterized by a call to repentance.

Matthew introduces John in chapter 3 as the one who preached in the wilderness, “Repent, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand.” He fulfilled Isaiah’s prophecy: “The voice of one crying in the wilderness: ‘Prepare the way of the Lord; make his paths straight.’” The ministry of John the Baptizer called Israel to prepare for divine judgment and the coming of the Lord by mourning over sin and repenting. Although Matthew 3 does not mention John’s fasting, Matthew 9 makes clear that he and his disciples practiced it. Fasting was an appropriate sign of mourning and repentance as they prepared for God’s coming.

The Pharisees also fasted. In Jesus’ parable of the Pharisee and the tax collector, the Pharisee boasted, “I fast twice a week.” The Mosaic law did not require a twice-weekly fast. Its only prescribed annual observance was on the Day of Atonement, when Israel was commanded to “afflict” or humble itself (Lev. 16). The Pharisees expanded that annual requirement into two fasts every week, consistent with their broader practice of adding human regulations to the law in pursuit of legalistic piety.

Fasting was associated with mourning, sorrow, and confession of sin. Jesus confirms the connection in his answer: “Can the wedding guests mourn as long as the bridegroom is with them?” He uses mourning and fasting as parallel ideas. John’s disciples and the Pharisees fasted as they mourned sin and prepared for the Messiah’s coming.

This expectation appears in an ancient rabbinic tradition: “When the Jewish people repent, they will be redeemed. . . . It is sufficient for the mourner to endure in his mourning to bring about the coming of the Messiah” (b. Sanhedrin 97b.14). Israel’s redemption and the Messiah’s coming were closely joined. Mourning, fasting, sackcloth, and ashes were regarded as means of preparation and even as ways to hasten his arrival. If Israel would truly repent, the Messiah would come and deliver his people.

The Bridegroom Has Come

Jesus answers, “Can the wedding guests mourn as long as the bridegroom is with them?” It is no longer appropriate to fast and mourn in order to hasten the Messiah’s coming because the Messiah has come. The wedding guests cannot mourn while the bridegroom is present.

Jesus himself submitted to John’s baptism and fasted in the wilderness on behalf of his people. Yet he places repentance and the kingdom in a new order. He does not say that the people must repent so that the kingdom will come. He announces, “Repent, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand”—it has drawn near in him. As one scholar explains, Jesus “recalibrates the timing of the dawn of God’s coming kingdom; rather than promoting his disciples’ fasting in advance of that Day, he maintains that, in his ministry, it has already begun and thus entails a reality to be celebrated rather than prepared for.”

Jesus identifies himself as the Messiah through the image of the bridegroom. In verse 12 he called himself the Physician; now he is the Bridegroom. The image also reaches back to the previous paragraph, in which he celebrated a banquet with tax collectors and sinners. He is the Bridegroom hosting a feast for his people. It would be incongruous for the guests to fast, mourn, and wear gloomy faces while he is with them.

Jesus adds, “The days will come when the bridegroom is taken away from them, and then they will fast.” This anticipates his being taken from the disciples in death and, beyond the resurrection, his ascension to heaven. It allows for fasting during the period between his ascension and return. Nevertheless, any fasting practiced after the kingdom’s arrival must take a new form suited to the reality that has dawned in Christ.

New Cloth and New Wine

In verse 16 Jesus explains the incongruity through an analogy: “No one puts a piece of unshrunk cloth on an old garment, for the patch tears away from the garment, and a worse tear is made.” A patch of new cloth will shrink when it becomes wet, pulling against the old, tattered material and worsening the tear. Jesus’ ministry, including his table fellowship with sinners, is not a patch added to the old garment of Judaistic legal piety. The kingdom introduces something radically new.

Verse 17 gives a second analogy: “Neither is new wine put into old wineskins. If it is, the skins burst and the wine is spilled and the skins are destroyed. But new wine is put into fresh wineskins, and so both are preserved.” The new cloth becomes new wine, and the old garment becomes old wineskins. New wine continues to ferment and expand. Old skins have lost their elasticity and cannot contain it; they burst, destroying both the skins and the wine.

The imagery of wine adds the note of joy. Psalm 104:15 says that God gave “wine to gladden the heart of man.” Wine belongs to feasting and celebration rather than to fasting, mourning, and gloom. Jesus’ gospel of the kingdom is the new wine, and Jesus himself is the Bridegroom whose presence makes the feast possible.

The stories in Matthew 8–9 provide glimpses of what it means for Jesus to bring the kingdom to his people. His is a spiritual kingdom of salvation. The forgiveness of sins is visibly symbolized by healing, and fellowship with God is visibly symbolized by Jesus eating with repentant sinners. Because the new wine has arrived, it must find expression in forms of spirituality and piety suited to it. Instead of legalistic fasting, there is messianic feasting. The decisive matter is not the flawless performance of rituals but a right relationship with God through fellowship with Christ.

The New Covenant Atmosphere of Joy

This passage teaches a fundamental difference between the old covenant and the new. The Old Testament saints lived in the time of promise; we live in the time of fulfillment. The hymn “O Come, O Come, Emmanuel” captures the posture of Israel awaiting the Messiah:

O come, O come, Emmanuel, And ransom captive Israel, That mourns in lonely exile here Until the Son of God appear.

“Mourns in lonely exile” captures the atmosphere of the old covenant people, especially after the exile and before Christ’s coming. Christians, however, do not live in that time of waiting. The messianic Bridegroom has come. Gloomy, legalistic fasting is therefore as incongruous as new wine in old wineskins or an unshrunk patch on an old garment.

The gospel of the kingdom breathes an atmosphere of joy, celebration, and feasting. Fasting, mourning, doom, gloom, sackcloth, and ashes should not dominate Christian piety. Christians must confess their sins, but confession does not require morose introspection or fearful self-examination that continually doubts whether God has accepted us. The Bridegroom is here. The prevailing note of new covenant piety is joyful celebration because the Messiah has come and welcomes sinners to his table.

If Christians fast during this age, they must do so in a way suited to this fulfilled reality. Fasting cannot retain the old covenant character of lament, nor can it be a means of afflicting oneself to become acceptable to God or to prepare for the Messiah’s first coming. It must be reshaped by the deep and unquenchable joy of Christ’s presence.

This paragraph is not primarily a manual about fasting. It belongs to Matthew’s larger presentation of Jesus’ person and kingdom. Matthew frames chapters 5–9 with nearly identical summaries in 4:23 and 9:35: Jesus goes throughout Galilee, teaching in the synagogues, proclaiming the gospel of the kingdom, and healing every disease and affliction among the people.

Every scene supplies a picture of the kingdom. The kingdom is like being raised from the dead. It is the forgiveness of sins and the cleansing of the leper, who was once alienated from covenant fellowship but is restored to God’s people. It is the stilling of the storm, the casting out of demons, and fellowship at Christ’s table. This passage adds another image: the kingdom is a glorious wedding feast, filled with the new wine of Christ’s presence.

These stories reveal who Jesus is and what his gospel brings. Before considering practical applications, we must receive their central summons: believe in Christ. He eats and drinks with sinners, forgives sins, heals the sick, and gives the new wine of the kingdom so that his people may rejoice in him.

Celebrating the Lord’s Supper

The first application concerns the Lord’s Supper. The preceding account of tax collectors enjoying table fellowship with Christ provides a fitting analogy for the sacrament. That banquet was not itself the Lord’s Supper, but it gives us a picture of what the Supper signifies: forgiven sinners welcomed into fellowship with Christ.

Paul’s teaching about self-examination in 1 Corinthians 11 can be misunderstood in a way that makes the Supper gloomy and mournful. He writes:

Whoever eats the bread or drinks the cup of the Lord in an unworthy manner will be guilty concerning the body and blood of the Lord. Let a person examine himself, then, and so eat of the bread and drink of the cup.

Self-examination is necessary, but Paul is not commanding believers to compile an exhaustive inventory of every sin or to determine whether their repentance is perfect. His warning addresses the Corinthians’ abuse of the Supper as an ordinary feast at which some ate to excess and became drunk. They failed to discern the body of Christ and the sacramental character of the meal.

For this reason, Paul quotes Christ’s words of institution and repeats the command, “Do this in remembrance of me,” with respect to both the bread and the cup. The Supper is not an ordinary meal intended merely to fill the stomach. It brings Christ’s atoning death to remembrance and identifies communicants with him. To eat the bread and drink the cup is to confess that his body was broken and his blood poured out for the forgiveness of sins.

Paul requires self-examination so that believers discern the body rightly, not so that they rake themselves over the coals in dark introspection. The Lord’s Supper should not resemble a funeral. It is a joyful feast with the risen Lord—a means of grace, not a means of guilt. Jesus gives himself as the new wine of the kingdom. The sacrament he instituted to remember his atoning death should therefore gladden the hearts of his people.

Prayer and Fasting

The second application concerns prayer and fasting. Scripture often connects these practices. The aged Anna worshiped in the temple “with fasting and prayer,” and Paul and Barnabas appointed elders in every church “with prayer and fasting.” The New Testament contains examples of fasting, but it never commands Christians to fast. The only explicit command to fast in the whole Bible belongs to the old covenant Day of Atonement, when Israel was required to afflict itself once a year.

In Matthew 6, Jesus addresses the central practices of Jewish piety: almsgiving, prayer, and fasting. He gives extensive positive instruction concerning prayer, including the Lord’s Prayer. His instruction about fasting is brief and negative:

When you fast, do not look gloomy like the hypocrites, for they disfigure their faces that their fasting may be seen by others. But when you fast, anoint your head and wash your face, that your fasting may not be seen by others but by your Father who is in secret.

Jesus warns his disciples not to fast hypocritically, but he does not command them to take up fasting. Paul commands Christians to “pray without ceasing,” but never commands them to fast. At the same time, Jesus’ statement that the disciples will fast after the Bridegroom is taken away indicates that fasting may have a place in the new covenant age. Many Christians throughout church history have found prayer and fasting spiritually helpful. Those who have found it helpful may continue, while those who have not should not imagine that they are disobedient or spiritually deficient.

The purpose of Christian fasting is to devote oneself more fully to prayer. Calvin wrote that fasting “is of no importance in itself” except insofar as it enables believers to be more alert for prayer (Institutes 4.12.16). Abstaining from food possesses no inherent spiritual value and does not make anyone holier or nearer to God. Its value lies only in helping a Christian pray with greater alertness and focus.

First Peter 4:7 supports this principle: “Be self-controlled and sober-minded for the sake of your prayers.” Fasting is one possible exercise of self-control and sobriety in an area easily given to excess. Eating less for a time may help a person give undistracted attention to prayer. The focus remains prayer, not deprivation.

Fasting is wrong when it is practiced to hasten the Messiah’s coming, attain salvation or assurance, mortify the flesh through bodily suffering, or make oneself more holy. The monastic community of Mount Athos offers a modern example of rigorous fasting and harsh treatment of the body pursued as a means of drawing nearer to God. Paul warns against this approach in Colossians 2:23: “These have indeed an appearance of wisdom in promoting self-made religion and asceticism and severity to the body, but they are of no value in stopping the indulgence of the flesh.”

Sin is a problem of the heart. Abstaining from food for long periods and treating the body harshly cannot cure it. Fasting practiced as asceticism is therefore misguided. Fasting practiced voluntarily to facilitate prayer may be beneficial, provided that it is undertaken within the joy of the new covenant and not treated as a divine command.

The principle may also extend beyond food. Each Christian can ask, “What distracts me spiritually and makes it more difficult to commune with Christ in prayer?” Television, films, video games, YouTube, social media, and endless internet scrolling can occupy the mind and crowd out prayer. Some believers may find it helpful occasionally to abstain from the internet or another distraction in order to devote that time and attention to prayer. This is a matter of Christian freedom and individual conscience, not a requirement imposed on the authority of God’s Word.

Whatever form such abstinence takes, it must reflect the age in which we live. Christians do not mourn in lonely exile as though Christ had not come. We joyfully fellowship with the Bridegroom. The Christian life is not fundamentally characterized by sorrow, sackcloth and ashes, laments, and fastings, but by the joy of sinners invited to feast with Jesus in his kingdom. As Paul says in Romans 14:17, “The kingdom of God is not a matter of eating and drinking but of righteousness and peace and joy in the Holy Spirit.”