Time cyclically dulls our memories. This gap in remembrance occurs over centuries, decades, or even weeks. We lapse into a Pharisaical understanding of faith and find ourselves settling for the old wine of works instead of the new wine of the gospel. We are also offended by Jesus forgiving sins (Mark 2:7), eating with tax collectors and sinners (Mark 2:16), his disciples’ lack of religious observance like fasting (Mark 2:18), or plucking grain on the sabbath (Mark 2:24). The religious gatekeepers in the reformation era were offended by scripture being available in the common language and relinquishing their authority to Christ.
Reformation New Wine
The new wine of Christ, crucified and resurrected, is poured fresh and anew into the old wineskins of our expectations, and the results are explosive. The reformation was such a rediscovery with implications still felt today. Indulgences and meritorious works had become commonplace while the church became the intermediary between the ordinary person and God. Years of observance, tradition, and ignorance aged the wineskins of society. The reformers poured the new wine of the solas, and the church still feels the ripple effects.
Just as the reformers came along and identified how the church’s practices had veered away from the scriptural realities of justification by faith alone, we must examine current church practices to see where we are operating counterintuitively to the gospel. The new wine is perpetually ready to do its exploding work.
An Old, New Wine
While protestants are in doctrinal alignment with sola fide, we still tend to hand out prescriptions to treat the symptoms of our sin sickness. Spiritual disciplines and experiences have become the new indulgences. Spiritual disciplines are a good thing, but they are not a justifying thing. They do not impact our standing before God. Spiritual experiences can be incredible, but they can also be incredibly misleading. Experiences have ebbs and flows, and we must weigh them against scripture.
God has promised that He would continuously work in the bread and the wine for the forgiveness of sins (Matthew 26:28). The proclaimed gospel and the sins forgiven in the body and blood of Christ broken for sinners should explode the old wineskins of our misguided drifting to merit each time we receive the Lord’s supper and hear the good news heralded. These basic paradigms of Christianity are the old, new wine that shatters our illusions of faith by works.
Tasting New wine
Jesus’s offensive statement that we must eat His body and drink His blood to have eternal life was a new wine many of His followers’ wineskins could not contain. Modern reformation can only happen when we embrace this scandalously meritless and merciful promise (John 6:54).
The goodness of the good news is so powerful that it is unbelievable, except by faith. Many cannot accept that salvation rests entirely outside themselves, their effort, or their performance. The new wine of Christ’s all-sufficient, atoning sacrifice tastes off to our pseudo-connoisseur palates.
Our quest for a massive outpouring of religious fervor is an exercise in frivolity. Such an awakening cannot be manufactured by increased spiritual grit (disciplines) or the sweeping emotional movements we’ve become adept at creating. Instead, all we have to do is pour out the gospel and watch as any expectation that doesn’t align explodes.