Luke 5:39

Luke 5:39. And no man having drank old wine desireth new; for he saith, The old is good. Some authorities read ‘better' (as in E. V.); a reading due to an attempt to explain the sense. This verse gives completeness to our Lord's discourse and contains the final answer to the objection raised in Luke 5:33. There is no comparison between the relative excellence of new and old wine, but simply a statement of the wish (‘desireth') of one accustomed to drinking old wine. The one accustomed to the old wine, says: the old is pleasant, good enough for me, I have no desire to try the new. This is precisely the attitude of a false conservatism. The original application to the objectors was intended by our Lord mainly for the instruction of His own disciples, to show ‘how natural it was that disciples of John and of the Pharisees could not bring themselves to give up the old forms and ordinances, which had become dear to them, and to substitute the new life according to His principles' (Meyer). The ‘old' throughout is what is Jewish; the ‘new,' what is distinctively Christian, the grace and freedom of the gospel. The first disciples, as Jews, were not ready at once to relish the new wine. The warning against bringing legalism into the gospel is contained in all the accounts; but here we have a much needed admonition to patience. Even if men oppose the new and the true, because they are content with the old, and will not take the trouble to examine what is new, much less to recognize any excellence in it, let us not grow weary. ‘ Romans 14 contains the best practical commentary on this word of the Lord.'