Matthew 9:16-17

Matthew 9:16-17

[16] No man  putteth  a piece  of new  cloth  unto  an old  garment,  for  that which is put in to fill it up  taketh  from  the garment,  and  the rent  is made  worse.  [17] Neither  do men put  new  wine  into  old  bottles:  else  the bottles  break,  and  the wine  runneth out,  and  the bottles  perish:  but  they put  new  wine  into  new  bottles,  and  both  are preserved. 

What does Matthew 9:16-17 Mean?

Contextual Meaning

The meaning of the second illustration is clear enough ( Matthew 9:16). The third may need some comment ( Matthew 9:17). Old wine containers made out of animal skins eventually became hard and brittle. New wine that continued to expand as it fermented would burst the inflexible old wineskins. New wineskins were still elastic enough to stretch with the expanding new wine.
The point of these two illustrations was that Jesus could not patch or pour His new ministry into old Judaism. The Greek word translated "old" ( Matthew 9:16-17) is palaios and means not only old but worn out by use. Judaism had become inflexible due to the accumulation of centuries of non-biblical traditions. Jesus was going to bring in a kingdom that did not fit the preconceptions of most of His contemporaries. They misunderstood and misapplied the Old Testament, and particularly the messianic and kingdom prophecies. Jesus" ministry did not fit into the traditional ideas of Judaism. Moreover it was wrong to expect that His disciples would fit into these molds. Jesus used two different Greek words for "new" in Matthew 9:17. Neos means recent in time, and kainos means a new kind. The messianic kingdom would be new both in time and in kind.
In the second and third illustrations, which advance the revelation of the first, the old cloth and wineskins perish. Jesus" kingdom would terminate Judaism that had served its purpose.
John the Baptist belonged to the old order. His disciples, therefore, should have left him and joined the Groom. Unless they did they would not participate in the kingdom (cf. Acts 19:1-7).
"In his characteristic style Matthew here hints that another new age will be brought in if the kingdom comes or not. This may be the first intimation of the church age in Matthew"s Gospel." [1]
The point of this incident in Matthew"s story seems to be that disciples of Jesus need to recognize that following Him will involve new methods of serving God. The old Jewish forms passed away with the coming of Jesus, and His disciples now serve under a new covenant with new structures and styles of ministry, compared to the old order.