Bible Questions and Answers

What is the meaning of the old and new wine skins?

Mark 2:22 And no one puts new wine into old wineskins; or else the new wine bursts the wineskins, the wine is spilled, and the wineskins are ruined. But new wine must be put into new wineskins.

Before the invention of glass bottles wine was put into containers made of animal skins. New skins could expand as the wine fermented and so be unlikely to burst. If new (fermenting) wine was put into used (fully expanded) wine skins, then the fermentation would burst the skins and the wine would be lost.

Jesus uses this practice to illustrate the folly of trying to incorporate the teachings of the New Covenant into those of the Old Covenant.

Because of Israel’s disobedience God had promised a New Covenant. Jeremiah 31:31-34

This New Covenant was ratified by the sacrifice of Christ and entered into by baptism for the remission of sins as the writer to the Hebrews explains in Hebrews 8:8-13. Jesus is the mediator of the New Covenant. Hebrews 12:24

The Old Covenant required male circumcision and obedience to the Law given through Moses. The New Covenant requires baptism by immersion in water and obedience to the commandments of Christ.

The Jews found the change hard to accept – hence the parable of wine in old and new wineskins.

I hope you find this helpful.

God bless,
Glenn