Re: New wine into fresh wineskins
Posted: Thu Apr 22, 2021 8:43 am
I think the Parable of the Cloak and Wineskins is dealing with the topic we discussed here:Ben C. Smith wrote: ↑Tue Apr 20, 2021 5:28 pm The image of removing old garments and putting on new ones makes a lot of sense to me as a metaphor for the spiritual transformation which is supposed to happen at baptism. The image of not using a new patch on an old garment does not strike me in quite the same way; a new garment is not even mentioned. How do you think the image is supposed to work?
viewtopic.php?f=3&t=6530&start=10#p108549
The three passages from the Pauline corpus (Gal. 2.19-20, Rom. 6.1-10, Col. 3.5-10) I quoted in the OP are about how baptism and reception of the holy spirit are supposed to work. The man undergoes a spiritual (I think the secular equivalent would be ‘moral’) transformation in baptism, becoming a new man and having the holy spirit dwell in him. Paul is, in a way, a bad example, because he doesn’t seem to think there was anything morally wrong with him even before he became a new man, but that is how baptism is supposed to work for Christians in general. The passage from Colossians is hortatory, urging Christians to act in a particular way, but not necessarily implying that they will act that way.
In 1 Corinthians, Paul also urges the baptized Corinthians to behave in a way that is consistent with their new, washed selves, and not with their old selves:
9 Do you not know that wrongdoers will not inherit the kingdom of God? Do not be deceived! Fornicators, idolaters, adulterers, male prostitutes, sodomites, 10 thieves, the greedy, drunkards, revilers, robbers—none of these will inherit the kingdom of God. 11 And this is what some of you used to be. But you were washed, you were sanctified, you were justified in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ and in the Spirit of our God. (1 Cor. 6.9-11)
Not everyone, however, behaves as Paul would wish, such as the man or men who are having sex with prostitutes even though they have the holy spirit living inside them:
15 Do you not know that your bodies are members of Christ? Should I therefore take the members of Christ and make them members of a prostitute? Never! 16 Do you not know that whoever is united to a prostitute becomes one body with her? For it is said, “The two shall be one flesh.” 17 But anyone united to the Lord becomes one spirit with him. 18 Shun fornication! Every sin that a person commits is outside the body; but the fornicator sins against the body itself. 19 Or do you not know that your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit within you, which you have from God, and that you are not your own? 20 For you were bought with a price; therefore glorify God in your body. (1 Cor. 6.15-20)
The act of fornication is not only sinful in itself, but they are bringing the holy spirit into contact with prostitutes.
Even worse is the man who is having sex with his stepmother. In that case, the man is not just called to repent, but he is un-churched and, I would argue, un-baptized. The Corinthian church is to reclaim the holy spirit that the man received in baptism (‘so that the spirit may be saved’) and expel the man from their community:
5 It is actually reported that there is sexual immorality among you, and of a kind that is not found even among pagans; for a man is living with his father’s wife. 2 And you are arrogant! Should you not rather have mourned, so that he who has done this would have been removed from among you? 3 For though absent in body, I am present in spirit; and as if present I have already pronounced judgment 4 in the name of the Lord Jesus on the man who has done such a thing. When you are assembled, and my spirit is present with the power of our Lord Jesus, 5 you are to hand this man over to Satan for the destruction of the flesh, so that the [‘his’ in the NRSV] spirit may be saved in the day of the Lord. (1 Cor 5.1-5).
If this is not done it will harm the entire community through contagion:
6 Your boasting is not a good thing. Do you not know that a little yeast leavens the whole batch of dough? 7 Clean out the old yeast so that you may be a new batch, as you really are unleavened. For our paschal lamb, Christ, has been sacrificed. 8 Therefore, let us celebrate the festival, not with the old yeast, the yeast of malice and evil, but with the unleavened bread of sincerity and truth. (1 Cor. 5.6-8).
On my reading of the Parable of the Cloak and Wineskins, it is dealing with the issue of the Christian who fails to undergo spiritual transformation and become a new man in baptism. He receives the holy spirit, but continues to act as the ‘old man’ rather than the ‘new man’. He is a poor match for the holy spirit within him, and this means both that he may harm himself by committing an even greater sin and that the spirit (or his portion of it) might be jeopardized or lost:
21 “No one sews a piece of unshrunk cloth on an old cloak; otherwise, the patch pulls away from it, the new from the old, and a worse tear is made. 22 And no one puts new wine into old wineskins; otherwise, the wine will burst the skins, and the wine is lost, and so are the skins; but one puts new wine into fresh wineskins.” mark 2.21-22).
The parable is saying that baptism is only effective if the person undergoing it undergoes a spiritual transformation and becomes a new man. Putting the spirit in the old man, the same old sinful self, is asking for trouble.
Best,
Ken