“No one sews a piece of unshrunk cloth on an old garment; or else the new piece pulls away from the old, and the tear is made worse. 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.” Mk.2:21,22
Jesus did not come to patch up the Old Covenant. He brought in a brand-new garment; not a stitch job on the former. Secondly, Jesus did not come to fit into the old system, but tocleanlyreplace it. As the new wine He is too powerful and vibrant to be confined by the old. In both cases the message is this - if you mingle these two realities (Old and New Covenant); you end up ruining the whole lot. It is like mixing diesel with regular gas in one's car; we will only sputter at best. The New Covenant is not God’s attempt to mix Christ and the law into a workable program, as the church so often tries to do. It is a radical new arrangement which replaces law with the Person and power of the resurrected Christ.
It is harder than most of us realize to fully let go of a law-based approach to spirituality. Our flesh naturally gravitates towards those approaches to spiritually that encourage at least some reliance on self. A blend of God helping us and us helping God is both reasonable and enticing to our fallen nature. It enables us to at least partially share credit with God for any spiritual success. Most of all, it keeps our pride at least somewhat intact. It is concerning this very issue that Paul writes to the Galatians, “A little leaven leavens the whole lump.” Gal.5:9 In other words, we must make an absolutely clean break from law-based spirituality (Old Covenant) or suffer significant spiritual consequences. We can have Christ, or we can have law; but we can’t have both. Jonathan Edwards puts it so well:
“It is in and by Christ that we have righteousness: it is by being in him that we are justified, have our sins pardoned, and are received as righteous into God’s favour. It is by Christ that we have sanctification: we have in him true excellency of heart as well as of understanding; and he is made unto us inherent as well as imputed righteousness. It is by Christ that we have redemption, or the actual deliverance from all misery, and the bestowment of all happiness and glory. Thus we have all our good by Christ, who is God.”
Notice - please notice - his statement, “It is by Christ that we have sanctification: we have in him true excellency of heart as well as of understanding; and he is made unto us inherent as well as imputed righteousness.” He’s exactly right. All of our spiritual good is by Christ. Period. By the way, do you know the title of the sermon in which these words by Edwards were preached? “God Glorified in Man’s Dependence.” The reason dependency matters so desperately much is foremost because of what it does for God, not us. What it does for His name, His glory, His stunning majesty.
Flashpoint: The New Covenant is designed so that all the good comes from Christ; therefore, all the glory goes to Christ.