BURSTING!

Christianity is new wine! Jesus himself says that you can't put new wine into old wineskins without there being a bursting of the wineskins... the new doesn't mix with the old. Jesus is the new and cannot be integrated into or contained within the old. Initially, the old is a reference to the religion of the Pharisees, but it applies to all religions or strategies of self salvation. Jesus is saying: “I am going to bring an end to religion, but I myself will be destroyed in the process, only then will the new come". On the cross, religion is ended “once and for all” - the bursting takes place there - as Jesus is completely destroyed. It is from the cross that the new wine of grace flows.

Religion is ended in us when our whole approach to self, to God, to religion, to everything we have done is changed - until the "old” in us is burst by the new wine that Jesus brings!

Yours in Christ
Gavin