Luke 5.
When Paul was reasoning about the sovereign mercy of God, he quoted what God spoke to Moses, "I will have mercy on whom I will have mercy, and I will have compassion on whom I will have compassion" (Rom. 9:15); and he wrote of God making "known the riches of His glory on the vessels of mercy, which He had afore prepared unto glory, even us, whom He hath called, not of the Jews only, but also of the Gentiles" (Rom. 9:23-24). In Luke 5 we have the Lord speaking of new wine being put into new bottles, which illustrates what we have in Romans 9. In Romans 9, the vessels are prepared for glory, but in Luke 5 they are formed to receive the new wine that God has now given in His grace.
The first incident in Luke 5 concerns the effect of the great draught of fishes on Simon Peter. The apostle to the circumcision was not only a great servant of the Lord, he was also a vessel of mercy prepared for glory, a new bottle prepared of the Lord to receive the new wine. From the lips of Simon Peter we learn of the kind of material with which the Lord works to form His new vessels, for Peter said, "I am a sinful man, O Lord." Such is the mercy of God that He takes up sinful men to transform them into vessels suited to receive His grace, and display His glory in the coming day.
There were no other kind of men in this world that God could take up, for all were like Simon Peter, full of sin. Each man is born in sin, and every one is a sinner by practice; and Simon's description of himself was a perfect description of every other man. But that day, the glory of the Lord gave Simon to see what kind of man he was: and every one that God takes up for blessing must be brought into the light of God's presence, which exposes to him what a sinner he is, but the same light also reveals the goodness of God, and the mercy that takes away all our sins.
Following the incident of the draught of fishes is that of the leprous man, who fell at Jesus' feet and said. "Lord, if Thou wilt, Thou canst make me clean." Leprosy is a well-known type of sin in Scripture; and here is a man who is full of it, but who desires to be clean. He knew the Lord had the ability to cleanse him, hence the expression of his desire. In richest grace the Lord touched the defiled leper, saying, "I will; be thou clean." and immediately the leprosy departed from him.
Is not this the kind of man to whom the Lord shows mercy? One who realises what a vile sinner he is, the inward springs of his being utterly defiled, and the sentence of death resting upon him. Nothing but the Lord's intervention in grace and power can help him, but the desire that the sense of the Lord's goodness brings into the heart finds an answer in the word of the Lord that brings divine cleansing. This divine work within us is the cleansing of which the Lord speaks in John 3:5, "born of water and of the Spirit," and by the word of the Lord there is the formation of the new vessel that can enter into the things of God, or, as it is spoken by the Lord in this chapter, that can receive the new wine.
When the palsied man was brought in his bed before the Lord, the first thing the Lord says to him is, "Man, thy sins are forgiven thee." The vessels of mercy could not enjoy the wondrous blessings that grace brings to them so long as the question of their guilt is on the conscience. Like every sinner who is brought into the presence of the Lord, this poor man was utterly helpless, he could do nothing to take away his sins, or the helplessness that his sinnership revealed.
The blessed Lord deals with the cause of the helplessness first of all in speaking to him of his sins. But the Lord is not fastening his sins upon him, He is releasing him from them. The scribes and Pharisees were right in thinking that only God could take away sins by forgiving them, but they had not eyes to see that it was God incarnate who was present before them. Governmental forgiveness might be committed to Simon Peter, to the apostles of the Lord, and to the assembly, but only God had power to forgive in an absolute way man's guilt, and this based on the work of the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ, for "without the shedding of blood there is no remission."
Having spoken of the forgiveness of his sins, the Lord said to the paralytic. "Arise, and take up thy couch, and go into thine house," and with the word of the Lord there was the divine power to enable the man to do what the Lord commanded. So it is with those the Lord has made vessels of mercy, new vessels that can enjoy the rich blessings of the kingdom, and who have power to realise the truth of, "the kingdom of God is not meat and drink: but righteousness, and peace, and joy in the Holy Ghost" (Rom. 14:17).
The new vessel that has been formed and cleansed, and that knows the blessedness of sins forgiven, must have an object for the heart, and an example to follow, and this is brought before us in what the Lord says to Levi. Hitherto he had been engrossed with the things of this world, "sitting at the receipt of custom." In Levi's case, money constantly engaged his attention, it was his business, and many, who have had other business, have made the making of money one of their chief objects in life. But this is not the kind of object that God would have His new vessels filled with; so the Lord calls to "Follow Me."
What a wonderful object God has given us in His own Son, an object to fill the heart with delight, and that gives the one occupied with Him the privilege of coming out like Him in testimony before the world. Our Object is no longer on earth, He is now on the throne of God in heaven, God's glory shining in His face, and the word of God tells us that "we all, with unveiled face, beholding the glory of the Lord, are changed into the same image, from glory to glory" (2 Cor. 3:18).
But the Lord is also an Example for us to follow, as is written by the Apostle Peter, "For even hereunto were ye called; because Christ also suffered for us, leaving us an example, that ye should follow His steps" (1 Peter 2:21). No other example will do for the Christian, saving as they also follow Christ, as Paul wrote, "Brethren, be followers together of me, even as I also am of Christ" (1 Cor. 11:1; Phil. 3:17). Such as Paul can be examples for us, if they are followers of Christ, but they can never be an object for us; only Christ can be that.
When Levi was called, he "left all, rose up, and followed" Jesus. The attraction of Christ's Person, and the power of His word, caused him to "leave all" before he rose up. What had held his heart hitherto had lost its grip on him, and his life henceforth was to be following his Master, his Lord who had called him by His grace. Then Levi made a great feast for Jesus. The house of Levi became a feasting place, a place of joy, for the blessed Lord, and for those who loved His company.
What great pleasure the Lord has in the vessels He has made, and when they are filled with the new wine that He provides for them: and such was Levi. He was a true follower of the Lord, the One who has spread a feast for those who will accept His invitation. The self-righteous scribes and Pharisees could not understand why Jesus and His disciples could eat with publicans and sinners; but man in his natural condition, no matter how religious he may be, cannot enter into the joy that the Lord has in the company of those who are the recipients of His grace. They might murmur against the disciples of the Lord, but it was against the Lord that they really complained, not being able to enter into the joy of the Lord's presence, for they were not new bottles, and could not hold the new wine.
Christ's opponents could not apprehend why His disciples ate and drank, when John Baptist's disciples, and their own, fasted. The Lord then told them that His disciples feasted in His presence, but would fast in His absence. This is guidance for those who have been made new vessels, the true followers of the rejected Lord Jesus.
Those who are Christ's "disciples indeed," during His absence from this world, cannot feast in the presence of the world. It is ours to fast here, to refuse what sustains the life of man after the flesh, but to feed upon Christ in His own presence. Our joy is to be found in His own company, when we gather together to His Name, and along with those who fast in the world. but delight in Himself.
Followers of Christ have been provided with a new garment, a garment that is spoken of as "the best robe" (Luke 15:22), and "a wedding garment" (Matt. 22:11-12): the only kind of garment in which cleansed sinners can appear before a righteous and holy God. It is God's own righteousness that clothes us, and we have become God's righteousness in Christ. Alas, many attempt in divine things what they would not do in natural. They would not destroy a beautiful garment by taking a part out of it to patch up an old garment: yet this is what they are seeking to do with God's best robe. They know they are sinners, but will not admit they are incorrigible sinners and utterly unfit for God's presence. They want to appear before God in their own old garment of self-righteousness, patched up with something that God supplies.
Such an attitude is to destroy for themselves what God has provided. Moreover, God's best robe, even if but a little of it is seen, completely exposes the vile character of the self-righteousness of men. We must have what God offers in His grace, confessing what we are, like Simon Peter, and what we have done, like the Prodigal of Luke 15, and cast away the filthy garment of our own fancied righteousness.
The great truths brought by the Son of God into the world produced a new kind of joy, but these things were hid from the wise and the prudent, and revealed unto babes. Only those in whom God had wrought had the capacity for the divine revelations. Man after the flesh, though unable to keep the commandments of the law, could find his life and pleasure in Judaism, in the philosophies of men, and in the religions of the world, but he could not enter into that which came in the Lord Jesus Christ. The blessings of the kingdom of God, the truth of eternal life, and the knowledge of the Father, were all made known in the incarnate Son of God, but a new vessel was required if these truths were to be received, and God had to form these new bottles.
If any seek, in the flesh, the things of Christ, it is to their undoing, for they have not the capacity to receive them. Such were those of whom the writer to the Hebrews speaks in Heb. 6:4-8, and Heb. 10:26-29; they sought Christianity, had part in it, yet had not the divine nature to receive into the soul the divine blessings, and they apostatised to their utter ruin. The bottles were old, and they perished, and, so far as they were concerned, the blessings of Christianity were lost. Even where there is not apostasy, the mere professor will find, sooner or later, that what he has professed to hold has been lost, and he himself will perish.
It is natural for men to drink the "old wine," that which is pleasing to man in the flesh, the pleasures of this world, whether religious, social or of any other kind. The flesh within us has a taste for these things, and if we do go in for this world's pleasures, our taste for the things of the Lord will be vitiated. But the man of the world has no taste for the new wine, for this taste belongs to the new man, the new bottle, the Lord has formed. If we as Christians drink of the things of the world, we cannot expect to be in the full enjoyment of the blessings that God has given to us in Christ, the "pleasures for evermore" (Psalm 16:11).