The New Way of Fasting in the New Covenant Era

Have you ever read Mark 2:18–22 and scratched your head wondering what on earth Jesus is talking about? I have. Repeatedly. What do his illustrations illustrate? What's with these garments and wineskins? Why does Jesus give us these illustrations when he speaks of fasting? And what do they mean? How do they apply?

Some scholars, sensing a disconnect, suggest that verses 21–22 didn't originally belong with verses 18–20, or that perhaps they ought to be taken as an independent bit of instruction. But such suggestions undoubtedly miss Jesus' point, miss the connection, misunderstanding biblical theology, the gospel of the kingdom, and the nature and relation of the covenants. And so we need not posit the kinds of things scholars are apt to posit when they cannot see how a passage hangs together.

Furthermore, some scholars, who grant a connection, think the old is Judaism, and the new is Christianity. Though there is undoubtedly some truth to this, inasmuch as Judaism was a way of practicing the old in the first century when Jesus gave this instruction, yet it focuses too narrowly on one slice of what Jesus is addressing. John and his disciples are also part of the old (v. 18), however we understand the old. And John and his disciples, we have no reason to doubt, practiced, more or less, old covenant spirituality, and did so in a way that was no doubt God-glorifying. So they point to some practices that align more nearly with faithful old covenant spirituality. But Jesus, to whom John points, goes beyond old covenant spirituality, and supersedes it. And thus viewing the old as narrowly referring to the Judaism of the first century doesn't quite seem to get at the contrast between the new that Jesus' brings over against the old that's gone before.

So here's how I think it works. The illustrations of verses 21 and 22 seem clear enough. The new cannot be put on the old; the new does not fit into the old. The new rips the old; the new bursts the old. The new in some sense is distinct from the old. That's plain. Isn't it? But what's not as plain is how these illustrations illuminate how we're to practice fasting—and, particularly, fasting in the new covenant era.

So, how shall we understand these illustrations with respect to fasting in the new covenant era? Well, I think I've finally understood Jesus, after years of head scratching, and here's my attempt to answer the question. Think it over, and you judge for yourself whether or not you think I've got it right.

You cannot fast the way the saints fasted in the old covenant era. That fasting did not focus on the Bridegroom the way fasting in the new covenant era does. "The days will come when the bridegroom is taken away from them, and then they will fast in that day" (v. 20, italics mine). Is this simply saying that disciples will resume fasting again? No, no. That misses the new element. Fasting in the era of the new covenant purchased with Jesus' blood is Christ-centered. It's oriented on the gospel of the kingdom, a kingdom that dawned in the coming of the incarnate King, a kingdom that comes in all its fullness in his coming again in glory with the holy angels.

So fasting after Christ's first coming longs for Jesus' return. It yearns for the King to bring the kingdom in all its glorious fulness (Matt. 6:10). It strives for God's will to be done on earth as it is being done in heaven (Matt. 6:10). It wants—more than it wants anything—for God's name in Christ to be hallowed and adored and praised and blessed and esteemed above all else (Matt. 6:9). And it pants after the river of God's pleasures that passes through the new Jerusalem (Rev. 22:1–2; Ps. 36:8–9), that is, for God's Spirit poured out in fullness in a new heavens and new earth.

Fasting in the old covenant era did not look like this. And so the new way of fasting, if it does not go beyond the garments and containers of the old, rips and bursts the old. The old is old: it cannot wear the new, cannot contain the new. The new is new: it needs new garments, needs new wineskins. The glory of gospel garments far exceeds the glory of the old garb. The glory of gospel fine wine far exceeds the glory of the old wine. The old had glory; but the new far greater glory. And so it must go on in a new way, a new and living way, centering on Jesus, focusing on the his coming kingdom, longing for the fullness of his fellowship. Having been given the engagement ring in the gift of the Spirit, the new way of fasting longs for that Wedding of all weddings.

We might even be able to extrapolate and make applications more broadly to spiritual disciplines generally: the spiritual disciplines of the old covenant era cannot wear or carry the spiritual disciplines of the new. Christ's coming changes everything. The old had its place in God's plan. And it still does, as it continues to point forward to the realities of the new, as it continues to provide the categories for embracing the King and his new covenant kingdom. But now, with the cataclysmic coming of the new age into and driving out the old, the new age and her crowned King must be the center of all our devotion.

"Then they will fast in that day" (Mark 2:20). Now is "that day." Now is the day of salvation. Now is on the edge of eternity. So come, Lord Jesus. Come! For you we wait. For you alone we long. For your glory we pray. Sweep us off our feet, and take us over the threshold of the new Jerusalem into the everlasting kingdom of God. Forever, and ever. Allelujah! Maranatha!

The High Christology of James

In Jas. 1:1, James is a slave both of God and of the Lord Jesus Christ. In the same breath, he tells us—on the face of it—that his bondservice to Jesus Christ is one and the same as his bondservice to God. And so without making any distinctions here (other than that two distinct persons are in view), James puts the Lord Jesus Christ on the same plane with the God of Judaism and the Hebrew Bible.

James, as a Palestinian Jew conversant with the Septuagint (he cites it routinely: see, e.g., Jas. 4:6 GNT and cf. the LXX and MT), knew of course that the designation κύριος was used throughout the Septuagint to translate the divine name, YHWH. And of course, as a leader of the early church, he also took part in confessing Jesus as Lord of all in the fullest sense. And so this is high Christology indeed, despite what many have said of James’ lack of Christology.

Paul Raw

Speaking of the Corinthian correspondence:

No part of the Pauline corpus more clearly illuminates the character of Paul the man, Paul the Christian, Paul the pastor, and Paul the apostle than do these epistles. He thereby leaves us some substance in his invitation to imitate him, and thereby imitate Christ (1 Cor. 11:1). 

—D. A. Carson and Douglas J. Moo, An Introduction to the New Testament, 2nd ed. (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 2005), 450.

The Message of the Whole Bible

Many scholars, as many of you are no doubt familiar, have proposed a "center" to the whole Bible. There is nothing like consensus in this matter, and many believe that the attempt to find a unifying center is the errand of folly.

Well, here goes my tentative junior attempt at suggesting a unifying center for the whole Bible:

The Bible, both the Old and New Testaments together, narrates and declares the grace-filled good news of the new creation kingdom of God, promised and fulfilled in King Jesus, the Son of God, as crucified and risen, and in his redeemed people, by the Spirit of God—all to the glory of God the Father, who is all in all. 

Dealing with the Old Testament in Isolation from the New

In his influential popular-level book According to Plan, Graeme Goldsworthy comments on an unhappy development in Old Testament Studies:

Over the years Christian scholars have developed specialization in either Old or New Testament studies. The trend has been toward a study of the Old Testament in and of itself. This is not a Christian approach to the matter. Christians in increasing numbers have written books on the Old Testament, which hardly even mention the fact that the New Testament exists. It has become a common feature of theological and Bible college curricula that the Old Testament is dealt with in complete isolation from the New Testament. 

So he concludes: "There seems to be a failure in allowing the New Testament to determine how we relate the Old Testament to Christ."

This is lamentable. And of this tendency and failure there needs to be repentance.

Not So Fast

J. I. Packer:

"The conclusions supposed to have been established by last-century biblical criticism were really the presuppositions on which it was based. Therefore they cannot be held to have been proved by biblical criticism at all."

—J. I. Packer, Honouring the Written Word of God: Collected Shorter Writings on the Authority and Interpretation of Scripture (Vancoover: Regent College Publishing, 1999), 54–55.

A Narrative Reading of the Longer Ending of Mark's Gospel

Here is another paper I produced at Wheaton College, this time for a class on New Testament criticism under Professor Nick Perrin. It seems like an appropriate post for holy week.

Introduction

I am not a King-James-only Christian (though I have a high regard for the King James Version). I embrace, by and large, the approach to textual criticism called “reasoned eclecticism.” And yet I shall argue that the long ending (LE) of Mark 16 is at least as likely the original ending to Mark’s Gospel as is the short ending (SE), and slightly to be favored, given the present evidence, on the grounds of external evidence and literary-critical analysis.[1] Delving into the literature on Mark’s ending, one immediately faces bewilderment, not unlike that of the disciples, not only over the complexity of the matter, but also over the varieties of opinions and, even more, over the lofty pontifications of many, all the while standing on a great deal of speculation, guesswork, and uncertainty. Possessing only fragments of the total evidence, dogmatic assertions of one view as solely plausible seem a bit much. We are dealing in probabilities. So I shall speak of probabilities, confessing the tentativeness of my own conclusions at this beginning point of entering the fray of Mark 16 debates. 

Far Too Easily Pleased

C. S. Lewis:

The New Testament has lots to say about self-denial, but not about self-denial as an end in itself. We are told to deny ourselves and to take up our crosses in order that we may follow Christ; and nearly every description of what we shall ultimately find if we do so contains an appeal to desire. If there lurks in most modern minds the notion that to desire our own good and earnestly to hope for the enjoyment of it is a bad thing, I submit that this notion has crept in from Kant and the Stoics and is no part of the Christian faith. Indeed, if we consider the unblushing promises of reward and the staggering nature of the rewards promised in the Gospels, it would seem that our Lord finds our desires not too strong, but too weak. We are half-hearted creatures, fooling about with drink and sex and ambition when infinite joy is offered us, like an ignorant child who wants to go on making mud pies in a slum because he cannot imagine what is meant by the offer of a holiday at the sea. We are far too easily pleased.

—C. S. Lewis, The Weight of Glory (SanFrancisco: HarperCollines, 2001), 25–26.

The NT in a Flash

Andy Naselli, professor of NT and theology at Bethlehem College and Seminary, provides an  overview of the New Testament in ten minutes.

"Kingdom" as a Mere Adjective?

"There is nothing in the NT quite like the current infatuation for expressions like 'kingdom ethics,' in which 'kingdom' is reduced to a mere adjective."

—D. A. Carson, "Kingdom, Ethics, and Individual Salvation," Themelios 38.2 (2013): 197-201.

Dating the Gospels and Spiritual Warfare

Peter Leithart:

As with the synoptic problem as a whole, the issue of dating is ultimately a spiritual battle. Consider: If the gospels are written shortly after Jesus dies and rises again, by eyewitnesses, are you inclined to believe them? What if they are written fifty years after Jesus, by people who never knew Jesus Himself? Are you as likely to believe the gospels then? The further away the gospels are from the events of Jesus' life, death, and resurrection, the less reliable they seem.

—The Four: A Survey of the Gospels (Moscow, ID: Canon Press, 2010), 104.

The Synoptic Problem, Questioning Q, and Satan

Peter Leithart:

If the view of the church fathers explains the gospels, and does so fairly simply, why do scholars have to invent a complicated "synoptic problem" and resolve it with a mythical document called "Q"? 

There are many answers to that question, but at base the answer is that much of modern New Testament scholarship is a Satanic attack on the truth and reliability of the gospel of Jesus. . . . This is not to say that New Testament scholars themselves are demonic. They aren't. But New Testament scholarship is an arena of spiritual battle, where we fight not against flesh and blood but against principalities and powers and rulers of wickedness. 

—The Four: A Survey of the Gospels (Moscow, ID: Canon Press, 2010), 101.

A Panorama of Romans

Here's my tentative summary of Romans in broad outline:

Romans 1-4: The Gospel of God's Justification of the Ungodly by Faith Alone
Romans 5-8: The Gospel of Sharing in God's Glory Assured in God's Son
Romans 9-11: The Gospel of God's Unfailing Covenant Faithfulness Vindicated
Romans 12-16: The People of the Gospel of God Conformed to God's Son

Tom Wright, Toddlers, and Epistemology

N. T. Wright's first volume of a projected six-volume work called The New Testament and the People of God is organized in five parts.  Part I is the introduction and deals with Christian origins and the New Testament.  Part II is entitled "Tools for the Task."  In it Wright discusses four areas: first, knowledge and its problems and varieties; second, literature, story, and the articulation of worldviews; third, history and the first century; and fourth, theology, authority, and the New Testament.  Part III is labeled "First-Century Judaism within the Greco-Roman World," Part IV "The First Christian Century," and Part V "Conclusion." 

Thus far I've only gotten into the front end of Part II, and it is proving to be fruitful and stimulating reading.  Wright writes a lot of sensible and salutary stuff, but I'm left feeling a little like his discussions are (perhaps) a wee bit too controlled by his and related academic disciplines.  I may be able to say more on this in a later post, particularly with regard to epistemology.  But I have to see first how Wright develops the epistemology that undergirds the Christian worldview for which he contends.  And I want to acknowledge lickety-split that any reflections and critique that I offer are admittedly from the standpoint of a toddler standing in awe with wonder at a father's understanding of the world round about.  But toddlers still ask questions like, "But what about this, daddy?  And, why do you say that?"

New Testament Theology Center

Many have proposed a center for New Testament Theology.  Professor G. K. Beale's proposal embraces a great deal of revelation and appears to be as good as any proposal.  It is roughly this, stated in my own words:  The life, death, resurrection, and bestowal of the Spirit of Jesus Christ gave birth to the eschatalogical new creation--to the praise of the glory of God's grace.  What is not embraced here?