We Drink Christ as our New Wine in the Church Life as the Fresh Wineskins Today

Christ is our new wine to be put into fresh wineskins; the church life today is the new wineskin into which Christ as the new and fresh wine can be contained, and together we are the Body of Christ, for we all have Christ in us as the new and fresh wine. Praise the Lord!

This week we have been enjoying many nuggets from the book of Matthew concerning Christ.

We saw that Christ is the great light shining in the darkness; He came not to judge or condemn others but to shine on them.

He shines in the darkness, and when He reaches us, He exposes and dispels any darkness, He brings in the light of life, and we are enlightened.

By enjoying Christ as the great light shining in the darkness, we become luminaries in this world, even those who bear the light before others, being one with Christ to shine Him to others.

Christ is the One who has authority and speaks the words of God with authority because He Himself was a man under authority.

Because He was under God as His authority, being submissive to God in all things, Christ could exercise God’s authority wherever He was, and others submitted to His authority.

If we today enthrone Christ in our being and set up His throne in the center of our being, we will have His authority, and our words will convey Him to others to bring them under God’s authority. Amen!

Christ is the Physician; He came to heal those who are sick, and He came to take care of us who are sick not only in our body but even more in our soul and spirit.

Our sickness can be healed only by Christ as our Physician; He came not to condemn us or judge us but to be a gentle Physician.

All the sick people in the Lord’s days on earth were drawn to Him, for He didn’t judge them but rather, they were pleased to be with Him, and He healed them not only in their body but even more in their soul and spirit.

Christ is the Bridegroom and we are prepared to be His bride.

He is our lovely Bridegroom, coming to court us and be the most wonderful Person toward us.

Through His incarnation and human living the Lord Jesus was the Bridegroom who came to court man and draw man to Himself.

We are all drawn to Him, we love Him, and we want to be His bride. Praise the Lord!

Christ is the unfulled cloth from His incarnation to His crucifixion who became the new garment for us to wear before God and in our daily living after His resurrection.

We cannot put a patch of unfulled cloth on an old garment; we cannot try to copy Christ in His human living without being one with Him and having Him as our new garment.

May we enjoy Him day by day and depend on Him in all things so that we may live Him out, express Him, and bear Him before others for them to see Christ in us.

Christ is our New Wine to be Put into Fresh Wineskins, the Church Life Today

In Matt. 9:17 we see that Christ is the new wine to be put into fresh wineskins.

The disciples of John thought they left the old religion of Judaism, but they actually created a new religion, and they were fasting, trying to patch the holes in their living with something from God – but this was not working.

The Lord told them further that people don’t put new wine into old wineskins, otherwise, the wineskins burst and the wine pours out and the wineskins are ruined.

People put new wine into fresh wineskins and both are preserved. The Lord Jesus is our new wine, and we cannot put Him into old wineskins.

The Greek word for “new” is neos, meaning “new in time, recent, newly possessed.”

Christ is the new wine – He is the new life, full of vigour, stirring people to excitement, and making people happy.

Christ’s life is a cheering life; He sacrificed Himself to the uttermost and His life cheers us to the uttermost.

When we have the divine life and enjoy it, we have cheering strength, and we are stirred up to be happy.

When we drink Christ as our new wine, we are strengthened, energized, and made happy.

However, the new wine cannot be put into old wineskins.

What are the old wineskins? The old wineskins are the old religion and any form of religion, such as fasting.

When we put Christ as the new wine into any form of religion, He bursts the religion open and the result is that both are wasted; Christ as our new wine needs to be put into fresh wineskins, something that is new and fresh, the church life.

The new wine needs a container. The new wine is filled with fermenting power; if it is put into an old wineskin, the fermenting power of the new wine will burst the old wineskin.

If we try to put Christ into any religious practice, Christ will burst it and cannot be contained by it.

We need to enjoy and drink Christ as our new wine in the church life as the fresh wineskins.

The Greek word for fresh in Matt. 9:17 is kainos, meaning “new in nature, quality, or form, unaccustomed, unused.”

The Lord as our new wine can be contained only in fresh wineskins, the proper church life practiced in the local churches.

The fresh wineskins signify the church life in the local churches as the container of the new wine, which is Christ Himself as the new, exciting, cheering wine.

We need to be built up into the church (Matt. 16:18), and the church is expressed through the local churches in which the kingdom people live (18:15-20).

We are regenerated persons constituting the Body of Christ and being the church (Rom. 12:5; Eph. 1:22-23) and together we live in the church life as the fresh wineskins to contain Christ as our new wine. Hallelujah!

Right now we can and should enjoy Christ as our new wine.

He is new, fresh, living, cheering, strengthening, and invigorating, and when we partake of the riches of His divine life we are filled with Him. Amen!

How sweet it is to drink Christ as the new, cheering wine with cheering strength!

When we contact Him and enjoy Him, we are energised, strengthened, and made happy; we are cheered up.

All religions are old wineskins; when new wine is put in old wineskins, it bursts the wineskins by the power of its fermenting.

To put new wine into old wineskins is to put Christ as the cheering and exciting life into any kind of religion.

To be religious means that we worship God, serve God, and do things to please God, but we do all these things apart from Christ and without Christ as the Spirit (see Gal. 1:14-16).

May we be saved from any religious practice and be brought into the enjoyment of Christ as the new wine in the proper church life today.

The fresh wineskins signify the church life in the local churches as the container of the new wine, which is Christ Himself as the exciting life.

When we are in the proper church life in the local churches, Christ as the exciting, strengthening, and invigorating life is our portion, fills us, and makes us happy to live in the church life. Praise the Lord for the church life!

Praise the Lord that today we can exercise our spirit and come together in the name of the Lord Jesus on the genuine ground of oneness to partake of the riches of Christ and be filled with Christ as the new wine!

Hallelujah, the church life today as the fresh wineskins can contain Christ as the new wine, and we in the church life today can drink Christ as our new wine to be filled with Him!

Lord Jesus, thank You for coming to us as our new wine today for us to be filled with in the proper church life! Fill us with Yourself! Save us from any religion and any religious practice. Save us form doing anything outwardly that is for God without the presence of Christ. We do not want to merely worship God or do things for God without Christ as the Spirit. We come to You, Lord, and we want to enjoy You as our new wine today! Hallelujah, today the church life in the local churches is the fresh wineskins as the container of Christ as the new wine! Amen, Lord, we praise You that we can enjoy You as the exciting, strengthening, cheering divine life! We love to drink You as our new wine. We want to be filled with You as the new wine so that we together may express God as the church, the Body of Christ! Amen, Lord, You are the exciting, new wine in our spirit, and we drink You until we are filled with You!

The Individual Christ is the New Wine and the Corporate Christ is the Fresh and New Wineskin to Contain the New Wine

When Christ came to the earth there was an “old wineskin” – the Jewish religion; this religion could not contain Him.

Then there was a newer wineskin, which also became old – the followers of John the Baptist, who tried to apply certain good and new things to their living but without the person of Christ.

No one puts new wine (Christ as the cheering life, the exciting new divine life) into old wineskins (anything of religion), for the new wine will burst the wineskins and will be wasted.

The new wine is Christ Himself, the individual Christ as our new wine.

The individual Christ is the new wine, the inward exciting life.

The corporate Christ is the fresh wineskin, the outward container that holds the new wine.

It is good to have and know Christ as the new wine, but we also need to have a proper container.

We cannot drink and contain the new wine in anything of religion; it has to be a proper church life as the corporate Christ expressed and lived out.

The Body of Christ is His fullness; the Body is “the Christ” (1 Cor. 12:12), the corporate Christ.

We as kingdom people are not here to fast or do any religious practice; we are here to live the church life by drinking Christ as the new wine to be filled with Him.

The church as the enlargement of Christ is filled with Christ and is constituted with Christ.

We believers in Christ are the many members of the Body of Christ; the members composed together are one Body, and this is the Body of Christ.

The Body of Christ is Christ the Head plus the members of the Body as the corporate expression of Christ; the Body of Christ is Christ the Head and Christ the Body (Acts 9:5; 1 Cor. 12:12).

Christ is the Head of the Body and He is also the Body of the Head.

The new wineskin containing the new wine is the church life; the church life is nothing but the enlargement of Christ.

The individual Christ is our new wine within us, and when this individual Christ is enlarged into a corporate Christ, that is the church.

The corporate Christ is the wineskin, the container, to contain the individual Christ as our wine.

This is why, if we are apart from the saints in the church life and do not regularly meet in the meetings of the local church, it is not easy for us to drink Christ as our new wine.

The new wine, Christ as our cheering and strengthening life, can be enjoyed to the fullest only in the realm of the church life, the enlargement of Christ. Amen!

How is Christ the Body, in a practical way? Christ is not only the Head; He is also in all the members and He is all the members.

Christ is in you, Christ is in me, and Christ is in every genuine believer in Christ.

Christ cannot be divided; He is not one Christ in someone and another Christ in someone else.

Rather, He is the same Christ, and He is one yet He is in all the believers in Christ.

The Christ in you is one with the Christ in me, and the Christ in us is one with the Christ in all the other Christians (1 Cor. 1:10, 13).

This means that Christ the Body is composed of so many members who are filled with Him. Amen!

This is the new wineskin, the fresh wineskin: the church life to contain Christ as the new wine!

Today in the church life we are learning to enjoy the Lord as the new wine by exercising our spirit to be one with Him and with all the saints, and we drink the Lord to be filled with Him as our new wine! Hallelujah!

Among the church people today we have the new garment, the new wine, and the new wineskin, for all these have been recovered in the proper church life.

Today, we have Christ in a corporate way in our church life, and the church – the wineskin – is God’s ultimate goal. Amen!

Thank the Lord that He has recovered the matter of enjoying Christ as the new garment and the new wine in the church life as the new wineskin so that we may be the church, God’s ultimate goal!

Thank the Lord for being so rich to us: He’s the great light shining in the darkness, He is the One having authority, He is the Physician, He is our lovely Bridegroom, He is the unfulled cloth, and He is the new wine!

And we are the new wineskin to contain and be filled with Him as the new wine!

Lord Jesus, we take You as our new wine and we drink of You in the church life today! Hallelujah, each one of us today in the proper church life have Christ as our new wine, and together we are a new wineskin to contain Christ and express Him! Amen, Lord, thank You for bringing us into the proper church life where we can drink Christ as our new wine to be cheered up, made happy, strengthened, and enlivened! Hallelujah, Christ is in us and Christ is in all the saints, and together we are the enlargement of Christ to be the Body of Christ on earth today! Amen, Lord, the Christ in us is one with the Christ in all the saints in Christ, and together the Body of Christ is composed of so many members who are filled with Him! Amen, Lord Jesus, gain the reality of this matter among us today. May we all be intimately connected with Christ the Head and with the members of the Body so that we may deeply drink Christ as our new wine and be filled with Him! Praise the Lord!

References and Hymns on this Topic

• Inspiration for this article/sharing comes from the Word of God, the enjoyment in the ministry, a sharing by brother Ed Marks in the message for this week, and portions from, Life-study of Matthew, msg. 28, by Witness Lee, as quoted in the Holy Word for Morning Revival on, Experiencing, Enjoying, and Expressing Christ (2024 July Semiannual Training), week 1, Christ as the Great Light, the One Who Has Authority, the Physician, the Bridegroom, the Unfulled Cloth, and the New Wine.
• Similar articles on this topic:
  – Christ, the new wineskin, a portion from, Christ versus Religion, Chapter 2, by Witness Lee.
  – Singing with Our Hearts to the Lord, via, Bibles for America blog.
  – The person of Christ, series of articles via, An Open Letter.
  – Have you been drunk with wine? More via, Living to Him.
  – The new wine, a portion from, Christ versus Religion, Chapter 2, by Witness Lee.
  – Jesus Christ is the Reality Today and in New Jerusalem, via, New Jerusalem.
  – Quotes on, The Experience of Christ, via, All-Inclusive Christ.
  – Christ Our Physician, Bridegroom, New Wine, and Shepherd, via, Holding to Truth in Love.
• Hymns on this topic:
  – Jesus, Bread and Wine art Thou, / Wine and Bread forever. / Never canst Thou cease to feed / Or refresh us, never. / Feed us still on bread divine, / Drink we still of heavenly wine. (Hymns #512 stanza 2)
  – We are tasting of the living wine, / In spirit tasting life divine, / And whoso tasteth, every time / Shall have the joy of God. / What, have the joy of God? Yes, have the joy of God! / What, have the joy of God? Yes, have the joy of God! / And whoso tasteth, every time / Shall have the joy of God. (Hymns #1150 stanza 4)
  – In daily walk and in our meetings too, / Christ is the center, Christ is everything; / ’Tis not for form nor doctrine good and true / But ’tis for Christ alone we’re gathering. / Christ is the way and Christ the light of life, / In Him we walk and by Him we are led; / Christ is the living water and the food; / Of Him we drink and we with Him are fed. (Hymns #863 stanzas 2-3 and chorus)