Luke 5:39 - Calvin's Commentary on the Bible

Bible Comments

Luke 5:39

. And no person who has drunk old wine. This statement is given by Luke alone, and is undoubtedly connected with the preceding discourse. Though commentators have tortured it in a variety of ways, I take it simply as a warning to the Pharisees not to attach undue importance to a received custom. For how comes it that wine, the taste of which remains unaltered, is not equally agreeable to every palate, but because custom and habit form the taste? Hence it follows, that Christ’s manner of acting towards his disciples is not less worthy of approbation, because it has less show and splendor: as old wine, though it does not foam with the sharpness of n ew wine, is not less agreeable on that account, or less fitted for the nourishment of the body.

Luke 5:39

39 No man also having drunk old wine straightway desireth new: for he saith, The old is better.