The chapter ends with the Lord’s twin parables of the piece of new garment sewn into the old, or new wine put into old bottles.  It is difficult to ascertain the precise meaning of these figures, but more than likely it has to do with the mixture of the principles of the Old and New covenants.  The Pharisees, we know, were focused upon the external forms of the law, imagining that that was the path to the kingdom of God.  But Christ was preaching a message of grace and peace, which extended even to publicans and prostitutes.  The doctrines of Christ and of the Pharisees could not be mixed together.  His new garment would do nothing but rend and destroy the old; His new wine would burst their old bottles.

New wine must be put into new bottles.  The doctrine of the kingdom of God must be kept separate from the self-righteous dogmas of Judaism.  Though men who had drunk the old wine did not desire the new, preferring the old, the new wine must be put into new bottles—new believers who embraced Christ and His preaching of grace, so that both the bottle and the wine might be preserved.