Shincheonji lesson 42: figurative new wine and new wineskins

Where SCJ’s reading conflicts with the Bible

This lesson defines wine as the word, the vine as “Pastor and the chosen people,” new wine as “New Revealed Word,” and new wineskins as the promised shepherd and his disciples. It says that at the second coming the old wine is the gospel of the first coming, the old wineskins are “The pastors of today,” and the new wineskins are “New John and Us!” It calls commentaries the maddening wine of Babylon and tells students, “if you have a study Bible, toss it.” The notes say “Old wine is not bad; it’s just old,” but SCJ’s The Explanation of Parables (p. 67) lists “Old wine (doctrines of traditions) → Hell,” and “Old wineskin (shepherds of the churches of tradition) → Hell” (p. 69). Jesus’ own new wine parable, read in its setting, doesn’t support any of this.

1. 1. Luke 5: The new wine parable is about Jesus’ presence

   The lesson uses Luke 5:37-39 to say old wineskins are people who “refuse to let go of the old.”

   • Read why Jesus told the parable. People asked why his disciples didn’t fast like John’s disciples and the Pharisees’ (Luke 5:33). Jesus answered: “You cannot make the wedding guests fast while the bridegroom is with them, can you?” (5:34).
   • The new wine is the joy and newness of the kingdom arriving in Jesus himself, the bridegroom. Old religious forms, like the Pharisees’ fasting routines, couldn’t contain it.
   • Jesus ends: “No one after drinking old wine wants the new, for he says, ‘The old is good enough’” (5:39). He was describing people who preferred their traditions to him.
   • The parable isn’t a template for replacing the gospel of Jesus with a newer revealed word later.

2. 2. The vine is Jesus; the vineyard is Israel

   The lesson says the vine’s “primary meaning” is “a pastor.”

   • Jesus says, “I am the vine; you are the branches” (John 15:5). The vine is Jesus himself, not a pastor. (See Lesson 17.)
   • Isaiah explains his own vineyard: “Israel is the vineyard of the Lord of Heaven’s Armies,” and the people of Judah are the planting he delighted in (Isaiah 5:7).

3. 3. The disciples didn’t “dump out all the old word”

   The lesson says the disciples “had to dump out all the old word to make room for the new word.”

   • Jesus said, “Do not think that I have come to abolish the law or the prophets. I have not come to abolish these things but to fulfill them” (Matthew 5:17).
   • After the resurrection, he explained himself “beginning with Moses and all the prophets” (Luke 24:27). The apostles preached Jesus from the Old Testament (Acts 2:16-36; 17:2-3).
   • Paul told Timothy that “Every scripture is inspired by God and useful” (2 Timothy 3:16), including the Scriptures Timothy had known from infancy (3:15).
   • The disciples didn’t empty out the Scriptures. They saw them fulfilled in Jesus. (See Lesson 20 and Lesson 32 on Philippians 3.)

4. 4. The gospel doesn’t become “old wine”

   The lesson says that at the second coming, the old wine is the gospel of the first coming, and “what defines something as new wine or old wine is time.”

   • Jude calls it “the faith that was once for all entrusted to the saints” (Jude 3). It doesn’t expire.
   • Jesus said “this gospel of the kingdom will be preached throughout the whole inhabited earth … and then the end will come” (Matthew 24:14). The same gospel goes out until the end.
   • “Jesus Christ is the same yesterday and today and forever!” (Hebrews 13:8).
   • “even if we (or an angel from heaven) should preach a gospel contrary to the one we preached to you, let him be condemned to hell!” (Galatians 1:8). A newer message that supersedes the gospel is exactly what Paul warned against.

5. 5. Old wine: Not bad, or leading to hell?

   • The notes say “Old wine is not bad; it’s just old,” and that “without the old wine, we wouldn’t know about Christ in the first place.”
   • SCJ’s book says: “Old wine (doctrines of traditions) → Hell,” and “Old wineskin (shepherds of the churches of tradition) → Hell” (The Explanation of Parables pp. 67, 69).
   • Students are told the gospel they already have is fine, just old. SCJ’s book says it leads to hell. Those aren’t the same teaching.

6. 6. “The pastors of today” are called old wineskins

   The lesson says the old wineskins are “The pastors of today,” whose word has become “slightly corrupted, a little bit distorted” under Satan’s influence.

   • This labels every pastor outside the course as Satan-influenced, without any specific evidence.
   • Scripture’s test of a teacher is whether they confess Jesus as the Christ come in the flesh (1 John 4:2), preach the same gospel (Galatians 1:8) and bear good fruit (Matthew 7:16).

7. 7. Matthew 26:29: Jesus drinks it new with his disciples

   The Explanation of Parables (p. 67) says the new wine of Matthew 26:29 “is the revealed word of the fulfillment of the New Testament,” which Jesus gives “to the promised shepherd.”

   • Jesus said: “from now on I will not drink of this fruit of the vine until that day when I drink it new with you in my Father’s kingdom” (26:29).
   • It’s Jesus’ promise to share the feast personally with his disciples when the kingdom comes in full, the “wedding celebration of the Lamb” (Revelation 19:9). (See Lesson 41.)
   • No promised shepherd is in the verse.

8. 8. “New John and Us!”

   The lesson says the new wineskins are “New John and Us!” SCJ’s book says “the one who overcomes and the new priests of the Twelve Tribes” (The Explanation of Parables p. 69).

   • John himself took and ate the little scroll in Revelation 10 and prophesied (10:9-11; 22:8). (See Lesson 39.)
   • In Jesus’ parable, the new wineskins aren’t a specific leader and organization. They’re the fitting container for the new life Jesus brings.

9. 9. Commentaries and “if you have a study Bible, toss it”

   The lesson says Babylon’s maddening wine is “A little term called commentaries,” and “if you have a study Bible, toss it.” SCJ’s book says the wine of adulteries is “the false doctrines (commentaries)” (The Explanation of Parables p. 67).

   • Revelation says: “all the nations have fallen from the wine of her immoral passion” (18:3). Babylon’s wine is her immorality and idolatry, the seduction of a world power (17:2; 18:3, 9). Commentaries aren’t mentioned.
   • Scripture shows God’s people helped by explanations: when Ezra read the law, the Levites “read from the book of God’s law, explaining it and imparting insight. Thus the people gained understanding” (Nehemiah 8:8). Priscilla and Aquila “explained the way of God to him more accurately” to Apollos (Acts 18:26). God gave the church teachers (Ephesians 4:11).
   • A study Bible’s cross-references, maps and notes on the original languages are exactly the tools that let a student check the course’s claims. Telling students to throw them away removes the means of testing.
   • SCJ’s own books are commentaries on the Bible. By the course’s own standard, they’d be maddening wine too. (See Lesson 15.)

10. 10. All nations and “no exceptions”

    The lesson says the prostitute makes all nations drunk, “which means there are no exceptions.”

    • If there are no exceptions, the course and its sources aren’t exempt either.
    • And Revelation itself names exceptions: those whose names are written in the Lamb’s book of life (13:8; 17:8).

11. 11. Choosing “this new one”

    The lesson frames the first-coming choice as: “Do I continue with those who have always been teaching me the law? Or do I go with this new one who is bringing something new?”

    • At the first coming, “this new one” was Jesus himself, the Son of God who fulfilled the Scriptures and rose from the dead (Romans 1:4).
    • Applying the same choice today to a new human messenger puts that messenger in Jesus’ place. Paul rebukes the Corinthians because “if someone comes and proclaims another Jesus different from the one we proclaimed … or a different gospel than the one you accepted, you put up with it well enough!” (2 Corinthians 11:4).

12. 12. A course that’s “exhausting” isn’t a sign of renewal

    The class admits that “to receive a new word every single class, sometimes it can be a little bit exhausting,” and calls that “the process that we have to go through to be renewed.”

    • Jesus describes his way differently: “Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest … my yoke is easy to bear, and my load is not hard to carry” (Matthew 11:28-30). (See Lesson 32.)
    • Exhaustion from constant new definitions is a reason to slow down and test, not proof of growth.