Home > Jesus is God in Mark's Gospel
When questioned about fasting, Jesus refers to Himself as "the bridegroom." This is one of the most profound "veiled" claims to deity in the Synoptic Gospels. It may have been an honest question or an accusation of unrighteousness! Jesus used an analogy that people would have commonly understood at that time.
The core of the passage is not that the Pharisees are hypocrites, but that Jesus’s disciples are completely exempt from fasting while he is present.
In ancient Judaism, the only reason wedding guests were legally exempt from religious fasts was because the presence of the bridegroom initiated an intermediate season of absolute, unhindered joy. Jesus is positioning his physical presence as a localized, ongoing holy festival that overrules standard piety.
Mark 2:18–22 - Now John’s disciples and the Pharisees were fasting. And people came and said to him, “Why do John’s disciples and the disciples of the Pharisees fast, but your disciples do not fast?” And Jesus said to them, “Can the wedding guests fast while the bridegroom is with them? As long as they have the bridegroom with them, they cannot fast. The days will come when the bridegroom is taken away from them, and then they will fast in that day. No one sews a piece of unshrunk cloth on an old garment. If he does, the patch tears away from it, the new from the old, and a worse tear is made. And no one puts new wine into old wineskins. If he does, the wine will burst the skins—and the wine is destroyed, and so are the skins. But new wine is for fresh wineskins.”
Jewish tradition demanded a fast once a year: on the day of Atonement. For the stricter Jews, however, fasting was practiced much more frequently. The Pharisees fasted twice a week, on Mondays and Thursdays. These were generally twelve-hour fasts, from sunup to sundown. The Pharisees also made sure that people knew how spiritual they were by showing everyone they were fasting. (Matt 6:16-18).
Cooper, R.L. (2000) Mark. Nashville, TN: Broadman & Holman Publishers (Holman New Testament Commentary), p. 34.
The entire book of Hosea is a living parable of Yahweh as the faithful Husband to an unfaithful wife (Israel)
Hosea 2:19–20 - And I will betroth you to me forever. I will betroth you to me in righteousness and in justice, in steadfast love and in mercy. I will betroth you to me in faithfulness. And you shall know the Lord.
Isaiah 62:5 - For as a young man marries a young woman, so shall your sons marry you, and as the bridegroom rejoices over the bride, so shall your God rejoice over you.
Ezekiel 16:8 - When I passed by you again and saw you, behold, you were at the age for love, and I spread the corner of my garment over you and covered your nakedness; I made my vow to you and entered into a covenant with you, declares the Lord God, and you became mine.
In Judaism, there was little expectation that the Messiah would be a "Bridegroom." The Messiah was a King, a Priest, or a Prophet.
The "Bridegroom" was Yahweh. Hosea 2:19–20, Yahweh says, "I will betroth you to me forever." The covenantal partner is God Himself, not a prophet.
By taking this title, Jesus is stepping into a role that only God fills in the Old Testamant. Throughout the Old Testament (Hosea, Isaiah, Ezekiel), Yahweh is the Husband/Bridegroom of Israel. For Jesus to claim this title is a profound claim to deity. He is saying that the long-awaited "wedding day" between God and His people has arrived in His person. Jesus applies the direct mechanics of Yahweh's marital covenant to Himself.
“New Wine” - The metaphors of the new wine and old wineskins signify that His divine presence is too "expansive" for the old structures of the law. His nature is the source of a new ontological reality. The Presence of the Divine Bridegroom fundamentally changes the world. To attempt to put this kind of life into old, legalistic systems is to destroy the new life. Jesus is not a messenger delivering a new packet of laws; his uncreated divine nature is the new wine.
Ezekiel 36:26 - And I will give you a new heart, and a new spirit I will put within you. And I will remove the heart of stone from your flesh and give you a heart of flesh.
Who has the right to declare the old system obsolete? In Jewish thought, only the Lawgiver (Yahweh) could supersede the Covenant He established at Sinai. By stating that the "old" is passing away and the "new" is here, Jesus is exercising Sovereign Authority over history and revelation. He is not a reformer; He is the Re-Creator.
Islamic polemics are heavily built on the false narrative that Paul "corrupted" the simple, law-abiding Muslim religion of Jesus and invented Gentile Christianity.
The Apostle Paul will merely echoing the absolute, radical legal abrogation already executed by Jesus in Mark 2. Jesus himself declared the old covenant structures incapable of containing his ministry. Mark’s Jesus explicitly states that trying to patch the old with the new destroys both. It is Christ, not Paul, who shatters the binding nature of the old legal system.