Matthew 9:15 Commentary and Bible Study

The trouble with the Pharisees was that they fasted without understanding the real purpose of fasting. They fasted for entirely the wrong reason. They fasted to appear righteous before men, to enhance their image of piety. Christ tells them to think about the real reason for fasting. No exercise of religion should be done without understanding. God is not interested in mindless religious performances. God sets no value on prayer which is vain repetition.The Pharisees had also failed in another respect. They had not recognised the significance of the hour. This was something that the disciples of John who had not left John had also failed to do. It had been right for John’s disciples to fast before Christ became known, but now that he had come their fasting was inappropriate. It was like a wedding day. The day the wedding comes is a time to celebrate. The one who looks miserable either does not know what is going on, or else is out of sympathy with the occasion. The bridegroom rejoices in his bride, and the ‘children of the bridechamber’ or the wedding guests share the bridegroom’s joy. Hendriksen says, ‘They had been invited to the wedding, were in charge of the arrangements, and were expected to do everything possible to promote the success of the festivities.’ This is not some disconnected illustration, but a very fitting one. Christ is the bridegroom, and the bride is his church. The kingdom of heaven is advancing apace and the lost are being gathered in through the preaching of the gospel. If any were to fast and mourn at such a time, the suspicion would have to be that they were against the wedding. And, of course, that was exactly the case with the Pharisees. They had no love for Christ or his disciples. They saw him as taking away from them all that they valued – their prestige, their cloak of religious observance, their acceptance with God. The day will come when the bridegroom, the Lord, will be taken from his disciples and whose doing will that be? It will be the doing of the scribes and Pharisees who ask these questions, though Jesus does not explicitly say so. The will plot together to arrange the arrest and crucifixion of the Lord, showing their hatred for him. Their actions are contrasted with those of the disciples as proof of how far they are from God. Right now the Pharisees mourn and the disciples rejoice; then the Pharisees will rejoice, but the disciples will mourn, and their mourning will be in sympathy with their Lord, and arise from their sorrow at having him taken away from them. Their feelings will come from love for the bridegroom, while the Pharisees hate him. The bridegroom will be taken away (Isaiah 53:7). The disciples are not incapable of fasting, but their fasting when it comes is a response based on understanding and love for Christ. The scribes and Pharisees did not grasp how great a one had come to them.The Lord Jesus Christ loved to use illustrations and comparisons, and in answering this question he uses three. It is the way God has constructed the human mind that it understands things it does not know, by comparing them with things it does know.