Neville Goddard on Matthew 9:16-17 - Mystical Bible Interpretation

Read Matthew 9 in context

Scripture Focus

16No man putteth a piece of new cloth unto an old garment, for that which is put in to fill it up taketh from the garment, and the rent is made worse.

17Neither do men put new wine into old bottles: else the bottles break, and the wine runneth out, and the bottles perish: but they put new wine into new bottles, and both are preserved.

Matthew 9:16-17

Biblical Context

The parable says you can't mend an old garment with new cloth, nor bottle new wine in old bottles; true renewal requires an entirely fresh inner state.

Neville's Inner Vision

All of scripture beckons your inner life. The old garment stands for the settled self, the safe habits of thought you call real. The patch of new cloth is a morsel of truth you try to wear without changing the heart that receives it. The wine is the living energy of imagination—the creative vibration that makes a state feel real to you. When you patch the old with the new, you strain the fabric and you strain the truth; when you pour new wine into old bottles, the vessel breaks and what was meant to nourish leaks away. But if you become the new bottle, your consciousness expands to host the higher state. The new wine can rise and be preserved within you, and your life will testify to a renewal that does not crumble under pressure. Therefore, see the kingdom as already present within your awareness. Dare to assume the end, dwell as the person who has found the wine, and walk from imagining to living by the certainty of the I AM.

Practice This Now

Imaginative_act: Sit quietly, close your eyes, and imagine you are the new bottle; feel the wine of your desired state filling you. Repeat: I am the container of divine imagination; I now live as the end I seek, and linger in the felt truth.