No man also having drunk old wine straightway desireth new: for he saith, The old is better.
Luke 5:39. And no person who has drunk old wine. This statement is given by Luke alone, and is undoubtedly connected with the preceding discourse. Though commentators have tortured it in a variety of ways, I take it simply as a warning to the Pharisees not to attach undue importance to a received custom.
Christ's choice to call Levi from the tax booth is a wonder of grace, not merely that He admitted fishermen, but that He admitted publicans, men of notorious ill fame. No heart is too hard for His Spirit to work upon, and He keeps company with the unconverted so that He might heal their souls, which is the very design of His coming.
AI summary
Commenting on Luke 5:27-39
Verse 39. Having drunk old wine, &c. Wine increases its strength and flavour, and its mildness and mellowness, by age, and the old is therefore preferable. They who had tasted such mild and mellow wine would not readily drink the comparatively sour and astringent juice of the grape as it came from the press.