New Covenant Fasting

A lot has been said about fasting, and most of it is misleading. It would be nice to set forth as much as possible what the Bible says about this important subject matter, in the simplest terms possible.

First, what is it? Fasting is the setting aside of something good for a greater purpose. This already knocks over a lot of misconceptions about it. If you give up getting drunk, you are not fasting. But you fast if you give up alcohol or food because alcohol and food for a time are good things!

The question of what is given up and for what purpose depends on your relationship with God. This relationship is measured by the covenants.

Old Covenants

Under the Old Covenants, which characteristically have a faulty and incomplete understanding of God, fasting is used for the following reasons:

1. The manipulation of God/Begging God to do something He would otherwise not do: Isaiah 58.4, Daniel 9.3, 19
2. As a sign of repentance/sorrow for sin: Joel 2.12
3. For self-punishment and humiliation: Isaiah 58.5
4. Prayer and protection: Ezra 8.21
5. Seeking revelation
6. The manipulation of people: Matthew 6.16
7. Charity and justice: Isaiah 58.6-7

No doubt, this list is not exhaustive. However, there is no doubt that some of the reasons outlined above were borrowed from the neighbours of the Jews who had exactly these erroneous concepts about their gods and idols. How do we know this? Jesus, of course!

New Covenant

When Jesus comes into the world, he reveals to us the true nature of God, with himself as the fulfillment of all the needs and expectations of the Jews that we see in the list above. Let us go through the list once again to see how he responds or is the answer to each.

1. God cannot and should not be manipulated. Matthew 5.45, 48
2. You receive repentance as a gift. John 16.8-10, Luke 1.17
3. You can learn humility from him, not by fasting. Matthew 11.29
4. You do not have to fear any enemy. Luke 10.19
5. Revelation comes through the Holy Spirit, not through fasting. John 16.13
6. People should not be manipulated. Matthew 23.2-10
7. You can have the heart of Jesus that is full of charity and justice. Luke 6.43-45

By the time the disciples of Jesus got these hints from the teaching of Jesus, they totally gave up fasting. In fact, they went from fasting to feasting! Luke puts it beautifully:

‘And they said to him, “The disciples of John fast often and offer prayers, and so do the disciples of the Pharisees, but yours eat and drink.” Luke 5.33

Sometimes, when we preach grace, we are as shocking as Jesus. Some misunderstand us and think that we are against fasting and prayer. Not in the least. We only pray and fast differently, that is, not for the purposes outlined in the old covenants. We now operate according to our new covenant relationship with God. And that is proper.

Finally, what are the new covenant reasons for fasting?

1. There is only one reason in the New Covenant for fasting. Our sins are forgiven in Christ. We are humble by nature. God is for us and has given us all things in Him. We can no longer fast to get things or make God do things for us. A lot of people do not notice that fasting and prayer usually go along together in the Scriptures, like the one mentioned above. The reason for prayer is the reason for fasting. We fast because we have received so much, and we desire to make manifest what we have received in Christ. Fasting, like prayer, works on the human consciousness. It helps one be intentionally conscious of the presence and power of God in a way ordinary living cannot. There is a negative and a positive side to this consciousness. The negative is achieved when the emptying of the stomach (tasting) or other senses (hearing, seeing, touching, smelling) frees the mind to focus on something out of the ordinary. The positive is all about what you fill that space created by the negative with. In the case of the believer, it is the word of God. Fasting is not about an empty stomach. In fact, there is so much release of provision from God in moments of fasting that those who fast come out looking well-nourished because God is not the author of malnourishment. Before I share a couple of scriptures on this subject, note that, like prayer, the believer should only fast when led by the Spirit of God and not by religious sentiments such as ‘we should fast’ or ‘we have to fast’, for that would be heading right back into the slavery of the Law. Under grace, we do things because we want to, not because we must, or we ought to.

So, what is the reason for fasting?

‘And after fasting forty days and forty nights, he was hungry.’ Matthew 4.2

Jesus was led into the wilderness by the Holy Spirit. You probably should not go if you are not led. He fasted for forty days. That is humanly impossible as many who have tried have shown. This shows that fasting is not a matter of deprivation of food. I bet Jesus came out looking awesome as always, not gaunt and weak and emaciated as you would imagine. He was hungry at the end of the fast, not during. What did he do in those days? I will not go into the matter of accommodation and necessities but clearly, he had those. I believe he took that time specifically to study the word and be taught by the Father (prepared for his world-saving ministry). Many Christians think that the wisdom concerning the word that was exhibited by Jesus was somehow predownloaded into his mind. That does not make sense. The episode shows that when the devil arrived to derail him, he released scripture after scripture with their right interpretations!

‘This kind cannot be driven out by anything but prayer and fasting.’ Mark 9.29

This is another scripture much used to justify religious fasting. They claim that some demons are too strong for the name of Jesus. And these need some fasting to weaken them and make them come out. This is religion’s greatest insult to the power of God and the name of Jesus. No demon exists that can resist the name of Jesus. When Jesus says, ‘this kind’ in this passage, he is simply referring to what he said in verse 19 when he lamented, ‘O Faithless generation!’ He was talking about unbelief, the greatest enemy of the believer. Unbelief is not the absence of belief but the presence of doubt. The disciples had been casting out devils. They said all the right things and believed, but they mixed their faith with unbelief or doubt. How does unbelief and doubt arise? Unbelief becomes active when what is seen contradicts what is believed. They told the demon to go, but the actions of the possessed boy seemed to suggest the opposite. Doubt arose in their hearts and Jesus told them, ‘This kind of unbelief cannot be cast out by anything but prayer and fasting (here goes the duo again!). In fact, some manuscripts do not add ‘and fasting’ because of how closely connected these two are. And the ‘and’ does not suggest that fasting needs to be added to prayer but that both prayer and fasting do the same job of casting out unbelief. This is why those who are active in the business of Jesus do one or both and get results, not because the results depend on those but because their limitation of unbelief is properly dealt with. Someone may ask, ‘Did Jesus have unbelief? Of course, he did! Never forget that he was human like the rest of us. He prayed and he fasted to cast out his own unbelief. Note that you do not deal with unbelief by focusing on it. You deal with unbelief by focusing on God’s word and his faithfulness to it. So, what exactly is fasting and its purpose under the New Covenant? Here is a working definition:

Fasting is a periodic deprivation of the senses in order to be intentionally conscious of the presence and power of God, by focusing exclusively on His Word and thereby dealing with unbelief or doubt.

By

IFEANYI CHIBUZO FIDELIS