WINE, THE BIBLE, AND THE LORD’S TABLE TERMINOLOGY AND TYPES

• Yayin is the primary word used for “wine” throughout the Old Testament. Whenever the word is used, the context denote their inebriating qualities (both positive and negative): • “Noah drank of the wine and became drunk.” (Gen. 9)

“You cause the grass to grow for the livestock and plants for man to cultivate, that he may bring forth food from the earth and wine to gladden the heart of man, oil to make his face shine and bread to strengthen man's heart.” (Psalm 104: 14-15)

• “Go, eat your bread with joy, and drink your wine with a merry heart, for God has already approved what you do.” (Ecclesiastes 9:7)

TERMINOLOGY AND TYPES

• All “wine” mentioned in the Bible is fermented grape juice with an alcoholic content (typically between 5% to %20). No non-fermented drink was called “wine.”

• Yayin, or wine, is often pared with “strong drink”, or sekar. Sekar was a fermented drink made from barley and more akin to beer.

• Types of wine (yayin): New wine and Old wine. New wine is the wine from the most recent harvest, while Old wine is wine from the previous years harvest. • Of the two types of wine, the old wine was preferred because it was both sweeter and stronger • New wine was low-end (5% alcohol content) and consumed at daily meals. • Old wine was higher quality (up to 20% alcoholic content) and rarely enjoyed by common folk. John 2:10, “the best.”

TERMINOLOGY AND USE

• Synonyms for wine include: “blood of the grape” (Gen. 49; Deut. 32; Judges 13, 7, 14), “the fruit of the vine.” (Mk. 14) , and “the cup” (Mk. 14; 1 Cor. 11:25).

• New wine (low quality) was consumed at daily meals. And it was customary in Greek, Roman, Jewish, and early Christian cultures to mix wine with water. Why? • The wine acted as a purifier and made the water safe to drink. • Made the wine last longer.

• Ratio of water to wine was anywhere from 20 parts water to 1 part wine, but the Jews typically practiced a 3 to1 ratio (book of Jubilees @100 BC notes the Passover wine was 3 to 1). Side note: some argue that the wine in the NT was so watered down that it lacked any inebriating qualities, i.e., essentially grape juice. This can hardly be the case as Paul charges the Corinthians with getting “drunk” at the Lord’s Table (1 Cor. 11:21).

TERMINOLOGY AND USE

• Church Fathers such as Justin Martyr, Hippolytus, Clement of Alexandria, and Cyprian all note that wine was used in the Lord’s supper and mixed with water.

• Wine was also used for both medicinal and religious purposes. • Medicinal: Wine mixed with gall or myrrh was used as a sedative to ease pain

• Proverbs 31:6–7, “Give strong drink to the one who is perishing, and wine to those in bitter distress; let them drink and forget their poverty and remember their misery no more.” (wine and oil, in the Good Samaritan) • Matthew 27:33–34, “And when they came to a place called Golgotha (which means Place of a Skull), they offered him wine to drink, mixed with gall, but when he tasted it, he would not drink it.” Note: John 19, Jesus drank “sour wine.”

TERMINOLOGY AND USE

• Religious purposes:

• Possibly started with Jacob in Bethel (first and only mention of drink offering in Genesis)

“The land that I gave to Abraham and Isaac I will give to you, and I will give the land to your offspring after you.” Then God went up from him in the place where he had spoken with him. And Jacob set up a pillar in the place where he had spoken with him, a pillar of stone. He poured out a drink offering on it and poured oil on it. So Jacob called the name of the place where God had spoken with him Bethel.” Genesis 35:12–15

TERMINOLOGY AND USE • Religious purposes: • Accompanied Sacrifices (daily, Sabbath, and feast days)

• Exodus 25:28–30, “You shall make the poles of acacia wood, and overlay them with gold, and the table shall be carried with these. And you shall make its plates and dishes for incense, and its flagons and bowls with which to pour drink offerings; you shall make them of pure gold. And you shall set the bread of the Presence on the table before me regularly.”

• Each day there was to be a morning and evening offering of a lamb, a grain offering, and a drink offering. “Its drink offering shall be a quarter of a hin for each lamb. In the Holy Place you shall pour out a drink offering of strong drink to the LORD. (Num. 28:7)There is some mystery here as we are not given details of where it was poured out except not on the altar of incense (Ex. 30:9).

TERMINOLOGY AND USE • Religious purposes:

• Pagan and other mystery religions also practiced drink offerings to their gods but often mixed wine offerings with blood.

• David alludes to this practice in Psalm 16:4:

The sorrows of those who run after another god shall multiply; their drink offerings of blood I will not pour out or take their names on my lips.

TERMINOLOGY AND USE

• Religious purposes: • Used at the coronation of David as King (1 Chron. 12) and at weddings (John 2) • Used during the Passover meal.

• Religious Significance: • Abundant wine is regarded as a sign of blessing and prosperity from God: • “May God give you of the dew of heaven and of the fatness of the earth and plenty of grain and wine.” (Gen 27, Isaac blessing Jacob)

• “He will love you, bless you, and multiply you. He will also bless the fruit of your womb and the fruit of your ground, your grain and your wine and your oil, the increase of your herds and the young of your flock, in the land that he swore to your fathers to give you.” (Deut. 7, Moses’s promise for trusting the Lord).

TERMINOLOGY AND USE

• Religious Significance: • A lack of wine indicates the withdrawal of God’s blessing:

• “You shall plant vineyards and dress them, but you shall neither drink of the wine nor gather the grapes, for the worm shall eat them.” Deuteronomy 28:38– 39

• “The fields are destroyed, the ground mourns, because the grain is destroyed, the wine dries up, the oil languishes.” Joel 1:10

• “Therefore because you trample on the poor and you exact taxes of grain from him, you have built houses of hewn stone, but you shall not dwell in them; you have planted pleasant vineyards, but you shall not drink their wine.” Amos 5:11

TERMINOLOGY AND USE

• Religious Significance:

• Important detail: While wine was used outside of the tabernacle/temple structures in daily, weekly, and semi-annual festivals, the consumption of wine was never permitted inside the courts of the Lord.

• “Drink no wine or strong drink, you or your sons with you, when you go into the tent of meeting, lest you die. It shall be a statute forever throughout your generations.” Lev 10:9

TERMINOLOGY AND USE

• Religious Significance:

• While the priests were permitted to eat the bread once a week in the special presence of God, the wine was to be poured out (somewhere) in the holy place.

• “Its drink offering shall be a quarter of a hin for each lamb. In the Holy Place you shall pour out a drink offering of strong drink to the LORD." (Numbers 28:7)

TERMINOLOGY AND USE

• Religious Significance:

• Other drink offerings were poured out around the sacrificial altar:

• “With this money, then, you shall with all diligence buy bulls, rams, and lambs, with their grain offerings and their drink offerings, and you shall offer them on the altar of the house of your God that is in Jerusalem.” Ezra 7

TERMINOLOGY AND USE

• Religious Significance: The consumption of wine, in the special presence of God, was forbidden in the Old Covenant because the act of drinking wine with God was tied to coming of the Messiah and the kingdom of God.

• Isaiah 25:6, “On this mountain the LORD of hosts will make for all peoples a feast of rich food, a feast of well-aged wine, of rich food full of marrow, of aged wine well refined.”

• Isaiah 55:1“Come, everyone who thirsts, come to the waters, and he who has no money, come, buy and eat! Come, buy wine and milk without money and without price.”

TERMINOLOGY AND USE

• Hos. 2:21-22, “And in that day I will answer, declares the LORD, I will answer the heavens, and they shall answer the earth, and the earth shall answer the grain, the wine, and the oil,”

• Joel 2:19; 24 “The LORD answered and said to his people, “Behold, I am sending to you grain, wine, and oil, and you will be satisfied; and I will no more make you a reproach among the nations… “The threshing floors shall be full of grain; the vats shall overflow with wine and oil.”

• Joel 3:18, “And in that day the mountains shall drip sweet wine, and the hills shall flow with milk, and all the streambeds of Judah shall flow with water; and a fountain shall come forth from the house of the LORD.”

TERMINOLOGY AND USE

• Amos 9:13, “Behold, the days are coming,” declares the LORD, “when the plowman shall overtake the reaper and the treader of grapes him who sows the seed; the mountains shall drip sweet wine, and all the hills shall flow with it.

• Zechariah 9:17, “For how great is his goodness, and how great his beauty! Grain shall make the young men flourish, and new wine the young women.”

• Jeremiah 31:12, “They shall come and sing aloud on the height of Zion, and they shall be radiant over the goodness of the LORD, over the grain, the wine, and the oil, and over the young of the flock and the herd; their life shall be like a watered garden, and they shall languish no more.”

• Isaiah, Jeremiah, Hosea, Joel, Amos, and Zechariah all characterize the messianic kingdom as a time when wine would abound.

TERMINOLOGY AND USE

• Putting this together:

• In the Old Covenant no one could drink wine in the special presence of God (in his courts). • Note a significant development in Isaiah 62:8-9 related to the coming of the Kingdom:

The LORD has sworn by his right hand and by his mighty arm: “I will not again give your grain to be food for your enemies, and foreigners shall not drink your wine for which you have labored; but those who garner it shall eat it and praise the LORD, and those who gather it shall drink it in the courts of my sanctuary.”

• When the Messiah comes, wine will abound. (John 2)

TERMINOLOGY AND USE

• There is no escaping the fact that in both the Old and New Testaments, wine was used both in the of God’s people and had a prominent place within the religious rituals and festivals of Israel. (Jesus drank wine, made wine, used wine as an illustration within his parables, was affiliated with those who drank wine, etc).

• There is no record in either the Eastern or Western church of replacing the Lord’s institution of wine in communion with water or grape juice until the 19th and 20th centuries when the Temperance Movement influenced many American churches to change.

HISTORICAL FIGURES AND MOVEMENTS

• Martin Luther, “if a person can’t tolerate wine, omit it altogether in order that no innovation may be made or introduced.” Table Talk • The Anglican Church taught the use of wine in its confession (Thirty Nine Articles) • The Anabaptists required wine in their confession (Dordrecht Confession of 1632) • The Reformed Confessions require bread and wine (Belgic Confession, Heidelberg Catechism, 2nd Helvetic Confession). The Westminster Confession of Faith requires the use of wine (29.6). • The London Baptist Confession of 1689 calls for wine (30.5) • Our Book of Church Order designates wine is to be used in communion (58.5)

WHY DON’T WE USE WINE? HISTORY

• Temperance Movement: a social movement of the 19th and 20th centuries, primarily grounded in English speaking countries, which tried to combat the epidemic of alcoholism through advocating complete abstinence from all alcohol.

• The Temperance Movement eventually led to the Prohibition Era (1920-1933) in which there was a constitutional ban on the production, importation, and sale of alcoholic beverages.

• What was the church to do in response? WHY DON’T WE USE WINE? HISTORY

• The church recognized that drunkenness was against the will of God and for the most part, Protestant churches (called “dry” crusaders as opposed the to the RC, and German Lutheran “wet” supporters) aligned themselves with the Temperance Movement and supported Prohibition.

• A dilemma was created: What was to be done with the wine served at the Lord’s Table? WHY DON’T WE USE WINE? HISTORY

• While there was a desire to maintain the “fruit of the vine” at the table, raw grape juice- stored at room temperature- naturally ferments into wine within 5 days.

• Dr. Thomas B. Welch, a Methodist dentist, who believed alcohol was demonic, and using Louis Pasteur’s methods, found a way to create “Dr. Welch’s Unfermented Wine.”

• One popular slogan for Welch’s Unfermented Wine read “If your druggist hasn’t the kind that was used in Galilee containing not one particle of alcohol, write us for prices.” WHY DON’T WE USE WINE? HISTORY

• Welch’s Conviction

“Unfermented grape juice was born in 1869 out of a passion to serve God by helping His Church to give its communion “the fruit of the vine,” instead of the “cup of ` devils.”” –Charles Welch, son of Thomas Welch

• Paul’s words to the Corinthians: “When you come together, it is not the Lord's supper that you eat. For in eating, each one goes ahead with his own meal. One goes hungry, another gets drunk.” Additionally, “do not be drunk with wine” (Eph. 5:18) assumes wine has the “power” to make one drunk. SOME RESPONSES

A.A. Hodge in 1890 comments, The contents of the cup were wine. This is known to have been ‘the juice of the grape,’ not in its original state as freshly expressed, but as prepared in the form of wine for permanent use among the Jews. ‘Wine,’ according to the absolutely unanimous, unexceptional testimony of every scholar and missionary, is in its essence ‘fermented grape juice.’ Nothing else is wine. The use of ‘wine’ is precisely what is commanded by Christ in his example and his authoritative institution of this holy ordinance. Whoever puts away true and real wine, or fermented grape juice, on moral grounds, from the Lord’s Supper sets himself up as more moral than the Son of God who reigns over his conscience, and than the Savior of souls who redeemed him. There has been absolutely universal consent on this subject in the Christian Church until modern times, when the practice has been opposed, not upon change of evidence, but solely on prudential considerations. POPULAR ARGUMENTS AGAINST

• A more popular argument then and now goes like this: • Drunkenness is sin. You can’t get drunk if you don’t drink alcohol. To avoid drunkenness, we must avoid alcohol. Therefore, grape juice, and not wine is to be used in communion. • This is erroneous logic which can, and often does, lead to dangerous legalism. • The bible forbids sexual immorality  abstain from all sexual encounters • The bible forbids gossip  abstain from all speaking • The bible condemns gluttony  abstain from all eating • The bible condemns the love of money abstain from the acquisition of money • Abusus Non Tollit Usum - The abuse of something does not negate its proper use WHY DON’T WE USE WINE? HISTORY

• “Do not suppose that abuses are eliminated by destroying the object that is abused. Men can go wrong with wine and women. Shall we prohibit and abolish women? The sun, moon, and stars have been worshipped. Shall we pluck them out of the sky?” –Martin Luther WHY DON’T WE USE WINE? HISTORY

• Another contemporary objection states that while Jesus may have used real wine, our current situation calls for temperance, and therefore the use of grape juice is justified. • This argument is not scriptural at all. The bible never advocates the prohibition of the use of wine as a defense of the abuse of alcohol. While the bible regularly warns against the sin of drunkenness, it never promotes a permanent, abstinent position. Wine is not the problem any more than sex or food are the problem. The sinful heart is the problem. • Additionally to assume that drunkenness is a modern problem is to reveal ignorance of the scriptures. Jesus was regularly accused of being a drunkard and the OT wisdom literature (Psalms, Proverbs) as well as the New Testament regularly warn against the sin of drunkenness. (Disciples at Pentecost) SOME CONCLUSIONS

• I am not arguing that the Christian is mandated to drink wine if he/she chooses not to. But I offer a few qualifications: 1) A Christian may not judge those who choose to take wine at communion or even partake of alcohol in moderation with thanksgiving to God as doing something sinful. There is zero justification for arguing that the wine Jesus drank was unfermented or lacked the “power” to make one drunk. Nor can one argue that alcohol should be avoided by all for the sake of holiness. This attempts to put one morally above Jesus. 2) A Christian may abstain from alcohol for personal reasons (medication, family history, just don’t like it), but they may not deem the moderate use of wine in another’s life or at the Lord’s Table as either unbiblical, or a contemporary innovation. Instead the use of wine in daily life and within the covenant worship service is a gift from God to be enjoyed and celebrated.

SOME CONCLUSIONS

• Can minors take wine? Legally the 1984 National Minimum Drinking Age Act allows minors to possess alcoholic beverages, “for an established religious purpose; when accompanied by a parent, spouse or legal guardian age 21 or older” (https://alcoholpolicy.niaaa.nih.gov/the-1984-national-minimum- drinking-age-act). Note: the amount of wine in a communion cup is approximately 1- 1 ½ teaspoons. This is less alcohol than one will consume in most cough syrups or cold medicines.

• We will leave it up to the parents. SOME CONCLUSIONS

• What if I prefer grape juice and don’t want wine?