To Drink or Not Drink: A Great Teaching Resource on Drinking Wine

             

The series of posts I've offered thus far pursue the subject of wine and the Bible from the position of the temperance theologians leading up to Prohibition in the United States.  This movement was not a 'grassroots' movement from the bottom up.  That is, led by Pastors, then Churches, then mass endorsement, etc.

Rather, organized temperance was led by the academy. Intellectuals from various academic disciplines--Linguistics, Oriental Studies, Theologians, Greek and Hebrew scholars, Classics, Historians Viticulturalists, Medical Doctors among others--held a sophisticated, comprehensive understanding that not only drunkenness was an evil the Bible condemned but also alcoholic wine and strong drink, from the Biblical perspective, were  condemned just as strongly.

Moderationists were the norm in 19th Century Europe and the United States.  The Church perhaps was, at least most of her history, moderationist in perspective, if we desire to judge such by merely counting raised hands. F.D. Lees, Leon Fields, Eliphalet Nott, G.W. Samson, along with a host of other scholars, felt themselves reformers in the strongest sense of the word. 

They appealed to what Scripture said on the subject while the moderationists appealed to the settled opinion of the Church.  Listen to Leon Fields in his book, "Oinos:  A Discussion of the Bible-Wine Question" (1883):

As to the prejuge legitime, this is not the first instance in which it has been appealed to for the sanction of error. There has rarely ever been a bad cause in whose support it was not invoked. The almost universal interpretation of the Bible in defense of the doctrine of passive obedience was pronounced a prejuge legitime against the right of resistance to tyrants in Charles the Second's day.

That interpretation, however, has gone for very little since the Revolution of 1688. The almost universal interpretation of the Bible in support of the system of human slavery was deemed a prejuge legitime against the right and duty of abolition, a quarter of a century ago.

That interpretation, also, has been worth very little since the crisis of civil war and the act of emancipation. But the principle upon which the non-jurors argued the divine obligation of passive obedience, and the slaveholders defended the divine authority of human chattelism, is precisely the same as that now employed in upholding the theory of a divine sanction for intoxicating wine.

The old lesson must once more be learned, that a traditional interpretation of Scripture is not conclusive proof of any doctrine, but is often an obscuration of the truth of God. It is needful, therefore, to "pray against that bias which, by importing its own foregone conclusions into the word of Scripture, and, by refusing to acknowledge what makes against its own prejudices, has proved the greatest hindrance to all fair interpretation, and has tended, more than anything else in the world, to check the free course of divine truth." 

In every age the Lord has some new light to break forth out of his Holy Word,f and in the next generation we may look to see it break as clearly on the duty of total abstinence as we have seen it shine in the generation just passing on the right of human freedom." (18-19).

Or, again hear Professor Lees in his preliminary dissertation to "The Temperance Bible" (1870):

"The Church," says the Objector, "is against the Abstinence theory. It has known all about the Scriptures, and it has universally supposed that intoxicating wine is good, in moderation. That abstainers should have found a new light is incredible. We cannot suppose so many doctors of the Church, and such myriads of pious Christians, to have been in error or sin."  In this series of assumptions, each particular is deceptive. There always have been abstainers in the Christian Church, and we profess to have found no new light, but to be illuminated by the old, old lamp.

Two questions are involved in this objection: (i) Is the Bible an exhausted book? (2) Has the professing Church ever erred in its dogmas and practices? To put the questions is to answer them, but we will do more.  On the first point, there is a consensus of opinion, whatever that may be worth. The Roman Catholic Church expressly claims the power to decide on controverted points of Biblical Theology, and has so decided recently on the Immaculate Conception. (xxx,iii).

Thus, we continue with the 'reforming' view that fermented wine is poisonous to consume and therefore not something considered morally neutral.

As a resource for those abstentionists who remain convinced that alcoholic wine was the only type of wine in Scripture yet struggle to assemble an articulate case for total abstinence, Professor Norman Geisler offers a resource that proves invaluable. 

Dr. Geisler assumes the wine in Scripture is alcoholic in nature but puts together a solid case--Biblically and logically--for total abstinence over moderation drinking.  Download this resource and begin immediately teaching it in your Church.

In the meantime, I will continue the series from the standpoint that wine, biblically speaking, is of basically two kinds:  nonalcoholic and alcoholic.  The former God both created and commended for the enjoyment of his creatures, to 'gladden their hearts', if you will.  The latter, God neither created nor commended but outright condemned not only the drunkenness as a result but the consumption of the poisonous substance itself which man made in his own fallen image.

With that, I am...

Peter

Comments

[Strider]

I have been following the discussion here but have not entered it yet. I have been a total abstainer since High School when God asked me not to drink but I have always held that moderation was a valid position. I am very much in favor of the argument in this post that just because people have always believed it does not make it so. However, if we presume that the Bible has always taught that wine itself was 'evil'(my word) then I think it important to show where the change in history came. I mean that Jews today drink wine- lots of it and believe that wine (alcoholic) was always used. It was always believed by the church as far back as anyone I have read that Jesus used wine (not grape juice) at the last supper. When did the early church stop using grape juice and started using wine? This would be important to prove the reformer's argument.

[peter lumpkins]

Strider,

Thanks for entering in. Your perspective is ever welcome. First, if I gave the impression through what I've written thus far that wine itself is 'evil' I regret such. 'Wine', that is, the fruit of the vine in its purist form, is a delightful good God gives us to enjoy.

Rather the added chemicals through fermentation--and now in the modern world, distillation--which can only be described as toxins, are precisely what must be viewed as 'evil'. The moral reasoning is God would no more approve of one partaking of degenerated wine as He would molded bread or spoiled milk.

As for when it 'changed in history', I don't know how to respond. There have been voices of abstention all along--in Jewish history as well as Christian--but granted they were the minority view. That early believers took that Jesus only commended fresh wine (nontoxic) is easily documented from extra-biblical sources.

Also, the Biblical rootedness of The Supper in Passover itself argues for nontoxic wine in The Supper. There was to be nothing leavened as a part of Passover. Fermented wine would surely have been considered a leavened product. What do you think?

As for the Jewish people partaking today and yesteryear, I do not see at all how "practice of" argues for revealed truth any more in Judaism than our sorry ethics within Christianity.

Grace, Strider. With that, i am...

Peter

[David Rogers]

Peter,

I have just gotten caught up reading all your posts so far on this topic. Please do not misinterpret me here as an apologist for the moderationist view. I am not. I am, however, striving to be as objective as I can in evaluating the biblical evidence.

I do believe the argument you make about different kinds of wine, even possibly different uses of the words "yayin" and "oinos" has merit.

What I have not seen thus far (unless I missed it), and is still causing me a bit of trouble, is the apparently approving use of the term "shekar" in Deuteronomy 14:26(translated "strong drink" in the KJV, and " other fermented drink" in the NIV). Do you have any information that might help to explain this?

[peter lumpkins]

David,

I do. And can offer several 'explanations' from the late Professor Robert Teachout's exhaustive study of Wine in the OT (his unpublished doctoral dissertation at Dallas Theological Seminary), F.D. Lees, G.W. Samson, Samuele Bacchiocchi among others. However, that's getting the proverbial cart ahead of the horse.

Why would one desire to judge all other texts of Scripture--texts that seem to offer a compelling, consistent view--by one verse that appears to teach something else? I do not do so with eternal security; that is, while I do not dismiss Hebrews 6, for example, in my understanding of eternal redemption, neither do I see it as necessarily overturning my eternal redeemed position in Christ.

All said, there will be plenty of time to look at 'problem texts'. The real question now is whether or not the Bible presents a comprehensive, consistent pattern in its view of wine as both toxic and nontoxic, the former God commending, the latter God condemning. The answer seems more and more to be "yes" to me.

With that, I am...

Peter