Misrepresenting the Saviour by C. M. S.

Review and Herald Publishing Association · Tacoma Park Station, Washington, D.C. · Jun 18, 1914

Misrepresenting the Saviour

By C. M. S.

Advocates of strong drink have for many years misrepresented our Lord and the apostle Paul, and in fact the whole Bible, over the question of alcoholic beverages. The drunkard and the liquor seller will insist that our Saviour made intoxicating drink at the wedding in Cana. Admonish the user of alcoholic beverages in reference to the danger of continual indulgence in strong drink, and he will hide behind Paul’s suggestion to Timothy that he take “a little wine for thy stomach’s sake.” There are even ministers of the gospel who insist that the “wine” made by the Saviour must have been fermented wine; that the wine used at the Lord’s Supper was fermented wine; and that fermented wine must be used now or the ordinance is not properly administered. None of these assertions are true.

The inconsistency of holding such a position ought to have been apparent to all Bible scholars. The Saviour would not be likely, in instituting the ordinance of the Lord’s Supper, to prescribe as one of the emblems that which had been denied to all officiating priests from the time of the instituting of the sanctuary services. Here is Jehovah’s prohibition to his priesthood concerning just such a drink as our great high Priest is supposed to have used and instructed his followers to use in the Lord’s Supper:—

“And Jehovah spake unto Aaron, saying, Drink no wine nor strong drink, thou, nor thy sons with thee, when ye go into the tent of meeting, that ye die not: it shall be a statute forever throughoutyour generations: and that ye may make a distinction between the holy and the common, and between the unclean and the clean.” Lev. 10:8-10.

The Lord indicated in that prohibition the detrimental effect of intoxicating beverages upon the mind. With a priesthood given to drink there would be no distinction made between the holy and the common, the clean and the unclean. Had the priesthood through all the centuries heeded that command of Jehovah, the history of the church, and especially of the Christian church, would have read very differently from what it does now. That which caused men to fail to distinguish between the common and the holy and between the unclean and the clean in the old dispensation has the same effect under the new dispensation; and because that command of Jehovah has not been heeded by a large portion of the priesthood during the Christian dispensation, the common and the holy have been often intermingled and no distinction put between the unclean and the clean.

Many temperance advocates have been troubled over the use of the word wine in the New Testament, and have not known how to answer the charge made by liquor dealers and liquor drinkers to the effect that the New Testament recommends the use of fermented wine. The real meaning of the Greek word οἶνος (oinos, wine) will be of great help in solving the difficulty. Οἶνος (oinos) means the grape tree, or vine plant. Οἶνος (oinos) means the fruit of the vine, or grape plant, and fermented wine is only one of those fruits. Mr. Ferrar Fenton, M. R. A. S., M. C. A. A., a thorough Greek and Hebrew scholar, who has made an exhaustive study of the subject of the Bible and wine, tracing every original word that refers to drink in the Bible to its original source and to its common usage at the time when the Bible was written, in giving the definition of the word οἶνος (oinos) says:—

Οἶνος, the fruit of the vine, or grape plant. It is also used to denote various kinds of drinks or confections of other succulent fruits, such as the date and lotus fruit, according to Liddell and Scott’s Lexicon. According to Prof. Samuel Lee of Cambridge University, the root of the Greek word is undoubtedly the Hebrew vocable yain (wine); which, as I have before shown, . . . was not confined to an intoxicating liquor made from fruits by alcoholic fermentation of their expressed juices, but more frequently referred to a thick, non-intoxicating sirup, conserve, or jam, produced by boiling, to make them storable as articles of food, exactly as we do at the present day, the only difference being that we store them in jars, bottles, or metal cans, whilst the ancients laid them up in skin bottles, as Aristotle and Pliny and other classic writers upon agricultural and household affairs describe. Consequently the contention of some of my correspondents that the Greek οἶνος (oinos) always meant fermented and intoxicating liquor is totally inaccurate, and only arises from ignorance, or prejudice in favor of the delusion of the commentators of the Dark Ages, who fancied drunkenness was the highest delight, and intoxication an imperative Christian practice; because Mohammedan Arabians were a sober people.

The original word from which we get “wine” does not either in the Hebrew or in the Greek always signify an intoxicating drink. It referred also to “grapes as fresh fruit” and to grapes when “dried as raisins, or prepared as jam, or preserved by boiling for storage, or as a thick sirup for spreading upon the bread as we do butter; and that sirup dissolved in water for a beverage at meals, as described in the Hebrew Bible by Solomon and others, and amongst Greek writers by Aristotle, and Pliny amongst the Roman ones.”—“Bible and Wine,” pages 82, 83. Professor Fenton makes this further interesting explanation in reference to the drink used in the time of our Lord:—

This mixing of the sirup with water ready for use at meals is alluded to in more than one of our Lord’s parables. The liquid was absolutely non-alcoholic and not intoxicating. Grape juice was also prepared by heating it, as soon as possible after it had been squeezed in the press, by boiling, so as to prevent fermentation, and yet preserve its thin liquid form as a drink. To insure this, certain resinous gums were dissolved in the juice, or sulphate of lime, or what is commonly called gypsum, was put into it, as is now done in Spain, to make the liquid clear and bright, and prevent subsequent fermentation arising from changes of atmosphere. All these plans for producing a non-intoxicating wine are still followed extensively in every grape-growing country of southern Europe and Asia, as of old.—Id., page 83.

From this we see that the word wine as used in the Bible seldom refers to the intoxicating beverage now designated by that word. The drink (wine) referred to by Biblical writers as permissible was not a fermented drink, but a drink made by diluting a simple, unfermented fruit sirup. Fermented drinks were made and drunk in those days and in the days of the prophets; but such drinks the Bible condemns. “Wine is a mocker, strong drink is raging: and whosoever is deceived thereby is not wise.” Prov. 20:1. “Who hath woe? who hath sorrow? who hath contentions? who hath complaining? who hath wounds without cause? who hath redness of eyes? They that tarry long at the wine; they that go to seek out mixed wine. Look not thou upon the wine when it is red, when it sparkleth in the cup, when it goeth down smoothly: at the last it biteth like a serpent, and stingeth like an adder.” Prov. 23:29-32.

This wine which sparkled in the cup was fermented wine, and the effect of drinking it was the same then as now. It bred every kind of disorder then, and ruined men’s bodies and souls then even as it does now. What our Lord forbade to his people then because of its deleterious effects he is not encouraging us now, by either example or precept, to make use of.

In another article we shall deal with some of the specific texts used by liquor advocates to make it seem that the Bible encourages the drinking of alcoholic wine. C. M. S.