Passover Wine by Cynosure

International Tract and Missionary Society · Oakland, California · Dec 30, 1886

FromSigns of the Times, Vol. 12, No. 50.

Passover Wine.

By Cynosure

ONLY a few weeks ago a London Jewish Rabbi said to the editor of the Methodist Times of that city: "Jews never use fermented wine in their synagogue services, and must not use it on the Passover, either for synagogue or home purposes. Fermented liquor of any kind comes under the category of 'leaven,' which is proscribed in so many passages in the Old Testament. I have read recently the passage in Matthew in which the Paschal Supper is described. There can be no doubt whatever that the wine used on that occasion was unfermented. Jesus, as an observant Jew, would not only not have drunk fermented wine on the Passover, but would not have celebrated the Passover in any house from which everything fermented had not been removed. You will allow me,

perhaps, to express my surprise that Christians, who profess to be followers of Jesus of Nazareth, can take what he could not possibly have taken as a Jew—intoxicating wine—at so sacred a service as the sacrament of the Lord's Supper." Does such testimony count for nothing as to what kind of wine should be used at the Lord's table? Does it throw no light whatever on the kind of wine made by our Lord for the wedding feast at Cana?