Isaiah 65:8
Thus saith the LORD, As the new wine is found in the cluster, and one saith, Destroy it not; for a blessing is in it: so will I do for my servants’ sakes, that I may not destroy them all. Thus saith the LORD, As the new wine is found in the cluster, and one saith, Destroy it not; for a blessing is in it: so will I do for my servants’ sakes, that I may not destroy them all.
The new wine found in the cluster is the pure, sweet, unfermented juice of the grape. That juice carries God's blessing in it and is wholesome and refreshing. It brings the taste into harmony with a healthful appetite. The Bible by this sanctions no intoxicating wine.
It is the same drink made from water at the marriage feast at Cana. It is the same drink given to the disciples at the first communion as a symbol of blood shed for the sins of the world. It is the only wine to be used always on the communion table. Its identity proves no intoxicating beverage was provided, in consistency with the warning that fermented wine mocks and deceives and with the teaching to bring the lower nature into subjection through self-denial. Its identity proves the wine was wholesome grape juice and not fermented liquor that causes drunkenness and many great evils.
The figure teaches that God will not destroy all His servants, but preserves them for the sake of the blessing still among them, just as a cluster is spared from destruction because good fruit is in it. It does not prove the conversion of the entire world in this mortal state on the old sin-cursed earth, nor that all people will be holy at any time in fallen condition. It describes the new earth, where the leopard lies down with the kid and the lion eats straw like the ox, with beasts restored from the curse in their proper places as when created before the fall.
The words belong to a decided rebuke to God's people, including responsible leaders, for complaining and evil working and ways not accepted by God. They were applied to a church that had failed to seek its lost members and bring them back. Heeding them calls for stopping complaints and evil work, putting away the evil of works, coming near, repenting, and being converted, with a reformation going through the congregation. When those words are received and obeyed in that way, the Lord manifests power and appears in the conviction and conversion of souls.