UNFERMENTED WINE
Stephen M.
Reynolds, Ph. D.
Author of The
Biblical Approach to Alcohol
From
a presentation to
The Synod of the Bible Presbyterian Church
October 4, 1993
Unfermented wine is in our
day commonly called grape juice. In fact it would be a great mistake to call the
fermented variety of grape juice simply grape juice. It must be called wine. It
would be wrong in our own period in history to call grape juice in an
unfermented state wine, although in the seventeenth century when the King James
Version of the Bible was published it was perfectly correct to do so. In those
days the word wine meant grape juice whether fermented or unfermented, although
the fermented variety was probably far more widely used in European countries
than the unfermented. For more than one reason the "tide of custom"
determined that the meaning of the word wine could be applied exclusively to the
alcoholic variety of grape juice. There is some evidence that this change came
about first in France and Germany where the makers and sellers of alcoholic wine
to protect the high prices they charged for their product made it illegal to
call grape juice wine. This restriction that only the alcoholic variety could be
called wine spread into the English language. It is now a great violation of
sound rules of translation not to translate according to context with a view to
the historical changes. This means the translators must take note of a change in
language. Words change their meanings in time.
The baser meaning of a word
tends to drive out the more noble and innocent meaning. Thus the word gay once
meant happy or bright. The King James translators and other early translators
were quite tight in translating the Greek word lampro,j in
James 2:3 as gay. Lampro,j
means bright in this context. Now the
evil sense of gay, meaning homosexual, has driven out the innocent meaning. Lampro,j
should no longer be translated gay. So when James rebukes those who would give
special attention to a man who comes into a Christian assembly with garments
called lampro,j, modern
translators rightly call what he wore "fine clothing." What was right
in the days of King James I, to speak of "gay apparel," would be
totally wrong today. It would suggest garments such as homosexuals wear, perhaps
even transvestite clothing.
Translators can see that
they must change the translation of lampro,j from a
seventeenth century meaning, but they are adamant in refusing to change the
meaning of the words !yIY
and oi=noj, which in Biblical Hebrew
and Greek meant grape juice, whether
fermented or unfermented being left to the judgment of the reader according to
the context. This is not entirely strange to speakers of modem English. The word
cider may mean either alcoholic or
nonalcoholic apple juice. Thus if someone says, "I got drunk from drinking
cider," we understand the alcoholic variety. If he says, "Have some
cider fresh from the press," we understand he means the non-alcoholic kind.
With this in view, it is not
unfair to address these translators and say. "You blind leaders of the
blind. You can see different meanings in a number of words. You can see
different meanings in the word gay, but
you can't see different meanings in the words !yIY
and oi=noj and by failing to make the
distinction you deceive people into thinking that Proverbs 23:31 need not be
obeyed because the same substance which is forbidden in Proverbs is, you say,
given by God to make glad the heart of man in Psalm 104:15."
How blind can you wise men
who attempt to translate the Bible be? God does not contradict Himself!
Following the same rigid rule that you apply to beverages, called the "one
wine theory," you would tell us that pagan gods made Abraham wander1
and that pagan gods revealed themselves to Jacob at Bethel.2 O
blind guides, why do you distinguish different meanings in the word ~yhil{a/ even when
by so doing you appear to be violating a rule of Hebrew grammar? The answer may
be that you do it because not to do so would be to expose yourselves as being
false translators. People would see your error. Abraham, the rest of Scripture
tells us, was not moved by pagan gods nor did Jacob see them at Bethel. In this
you translators were not blind guides. On the matter of God and gods if you had
translated rigidly as gods you
would have made people wonder; but your error would not have led them to
polytheism But by translating words for beverages as though they were always
alcoholic you have led many to their destruction by way of drunken orgies,
murder by vehicular homicide, other violent crimes and alcoholism. If you had
led people to think that James was speaking of a transvestite when he referred
to someone entering a Christian assembly in gay clothing, it would have done
little harm to Christian morals, but when you confuse them about beverages,
making the Bible say that God praises alcoholic beverages to make glad human
hearts and that Christ created a large quantity of one such beverage, you have
done great damage to mankind.
Some say that God never
forbids the drinking of alcoholic wine. He does more than forbid the drinking of
it: He forbids all mankind to even look at it. In Proverbs 23:31 we find the
words "Look not on the grape juice when it makes itself _____" (and
here follows a word which has been poorly translated throughout the ages). The
word which includes the idea it makes
itself has been translated wrongly as "when it is." But the Hebrew
stem of this verb is reflexive and means when
it makes itself When it makes itself implies
that grape juice left to itself and untreated in any way makes itself into
something else. Only one translation that I have found brings out the sense of when
it makes itself and that is the Judeo‑Spanish or Ladino, a
translation only rarely consulted, yet it is right in this and others are wrong.
But the word stating what grape juice makes itself has almost always been
translated red (except in the Latin
Vulgate of Jerome). This mistranslation gives the mistaken impression that God
is concerned in prohibiting red wine
while supposedly permitting white wine or wine of any other color. People seeing
that this distinction does not make sense have been inclined to treat the
prohibition of Proverbs 23:31 as mere rhetoric empty of any practical
application. But God's Word must be taken seriously. He intends us to take the
Bible as a life and death matter. If we take it seriously, we have everlasting
life. If we reject it or misinterpret it, it leads to the death of the soul,
eternal misery. If we understand that God is not playing with us, it becomes
obvious that the word usually translated red
does not refer to the color of the beverage.
Does only red wine do all
the things mentioned in the verses following verse 31? Does only red wine bite
like a serpent, sting like an adder, lead to immoral behavior and thoughts? Does
only red wine make one nauseated, desensitized to blows, put one to sleep, and
lead to addiction? It is obvious that it is not the color God is concerned about
for champagne and other white wines can do these things. Therefore the rather
difficult word ~D'a;t.yI
must mean it (the grape juice) makes itself alcoholic, and not makes
itself red. The earliest translators, those who produced the Septuagint and
the Vulgate did not see the word red in
this expression. Neither should later ones.
The semantic connection between the color red and alcohol
is suggested in verse 29 where this beverage is said to cause redness of eyes,
that is a bloodshot condition. It also causes red faces and red noses.
There are many words in the
Bible in the original languages the meaning of which is not obvious. This word, ~D'a in the hithpael
is one of them There is no other occurrence of the word in the rest of the
Bible or in cognate languages. Though not obvious, the meaning can be deduced
from the context. The translation when it
is red cannot be correct in this passage. Just ask yourself which command is
fitting for our wise God to give, "Don't look at red wine," or
"Don't look at grape juice when it makes itself alcoholic." The first
in unworthy of anything we would expect from God. If anyone says it is poetry
and not to be taken literally, let him ask himself this question and answer it
sincerely—Are any of the other prohibitions in this chapter not to be taken
literally? They all must be obeyed. For example, "Don't despise your mother
when she is old." "Don't steal land from an orphan."
If someone says "when
it is red" is another way of saying when
it is beautiful, the answer to that is that such a command would be even
more unworthy of a righteous God, as though only people with fine perception of
beauty need to be protected against drinking this dangerous drug. Blind people
wouldn't know whether a drink is beautiful or not and naive young people would
not care. Such a command would imply that God only cares for the aesthetically
gifted, but this is not true.
Jesus said in Matthew 5:18
as translated in the King James Version: "Till heaven and earth pass one
jot or one tittle shall in no wise pass from the law, till all be fulfilled. Now
jot and tittle are rather meaningless in modern English and the New
International Version makes the expression more meaningful by translating:
"I tell you the truth until heaven and earth disappear, not the smallest
letter, not the least stroke of a pen, will by any means disappear from the Law
until everything is accomplished."
If Proverbs 23:31 is part of
the moral law of God it will not disappear or become ineffective as long as
heaven and earth remain. We have Christ's own word for that confirmed by His
saying, "Verily," that is, “in truth."
Our Confession3
distinguishes three types of Law in Chapter 19: First, the moral law which is
eternally binding. Second, the ceremonial law which was abrogated under the New
Testament. It was fulfilled. It has accomplished what it was intended to do,
that is, to prefigure Christ and His atoning sacrifice to save from sin and
eternal torment such as should be saved. Finally, third, the judicial law, which
according to our Confession was given to the body politic of the old Israel
established by the Old Testament "which expired together with the state of
that people, not obliging any other now, further than the general equity thereof
may require."
There are a few people, a
small minority of Christians, called Theonomists, who believe that the judicial
laws, such as those which prescribe certain punishments for particular sins are
properly to be enforced today. There would be no prisons, but the death penalty
would be inflicted for a number of offenses, and floggings and restitution would
be enforced as punishment for minor crimes.
Christians who accept the
Westminster Confession cannot accept Theonomy in full, but some aspects of it
are in agreement with the "general equity" to which the Confession
refers. For example, our legal system seems to be inequitable in not requiring
thieves to make adequate restitution to those they have robbed. The judicial
laws of the Old Testament are thus in some respects more equitable than our laws
today. Our prisons are said to be breeding houses for crime.
When it comes to broadening the application of the death
penalty Christians may disagree. It is interesting to note that the Old
Testament provided for the death penalty for drunkards, but only in special
cases. See Deuteronomy 21:20. If persons who take human life while driving under
the influence of alcohol were put to death promptly after a fair trial it might
reduce the carnage on our highways. Many of us know families which have suffered
the loss of an innocent loved one. Capital punishment is not cruel, and one who
kills under these conditions, if converted after the event, ought to rejoice in
the triumph of justice if he is legally condemned to be put to death.
Proverbs 23:31 is a moral
law and not a ceremonial or judicial law. No one claims it is either of these.
It is formulated in a way very similar to the way the prohibitions of the Ten
Commandments are formulated. No judicial penalty is prescribed for breaking this
prohibition, and neither is there for the last of the famous Ten Commandments,
"Thou shalt not covet."
Since Proverbs 23:31 is a
moral law very similar to the Tenth Commandment, it is therefore as binding as
when it was first written. Since it is binding Jesus must have obeyed it. He did
not look on alcoholic wine. What he looked on, drank and even created was the
nonalcoholic wine which we call grape juice. The "One-wine Theory",
that is, that wherever we find the word wine in our English Bibles it always means alcoholic, is utterly
false.
What Jesus used as one of
the two elements at the Last Supper was "the fruit of the vine;"
namely grape juice. Alcohol is not the fruit of the vine but the excrement of
yeast, a microorganism that does not have its source in the vine. It is a great
violation of several key passages of Scripture to teach that our Lord used
alcoholic wine at the Last Supper. One is that Proverbs 31:4 says: "It is
not for kings ...to drink wine." Christ was a king, in fact the King of
Kings, so as holder of this office He could not drink this alcoholic beverage. A
second key passage is Leviticus 10:7-10 which says that a priest must not drink
wine or other fermented drink when he goes into the Tent of Meeting. Christ was
our great High Priest about to offer his sinless body as a sacrifice. If Old
Testament priests were forbidden to drink alcohol before performing their sacred
office, it follows that Christ could
not drink it before making the great sacrifice of which the ancient priests'
acts were but a type.
On the other hand, grape
juice, the pure fruit of the vine, is given by God to make glad the heart of
man. See Psalm 104:15. It makes glad man's heart in secular situations because
it puts wholesome grape sugar into his body, but preeminently it makes glad his
heart in the Lord's Supper because it represents the shed blood of Christ by
which alone he has forgiveness of sins and life everlasting.
Thus we have the great
paradox. There is a juice which when uncontaminated makes glad the human heart,
but which when contaminated by yeast represents malice and wickedness (See I
Corinthians 5:8). Truly it has been said, "The corruption of the best is
the worst." All evidence is there for translators to make the distinction.
It is high time they make it. The "One‑wine Theory" must go the
way of all bad theories. It must be put on the dust heap of history and
abandoned by Christians. Let those whose god is their belly continue to cling to
it.
Some may say
Christ must have used fermented wine at the Lord's Supper because modern Jews
usually use fermented wine at the Passover, and the Lord's Supper was instituted
after Jesus had participated in a Passover feast and the elements of bread and
beverage of the first Lord's Supper were the same as those with which our Lord
had celebrated the Passover Seder feast. To reason this way is to err greatly,
for Jesus more than once attacked the traditions of the Jews. One Scriptural
passage where it is recorded that he did so is Mark 7:3. Here he said that the
Pharisees and all the Jews except they wash their hands with clenched fist eat
not, holding to the tradition of the elders. The King James Version says,
"except they wash their hands
oft," but this is a mistake. It implies that they washed often before each
time they ate, but this would be very unreasonable, and besides the philological
reason for this translation has poor textual support. This understanding has
been abandoned by modern translators, but, sad to say, they have not done well
in translating the key word pugmh/, a
word which has adequate textual support.
I believe the first readers
of Mark's Gospel who were Jewish Christians had no difficulty in understanding Mark's meaning and why Jesus answered
the Pharisees as he did. Jesus was saying that even in their way of washing
their hands the Pharisees’ tradition was senseless and that their hearts were
far from God. It was a rule such as the Pharisees teaching about Corban by which
they made void the commandment of God to honor parents by providing for their
necessities. See Mark 7:9-13.
If Christians in all ages
had been better acquainted with Jewish customs pugmh/ (with
clenched fist)
would have been clear to them A very alert lady attending a mock seder
conducted by a learned rabbi in a famous synagogue asked her husband, "Why
did the rabbi hold his hand in a fist when his wife poured water on it?"
The husband answered: "This is the custom to which Jesus referred in Mark
7:3!" The fact thus struck him for the first time. From this question and
answer an article was written which was published in The Journal of Biblical
Literature4. From this article I was told by one who knew
that the rendering of this verse in the New International Version was
derived. This rendering is as follows: "The Pharisees and all the Jews do
not eat unless they give their hands a ceremonial washing, holding to the
tradition of the elders."
This understanding need not
necessarily have come from a Christian's observance of a seder feast. It might
have come in a number of ways, as, for example, by a careful reading of a book
by Lydia Buksbazen, an important member of a family of Jewish Christian
Missionaries prominent in the organization, The Friends of Israel. In her book They
Looked for a city,5 she tells on pages 18 and 19 how when
a little girl her mother with her mother's sisters washed their hands
"according to the law of their ancestors, by pouring from a quart jug three
times on a clenched fist, first on the left hand and then on the right."
"On a clenched
fist" are key words in understanding the Greek word pugmh/
in Mark 7:3. It is the dative of manner and should be translated "with
clenched fist." Thus Mark was being critical of a traditional manner of
washing the hands. One would expect water to be poured on a open hand. To pour
it on a clenched fist seems senseless and Mark was pointing this out. The
Scripture was not merely saying that the Jews were washing their hands in a
traditional manner, but that this manner was ritualized to an extreme. This
being the case the inference is obvious, all traditions of the Jews not directly
derived from Scripture should be regarded with suspicion.
Our Lord was not a
complacent observer of his disciples who were eating with filthy hands. There is
no reason to assume that his disciples had failed to prepare themselves for
eating by some generally accepted method of cleaning their hands. The
traditionalist Jews insisted that hands were unclean unless they were washed pugmh/,
with clenched fist. Every other method of washing was called
"unwashed." If anyone supposed Jesus was indiferent to unsanitary
practices, he should rid himself of that idea at once.
Not only should the King
James Version of Mark 7:3 be rejected but so should more recent translations,
which while they reject "oft" translate pugmh/
incorrectly. Thus we have "diligently" (American Standard Version),
and a number of other incorrect renderings which miss the point that Mark was
making.
Since the tradition of the
Pharisees was wrong about hand washing, how to honor parents, and Sabbath
observance, we may deduce that we need put no reliance on the Talmudic tradition
about alcoholic wine at Passover. What the medieval Jews did is no proof as to
what Christ did nor is it even proof that the Pharisees had invented the
tradition that alcoholic wine not only might, but must be used at this solemn
feast.
As a matter of fact,
observant Jews do not now require the use of alcohol at Passover as some
misguided Christians, for example, Johannes Vos and G. I. Williamson, have done
for the Lord's Supper.
We have the Apostle Paul's
own word that the Lord's Supper should be celebrated with unleavened elements.
The word avzu,moij in I Corinthians 5:8 should
be translated with unleavened things or
better, to agree with the context, with
unleavened elements. The word has been badly translated. The King James
Version has it that we should keep the feast, that is the Lord's Supper,
"with the unleavened bread of
sincerity and truth." The italic type shows that the word bread
does not occur in the original Greek. The New International Version's
rendering is far worse. It says that we should keep the Festival "with
bread without yeast." There is no indication that the word bread
is supplied by the translators. The reason bread
is not mentioned is that there are two elements in the Lord's Supper, bread
and a beverage, both without yeast. Yeast in the language of the Bible is a
symbol of evil. It should not be imagined that Christ permitted it to be used as
a symbol of His blood when He instituted the communion service or Lord's Supper.
It is true that the Jewish
Passover is called the tACM;h; gx; in
Deuteronomy 16:16 and this literally translated is "the Feast of Unleavened
Bread," but there is a good reason for that. If you search the Scriptures
throughout you will never find a reference to any beverage prescribed to be
consumed at the Passover feast. The word hACM; is never used
of a beverage. It means unleavened bread and
may be applied to an unleavened cake. On the other hand, the Greek word zu,mh|
(leaven) is used in reference
to a drink.
While no beverage was
required in the Old Testament for the celebration of the Passover, the New
Testament Passover, variously called the Lord's Supper or the Communion, has as
an essential part a beverage variously called "the cup" and "the
fruit of the vine."
To call the Lord's Supper
the feast of unleavened bread as the New International Version suggests
it may be called is a great error. It would be proper to call the Lord's Supper
not only our Passover but also our Feast of Unleavened Elements, but to call it
our Feast of Unleavened Bread would be to appear to be treating the blood of
Christ as of no significance. Yet in our theology we refer to the blood of
Christ as the saving substance far, far more frequently than to His body. Romans
5:9 says, "being justified by his blood, we shall be saved from wrath
through him." Ephesians 1:7 says of Jesus Christ “in whom we have
redemption through his blood." I could give other citations of course. Our
hymns refer to the blood of Christ. In I Corinthians 10:16 we have the words,
"The cup of blessing which we bless, is it not the communion of the blood
of Christ?"
So it would be contrary to
Christian usage to call our Lord's Supper, our Passover, the Feast of Unleavened
Bread. Paul excluded such an idea when he suggested in I Corinthians 5:8 that it
might be called the Feast of Unleavened Things (dative plural, (avzu,moij),
unleavened things which in the context of the Lord's Supper can only mean the
two elements, bread and grape juice.
Those who use alcoholic wine (the product of grape juice
plus the product of leaven) at Communion are going against I Corinthians 5:8.
It may be necessary (but it
ought not to be) to deal with the idea of some people that they did not know how
to prevent fermentation and that the beverage at the first Lord's Supper was of
necessity fermented, because the lapse of time between grape harvest and the
Spring time festival of Passover would have caused grape juice to ferment. There
is ample evidence that the ancients knew how to stop the fermentation process.
Vergil, who lived before the time of Christ, told of this. One of the easy ways
is to boil the grape juice before the fermentation begins. This kills the yeast
and it therefore cannot excrete alcohol. It is unreasonable to suppose the
ancients did not know how to boil grape juice or that they did not know the
consequences of such boiling.
Christ did not create
alcoholic wine at Cana in the miracle recorded in John 2:1‑11. It has
already been demonstrated that the ancient words for a beverage made from grape
juice, whether fermented or unfermented was the Hebrew word !yIY and the Greek
word oi=noj.
In most cases there was no distinction made; but in Proverbs 23:31 there was,
and all people at all times are forbidden to even look at the alcoholic kind;
and it follows that they are forbidden to drink it.
Jesus kept this law. He
would not have looked at, drunk or created for others an intoxicating wine. He
certainly would not have made it for people who were already drunk. Therefore He
must have created a nonintoxicating grape juice with no alcoholic content
whatsoever.
His answer to his mother,
who seems to have suggested that He provide more of the same substance which the
people at the wedding had already been drinking to excess, is revealing. The
original (and there are no variants) has His answer to be: "Woman, what
have I to do with thee?" The way He addressed His mother is not what we
would expect and must have a deeper meaning than that which is a first apparent.
Why did He address her as "Woman" and use words which are elsewhere in
the Bible used in rejection?
The New International
Version mistranslates and has it that Jesus said, "Dear woman, why do
you involve me?" By so doing these translators have done what God in
Proverbs 30:6 says not to do. They have added the word "dear" which
occurs in no Greek manuscript and so are, according to God's own Word, found to
be liars.
Apparently the translators
of the New International Version thought they ought to improve on the
manners of our Lord as they are described in the inerrant Word of God! Who are
they to do this? It is presumptuous!
Of course for us humans who
are not God incarnate to call our mother woman
and our father man would be
unmannerly. There is no reason to think it was considered proper then. The
words, "What have I to do with thee?", imply that Jesus was rebuking
his mother for her untimely suggestion, but we must not read a rebuke into His
calling her "woman" in John 2:4 because in John 19:26 he also called
her "woman" when there was no rebuke, only love and honor. Here the New
International Version incorrectly adds "Dear" in both instances.
Jesus was not like other
men. He kept the commandment to honor His mother and He was not breaking it at
this point; but He was speaking as God, and as God He saw His mother as a sinner
in need of saving grace. He was subject to her when He was a child, but when He
became a man He assumed His state as both man and God in the flesh. His position
with regard to His mother was decidedly different.
Matthew Henry wrote that one
of Christ's reasons for this language could be that He foresaw that some of His
followers would in latter times give undue honors to the Virgin Mary, calling
her "Queen of Heaven" and "Mediatrix." His way of addressing
her is a standing testimony against idolatry of Mary. By calling Mary
"woman," He guarded against His followers calling her "Mother of
God." Some mistaken people have called her that anyway, but it cannot be
said that Jesus did not take precautions against it. She did conceive and give
birth to Him, and He was God incarnate, but the term Mother of God is too
exalted for her. It might imply that she was mother of one third of the Holy
Trinity.
Jesus was called a glutton and a drunkard by His enemies.
This is no doubt the best way to translate fa,goj kai. oivnopo,thj in Matthew 11:19 and Luke
7:34. Some people, while agreeing that Jesus was not a glutton or a drunkard,
assume that there must have been a semblance of truth in what the enemies said
and that Jesus was observed drinking alcoholic wine. This cannot be true. The
enemies of both John the Baptist and Christ were lying. Because John was very
abstemious and would not eat or drink any product of the grape vine they lied
about him and said he had a devil. That is, they said his behavior was to be
accounted for by his being demon‑possessed. On the other hand Jesus, whose
life‑style was different from that of John and who would on occasion drink
the unfermented juice of the grape, was slandered by these enemies who said he
was a drunkard.
It is a duty of all
Christians to challenge the lies of all slanderers especially those who tell
lies in an attempt to damage the reputation of our Lord and Savior. Jesus was a
total abstainer from alcohol because He obeyed Proverbs 23:31.
CONCLUDING
THOUGHTS
IN DEFENSE OF TIE TWO-WINE POSITION
While we must condemn modern
translations which make no distinction between grape juice before and after it
has fermented, we ought not to be critical of translations which do not make
this distinction if they were made before the nineteenth century. The King James
Version, first published in 1611, is one such translation. Before the nineteenth
century one of the definitions of the English word wine
in standard dictionaries was what we now call grape juice. Modern
dictionaries such as are in use today define "wine" in such terms as
this: "fermented grape juice containing varying percentages of alcohol
together with ethers and esters that give it bouquet and flavor."6
This change in meaning ought
not to surprise us if we know anything at all about linguistic changes. John
Stuart Mill, a highly respected philosopher, expressed this thought in this way:
"A generic term is always liable to become limited to a single species if
people have occasion to think and speak of that species oftener than anything
else contained in the genus. The tide of custom first drifts the word on the
shore of a particular meaning, then retires and leaves it there."7
This is what happened to the
English word wine. It first meant any
beverage made from pressing grapes (a generic term), then the tide of language
left the word to be used more frequently of the alcoholic beverage (a specific
sense), and ultimately the specific sense (the alcoholic beverage) became the
only meaning of the word wine.
Great scholars of the
nineteenth century, Lyman Abbott and Moses Stuart studied this and put their
informed findings in writing. Lyman Abbott wrote: "It is tolerably clear
that the general words `wine' and `strong drink' do not necessarily imply
fermented liquors, the former signifying only a production of the vine, the
latter the produce of other fruits than the grape."8
Professor
Moses Stuart (considered to be not merely unprejudiced and respectable, but
"one of the greatest benefactors of the church" by reason of his
exegetical method) wrote: "My final conclusion is this ...that when the
Scriptures speak of wine as a comfort, a blessing, or a libation to God ...they
can mean only such wine as contained no alcohol that could have a mischievous
tendency, that wherever they denounce it and connect it with drunkenness and
revelry, they can mean only alcoholic or intoxicating wine."9
Drs. Abbott and Stuart have
never been refuted, although their findings have been ignored. What has happened
is that unregenerated human nature which is prone to be evil, as is recorded in
Holy Writ, has taken control of our information media, our educational system
and much of our political life. Also, there is so much money in the manufacture
and sale of liquor that the liquor industry has been able to buy its way into
popular favor.
It is rightly written that
the love of money is a root of all evils. This we read in I Timothy 6:10. The
liquor industry, the abortion industry, and the gambling industry are dominant
in America today. Thank God for our leaders in the Bible Presbyterian Church and
others who have not bowed the knee to Baal. They have never wavered in their
opposition to alcoholic beverages, abortion on demand, and wasteful gaming. May
this, our church, ever remain loyal to these Biblical principles! Faithful to
the end!
The task before us is hard.
Ignorance and prejudice are deeply entrenched in some of our conservative
Protestant denominations. A minister in one such denomination wrote: "We
have often said that the Bible does not forbid the use of wine in moderation and
in fact even promotes it for reasons of health. We have taken issue with the
silly way in which some Fundamentalists try to argue around what God clearly
teaches in his Word about the use of wine."10
This minister thinks
moderation is the answer, but God clearly teaches in His Word that abstinence is
the true answer.
This writer, who ridicules
those who preach total abstinence and calls their arguments "silly,"
is aware that his arguments in favor of moderation are falling on deaf ears. He
goes on to write, "It makes us almost gag when we see a preacher with a
long row of fancy expensive whiskey bottles in his closet. Certainly the money
for this alcohol should be used for better purposes. It simply makes no sense
when seminary students plead for gifts to pay their tuition and yet have money
for alcohol."
So we see this clergyman is
aware of the problem, but fails to see the answer. He is supported in his folly
by faulty Bible translations and by the support of countless thousands of
professing Christians who read God's Word with bias in their hearts. Bias, that
is, against what God is really telling us about alcoholic beverages. Proverbs
23:31 is clear enough in any translation, but it becomes even clearer when
properly translated. Other passages must be translated better also.
Many of those who think they
will practice moderation in their use have drifted into addiction. Most of us
probably know sad cases of professing Christians who have become alcoholics. I
have known one such minister who had a leadership role in a denomination to
which I formerly belonged. I even engaged in controversy with him on a matter
which had nothing to do with alcohol. Alcohol however took control of his life
and marred him terribly as a minister of the Gospel and even as a man among men.
All the arguments that
Proverbs 23:31 is not a moral command vanish away when the whole of the 23rd
chapter and the whole Bible are carefully studied. In studying the Bible it is
of course necessary to separate different meanings of homographs.
Another matter to which some
Christians have given much attention is that of Theonomy. This school of thought
is also known as Christian Reconstruction. "Chief among its characteristics
are an emphasis upon the Old Testament law; stress upon the continued
normativity not only of the moral law; but also of the judicial law of the Old
Testament Israel, including its penal sanctions; and belief that the Old
Testament judicial law applies not only to Israel, but also to Gentile nations
including modem America, so that it is the duty of civil governments to enforce
the law and execute its penalties.”11
It is obvious that this is
only theory, and has no practical importance in the world in which we live. The
government of the United States of America is moving rapidly away from Biblical
principles, scorns the moral law of the Bible and of course is far from wishing
to pay the slightest attention to the judicial laws of the Old Testament.
Sincere Evangelical
Christians, learned in the Bible, are on both sides of the question of the
millennium It cannot be proved that typical representatives of either school of
thought live more Christ‑like lives than typical representatives of the
other school.
Learned Evangelicals are in
both sides of the question of Theonomy. Typical representatives of both sides
believe that God's moral law is binding, and it cannot be represented that one
side lives more according to God's moral law than the other.
Representatives of different
views of the millennium and different views of Theonomy are united in belief
that there is no other name under heaven whereby we must be saved than that of
Jesus. Faith and behavior of all groups are essentially the same. Therefore
perhaps less time spent in discussing these things and less heat in advancing
our particular view would be proper.
But (and this is a big
distinction) it makes a great deal of difference whether or not we think that
Proverbs 23:31 is part of the moral law or not. If professing Christians reject
it, there will be death on the highways, irrational quarrels, lewd behavior and
other social ills. If professing Christians believe it is a part of the moral
law, people can learn to live together in gentleness and peace, and God can be
honored properly.
Let us of the Bible
Presbyterian Church hold fast to our belief that we should abstain from
alcoholic beverages. Let us work toward the production of a Bible purged of
errors such as the one that implies that alcoholic wine makes glad the heart of
man. We need a People's Purified Bible!
1.
Genesis 20:13.
2.
Genesis 35:7.
3.
Westminster Confession of Faith, Chapter 19, sections 1-4.
4.
Vol. 85, Part 1, 1966, pp. 87-8.
5.
Published by the Spearhead Press, Philadelphia, Fourth Edition, 1968. pp. 18-19.
6
Webster's Seventh New Collegiate Dictionary. G. C. Merriam Company,
Springfield, Massachusetts, 1963, p. 1023.
7.
System of Logic, Book IV, Chapter V.
8
Dictionary of Religious Knowledge, Article "Wine," p. 973.
9
Cyclopedia of Temperance and Prohibition, N. Y. 1891, "Moses
Stuart," p. 621.
10.
Christian News. vol. 30, no. 5 (Feb. 3, 1992), pp. 4-5. Article,
"Down with Drunkenness."
11
Theonomy: A Reformed Critique, edited by William S. Barker and W. Robert
Godfrey. Zondervan (c. 1990). Back cover.
