Sometimes it’s difficult to separate details central to the Bible’s story of redemption from details less central. The Bible’s teaching on God, humankind, and Jesus, are critical. Even still, the virgin birth of Jesus is a far more important than the exact date of His birth or childhood details not found in Scripture. Similarly, responding in faith and repentance is more important than the timing and language and sophistication of that response.
How important is wine to the story of redemption? Jesus commands two sacraments: baptism and the Lord’s Table (see Matthew 28.19 and Matthew 26.26-29; Mark 14.22-25; Luke 22.14-23; 1 Corinthians 11.23). Neither are necessary for salvation. Each, though, is taught in Scripture with clarity and detail. Where the Bible speaks plainly about any detail in the story of redemption, we should notice.
In the Bible, baptism requires water. Whether running water or standing water, salt water or fresh water, water is the critical ingredient. Bread, unleavened or leavened, is a more biblical element for the Lord’s Table than cooked grain or another staple food like legumes or figs. While the color of wine seems unimportant, our clearest understanding from the Bible is that wine is used for the Lord’s Table.
Wines of different kinds are mentioned 150 times in the Old Testament. Vineyards are mentioned 90 times, and vines more than 60. Drink offerings, likely of wine, are mentioned a dozen times. In the New Testament, wine appears 72 times, translating Hebrew words with the standard Greek word for wine. Juice is rarely mentioned in the Old Testament and never in the New Testament. Even when the Bible uses expressions like pressed grapes (Genesis 40.11-11) or “the blood of the grape (Genesis 49.11; Deuteronomy 32.14)” or “fruit of the vine (Matthew 26.29; Mark 14.25; Luke 22.18),” there is no indication that this is anything other than wine. G. I. Williamson says, “in no instance” is the word for wine equivalent to any “unfermented grape juice (Wine in the Bible and the Church).”
In the Bible, wine seems to be, wine. Why else did Jesus have the reputation as one who came “eating and drinking” and a “glutton and drunkard” unless He was known to eat real food and drink real wine (Luke 7.34)? A similar picture emerges when He insists that guests of a wedding are right to expect wine, even good wine (John 2.1-11). Jesus had to have understood wine just as an average Jew would: a beverage to mark blessing and celebration (Deuteronomy 14.26; 1 Timothy 4.4) and never used for drunkenness (Luke 21.34; 12.45; Genesis 9.21; Ecclesiastes 10.17; Amos 4.1; 6.6).
The clearest understanding of the Bible is that wine, a beverage with the power to intoxicate, was meant to be used in ways that please God. In the New Testament church, not even elders and deacons were required to practice total abstinence (1 Timothy 5.23), though they were to avoid drunkenness (1 Timothy 3.3; likely what’s behind Leviticus 10.9 and Ezekiel 44.21). This was true for the average member of the congregation as well; believers in Corinth were admonished for their drunkenness in the church, yet still permitted to drink at home (1 Corinthians 11.21-22). It is a wonder that not even believers in Corinth, those indicted for drunkenness at the Lord’s Table (1 Corinthians 11.20-21), were advised to practice strict abstinence (note 1 Timothy 4.3; Colossians 2.20-23). If a congregation ever needed a break from wine at the Lord’s Table, this was it.
What role does wine play in the story of redemption? The Bible does not ignore wine, nor does it describe wine as an illicit beverage avoided at all costs. The Bible charts a different course.
We don’t often associate the Lord’s Supper with looking forward, do we? We look back in the story of redemption to the death of Jesus because the meal is a proclamation of His death (1 Corinthians 11.26). R. C. Sproul says that “we shouldn’t only look back to Christ’s past accomplishments, but to the future feast that is yet to be fulfilled (What is the Lord’s Supper?).” The Lord’s Table anticipates a future meal in the presence of Jesus (Matthew 8.11; Luke 13.29), a marriage feast (Revelation 19.1-10) in the story of redemption’s future. At the first Lord’s Table Jesus said repeatedly that He would not share this meal with them again until “it is fulfilled in the kingdom of God (Luke 22.16)." He promised, one day you will “eat and drink at my table in my kingdom (Luke 22.30).” Jesus had earlier promised that every follower would “recline at table in the kingdom of God (Luke 13.29; Matthew 8.11),” but at the Lord’s Table He explicitly evoked that day when He would drink wine with them anew in the kingdom of God (Matthew 26.29; Mark 14.25; Luke 22.18).
This future aspect connects the Lord’s Table with the Passover. The Hebrew people celebrated the Passover not just to commemorate the past, but in anticipation of the true Messiah who would die for their deliverance from sin. They knew that the Passover was not a stage-play to confuse the Egyptians; the blood was a sign, a marker that preserved God’s firstborn from destruction (Exodus 12.13; 4.22) and anticipated the once-and-for-all sacrifice, “Christ, our Passover lamb” who gave His life to save us from destruction (1 Corinthians 5.7).
In this way, the Lord’s Table is both a reflection on a past event and a foretaste of a future feast for all those who profess faith in Jesus. Even the average Jew assumed that there would be a future meal (Luke 14.15). There is a drama about the Lord’s Table that anticipates something more. The Bible gives no indication that wine is incidental or trivial. It is a significant sign with which God communicates significant realities in the story of redemption.
The Hebrew people were taught to see wine as God’s blessing in the present (Genesis 27.37; Deuteronomy 33.28) and an expectation of His continued blessing (Deuteronomy 7.13; Genesis 27.28; Joel 2.19). They anticipated a sumptuous new covenant meal with refined and well-aged wine that would confirm His faithfulness (Isaiah 25.6). The annual harvest of grapes was itself evidence of God’s promise-keeping and hope for the future (Joel 2.24). It is no surprise that fulfillment of God’s promises after the hardship of the Exile was completely wrapped-up in the presence of wine (Isaiah 55.1), the absence of wine being a negative image indeed (Isaiah 16.10; Jeremiah 48.33).
In addition to celebrating His faithfulness, God also used wine to communicate the reality of His judgement (Isaiah 63.1-6; Jeremiah 25.30; Lamentations 1.15; Joel 3.13; Revelation 14.18–20; 19.15). The intoxicating power of wine is a biblical picture of consuming the cup of His wrath (Jeremiah 25.15; Revelation 14.10; 16.19) and staggering under His sentence (Jeremiah 25.15-16; Isaiah 51.17, 22).” What should we make of this?
The imagery of glad celebration paired with God’s judgment is so appropriate for the Lord’s Table? Living on the other side of the crucifixion, we know that only after the bitter death of Jesus would the fulfillment of God be sweetly experienced. This was anticipated by the Hebrew people; when Moses sprinkled the people with atoning blood, they ate and drank in celebration (Exodus 24.11). We see more clearly how Jesus is both the satisfaction of God’s judgement and the celebratory fulfillment of His promise. The Lords’ Table proclaims His death (1 Corinthians 11.26), but also reaches into the future when we will enjoy this meal in His presence (Luke 22.18). The label that Jesus gives for wine is “the new covenant in my blood (1 Corinthians 11.25).” How astonishing and strangely familiar it must have been for the disciples to finally understand that it was His blood that unlocked new covenant life in the present and eternally.
Consider this: Wine may be ideally suited to assist us at the Lord’s Table. The bitter pouring out of His blood secures our glad delight in the fulfillment of every promise of God. With just a little reflection at the table, we can taste this reality in the complexity of wine, tasting the bitterness of our Lord’s death and the sweetness of His ascended life, picturing the story of redemption in a single cup.
The Lord’s Table, like baptism, is not essential for salvation. For this reason we should not be too precise about the elements: water, bread, and wine. But this does not mean that the elements, wine especially, are incidental or trivial. The Bible is not silent on the matter. Juice is certainly an appropriate and welcome part of the Lord’s Table at Covenant. But this should not mean that wine is inappropriate and unwelcome when the Bible speaks so plainly.
