Water to Wine #1737

9 When the master of the feast had tasted the water that was made wine, and did not know where it came from (but the servants who had drawn the water knew), the master of the feast called the bridegroom. 10 And he said to him, “Every man at the beginning sets out the good wine, and when the guests have well drunk, then the inferior. You have kept the good wine until now!” (John 2:9–10, NKJV)

Did Jesus turn water into alcoholic beverage? That is not the conclusion one must draw, but it is the one those who wish to drink alcohol rush to make. “Wine” (oinos) in the Scriptures is generic, and does not inherently include alcohol. If alcoholic wine, then Jesus produced 120-180 gallons of intoxicating drink for consumption after the wedding guests had drunk large amounts (v. 10). Yet, the Bible condemns drunkenness and the process leading to it (Prov. 20:1; 23:29-35; Eph. 5:18; 1 Pet. 4:3). If Jesus miraculously made fermented wine, then (1) Jesus approved drinking large quantities of alcohol, (2) The Son of God was a bartender, and we can tend bar, too, (3) The Son of God ignored the Scriptures (see above), and (4) The Son of God was a stumbling block to the self-control and soberness of others (Matt. 18:6-7). It is fairer to Christ, in harmony with His character, His power, and in agreement with the Scriptures to understand that Jesus made unfermented wine (grape juice) from water.

Leave a Reply

Fill in your details below or click an icon to log in:

WordPress.com Logo

You are commenting using your WordPress.com account. Log Out /  Change )

Twitter picture

You are commenting using your Twitter account. Log Out /  Change )

Facebook photo

You are commenting using your Facebook account. Log Out /  Change )

Connecting to %s