Noah’s Vineyard: The Doctrine of Drinking; Gen.
9:18-29
We all know that there are a lot of Christians who
have problems with other Christians who partake of alcoholic beverages. Other
Christians have problems with those who don’t. So we need to perceive what the
Scripture says about the subject of drinking and alcoholic beverage. The Bible
talks about the legitimate use of wine. There are two terms that are used in
the Scripture. One is yayin for wine,
and the other is the Hebrew word shakar,
which is the word for barley beer and is the one usually translated “strong
drink offering,” and that is a misnomer for us because in our culture we think
of strong drink as a distilled beverage. In biblical times they didn’t know how
to distill beverages.
We have to understand that wine is a part of creation.
It is viewed as something that God has provided to man. It is used in the
Scripture to picture joy, that God gave wine for the joy of man’s heart. But we
are to handle wine like anything else in God’s creation, according to the
instructions that God gives. There are dangers to anything in life. Anything
can be distorted and warped out of perspective. Anything that is a detail of
life can become a focus of our search for happiness, that somehow we think that
if we have success, if we have money and the things that money can buy, if we
have alcohol, if we have drugs, that will solve our problems and bring
happiness, stability, and dull the pain of suffering in life. Anything can be
misused and abused. We have to recognize also that in the Old Testament wine
and alcoholic beverages were a central part of worship and celebration during
certain feasts of Israel. Something that always blows the legalist mind is that
in the Old Testament there were wine offerings and there were beer offerings to
God.
We have an example from Abraham and Melchizedek. After
Abraham defeats the enemies of Sodom he goes back to Salem and brings the spoil
to Melchizedek, and Melchizedek brings out oil and wine. We are told that he
was a priest of God most high. This was just a meal of fellowship. The word for
wine is the Hebrew word yayin, and this refers to an intoxicating beverage was
usually made from grapes. Wine was also a part of the perpetual daily sacrifice
in the Mosaic Law. Every day there was a sacrifice in the morning and again in
the evening. These were sin offerings and are described in Exodus 29:39-41.
“The one lamb thou shalt offer in the morning; and the other lamb thou shalt
offer at even: and with the one lamb a tenth deal of flour mingled with the
fourth part of an hin of beaten oil; and the fourth part of an hin of wine for
a drink offering. And the other lamb thou shalt offer at even, and shalt do
thereto according to the meat offering of the morning, and according to the
drink offering thereof, for a sweet savor, an offering made by fire unto the LORD.” This was poured out on the fire as a burnt offering to the Lord. We
know that wine was also part of the grain offering in Leviticus 23:13, “And the
grain offering thereof shall be two tenth deals of fine flour mingled with oil,
an offering made by fire unto the LORD for a sweet savor:
and the drink offering thereof shall be of wine, the fourth part of an hin.”
Once again we see wine as part of the offering to the Lord. It was also
included in other offerings. In Numbers 15:7, 10, “And for a drink offering
thou shalt offer the third part of an hin of wine, for a sweet savor unto the LORD… And thou shalt bring for a drink offering half an hin of wine, for an
offering made by fire, of a sweet savor unto the LORD.” Numbers 18:12, 27, “All the best of the oil, and all the best of the
wine, and of the wheat, the firstfruits of them which they shall offer unto the
LORD, them have I given thee …. And this your heave
offering shall be reckoned unto you, as though it were the corn of the
threshingfloor, and as the fulness of the winepress.”
This led to a conclusion in Israel. Wine was
specifically stated to be a sign of divine blessing to Israel, Deuteronomy
7:13, “And he will love thee, and bless thee, and multiply thee: he will also
bless the fruit of thy womb, and the fruit of thy land, thy corn, and thy wine,
and thine oil, the increase of thy kine, and the flocks of thy sheep, in the
land which he sware unto thy fathers to give thee.” There were all kinds and
types of physical, visible blessings for Israel in the Lord Testament and one
of those was wine production. Deuteronomy 11:14, “That I will give you the rain
of your land in his due season, the first rain and the latter rain, that thou
mayest gather in thy corn, and thy wine, and thine oil.” Deuteronomy 14:3, “And
thou shalt eat before the LORD thy God, in
the place which he shall choose to place his name there, the tithe of thy corn,
of thy wine, and of thine oil, and the firstlings of thy herds and of thy
flocks; that thou mayest learn to fear the LORD thy God always.” Wine was
also part of the annual feast called the feast of booths, also known as the
feast of tabernacles, as described in Deuteronomy 16:13, “Thou shalt observe
the feast of tabernacles seven days, after that thou hast gathered in thy corn
and thy wine. And thou shalt rejoice in thy feast, thou, and thy son, and thy
daughter, and thy manservant, and thy maidservant, and the Levite, the
stranger, and the fatherless, and the widow, that are within thy gates.” Notice
the emphasis on family; that the family would celebrate together. The feast of
tabernacles pictures the millennial kingdom, and many times the use of wine is
a picture of the joy that will be ours during that millennial kingdom. This is
seen in passages such as Psalm 104:14, 15, “He causeth the grass to grow for
the cattle, and herb for the service of man: that he may bring forth food out
of the earth; and wine that maketh glad the heart of man, and oil to make his
face to shine, and bread which strengtheneth man's heart.” So wine here is seen
as part of God’s logistical grace for mankind. All of this is to show that the
Bible emphasizes a legitimate use for alcoholic beverages. In fact, the loss of
the grape crop, the loss of wine, was considered a sign of divine judgment on
the nation. Deuteronomy 28:39, “Thou shalt plant vineyards, and dress them, but
shalt neither drink of the wine, nor gather the grapes; for the worms shall eat
them.” Deuteronomy 28 is at the end of the book where there are two chapters
outlining the blessings and cursings for Israel for obedience and disobedience
to the law. In this section of chapter 28 Moses is giving the list of cursings,
the judgments that God will bring on the nation if they are disobedient. Isaiah
refers to this in 5:2, “And he fenced it, and gathered out the stones thereof,
and planted it with the choicest vine, and built a tower in the midst of it,
and also made a winepress therein: and he looked that it should bring forth
grapes, and it brought forth wild grapes.” Remember the prophets were men who
functioned as much as a prosecuting attorney representing the Lord. They
explained to the people that the reason they were going through a certain
amount of discipline, of catastrophe, of military defeat, economic downturn, is
because they are violating the Mosaic Law. God uses the production of grapes
and wine as an image or illustration of what He is doing with Israel. One would
not expect that if the use of alcoholic beverages is inherently wrong or evil
that God would be using that as an image for the spiritual production of
Israel.
Wine not only is used to represent spiritual
production in the and, or used as discipline on the land; but it is also used in
Scripture of a fellowship that we will have with God in the messianic kingdom.
When the kingdom comes there will be the use of wine—Isaiah 25:6, “And
the LORD of hosts will prepare a lavish banquet for all
peoples on this mountain [Temple mount]; a banquet of aged wine, choice pieces
with marrow, and refined, aged wine.” [NASB] The Hebrew
word for aged wine here is shemer, an
interesting word because it refers to the dregs or that which comes up out of
the bottom of the wine. So that would be the oldest wine in the cask. By figure
of speech it came not to speak of the dregs of the wine, which for us is
something negative, but it came to refer to that which is the oldest and the
finest. So wine is clearly a part of the Messianic kingdom.
Then we have a legitimate use in medicine as wine was
used in the Old Testament. Proverbs 31:6, “Give strong drink unto him that is
ready to perish, and wine unto those that be of heavy hearts.” The idea here is
not of someone who is on his deathbed but someone who is down, someone who is
feeling defeated in life, someone whose life is a hardship. Give them wine, not
to get drunk but just to lift their spirits a little bit. Medicinally it is
used also in the New Testament in 1 Timothy 5:23. Wine was rarely ever taken in
full strength in Greek culture. The Greeks thought that it was the sign of a
barbarian to drink wine in full strength. They would usually mix it in about a
one to two ratio of wine to water, so that it wasn’t as strong as the wine that
we produce today. Nevertheless it was still an alcoholic beverage.
When the Lord came during the first advent He
frequently went to parties. He was ridiculed and criticized for going to those
dinners and parties by the Pharisees. Matthew 11:19, “The Son of man came
eating and drinking, and they say, Behold a man gluttonous, and a winebibber, a
friend of publicans and sinners. But wisdom is justified of her children.” The
accusation by the Pharisees and the legalistic crowd was that Jesus came eating
and drinking. Then they called Him a glutton and a drunkard. Obviously He was
going to these parties and was eating, so they took that and exaggerated it and
said He was a glutton. In order for them to call Him a drunkard He would have
to be having a glass of wine as well at the party. So the Lord was obviously
not abstaining. This is also in contrast to John the Baptist who did not eat
and drink. He had a restricted diet and he abstained from alcohol. There is
nothing wrong with making a decision in life to abstain from alcoholic
beverage.
All of this is to show simply the point that the Bible
recognizes in both the Old Testament and the New Testament that there is a
legitimate use of alcoholic beverage. But the Bible also warns against the use
of alcoholic beverage, that there is an illegitimate use, and that if this can
be a problem for the individual then abstinence is a good choice. In both the
Old and New Testaments intemperance or drunkenness or the misuse of alcoholic
beverage is condemned. Remember the issue is balance and moderation in all
things. The Scripture condemns excess in almost every area of life, and the
same is true of the use of alcoholic beverages. In the Old Testament Levitical
priests were not to partake of alcoholic beverages (Leviticus 10:9; Ezekiel
44:21). The Nazirites, a special group of individuals who took a particular vow
of separation unto God, Numbers 6:3; Judges 13:4, 7, 14, also were not to even
drink grape juice. Then there was another group called the Rechabites, and they
were descendants of their forefather Jonadab, mentioned in 2 Kings 10:15-27. He
was a sort of a precursor to the Pharisees, you might say, and he had a strict
guideline for life, part of which was abstinence from alcohol. All of his
descendants abstained completely from the use of alcohol. They are mentioned in
Jeremiah 35 and in those verses Jeremiah is not advocating or validating their
tradition. What he is doing in that chapter is saying they were faithful to
their fathers, even though they were not even Jews, and he was saying that in
contrast the Jews were not faithful to their fathers. So in principle he is not
validating their abstinence from alcohol but is using their ancestor as an
example in contrast to the Israelites unfaithfulness to their heavenly father.
Another example of abstinence in the Old Testament is
Daniel and his friends in Daniel 1:8-16. They would not drink the wine of the
Chaldeans. That was a decision they made but it was not something that was
imposed by the Mosaic Law.
The Bible clearly prohibits the abuse and misuse and
overuse of alcohol and drunkenness. Proverbs 20:1, “Wine is a mocker, strong
drink is raging: and whosoever is deceived thereby is not wise.” In Proverbs
there is the contrast between the wise believer who is operating on divine
viewpoint and the fool who is operating on human viewpoint. Wine is a mocker;
it causes someone who has a seared conscience to violate his or her norms and
standards. It distorts the thinking process, the conscience and good judgment.
When a person drinks he can easily lose his inhibitions and easily rationalize
sin. Furthermore, Proverbs talks about the fact that leaders should refrain
from wine, especially id there is any possibility that they might be called
upon to make hard decisions, Proverbs 31:4, 5. In the New Testament when we
come to the qualifications for leaders—pastors and deacons—they are
not prohibited from drinking alcoholic beverage. 1 Timothy 3 tells us they are
simply not to be addicted to wine.
1)
The Bible gives
no encouragement and no excuse for excessive drinking. What happens in any kind
of legalistic situation is that when a person who has had that kind of
background is confronted with grace and those legalistic constraints are
removed there is a tendency to excess.
2)
While drinking
in moderation is permitted there are many believers who cannot do so. Many
simply can’t handle it.
3)
For the
believer who cannot or will not drink in moderation he needs to avoid the use
of alcohol completely, except perhaps in medicine.
4)
When in doubt
abstain.
5)
Applying the
law of love, which we get from doubtful things in 1 Corinthians 8-10, in
certain circumstances we need to just avoid wine.