THE JESUS MADE WINE ARGUMENT

By HERB EVANS, Ltt.D.

157 PATTIES PLACE

PORTERSVILLE, PENNSYLVANIA 16051

E-Mail: herbevans@juno

And there were set there six waterpots of stone . . . containing two or three firkins [sixty gallons] apiece . . . Jesus saith unto them, Fill the waterpots with water. And they filled them up to the brim . . . When the ruler of the feast had tasted the water that was made wine, and knew not whence it was . . . the governor of the feast called the bridegroom, And saith unto him, Every man at the beginning doth set forth good wine; and when men have Well Drunk, then that which is worse: but thou hast kept the good wine until now. --- John 2:1-10

I have drunk my wine with my MILK: eat, O friends; drink, yea, drink abundantly, O beloved. -- Song 5:

I am the true VINE . . . -- John 15:1, 5

The above passages are supposed to prove that Jesus, “THE VINE,” changed water into alcoholic wine and that the social drinking of alcoholic wine is sanctioned by the Song of Solomon. The curious thing is those professing Christians, who are advocates of alcoholic wine in the scriptures, do not hesitate to condemn intoxication and drunk- ards. Still, they are, somehow, unable to realize that intoxication is a gradual process of an accumulative alcoholic intake.

Really, 60 gallons of alcoholic wine (after drinking whatever they had that was worse) imbibed by well drunken wedding guests, then Jesus gives them more (but better) intoxicating wine? Would that not put "The True Vine" in a situation of not merely being among "winebibbers" but creating winebibbers, leading them into the temptation (which God does not do) of becoming intoxicated (so barring the newly created drunk- ards entrance into the kingdom of God)? We don't but it!

Jesus, THE VINE, would not have been guilty of violating Habbakuk 2:15, "Woe unto him that giveth his neighbour drink, that puttest thy bottle to him, and makest him drunken . . ." by putting the bottle to his neighbors' lips and getting them inebriated.

But you say that the passage is not applicable because the "intent" is to look on one's neighbor's nakedness. Oh! You mean that puttin' the bottle to your neighbor's lips and make him drunken is permissible, as long as your intention is not to look on his nakedness? Hmmmm?

We cannot believe that Jesus, “THE VINE,” would expose his neighbors/brothers to such a potentially dangerous substance, for "It is good neither to eat flesh, nor to drink wine, nor any thing whereby thy brother stumbleth, or is offended, or is made weak (Rom. 14:21)."

Would Jesus, “THE VINE,” provide the kind of poisonous wine that stings like an adder, toxic wine that intoxicates? Would “THE VINE” provide wedding guests with drink, in which the yeast eats up the sugar from the grape and then excretes its doo-doo (alcohol) and then commits suicide or dies of starvation and corrupts the whole mess?

Neither the heavenly Father nor earthly vines nor the Heavenly VINE [Jesus] make the kind of wine that man makes. They all change rain/water into unfermented fruit, which is in the cluster and in the field; man encloses the fresh wine from the grapes (which God makes), vents it, and ferments it.

How can you explain away the logical result of drunkenness in a supposed command to drink intoxicating "alcoholic" wine "abundantly" in the Song 5:1. Is this a distasteful mixture of milk and alcoholic wine (already prohibited under mixed wine) or a permissible mixture of unfermented grape juice and milk? 