Part 1 here.
Ethanol
An astute observer would note that the nut of this conversation is really a chemical one: should the sacrament contain ethanol or not? And if the conversation is over alcohol, doesn’t that seem a bit….unChristian? Why should anyone be making a case for booze in the sacraments?
An important step in building my case for wine is understanding the history and process of fermentation. In Jesus’s day, the ripening grapes would be dusted with wild yeasts collecting on the skins. After harvest, the grapes were crushed allowing the yeast access to the sugars. Within hours, the fermentation process began as the yeast consumed the fructose and glucose leaving behind ethanol and carbon dioxide byproducts. Fermentation was created by God and it is good; He invented yeast and its boozy predisposition.
The swiftness of grape fermentation was well known. In fact, it was likely the reason those who took the vow of the Nazarite promised never to touch any vine product whatever, just in the off chance they may have plucked a grape that had a spot of wine in it. Even raisins, which are defined by lack of juice, were off limits.
How much alcohol these yeasts could produce is somewhat up for debate. Today, wine is typically about 13% alcohol by volume (ABV). Wild yeasts, the kind present on the grape, are capable of yielding an ABV of about 13-15% before the alcohol content prohibits further growth. Distillation, the process of making the high-ABV of whiskey, vodka, and other hard liquors, was not invented until the 9th century. Some contend that wine in the Lord’s day likely was diluted with water at a ratio of 3 0r 2:1, yielding an end ABV of perhaps around 5%.
However, in Isaiah, God used diluted wine to symbolize the corruption of something pure.
How the faithful city has become a whore, she who was full of justice! Righteousness
Isaiah 1:21-22
lodged in her, but now murderers. Your silver has become dross, your best wine
mixed with water
Conversely, John describes the wrath of God in Revelation as wine that is unmixed, or undiluted. The wrath of God is unmitigated with even a drop of water to cool the fiery drink (Revelation 14:10). Since the communion cup symbolized Jesus’s blood poured out, it is reasonable to think that the wine was undiluted to encompass this symbolism.
At the same time, extra-biblical documents exist from a variety of contemporaneous cultures that discuss various dilution strengths of wine with water. It is possible that the ethanol content of the wine Jesus drank at the Last Supper was cut. It is also possible that Jesus and his disciples, who knew the scriptures well, drank the wine as it was. As I say, since wild yeasts are capable of an upper limit of 13% ABV, I think it is reasonable to conclude Jesus’s communion wine approximates this number.
The availability of unfermented fruit juice in the ancient world deserves a brief nod. Unfermented “grape juice” was available before Thomas Welch’s pasteurization process in the 19th century, but this was not the picnic beverage we enjoy today. It was a thick and cloying substance made by boiling down the fresh grapes to a syrup called defrutum. If stored in sealed jars and kept in a cool location, this reduction could remain relatively unfermented. It was then used as a sweetener and preservative for food and water, or sometimes added back into wine.
We will revisit the unfermented wine in a later section as it pertains to the sacrament, but it is important to note that defrutum was not made to avoid the alcohol content of wine like some kind of ancient O’Doul’s, but as a separate condiment.
For this conversation regarding communion wine, I am not interested so much in ABV, since the typical communion cup is a mere thimble full, and even if filled with moonshine couldn’t inebriate a canary. The salient point here is the fact that ethanol would have been present in the wine carrying the potential for inebriation. Grape juice would not meet the standards Jesus gave us, but any wine would.
So why is it important that the symbol for Jesus’s blood in communion be able to cause physiological effects on the brain and body up to and including sinful inebriation? I would like to argue that it is precisely because of this potential danger, its biblical meaning, and wine’s heart-gladdening capabilities, that Jesus chose wine as his symbol.
Wine As A Symbol
We can not understand God, who is completely and wholly Other, without His reality filtered through symbol, metaphor, and image. He made the universe as he did for us to “seek and find him”, but also to even be able to seek and find him. He made the visible universe so we could see his invisible nature. But even still we see as in a glass darkly. All of God’s revelations of His character are shadows on the wall. It cannot be otherwise.
Creation didn’t emanate from God’s head witlessly as though He were just as surprised as we are to see its majestic weirdness. All of it was purposely spoken by God in an orderly fashion and commissioned to proclaim His nature to us on his behalf.
This means that Jesus did not look around the upper room, and, improvising, find in the wine and bread a suitable metaphor for his blood and body. He wasn’t working the crowd; he was not waxing eloquent like a sophomore philosophy major. God’s intention in creating the grape and the fermentation process was for the purpose of carrying metaphor. He was digging up secrets that he himself buried within the bread and wine.
When an omnipotent Being, who can do anything, chooses to do a specific thing, pay attention. God spilled a lot of ink setting us up for this. Apart from its blood-hued color, wine had already been carrying symbolic suitcases throughout Israel’s history. There are over two hundred references to wine in the Bible, outnumbering all references to other fruits combined. From Genesis through the apocalypse of John, Israel’s life with the vine was used to illustrate blessing and curse, happiness and horror, redemption and wrath.
Wine as Wrath
Wake yourself, wake yourself,
Isaiah 51:17 (ESV)
stand up, O Jerusalem,
you who have drunk from the hand of the LORD
the cup of his wrath,
who have drunk to the dregs
the bowl, the cup of staggering.
This is one of many passages in the Old and New Testament that visualizes the drunkenness of wine as the judgment of God. Often, sin is our abuse of His gifts, and this gluttony itself is the vessel of God’s wrath. His judgments come by handing us the bottle of our own choices and telling us to drink up (Romans 1:18-32).
Overindulgence of alcohol impairs judgment. Vestibular confusion results in a staggering gait. Minds are dulled, sensations muted, and stomachs purged. These are the symptoms of having been given over to excess, and God uses this physical manifestation of drunkenness to symbolize his cup of wrath being handed to us, and we drink it down to the crumbs.
Again, in Revelation, we see the wrath of God on those who are given over to worship of the beast.
And another angel, a third, followed them, saying with a loud voice, “If anyone worships the beast and its image and receives a mark on his forehead or on his hand, he also will drink the wine of God’s wrath, poured full strength into the cup of his anger, and he will be tormented with fire and sulfur in the presence of the holy angels and in the presence of the Lamb.
Revelation 14:9-10
This wrath is unmixed, undiluted, poured full strength into God’s chalice of vengeance. In another chapter, John sees Christ’s robe dripping with the blood of his enemies he is squishing between his toes, just as grapes were crushed in the wine-making process.
Wrath, like grapes, has a vintage. It is an eschatological drink; it takes time to reach maturity. God’s wrath matures. He is not given to fits of rage, nor is he a brawler looking to stomp out the first sign of sin. He is patient; he does not treat us as our sins deserve (Psalm 103:10). The yeast of the Amorite’s sin had not yet reached the peak ABV for God to destroy them (Genesis 15:16). Wine symbolizes the slow stewing, long-suffering nature of our Creator, who allows us to become drunk on our sin, which is both a judgment and a mercy, for repentance may halt His tipping cup.
In the garden, Jesus asked this frothing cup of wrath to pass from him (Matthew 26:39), a request denied by the Father, and Jesus obediently drank it to the dregs. It pleased God to bruise him (Isaiah 53:10). The glorious and gracious ends God had in mind could not have come except by the appointed and necessary means, and our precious Lord obediently put it to his lips.
It is specifically the intoxicating qualities of wine that symbolize man’s sin and the judgment of God, tying them together such that the fulminating sin is the judgment of God. It is the wine that carries the burden of this weighty symbolism and is absent in the unfermented drink. The cup which Jesus drank and all the grievous accompaniments physically spilled his blood which was shed for us; a swapping of his life for our debauched souls sopping wet with sin.
Wine as Blessing
Wine is more often used in connection to joy, blessing, and celebration as it is sin and wrath. Here is a smattering of the plethora of verses.
You cause the grass to grow for the livestock and plants for man to cultivate, that he may bring forth food from the earth and wine to gladden the heart of man, oil to make his face shine and bread to strengthen man’s heart.
Psalm 104:14-15
Be glad, O children of Zion,
Joel 2:23-25 (ESV)
and rejoice in the LORD your God,
for he has given the early rain for your vindication;
he has poured down for you abundant rain,
the early and the latter rain, as before.
The threshing floors shall be full of grain;
the vats shall overflow with wine and oil.
I will restore to you the years
that the swarming locust has eaten,
the hopper, the destroyer, and the cutter,
my great army, which I sent among you
On this mountain the Lord of hosts will make for all peoples a feast of rich food, a feast of well-aged wine, of rich food full of marrow, of aged wine well refined.
Isaiah 25:6 (ESV)
Agricultural abundance is a symbol of God’s blessing that comes through obedience and grace. The prophecy of Isaiah 25 above, often taken to be referring to the new heavens and earth, has great food and excellent vintage leapfrogging in Hebrew parallelism. This abundance is hitched to the blessings of obedience. God has his hand on the lever to dump the silos of heaven and drench the Jews with blessing for their trust and obedience to Him.
Wine is associated with celebratory functions throughout time and certainly into our day. Biochemically, the ethanol in wine stimulates euphoria via dopamine pathways which “gladdens the heart”, a phenomenon that our Lord provided for in the wedding feast of Cana. There is a specialness to fine wine; it too takes planning and patience. We compliment others by saying they have “aged like fine wine” – a bit of flatter I frequently get.
Conversely, God removes the blessing of wine as a punishment. Moses portends curses for disobedience:
You shall carry much seed into the field and shall gather in little, for the locust shall consume it. You shall plant vineyards and dress them, but you shall neither drink of the wine nor gather the grapes, for the worm shall eat them.
Deuteronomy 28:38-39 (ESV)
Harvest abundance, gladness of heart, and the conviviality of celebrations is a sabbatical activity; it is the smiling invitation of God to celebrate and rest with Him.
Wine in the Sacrifice
The drink offering was a daily portion of the Levite sacrifice (Leviticus 23:13, 18, 37). Interestingly, this offering was instituted after the Israelites had entered into the land of Promise (Leviticus 23:10, Numbers 15). Only after the Lord had delivered His people and they entered into His rest would the sabbatical libations be required. As Peter Leithart observed, God Himself abstained while Israel wandered winelessly for forty years, and wouldn’t tipple with his people until He and Israel had run the bad guys from the Promised Land.
Wine is a drink of victory rest (Jeremiah 31). The best time to drink a beer is after a long day’s labor in the yard. And wine is most appropriate after we enter the rest of faith after all enemies have been thwamped, precisely what we symbolize in the Supper.
And so we see that wine is a symbol that carries both the sweet and spicy parts of the gospel, the death and the life, the rest and the wrath. But we oughtn’t think that just because wine is a symbol that it is merely a symbol, or a flippant coupling. It is not arbitrary. Symbols straddle realities. They have one foot in heaven and one on earth.
Part 3 coming soon
Thought Butter 