Jesus Making Wine
By Dr. Max D. Younce
0044

In John, Chapter 2, where Jesus turned the water into wine; was this intoxicating wine?

The answer is, "No", and here are the facts.  The Greek word for "wine" here is "oinos".  It is a GENERIC word which includes all kinds of wine and all stages of the juice of the grape, sometimes the clusters, and even the vine.  The word itself, therefore, cannot give us the answer.  In Proverbs 20:1 we are told that "Wine is a mocker, strong drink is raging: and whosoever is deceived thereby is not wise."  Would it not be derogatory to the character of Christ to suppose that He exerted His miraculous power to produce 60 gallons of intoxicating wine.  Wine which the Bible had denounced as "a mocker" (Proverbs 20:1), "biting like a serpent" and "stinging like an adder" (Proverbs 23:32), as the "poison of dragons" (Psalm 58:4), "the cruel venom of asps (Deuteronomy 32:33), and which the Holy Spirit had selected as the emblem of God's wrath (Revelation 16:19).

Another fact is that alcohol does not occur naturally in any product of nature, was never created by God; but is essentially an artificial thing prepared by man through the destructive process of fermentation.  A man who visited Palestine 130 years ago, researching Bible wines, quoted the following: "All who know of the wines then used, well understand the unfermented juice of the grape.  The present wines of Jerusalem and Lebanon, as we tasted them, were commonly boiled and sweet, without intoxicating qualities, such as we here get in liquors called wines.  The boiling prevents fermentation.  Those were esteemed the best wines which were least strong."

This event, the Wedding at Cana, furnishes no sanction for the use of alcoholic beverages today.