The following "Question" was asked by a member of the congregation at Grace Community Church in Panorama City, California, and "Answered" by their pastor, John MacArthur Jr. It was transcribed from the tape, GC 70-11, titled "Bible Questions and Answers."  A copy of the tape can be obtained by writing, Word of Grace, P.O. Box 4000, Panorama City, CA 91412 or by dialing toll free 1-800-55-GRACE.  Copyright John MacArthur Jr., All Rights Reserved.

Question

I have been reading, or I have read in the past where Spurgeon, and Luther, and Whitfield were all drinkers--they were all imbibers of the "Fruit of the Vine," if you will. And, I have always been taught to pattern my life after godly men and so on. My question is, and I have heard a lot of. . . .heard this and that about what you believe on this issue. I would like you to answer the question in light of this, and that is, Psalm 104 and Deuteronomy 28, and Proverbs 3, all talk about wine, and it is the context of a blessing, and the way that I understand it, is that the same Hebrew word in Psalm 104 and Proverbs 3 and Deuteronomy 28, that same Hebrew word is the same Hebrew word used for the wine that Noah drank and that Lot drank. So you are reading and think, "Aw, that's grape juice," and you would throw it out, but the way I understand it, at least the way that I do, is that it is wine--it's real wine, and it is a blessing, and it is from God, "And wine makes glad the 
heart of man and God."

Where do you stand on the wine issue and why?

Answer

First of all, I don't know about Spurgeon, Whitfield, and who else? I don't know what the source is, and I don't know how accurate it is. I don't know what they [Spurgeon, Luther, and Whitfield] did, but what they did was between them and the Lord and their understanding.

Personally, there is a lot involved in this--let me see if I can give you just a couple of brief statements. First of all, I don't drink wine. I don't drink anything with alcohol in it. The simple reason is--I don't need to, so why would I put myself in a position to be controlled by something, when it is not necessary. In other words, I live in a culture where it doesn't have to be that way. The reason that there are so many strong warnings about drunkenness in the Bible is because they were living in a society where everybody drank the "fruit of the vine," and without refrigeration process everything fermented. So in Biblical times, when you talk about wine, you are not talking about grape juice, all of it would have been wine, in effect, because it wouldn't take very long for it to ferment. So the process of fermentation (and I don't want to go into all of this) and the process of purging and separating out the vinegar and pouring it from bag to bag, to bag, to bag, and all of that (bags of skin) to get as pure a wine as possible did not preclude the fact that it could be alcoholic. 

But the best indications and the best evidence continues to be that there were two kinds of drinks: one was called "strong drink" and one was "wine," and you will see those two distinguished words in the Old Testament. "Strong drink" was unmixed, and "strong drink" is not commended. "Wine" was mixed, "strong drink" unmixed, and the mixture of wine with water was the common means of dilution of the alcohol so that that which had to be drunk would not make you drunk. Now, if you are living in a culture like Palestine where it is hot, and you have this very dry and arid kind of climate, obviously there would be a major thirst problem, and if you are working in the heat of the day and you just keep drinking straight wine all day because you can't drink water because there were not the purification processes necessary. . . .In those days, bodies of water tended to be bodies of sewage as well, and they had problems with that.

The mixture of water with wine did two things: One, it diluted the wine, and two, it also purified the water because the alcoholic content of the wine would act in a disinfectant way on the water to purge it from whatever might be there. So it was common, and you can check all kinds of historical sources on this--the best one was an article in CT a number of years ago on this very issue [Christianity Today], in which the historical data was pretty well pulled together and the resource material was given. But the bottom line was they mixed their wine, anywhere from 3:1, 4:1 to 8:1, so that it was greatly diluted, so that you could not hold enough of that liquid to be drunk. But the warnings against drunkenness are repeated in the Old Testament and the New Testament because it was so easy to fall into that 
pattern, because basically that was all you could drink--the "fruit of the vine." There was, I supposed what we would call, "artificial drinks," you know, there were no "Coca Colas" and "7 Ups" and that kind of thing.

So, I believe that out of necessity they would drink real wine which would ferment, but they would mix it with water so that it would not be full strength. After all, a glass of wine has the same basic alcohol content as a can of beer, which has basically the same alcohol content as a shot of whiskey. The reason you get drunk faster on whiskey is because you can consume so much more of it than you can the volume even of wine or of beer. 

I believe what the Scripture was indicating was that you want to avoid anything that can have an undue influence on you. Certainly drinking mixed wine for the quenching of your thirst, and drinking a pleasurably tasting drink would bring pleasure, would bring joy to you and joy to God, just as God would rejoice when you ate the food that He created in the world. But I don't think that there was any joy on the heart of God, at all, for a person who drank something that affected their thinking. That is really made clear in Proverbs 31 where He says, look when it comes to the role of leadership, spiritual leadership, there has to be a different standard. It says in verse 4, "It is not for kings, O Lemuel, it is not for kings to drink wine, or for rulers to desire strong drink, lest they drink and forget what is decreed, and pervert the rights of all the wicked. Give strong drink to somebody who is perishing." 

Give strong drink to somebody who in such physical pain they need some anesthetic. And give wine to one whose life is bitter. Not to get him drunk, but to give him a little of the joy of what God has provided in the good things of life. 

So when you come to the New Testament it talks about Elders and Deacons. It says an elder, well, let me just point you to the text, 1 Timothy 3, and it says that, "he is not addicted to wine," or "not to be beside wine." That is true of an elder; that is true of a deacon--he is not someone who is beside wine--who sits and consumes wine, for obvious reasons, because in positions of spiritual leadership it would be too easy to become skewed in your judgment.

So I think that God knew the danger of it; the system of mixing it with water took care of that danger, but we live in a time when wine is not mixed today and can cloud someone's thinking and someone's judgment, and I don't want to have part in anything that does that.

Furthermore, the principle of Romans 14 and 15 enters in. I don't want to do anything in my life that makes somebody else stumble, and I will tell you right now, if I drank wine, a lot of people would say, "John MacArthur drinks wine--I can drink wine," and they would become alcoholics and destroy their lives. I don't want to set that kind of pattern. 

So I think from the standpoint of making sure you don't set a pattern that others follow and stumble, that I would abstain from that as well. That's my own position.

Recently, somebody at a certain institution in this country announced to the students that they don't think John MacArthur drinks, but a lot of his staff members do--a lot of the pastors do. I would just affirm to you that none of our pastors or elders do. We collectively take the same position on that. So in case anybody wonders about that--that is the case. So I hope that gives you a little bit of input into that.

Question (Continued)

If you saw somebody drinking wine, you couldn't actually point your finger at them, if they are drinking it in moderation, you couldn't point your finger at them saying, "You're in sin." Is that correct? Because, it was diluted--it had some alcohol in it, so obviously you can't say somebody is in sin for drinking some alcohol because they did it then, if they are doing that in moderation now.

Answer (Continued)

I think there are compelling reasons not to do it. I wouldn't say that if a person happens to drink a little wine that they have committed some kind of sin, unless they have done that knowing that someone seeing that would stumble. But I think the greater part of discretion is abstinence--that's the better judgment.