Wine Or Grape Juice In The Lord's Supper? By E.G. Cook

Wine Or Grape Juice In The Lord's Supper
E. G. Cook
Former Pastor - Philadelphia Baptist Church
Birmingham , Alabama
(Now In Glory)     Are there reasons as to why we should use wine in the observance of this ordinance that our dear Lord has given to His churches? If there are reasons for it, all true Baptists should be eager to know what they are. A Baptist who does not have a burning desire to do that which is well pleasing to his Lord, in this, as well as in all other things, is not worthy of the name Baptist.
    So may we search for the truth concerning this subject. Anything other than the truth should be frowned upon in utter disgust. We find that our Lord frowned upon the use of leaven in the observance of His Passover to the extent that the Jews were commanded to put all leaven out of their houses during that seven day observance, Ex. 12:15, 19. And anyone who ate leavened bread during that time was to be cut off from the house of Israel. That is, he lost his citizenship. So the use of leaven in the Lord's Passover must have been a very serious crime in the eyes of our Lord.
    When we come to the New Testament I am aware of the fact that post-millennialist Baptists of the past generations were so busy winning the world for Christ they did not have time to really study Mt. 13:33. So they just said the leaven the woman hid (slipped) in the three measures of meal was the gospel. But I believe that if they could come back and see what a mess this old world is in today, they would be forced to agree with me that this leaven is false doctrines that are being slipped in among the truths of God's Word. When you see a prophecy being fulfilled before your very eyes, it should be an easy matter to interpret that prophecy. If you study Mt. 16:6, 12 you should he able to see that leaven represents false teaching in the eyes of our Lord.
    So in the light of the above facts, how do you think our Lord feels when we use leaven in the observance of His Supper? If He took a Jew's citizenship from him for using leaven during the seven day observance of the Passover, do you feel that He will praise you for using it in the Lord's Supper? Please remember, His attitude toward anything never changes. And since He abhorred the use of leaven in the Passover observance, it goes without saying that He abhors the use of it in the observance of the Lord's Supper.
    I know there are those who, at lease, try to think that grape juice contains no leaven. So if you are one of those, I want to put the same challenge before you that was before me at the West Coast Bible Conference in 1967. A dearly beloved Brother, H. B. Beam of Roseville, California preached a sermon on the subject of wine in the Lord's Supper that I still consider to be a masterpiece. In this sermon he challenged us to take two containers and put grape juice in one and wine in the other, then put them in some place where nothing but air could. get to them, leaving the containers open in order that air could get to both the grape juice and the wine. He said that after three months the wine would not be affected, but that the grape juice would be stagnant and not fit to drink. If you doubt this, I urge you to try it.
    The late beloved T. P. Simmons wrote the Department of Agriculture in Washington, D. C. for information on this subject. In an answer to his letter, Frederic I. Haskin, Director of Information said, “The Bureau of Plant Industry of the U. S. Department of Agriculture says that grapes naturally contain a leavening agent and that this is present in the juice. The leaven is used in the process of fermentation so that the finished product or wine does not contain any.” Brother Simmons says, “If grape juice did not contain leaven, it would not ferment.”
    So if you are determined to use grape juice in the Lord's Supper regardless of the above facts, maybe you should not put grape juice to the test suggested by Brother Beam. And it just might help to keep you from having a guilty conscience if you could just forget about the above report from the Bureau of Plant Industry in Washington . The elements used in the Lord's Supper are symbols or pictures of our dear Lord's broken body and His shed blood. If someone were to take a picture of you, and then splash paint all over it until no one could tell who the picture represents, it would not be a true likeness of you.
    In like manner, when we take a picture of our precious Lord's shed blood and splash leaven all over it, no one could tell by that picture that His blood was pure and sinless. No one could look at that picture and see in it that which cleanses us from all sin. Our Lord taught His disciples that leaven represented the false teaching of the Pharisees and of the Sadducees. So when we splatter leaven on the picture of His precious blood, I am afraid He is not too well pleased with it. And it just may be that when He asks us why we did it, we may find ourselves speechless.
    Many Baptists reject wine in the Lord's Supper because of its alcohol content. So it is rather amusing when we see them using grape juice as a picture of our Lord's precious blood at the church, and then go home and eat lemon pie or lemon cake made with lemon extract that contains more than four times as much alcohol as does wine. Consistency is one thing that we are not too good at. It is true that wine is an intoxicant in that it contains anywhere from ten to fourteen percent of alcohol. It is also true that God's Word condemns wine alone with all other intoxicants as an intoxicant. But let us remember, it is not the use of wine that is condemned, but rather the misuse of it. In Eph. 5:18 Paul says, “And be not drunk with wine, wherein is EXCESS.” In I Tim. 3:8, he says of the deacon, “not given to MUCH wine.” In I Tim. 5:23, Paul tells Timothy to “use a LITTLE wine for thy stomach's ‘sake and thine often infirmities.” And in Tit. 2:3, the aged women are not to he “given too MUCH wine.” In Mt. 11:19, and in Luke 7:34, our Lord's enemies called Him a winebibber, and they were not accusing Him of being a grape juice drinker. The Greek word is OINOPOTES which means a wine drinker.
    There is so much that I do not know about the precious Book. And my Lord knows I want to know the truth concerning this subject. And since I am unable to find any grape juice in the King James version, or in the Greek, I will gladly pay anyone five dollars to cover cost and labor if that person will inform me as to where I can find grape juice in the New Testament. I find the “fruit of the vine” in Mt. 26:29 and in Mk. 14:25.
    But there the word “fruit” comes from GENEMA whereas the word “grape” comes from STAPHULE, and the word “wine” comes from OLNOS.
Please do not think for one moment that I make this offer in a boasting manner. Rather it is an honest, sincere search for truth. I do not believe there is any mention of grape juice in the New Testament. But if it is there, I sincerely want to know where it is. It is true that grape juice is the fruit of the vine. But since wine is also the fruit of the vine, it becomes a must for us to determine which one is under consideration by a careful search for the truth. If grape juice, which every sincere person knows, contains leaven which our Lord taught represents false teaching can be substituted for the fruit of the vine in Mt. 26:29 and in Mk. 14:25 without its marring or defacing the picture of our Lord's precious blood, then let us use the grape juice. But if we find that only wine can keep that precious picture clear and shining, then let us use only wine for our dear Lord's sake.
    So in conclusion, I must say that due to the facts that I have stated in this, my feeble effort to find the truth of the matter, I am literally forced to conclude that wine, and only wine, can be substituted for the fruit of the vine and still leave the picture of our dear Lord's blood untarnished. May our Lord help as to anoint our eyes with eyesalve that we may see.