78. Rev. Dr. Herrick Johnson

Rev. Dr. Herrick Johnson

Rev. Dr. Herrick Johnson, of Philadelphia, replying to Mr. McLean, in the Evangelist, makes a complete and masterly answer to his position. We make room for the following extract:

“Wine is a mocker. This is God’s word. No one doubts that intoxicating wine is here referred to. Why is it caged of God a mocker? Surely not because when used to excess it is hurtful. Beef is hurtful when used to excess. Is beef a mocker? We must all be agreed, I think, that wine is a mocker because of its inherent quality—a something in the wine itself by which its users are lured into excess. That something is alcohol. It deceives men. Its effects are gradual—almost imperceptible. It is seductive, tripping, alas! the noblest and the best before they are aware. So it deceived Noah when he drank of the wine and was drunken. So it deceived Ephraim and Judah, priest and prophet, when they were swallowed up of wine. It is in the very nature of wine, as an essential element, this power of deceit. Hence the scriptural injunction, ‘It is not for kings to drink wine; nor for princes strong drink: lest they drink, and forget the law, and pervert judgment.’ Hence also the command, ‘Look not upon the wine when it is red, when it giveth its eye, when it goeth down smoothly.’ The very quality is here described that gives to wine its deceitful power. These are the signs of the presence of alcohol. No one doubts that alcoholic wine is here referred to, and it is this kind of wine that we are solemnly commanded not to look upon, for this kind is a ‘mocker.’ The guile of the ‘serpent’ is in the mixture, and at last it giveth the serpent’s ‘bite.’

“But is this the wine used to symbolize the feast prepared by divine Wisdom, and to which the Son of God invites the church, saying, ‘Eat, O friends! drink, yea, drink abundantly, O beloved.’? A wine that deceived and disgraced Noah, that swept a whole nation, including its holy men of God, into the sin of intemperance, that kings and princes are forbidden to drink lest they pervert judgment—is this what Christ summons us in figure to drink ‘abundantly’—a mocker, a deceiver in its essential nature and because of the intoxicating element in it? Is this the kind of wine that the Jews were enjoined to drink freely, as an act of worship before the Lord in the temple? Surely the proof must be overwhelming, and there must be no alternative consistent with the Word of God, before we can believe that. It is not a question as to the use of wine as an emblem, whether of mercy or of wrath. The gravelling difficulty is, Would God call a thing a mocker, and then press the mocker to men’s lips? Would he tell men not to look upon it, and then give it to them to drink? I grant this is yet only presumptive and inferential as to two kinds of wine. But what might there is in it! How naturally and inevitably, in the absence of proof either way, our judgments and our hearts lean toward this presumption!

“Now, what if there is another kind of wine spoken of in the Word of God that cannot possibly be intoxicating, where fermentation and the consequent presence of alcohol are out of the question—what then? Why, is it not reasonable and consistent, the demand alike of common sense and common conscience, to regard this as the wine commended in Scripture as a blessing making glad the heart of man? To the law and the testimony: God, threatening Moab with desolation, said, Isaiah 16:10, ‘In the vineyard there shall be no singing and shouting, the treaders shall tread out no wine in their presses. I have made their vintage-shouting to cease.’ And again, Jeremiah 48:33, ‘I have caused wine to fail from the winepresses; none shall tread with shouting.’ Again, Gedaliah, made governor by the King of Babylon over the cities of Judah, thus commanded the Jews, Jeremiah 40:10, ‘Gather ye wine, and summer fruits, and oil, and put them in your vessels.’ And the record is, ‘They gathered wine and summer fruits very much.’ The Bible also speaks of ‘presses bursting with new wine,’ of ‘vine found in the cluster’; and it says of this wine, and of this only, and in this very connection, ‘a blessing is in it.’ Here is frequent reference to the pure, unfermented juice of the grape as just trodden out of the presses, just gathered from the vintage, and even as found in the cluster. And here this grape-juice is repeatedly, and by the Jews themselves, in their own Scriptures, called wine, both yayin and tirosh.

“There is no exploit of logic that can make any sane man believe this to be the very same wine elsewhere called ‘a mocker.’ The deceitful, subtle, serpent element has not yet entered it; for alcohol requires time and a process for its formation. It is the simple, unfermented juice of the grape, just as rider right out of the press is the simple, unfermented juice of the apple. And as such, God says, a blessing is in it. Here, then, is the scriptural distinction between wine and wine. It is not made to suit a modern exigency. God’s Word makes it. Is it only ‘a hairbreadth’ distinction? Is there nothing more than that between ‘a blessing’ and ‘a mocker’? Each was called wine by the Jews, because wine (yayin) is a generic word applied to the juice of the grape in all conditions, whether sour or sweet, old or new, fermented or unfermented. But it is said, ‘The word wine, unless used figuratively, or qualified by some other word or phrase, always means the fermented juice of the grape.’ How do we know that? There are, indeed, passages where the case is clear, the context plainly showing that the wine spoken of is intoxicating. There are other passages, such as those quoted above, where the case is equally clear, the context plainly showing that the wine spoken of is unintoxicating. There are still other passages where God approves of wine and sanctions its use, with no proof whatever that the wine is intoxicating but the bare word! What else than ‘perfectly absurd’ reasoning is it that would carry all these passages bodily over to the side of fermented wine? Why must we hold that intoxicating wine is necessarily meant in all such cases? Without the shadow of a shade of proof, must God’s approval be tied, nolens volens, to the intoxicating meaning of a doubtful word? Common sense is affronted at the suggestion of any such reasonless necessity. There is not one philological reason why we should so hold. There are abundant moral reasons why we should not so hold. The word it applied to unintoxicating wine, was so applied by the Jews, and the proof of it is the Word of God. And to such wine divine commendation is given. When the same word is used elsewhere coupled with the same divine sanction, we are bound to believe the same wine is meant, unless it is otherwise stated.

“Let one thing more be now proved, and the whole case is too clear for question. Were the ancients in the habit of preserving and using as such, free from fermentation, this juice of the grape which they called wine? Beyond all doubt, they were. The evidence is to be found in almost any classical authority. So say Plato, Columella, Pliny, Aristotle. So indicate Horace, Homer, Plutarch. Some of these ancient writers give in detail the very processes of boiling, filtering, and sulphurization by which the wines were preserved from fermentation. Anthon, in his Dictionary of Greek and Roman Antiquities; Archbishop Potter, in his Grecian Antiquities; Smith, in his Dictionary of the Bible; and many other competent scholars, confirm and support this position. Moses Stuart, that prince of philologists, says, ‘Facts show that the ancients not only preserved their wines unfermented, but regarded it as of a higher flavor and finer quality than fermented wine.’ There is no ancient custom with a better amount and character of proof than this.

“There were, therefore, two kinds of wine in ancient use. The one was sweet, pleasant, refreshing, unfermented; the other was exciting, inflaming, intoxicating. Each was called wine. How natural, now, to say of the one, ‘A blessing is in it—it maketh glad the heart’! How natural to say of the other, ‘Deceit is in it—it bringeth woe and sorrow’! There is no difficulty now in the reconciliation of Scripture with Scripture. The Bible is not a wholesale endorsement of the use of the alcoholic cup. It puts no weapon into the hands of the drinkers and venders of strong drink. And the binding obligations of the law of love in its application to the wine question may be pressed home upon the conscience and the heart, unweakened by any opposing plea of divine precept or example.

“I do not believe that the drinking of wine is a sin per se. I do not believe that a church court should make it a matter of discipline. But I do believe that the Christian who is known by precept or example to be an advocate of the use of the cup, takes upon himself a fearful responsibility. The effect of such precept or example is felt far beyond the circle of those with whom such Christian comes in contact. The higher the position of the man, the wider will be the influence of his word or deed. And among the tens of thousands who are yearly swept to ruin by alcohol, there may be those to whom his shining example has been a stumbling-block and an occasion to fall.”

Beside these testimonies, a goodly number of men, well read in ancient lore and learned in the original languages of the Word of God, have, by patient study, been led to the same conclusion. The company of such is rapidly increasing both in Great Britain and America. We do not despair, but confidently believe that the time is not far distant when no drinker, nor vender, nor defender of alcoholic wines, will find a shelter and a house of refuge in the Scriptures of God. Let there be Light!