Should Churches Use Wine or Grape Juice in Communion?

This is core Christianity, where answering your questions about the Christian life Monday through Friday. Your hosts are author and seminary professor Dr. Michael Horton and Pastor atrial Sanchez call right now with your question.

At 1833, the court is 1-833-843-2673 and now here's atrial Sanchez hello and welcome another episode of Christianity, will we take your questions about the Bible and dig into the Christian faith and with Prof. Michael Horton, I'm Pastor atrial Sanchez and Mike, it's good to be with you again always atrial. Are you picky about any foods. Mike, you know. Unfortunately I'm not picky enough. The flight how I know most people who know me well know that I won't come within 5 feet of a banana. I just do not at all.

I cannot stand they might or might be some real phobia there. I'm not sure what that would help rolling the asset.

I'm just not a big fruit guy was interesting because we got a question here about someone who's curious about whether or not we can be picky about the elements we receive in the Lord's supper that Stephen wants no, let's listen in his question. I tried to gluten-free crackers and grape juice for the Lord's supper.

I'm wondering about it okay thanks yeah thanks Stephen, this question comes up from time to time because I is true we can't just make up whatever sacraments we want or practice them.

However, we want they're not our sacraments are not our means of grace their gods their holy things that God has ordained in his word to be means of his activity of sealing his own promises. I think of the example of meeting up with a philanthropist who wants to pay for my life-saving surgery is on his terms where and when he's promised to be there to give me the gift is I'll meet you at the corner of this broken down caf� and sometimes we feel like that, you the cup. It has lipstick on it.

The China's chipped and broken and yet here's this guy Justin regular close, who sits there and shakes my hand and and hands me a check for life-saving surgery is on God's terms. God is gracious and merciful.

He says meet me here. This is where I'm going to give you this gift and this is the way that I'm going to do it so what is baptism.

Baptism is God's pledge in visible form so you need two things the word of God and the water but you can't baptize somebody while reading the Hindu Vedas and baptizing them in the name of Vishnu, and you can't use sand, you have to use the word of God and water how you know you're participating in a valid celebration of the Lord supper. Well, there's the word the gospel promised and in this case, bread and wine. Jesus didn't tell us what kind of bread. Although unleavened bread was what they had it Passover not.

He didn't command whenever you do this, make sure you use unleavened bread, nor did he tell us whether to use Bordeaux or Manischewitz, but it was wine not grape juice and analyst can be controversial with the some listeners. Some people argue that wine in the Bible was actually grape juice.

It wasn't fermented but that's just not true at all. A biblical times and it's hard to imagine why we would be told that wine gladdens the heart of man. Psalm 104 verse 15 or why the Bible warns against drunkenness if it was just grape juice. The Passover meal included bread and wine, not bread and grape juice. Grape juice is actually a recent invention.

Interestingly enough, grape juice was invented by Mr. Welch precisely to get people churches to stop using wine in communion during prohibition. That's how Walters got off the ground. Grape juice is a modern invention so people use wine, particularly because it was the cleanest thing to drink had some nutritious value and so forth. So the warning is to not be drunk with wine certainly can't be drunk with grape juice and Jesus turned water into wine marriage feast of Cana that was his first miracle. The Bible is not against wine is against drunkenness and then you have the symbolism of it all, the new wine of the kingdom, the new and best wine that Christ brings in his advent to save us. Everything else has been promise. It's been good, but not the best. Now the best is, this is the vintage and were told in Isaiah one day were going going to be sitting at the great banquet with all the saints have gone before us, and Jesus Christ himself and were going to be feasting on the best richest meets full of marrow and the best wine. He stresses that this is this is a sign of celebration of joy and there's a reason why God gives us these and were not supposed to sit around and and try to figure out what the symbolism is and why just do what he's told us to do here. Now I don't know about you atrial, but in our church is a ring of cups that people can use that just has a little bit of wine and it but it's especially for people who have trouble with alcohol in the past and they just say I better not even have a taste of it. This interestingly I seen some churches will do wine and grape juice, but I think that I like. I kinda like the way that you guys do any I know in the ancient church. The used to mix the wine with a little bit of water as well just mix a little more one pandemics a little bit more water.

We have, we use align the big question that we get sometimes what about people who are wrestling with or who have a history of alcoholism and you know is a couple things.

One, if Jesus instituted this with wine. There were alcoholics in the days of our Lord Jesus, you know, and so they sent the command not to be drunk yeah exactly answer didn't keep Christ from instituting the sacrament with wine, but it also has opened up the door for us as a church to get to really do some ministry with people and have conversations and I think in ways we wouldn't have even known before, but just in the bottom line is we can't tell God what he can ordain for use in his means of these are his means of grace.

We need to listen to what he commands.

This was his pledge that as often as you eat this bread and you drink this cup, you proclaim the Lord's death until he comes this bread that we break, is it not a sharing in the body of Christ.

This wine that we bless is it not a sharing in the blood of Christ.

That's big stuff and and Stephen you know I just the brass tacks here. What would you would you refrain from taking communion by think of what we have to do is as in the preaching of the word. If there's something that we want to encourage our pastor or elders to think about. We have a concern. We take it to them and if you have a concern about this. Bring it up to them. Don't just unilaterally decide I'm not going to take communion because grape juice is being used in all it's the fruit of the vine.

It is not in the form in which Christ instituted it. Stephen, thanks for your question. Let's put an email received from Clark who asked. I recently ran into the infamous verse of Isaiah 45, seven were people often claim is where it says God purposefully created evil as the King James version uses the word evil were other translations. Notably, the ESV use the word calamity. There's no real context. I can see on this statement in the surrounding text. What am I supposed to make of this verse and then a question that really good question let me just read the ESV English standard version translation of the Bible and how it translates the first I form light and create darkness. This is God speaking. I make well-being and create calamity. I am the Lord who does all these things acquired words have what we call a semantic range. The same word can mean different things depending on the context that it said you know sometimes people will see the Hebrew word translated one way in one place and they'll assume that it should be translated that way and every other place. The word here which the King James version translates as evil and it can be translated that way.

It's taken that way other place in the Hebrew Bible is probably better translated by the ESV in this context as calamity and let me break down why that is. First, note that the word is contrasted with well-being is actually one of the more well-known Hebrew word is the word shalom to got a thing. I make shalom peace and its opposite, that was the opposite of peace, calamity, war, strife, and this makes perfect sense in the broader context of Isaiah 45 because God is talking about raising up a Gentile king Cyrus in order to help deliver his people.

Look at verse one thus says the Lord to his anointed, to Cyrus, whose right hand I have grasped to subdue nations before him to lose the belt of Kings to open the doors before him that the gates may not be close and so Cyrus is coming.

God says and he's gonna make kings and nations tremble. This can be calamity and that's very different than saying God creates or is the author of evil. Really, what were getting at here.

Clark is God's absolute sovereignty over the world and its rulers is a big take away for you and for me from this verse is that God is in control even when it seems like there's no hope God is able to raise up Gentile kings to accomplish his purposes for the good of his people. Another big take away from this text is that God is the only God because this prophecy from Isaiah about King Cyrus took place prior to the time when Cyrus helped bring the people back to Jerusalem versus 45 foreign following for the sake of my servant Jacob and Israel, my chosen I call you by your name I name you, though you do not know me I am the Lord. There is no other besides me there is no God.

I equip you, though you do not know me that people may know that from the rising of the sun and from the West there is none besides me. I am the Lord, and there is no other is Isaiah 45. Seven. Teach that God makes evil, not at all teach that God is the King of the whole universe and that he's the only God that he moves even in the heart of Gentile kings for the good of his people and that's Jan they think you're so right to point to the context there of military battle. This is not the context of moral evil that God creates right moral evil raw is the Hebrew word sometimes translated wickedness. It all depends on what the action is what the context is and who's doing it. James tells us that God cannot be tempted by evil doesn't do evil can even be tempted by it. So what he's doing here is not a moral evil rather is the broader category of bad versus good or unpleasant versus pleasant. It it it's essentially unhappiness. God says I create unpleasantness in the world as well as pleasantness to hear you saying I'm stirring things up sake of my people. Yeah. And so it will come out of it has a right yeah that's right thank you that question of passage of one of those verses in Scripture that I think a lot of people have a hard time with this. I'm glad that you brought it on at work goes into core Christianity. I'm pastor Angel Sanchez together with Prof. Michael Horton and were answering your questions about the faith. Give us a call 1-833-843-2673.

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Does that really helpful Bible study Facebook question from Sean is the difference between grace and peace, Paul often begins his epistles. In this way, what is this mean both the salutation and a common way of beginning letters in the ancient Roman world. You begin by wishing the recipient good health, long life, and so forth. Dear Sue, I hope you're doing well may make things go well with you this year. But Paul can even say hello without preaching the gospel when he says things like grace and peace be unto you from God our father and the Lord Jesus Christ. He's not just offering a general greeting. He's not as well wishing he's declaring as an apostle God's favor. According to the gospel upon the members of these churches is writing to. So it's not just health and long life, but everlasting life and salvation. Peace with God. He's proclaiming and eat. He says elsewhere, but for instance Romans 51 therefore, since we have been justified by faith we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ and so Paul is just declaring to them, and upon them, that objective reality of the gospel. They have peace with God, and that's what should happen every time we go to church, that the focus, the main emphasis is God proclaiming his favor, his grace, his mercy upon us really highlights what we should be talking to each other as Christians is wanting what a wonderful promise to be reminding each other of retaining friendly exactly listen to core Christianity were we are answering the questions you have about the Christian faith that they want to let you know about a free download on core, Christianity.com. It's called nine ways to know you are really a Christian is free when you sign up for our weekly newsletter, head over to core Christianity.com and click on offers and the menu bar and download nine ways to know that you are really a Christian. Mike is a question week we get out all the time on this radio program how can I not really save and so that's something you're wondering about go to core Christianity.com and did that resource. Our next call to prayer. We understand heart without becoming yeah I think Claire we have to realize that the church is full of sinners like you and me and that's just gonna happen there going to be scandals in the church. That's not to justify it but it is to be ready for it. One of the ways of being ready for it is to have in place a system of what you do when it happens, don't pretend that everybody's good and well art that would never happen in our church. Look at your own life look good. I look at my life and is it of course it could happen that's been true since the very beginning, Adam and Eve, then Cain and Abel. Throughout the history of Israel there been there's been division in the church, even in the apostolic church only had persecution from without you had heresy and division and pride and jealousy from within the church. If you really wanted to whitewash the church and say oh here's the Golden age surely wouldn't include those episodes, but the book of acts and the epistles certainly do include those episodes, warts and all, and I think it's good for us. It's good for us to realize even while the apostles were alive. The churches were still full of sinners, and every church bore the marks of being still a church that needs to ask for God's forgiveness and mercy and remember Satan's craftiness with our first parents first. He question whether God's word is clear has God really said. So we divide over the doctrine and the commands of God that we find in Scripture. Well it's not really clear I can think of doctrines Christians divide over and and debate and often say well it's not really clear.

Has God really said and then Satan adds to God's word to make God sound like a cosmic legalist to justify their treason wise. He said you can't eat from any tree and then he subtracts and directly assaults God's authority. You surely will not die for God knows that when you eat from it you will be like God, knowing good and evil and so we see that's what the heresies and the Colts in due false religions. They simply reject what God has clearly said so. Scandals, whether in doctrine or life come when our churches are no longer bound together by the determination to be hearers and doers of God's word. When we take the right to decide what's true and what's good into our own hands.

Just as Adam and Eve did Mike when she say that Jesus also gives us an outline for how to handle scandals when you think about prices like Matthew 18 and church discipline. I think first Corinthians chapter 5 or Paul talks about that scandal in the church were a man is sleeping with his mother-in-law. He says here's what you need to do. Yeah Jesus says look if you can't work things out between each other than you take it to a wider group of people and if that doesn't happen if you take 1/3 party, and there's no reconciliation. He says take it to the church and not armor some years ago, having coffee at a local coffee shop and I guy approached me because I was reading my Bible and he said okay are you a Christian we began to have a conversation that I don't go to church anywhere because none of the churches really live like Jesus did. I look at all these churches and are not caring for the poor and they're not taking care of widows and so on and so forth and you and II just kinda listen to him. I said I agree with you that a lot of a lot of the church is even even the one that I pastor it isn't perfectly living like Jesus did. But the interesting thing is, and I told him this. You use that as an excuse to not associate with the church to abandon the church because of the scandal in the church. Jesus sees all the brokenness in the church and he still hasn't abandoned her, and he still with us and and I think it is especially clear with regard to that question of becoming cynical. Had we not become cynical. I think we need to remember that Jesus is still at work in the church and in us, but I'm also not going to imagine that there will ever be a perfect church or a perfect me until Christ returns. Naaman is an email from Abraham. I've heard that the title Christian is used in a negative sense in the New Testament in a better title for believers are followers of Jesus. What you think of this, should we reference ourselves as followers or apprentices of Jesus were Christians write the word, told in acts 1126 that the members of the early Jesus movement were first referred to as Christians in Antioch and it is you know this is probably a little bit of a jab, because to be associated with Jesus, at least from the perspective of the nonbelieving world would have been to be in league with the criminal of the worst sources of many who merited crucifixion and try to put yourself in the first century you're a Greco-Roman man or woman peacefully. Following your own religion minding your own business under the Lord Caesar, when all of a sudden scores of people in town start talking about a new Lord named Jesus in this, Jesus says, set aside all your ancestral gods and worship me. Apparently he came healing and casting out demons and now you have this second coming out of Judaism.

It's boldly proclaiming Jesus as the Lord of all, is a US well where is this mighty Jesus so I can go see for myself and you come to find that he was sent to the electric chair by the authorities.

But his followers claim that he rose from the dead that that was really offensive in the first century to say that the object of your worship had died in the most shameful way.

It was preposterous to be called a Christian probably wasn't meant to be all that flattering. And there's actually an ancient piece of graffiti over from from Rome, dating, perhaps as early as the late first century we find image online.

Or maybe we can even put it in our show notes but is a carving of a person crucified with the head of a donkey.

A man is seen worshiping this image, and beneath in Greek is written. Alexa mannose worships his God.

Some ancient rabble-rouser. It probably carved out this piece of vandalism to mark a Christian man named Alexa minister worshiping the crucified one and getting back to question. I don't think other titles are better for us to use per se in the book of acts. Christians are most commonly referred to as brothers emphasizing the familial bond Christian should have and also his disciples that I kinda like the idea of recovering the word disciple because I think it highlights the need to be actively engaged in the things of the Lord.

A lot of people today say there Christians just because their grandmother was there because they set up prayer to receive Jesus in their heart at eight years old, never got baptized, never got plugged into a church. We need to view ourselves as disciples of the crucified Lord and what he disciples do they learn now and this is why being a part of the church is so important why sitting under what we sometimes referred to as the means of grace to hearing God's word receiving baptism and holy Communion the Lord's supper menus or ways that God is nursing us strengthening us discipling us yeah it's so true and you mutant when you mentioned disciple they're such a great word. Remember Mary and Martha. Mary was sitting at Jesus feet while Martha was all anxious about the incoming crowd coming for lunch. She said it Jesus, would you tell Mary to get up off the floor listening to you and help me make lunch and Jesus said, Martha, Martha, Martha, you are. You are so anxious about many things, but the one thing necessary is exactly what Mary is doing right now she is learning my feet. That is, first of all what a disciple is if we think of followers as people first of all who are listeners who are hearers who are recipients then that's fine but I think typically we think of why I like follower better than Christian because number one, it's less offensive to a lot of people, as you mentioned in number two because Christian is to be Christ did. It's to be baptized.

It's to receive baptism to do something is to receive something is to receive Christ and people today don't want to receive Christ. Christians don't want to receive great they want to do for Christ.

II can't help but think there's a shift going on has been going on for a while from the gospel in doing and dying of our Savior and being a disciple as me doing something for him and I think that's a dangerous shift for really flipping on it had absolutely, absolutely. Thanks for listening to core Christianity to request your copy of today's special offer. Visit us@corechristianity.com and click on offers in the menu for or call us at 1-833-843-2673 that's a 33, the court when you contact us. Please let us know how you been encouraged by this podcast and be sure to join us next time. As we explore the truth of God's word together