Wine

Narrator: Chris Genthree
 •  2 min. read  •  grade level: 8
Listen from:
Q.1.—Is it true that where “wine” is mentioned in connection with our Lord (e.g. Luke 5:37-39; 22 John 2) in no case does He use the word “wine” as we understand it to mean “fermented juice of the grape,” but that, on the contrary, in every case a word in the original is used showing the Lord to mean unfermented pure juice of the grape?
Q. 2.-Is the word used by the apostle Paul in his advice to Timothy (1 Tim. 5:23) the same in the original Greek as that used in connection with the marriage feast, or the institution of the Lord's Supper?
A. 1.-No, it is not true. There is but one word (οἶνος) used throughout the N.T. for “wine” and this, whether here or in the classical writings of antiquity in the general sense of “the fermented juice of the grape.”
There is another word occurring once only (Acts 2:13) translated “new wine,” but in all other cases the word “wine” in our English N.T. is represented in the original by the one word (oinos).
This “wine” at the cross (Matt. 27:34; Mark 15:23), mingled with gall, seems to have been a kind of vinegar (Matt. 27:48; Mark 15:36; Luke 23:36; John 19:29, 30), of a stupefying kind.
At the supper the word “wine” does not appear but is spoken of by our Lord as “the fruit of the vine"; and in 1 Cor. 11. we find abuse of it gave rise to drunkenness, which could scarcely have been if the Corinthians were using the unfermented fruit of the vine on the occasion Compare Eph. 5:18.
A. 2.-The answer is, Yes, and the same word in every case except as already pointed out in the institution of the supper, where it is (not “barley,” “palm,” or “lotus” wine) but specifically “the fruit of the vine", which “wine” properly is (cf. Gen. 9:20. 21).
I add here where the word “wine” (oinos) occurs in the N.T.: Matt. 9:17; 27:34 Mark 2:22; 15:23; Luke 1:15; 5:37, 38; 7:33; 10:34; John 2:3, 9, 10; 4:46; Rom. 14:21; Eph. 5:18; 1 Tim. 3:8; 5:23; Titus 2:3; Rev. 6; 14:16-19.