Arguments FOR using wine in the Lords Supper

[KMK]

One wonders about the logical sequences in a person's mind to take that statement and make it mean otherwise.

Tim, you asked Rev Keister for some sources that supported his statement that the wine of Jesus' day was very strong. I provided a quotation from Lightfoot who says it was very strong and was therefore mixed with water. A simple 'thank you' would have sufficed.

 

[TimV]

We have before taken notice of a story of Rabban Gamaliel, who found and confessed some disorder of mind, and unfitness for serious business, by having drunk off an Italianquart of wine.

You provided a source that says a man drunk a bottle and a third of wine and couldn't think as clearly as normal to prove "their" wine "then" is stronger than "our" wine "now".

 

[3John2]

We give congregants the option of BOTH. They choose which one they drink, juice or wine. Having said that I opt with for wine.

 

[Kaalvenist]

I'm told that my old congregation in Colorado Springs now uses non-alcoholic wine... that is, wine which has had the alcohol burned off.

For a denomination that up until a little over a decade ago was still requiring church officers to pledge abstinence from alcohol, I think that might be the best possible compromise.

 

[ddharr]

Several times (usually a day or two) after partaking of the Lord's Supper with wine I would have nightmares of falling into drunkenness. I wake up thankful it was a dream and that I have been delivered from such wickedness. It freshens my mind as to why I stay away from alcohol. I am 10 years sober. The Lord's Supper is a means of grace indeed!

 

[fishingpipe]

I often wonder how the WCOF teaching on the sacraments affects our thinking on the choice of element.

Westminster Confession Chapter 27. II. There is, in every sacrament, a spiritual relation, or sacramental union, between the sign and the thing signified: whence it comes to pass, that the names and effects of the one are attributed to the other.

The sign, wine, and the thing signified, Christ's blood. I cannot understand how grape juice, a dead (pastuerized) purple sugar drink, can have a similar significance to living (fermenting) red wine when it comes to which best attributes itself to representing the blood of Christ.

WCOF Chapter 29. V. The outward elements in this sacrament, duly set apart to the uses ordained by Christ, have such relation to Him crucified, as that, truly, yet sacramentally only, they are sometimes called by the name of the things they represent, to wit, the body and blood of Christ; albeit, in substance and nature, they still remain truly and only bread and wine, as they were before.

WCOF Chapter 29. VII. Worthy receivers, outwardly partaking of the visible elements, in this sacrament,[13] do then also, inwardly by faith, really and indeed, yet not carnally and corporally but spiritually, receive and feed upon, Christ crucified, and all benefits of His death: the body and blood of Christ being then, not corporally or carnally, in, with, or under the bread and wine; yet, as really, but spiritually, present to the faith of believers in that ordinance, as the elements themselves are to their outward senses.

Which of these two drinks, grape juice and red wine, most appeal to the outward senses when it comes to representing the blood of Christ?

Just thinking outloud here.