Drinking and the Bible

I enjoy talking about what the Bible has to say about drinking. Really, if you investigate it closely, there's a lot more than most people would think.

Compare these two verse selections:

This is what the LORD, the God of Israel, said to me: "Take from my hand this cup filled with the wine of my wrath and make all the nations to whom I send you drink it. When they drink it, they will stagger and go mad because of the sword I will send among them."

So I took the cup from the LORD's hand and made all the nations to whom he sent me drink it
...

"Then tell them, 'This is what the LORD Almighty, the God of Israel, says: Drink, get drunk and vomit, and fall to rise no more because of the sword I will send among you.' But if they refuse to take the cup from your hand and drink, tell them, 'This is what the LORD Almighty says: You must drink it! See, I am beginning to bring disaster on the city that bears my Name, and will you indeed go unpunished? You will not go unpunished, for I am calling down a sword upon all who live on the earth, declares the LORD Almighty.'

Jeremiah 25:15-17, 27-29

The woman was dressed in purple and scarlet, and was glittering with gold, precious stones and pearls. She held a golden cup in her hand, filled with abominable things and the filth of her adulteries.

Revelation 17:4

The common image in the above verses is the cup. In these passages, the cup symbolizes the authority and power of i's bearer.

When Joseph tricked his brothers by hiding his cup in the youngest sibling's bag in Genesis 44, the crime is especially grievous because the supposed theft involved an item that was valued, not for its price so much as it's owner. This is especially obvious in Jeremiah, when God states that even if the nations refused to drink His cup, they will indeed drink, meaning God not only had the right to punish the nations, but also the ability to do so.

Of course, we can't overlook the most important aspect of the cup - that it carried something to the drinker. In the Old Testament, God's wrath is often depicted as a cup filled with wine. The wine is described as mixed or filled with spices - characteristics which imply an enhanced ability to inebriate. Moreover, note what God says about the effect of his wine in Jeremiah 25:16:

When they drink it, they will stagger and go mad because of the sword I will send among them."

Note the effect of God's wrath is twofold: those who drink His cup will stagger and go mad.

Each effect is important. To stagger is to physically stumble. To go mad is to lose mental competence. Thus, those who experience God's wrath will suffer both physically and mentally - in much the same way someone who drinks too much alcohol does.

But don't think that the effect of drinking God's wrath leaves the drinker feeling like a frat boy fully-lit on Absolut. Your typical frat-party patron reels and mumbles because he's so drunk he has no control of his body, but it can be rather pleasant (vomiting and hangover aside). But imagine reeling from intense pain and being so mentally distraught you can't speak a clear sentence. Really, what kind of pain and suffering would it take to reduce someone to a babbling vegetable?

Let's jump ahead into the New Testament. Keep the imagery of the cup and wine in your mind as you read the following verses:

"You don't know what you are asking," Jesus said to them. "Can you drink the cup I am going to drink?"
"We can," they answered.

Matthew 20:22

"Abba, Father," he said, "everything is possible for you. Take this cup from me. Yet not what I will, but what you will."

Mark 14;36

Jesus commanded Peter, "Put your sword away! Shall I not drink the cup the Father has given me?"

John 18:11

Understanding the Old Testament imagery and meaning of the cup casts light on Christ's use of the metaphor in the New Testament. Jesus made these references as the time of his death approached, and if we examine Christ's suffering on the cross, we see that He suffered both physical and mental (or spiritual) anguish.

If you look at Christ's last words on the cross, John Stott points out that two of them deal with His physical pain. Namely, "I thirst." The remainder of His words dealt with His spiritual suffering. For example, "My God, my God, why have You forsaken Me?", and "Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do". These words are the results of Jesus drinking the cup of God's wrath. The physical portion was the most cruel, barbaric, and horrible way a human being could (and still can) possibly die. Yet Christ minimized the focus on His physical pain because the mental / spiritual pain was far greater - the experience of being abandoned by God.

But the cup imagery doesn't stop there:

While they were eating, Jesus took bread, gave thanks and broke it, and gave it to his disciples, saying, "Take and eat; this is my body."

Then he took the cup, gave thanks and offered it to them, saying, "Drink from it, all of you. This is my blood of the covenant, which is poured out for many for the forgiveness of sins.

Matthew 26:26-28

The cup Christ offered to His disciples (and by extension, to us) was a cup of forgiveness. Remember the cup symbolizes authority and power. Christ had the authority to forigve sins (Mark 2:5) and, by His crucifixion, the power to do so.

Now look at Psalm 23:5:

You prepare a table before me
in the presence of my enemies.
You anoint my head with oil;
my cup overflows.

The cup of the children of God is a cup of blessing. Thus, Christians have the right and ability to bless.

In summary:

1. God gave Christ His cup of wrath.
2. Because Christ willingly drank God's cup, He offered us His cup of forgiveness.
3. If we willingly drink Christ's cup, we can offer a cup of blessing to others.

- Graffy

The Pig of God?

Did you know when Wycliffe Bible Translators translated the New Testament for a tribe in Borneo, Jesus was referred to as "the pig of God" in John 1:29, rather than "the lamb of God"?

More on Wycliffe's interesting translation later...

Read Romans 12:1:

Therefore, I urge you, brothers, in view of God's mercy, to offer your bodies as living sacrifices, holy and pleasing to God—this is your spiritual act of worship.

Paul gives the command to "offer your bodies as living sacrifices." He describes the living sacrifice as "holy and pleasing to God" (it's something God really wants us to do) and finally points out that "this is your spiritual act of worship".

The NIV translation is actually misleading on the last part. In this case, the King James gets closer to the truth by rendering it, "this is your reasonable service." In the Greek, Paul says it is "your logical service."

In other words, Paul is saying that not only does offering our bodies as living sacrifices please God, it's also a no-brainer. It's a head-smacking, "does-the-word-'duh'-mean-anything-to-you?" idea: if you're a Christian, you are a living sacrifice to God.

But what does it mean to be a sacrifice?

In the Greek, "sacrifice" literally means a thing or person burned by fire as an offering to a god or to God. The idea is simple enough as it is presented, but I'd like to give it a bit more depth. Hal Lindsey wrote this article on the significance of one kind of sacrifice in Jewish culture, the paschal lamb.

This lamb was offered by a Jewish family to atone for sins. The lamb itself was to be without blemish and one from the family's own flock (not purchased or given to them). The process of choosing the lamb began with selecting several lambs that looked to be perfect, and then setting them apart and watching them for a time to spot deficiencies. Once the proper lamb was selected, the family would take it into their house and would care for it as if it were a family pet, so as to prevent anything from happening that might disqualify it as a sacrifice. Of course, in a household with small children, it's easy to see how a lamb like that would become dear to the family - the children especially. Nevertheless, the day would come when they would have to kill it to atone for their sins.

When that day came, the entire family would go to the temple with the lamb in tow. Then, the father of the house would take the lamb to the altar and the priest would examine the lamb, approve it for sacrifice, and hand the father the sacrifical knife. The father would have to kill the lamb since it was a sacrifice for he and his family's sins. He sacrificed the lamb first by rendering it unconscious by compressing two veins in it's neck. Then he would nip those veins with the knife, and bathe his hands in the outpouring of blood. The carcass would then be burned completely. Often, parts of the sacrifices were given to the priests for their food, but not in the case of the paschal lamb.

The lamb was a perfect, but difficult sacrifice - it meant giving up something that was dear to and prized by the entire family. It came at considerable cost and was a vivid way to remind the Israelites just how serious sin was to God. Yet that cost pales in comparison to the price God paid to remove the sins of those who believe in His Son. This is why John the Baptist referred to Jesus as the "lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world" in John 1:29.

So why did Wycliffe's Bible translators refer to Jesus as the "pig of God" in it's effort to reach a culture?

Quite simply, the native population Wycliffe was trying to reach had never seen sheep, so the "lamb of God" would mean nothing to them. In order to communicate the meaning and purpose of this sacrifice image, they had to use the animal that best fit the Jewish image of the lamb - in this case, the pig. Not surprisngly, this has stood as a rather controversial translation. Nevertheless, it was deemed appropriate for the cultural context.

So how does the concept of a "living sacrifice" apply to the Christian life?

During the course of the last week, I did something I never thought I'd do - I fasted. Fasting is something I always assigned to people whom I believed were more "spiritual" than me. Nevertheless, I was hit with the conviction last Monday that this is something I ought to do. So, I tried it. I went two days without solid food and drank mostly water. On two occasions I had 100% fruit juice to allieviate some light-headedness. Then, after almost 60 hours, I broke my fast. I suppose I had my first true "breakfast" ever last Friday morning!

I can't say that I had some sort of "mountain-top" experience as a result of my fast, but I do feel as though I was closer to God for it. Times I would have spent eating and doing other things to entertain myself were spent in Scripture or in prayer. My hunger pangs reminded me of why I was fasting (to seek God and to draw near to Him) so I used them as opportunities to do just that. As a result, I can see why it is a valued practice among so many even today. While I don't believe fasting is any sort of spiritual "cure-all" for what ails us, some use fasting for a variety of purposes, like these guys from XXXChurch who are doing a 40-day fast as a "movement" to mobilize the church.

While I believe the primary (certainly, the most noble) purpose of fasting in a Christian context is to draw near to God, another benefit was how it reminded me of the consuming nature of pleasure. Case in point, going two days without solid food made the can of Pringles sitting on our kitchen table look like a T-Bone steak to me. I never wanted a potato chip so badly in my life! The experience clearly demonstrated how lust can completely dominate my mind if I permit it.

Ultimately, it has served as a great way of demonstrating just how much of a sacrifice it is to offer our bodies to God as living sacrifices. It is neither convenient nor cheap to sacrifice to God the things we love the most in this life. Yet I believe there is nothing that pleases God more than what we willingly sacrifice out of gratitude and love (not obligation and fear) and it is a natural and inevitable result of being a Christian.

Just some food for thought. :)

- Graffy

Heaven & Hell

A friend once posed a question about the Apocalypse of Peter - an apocryphal book supposedly written by Peter detailing the rewards of the faithful in heaven and the punishments of the damned in hell. What's interesting about the book is that at the end, the author is told that the damned may be prayed into heaven by the righteous - an idea which challenges the finality of heaven and hell. In addition, the book was widely read and quoted among Christians in the early church. So why is it not a part of our Bible? Here's three quick points regarding problems with the Apocalypse of Peter:

1. Only two manuscripts of this book exist. One manuscript completely omits the "praying the damned into heaven" segment. Thus, the fact that the two copies don't agree on this theological concept makes it questionable, at best.

2. The book goes into extraordinary detail about what heaven and hell are like. In contrast, most descriptions of the hereafter in the Bible are made in only very general terms. For this reason, the subject matter of the Apocalypse of Peter is very enticing (after all, who doesn't want to know more about heaven and hell?) and was probably widely read because it was popular. The unique depictions of heaven and hell also raise questions about the book's authenticity.

3. Whether or not early Christians considered it scriptural does matter - but even that must be taken with a grain of salt. Very simply, theology wasn't a great issue for early believers. While churches today split on matters of doctrine, churches then typically split on matters of discipline. That is, they were more concerned about how a Christian ought to behave than what a Christian ought to believe. Considering the content of the Apocalypse of Peter is largely behavior-focused, it appears to have been written specifically for a 2nd Century Christian viewpoint.

Apopcrypha aside, what exactly does the Bible say about heaven and hell?

"This is the verdict: Light has come into the world, but men loved darkness instead of light because their deeds were evil. Everyone who does evil hates the light, and will not come into the light for fear that his deeds will be exposed. But whoever lives by the truth comes into the light, so that it may be seen plainly that what he has done has been done through God."

(John 3:19-21 - NIV)

Jesus says clearly that men are judged by hiding from the Light - in other words, men judge themselves by refusing to leave the darkness. The implication of these verses is that Judgement Day is not going to be so much God chasing down errant sinners and throwing them into hell, but rather God simply giving men what they have already chosen beforehand - either an eternity of the darkness they spent their lives hiding in or an eternity of the Light they spent their lives seeking out.

A good illustration of what I mean can be found in Mark Cahill's book, "The One Thing You Can't Do In Heaven". In it, Cahill, a personal friend of Charles Barkley, describes a conversation he had with Barkley's brother, Darryl. During the conversation, Darryl told Cahill that he had recently suffered a heart attack during which he had a near-death experience. Darryl said that during the near-death experience, he remembered floating out of his body, watching momentarily from above as paramedics worked on him and eventually departing toward the "light at the end of the tunnel". Interestingly, he came to find that the "light" was not heaven - it was hell. Darryl was convinced of what he saw and openly admitted to Cahill that he believed he would go to hell when he died. Yet when Cahill pressed Darryl about doing something to correct his fate, Darryl refused. Why? According to Cahill, Darryl simply didn't want to change his lifestyle.

Why would a man who is absolutely certain that hell exists and that he is destined for it do absolutely nothing to save his own soul? The only logical explanation that occurs to me is that for as much as Darryl Barkley does not care to go to hell, he cares even less to seek out God.

Strangely enough, the Bible documents this same idea in the story of Lazarus and the rich man in Luke 16:19-31. There, as the rich man is tormented in hell, he begs Abraham to send Lazarus back from the dead to convince his remaining family to repent before it's too late. Abraham responds, "If they do not listen to Moses and the prophets, they will not be persuaded, even if someone rises from the dead."

It seems that heaven and hell are a "canonizing" of who we are for all eterninty - a permanent casting of ourselves either as children of light or darkness. At the risk of getting too philosophical, if we are ultimately "canonized" or cast in our free will, then it could very well be that those who are consigned to hell either cannot or will not change their minds about their destination, no matter how much they don't want to be there.

I admit it is specualtion and perhaps it's best left that way. The finality and nature of heaven and hell remain difficult topics to fully grasp, though many have tried through the years to put a perspective on it. For further reading, I would recommend C.S. Lewis' book, "The Great Divorce". His insightful views of human nature lend themselves well to the topic at hand and provide some helpful perspectives.

As a parting thought, I'd like to leave you with a quote from C.H. Spurgeon:

If sinners will be damned, at least let them leap to hell over our bodies. And if they perish, let them perish with our arms about their knees, imploring them to stay. If hell must be filled, at least let it be filled in the teeth of our exertions, and let not one go there unwarned or unprayed for.

- Graffy