Sweet Wine
Personal Matters
Spiritually it has been “a long time between drinks.” Though often feeling close to God and hearing him clearly it is a long time since I have experienced a radical empowerment of the Holy Spirit (Acts 4:31). I believe that this is also the general spiritual state of the Australian Church. Our need for renewal and refreshment is very great but the way forward seems unclear. With our parish soon to hold a Holy Spirit Day I started to pray about the Spirit’s work. Words like these kept coming to me, “sweet Spirit”, “sweet wine”, “sweet anointing”. Going to scripture I discovered something unexpected and important from Acts 2.
Pentecostal Influence
After hearing the disciples “declaring the mighty works of God” the onlookers at Pentecost literally remarked, ““They are filled with sweet wine.”” The key Greek term here is gleukos, from which we get our English “glucose”. There was something about the disciples’ language and behaviour that made onlookers think they were inebriated (Acts 2:11, 13). This connects with Paul’s injunction, “do not get drunk with wine, for that will ruin you, but keep on being filled with the Spirit, addressing one another in psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, singing and making melody to the Lord with your heart…” (Eph 5:18-20). Riotous Spirit-filled joy easily looks like a drunken state. The Message version potently translates this passage, “Drink the Spirit of God, huge draughts of him. Sing hymns instead of drinking songs!” This language echoes Paul’s description of conversion; “For in one Spirit we were all baptized into one body…and all were made to drink of one Spirit.” (1 Cor 12:13).
Jesus spoke very directly about downing the Spirit; ““If anyone thirsts, let him come to me and drink. Whoever believes in me, as the Scripture has said, ‘Out of his heart will flow rivers of living water.’” Now this he said about the Spirit…” (John 7:37-39 ESV). Drinking in the Spirit follows believing in Jesus; but what exactly do we need to believe about Jesus in order to guzzle the Holy Spirit? Before attempting to answer this let me say that the God who gives us his Word and Spirit is himself the source of all sweet things (Ps 119:103; Acts 2:13). Even more than this we must heed the prophetic testimony that our future with the Lord is indescribably sweet.
Sweet Things
The prophets wax eloquent about God’s end-time goal for humanity; “And in that day the mountains shall drip sweet wine…” (Joel 3:18); ““Behold, the days are coming,” declares the LORD, “when… the mountains shall drip sweet wine, and all the hills shall flow with it.”” (Amos 9:13). This is the coming Day of the Lord when the whole cosmos is so delightful that sweetness oozes out of the pores of the earth. This ecstatic vision remained fantasy until the greatest obstacle in the way of human destiny, “the bitterness of death”, had been removed (1 Sam 15:32). The only presence sweet enough to destroy the bitter pains of suffering and death is the life of the perfectly Spirit filled man – Jesus (John 3:34).
Sweet Jesus
At the Last Supper our Lord took a cup and promised his disciples; ““I will not drink wine again until the day I drink it new with you in my Father’s Kingdom.”” (Matt 26:29). This pledge can only be fulfilled at the most extreme cost. For lost sinners to drink from the cup of the sweet wine of God’s kingdom Jesus must drink to the full the bitterness of the cup of God’s wrath (Ps 11:6; 75:8). By the sweet Spirit Jesus prays; ““Abba, Father, all things are possible for you. Remove this cup from me. Yet not what I will, but what you will.”” (Mark 14:36). The dereliction of Christ, ““My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?”” (Mark 15:34), is the place where he imbibes the bitterness of eternal death under the wrath of God. Jesus’ bitter pains for us assure us that the sting of death and the condemning power of the law have been abolished forever (1 Cor 15:54-57; 2 Tim 1:10). The “eternal Spirit” who took Jesus to the cross has become for us the promise of the Father, the sweet Spirit of sonship (Luke 24:49; Acts 2:33; Rom 8:14-16; Heb 9:14). The fruit of the Spirit of a wrathless God is the sweet joy of God’s present and future kingdom (Acts 13:52; Rom 14:17; Gal 5:22). Words fail to capture these realities. I clearly remember the rich exotic heavenly delight of the Pentecostal worship services I enjoyed as a young Christian. The holy presence of the Lord was extraordinarily fragrant and sweet. If such things are rare today what is holding us back from living out the exhortation “Drink the Spirit of God, huge draughts of him.” (Eph 5:18)?
Bitter no More
At the lowest level many hold on to a “root of bitterness” that judges others and fouls the sensation of the sweetness of the Spirit (Heb 12:15). More profoundly, failing to understand loving fatherly discipline we interpret the pains of life as a sign that God is displeased or disappointed with us (Heb 12:5-11). We fail to discern that the correcting “Father of (our) spirits” is the same God who has given his Spirit to our spirits so we might know him as “Abba!” in all the circumstances of life (Rom 8:16; Heb 12:7). We bypass the Gospels teaching that those who were destined to be witnesses of the Spirit’s testimony to the resurrection had first of all to “drink the cup that Jesus drinks” and “weep bitterly” over their own sins (Mark 10:38; Luke 22:62). We shy away from embracing the truth that suffering with Christ is the only way to partake of the sweet things of the kingdom of God (Luke 24:26; Eph 5:1-2; Col 1:24; Phil 3:10).
Conclusion
The Church we know and love today has very largely lost real Pentecostal power. Sadly, when believers want to both drink in the Spirit of Jesus AND to drink of the material and sexual immoralities of Babylon they drink from a cup mixed with judgement and blessing. This is why so many know neither spiritual contentment nor fullness. Paul’s warning to the Corinthians applies to much Australian “Christianity”; “You cannot drink the cup of the Lord and the cup of demons. You cannot partake of the table of the Lord and the table of demons. Shall we provoke the Lord to jealousy? Are we stronger than he?” (1 Cor 10:21-22; Rev 17:4; 18:6). When the Spirit is grieved his sweetness is withdrawn. If you think my judgement is harsh I challenge you to trust your own taste sensations. If we were already tasting the exquisite sweetness of the wine of the kingdom we would already be witnessing healings, miracles, deliverances and deep conversions.
An old motto still grasps my soul, “Jesus, the very name is sweet.” Since this is the Spirit’s own deepest testimony nothing must stop us believing in Jesus’ in order to “Drink the Spirit of God, huge draughts of him.” I am not ashamed to confess; “It has been a long time between drinks.” Perhaps the Lord will raise up a remnant who will corporately confess this and satisfy our desperate thirst. If he answers us our testimony to all will be powerful and clear; “Oh, taste and see that the Lord is good.” (Ps 34:8).