About 15 minutes to read
This page sets out what Scripture teaches about wine and strong drink, about drunkenness, and about the freedom and love that should rule a Christian’s cup. It also speaks of drugs taken to get high. If drink has hold of you, read the part for you first, and if you drink heavily every day, do not stop all at once without a doctor. If someone who drinks is hurting you or your children, go to If someone is hurting you. If drink has brought you to thoughts of ending your life, call 988 or text 988 now. If you are ashamed of what you did while drunk, there is pardon in Christ.
A Good Gift From God
Scripture does not begin with wine as an enemy. It names wine among the good things God brings out of the earth.
He causeth the grass to grow for the cattle, and herb for the service of man: that he may bring forth food out of the earth; And wine that maketh glad the heart of man, and oil to make his face to shine, and bread which strengtheneth man’s heart.
Psalm 104:14-15 (KJV)
The psalm praises God the Creator, and the gladness it names is real. The Preacher says the same. Go thy way, eat thy bread with joy, and drink thy wine with a merry heart (Ecclesiastes 9:7).
The Wine at Cana and at the Table
The Lord Jesus did his first sign at a wedding in Cana when the wine ran out (John 2:1-11). He had six stone waterpots filled to the brim, and the water became wine, well over a hundred gallons of it.
And saith unto him, Every man at the beginning doth set forth good wine; and when men have well drunk, then that which is worse: but thou hast kept the good wine until now. This beginning of miracles did Jesus in Cana of Galilee, and manifested forth his glory; and his disciples believed on him.
John 2:10-11 (KJV)
The wine was real, and so was the joy he gave that couple. The sign also pointed past itself. Isaiah foretold a feast of wines on the lees well refined that God would spread for all people (Isaiah 25:6). Christ is the Bridegroom who brings that feast, and he has kept the good wine until now.
On the night he was betrayed, he took the cup and said, Drink ye all of it, for this is my blood of the new testament (Matthew 26:27-28). He called what was in it this fruit of the vine (26:29), and the Confession speaks of the elements of bread and wine (WCF 29.3). Reformed churches today differ in what they pour. Many use wine, many use grape juice, and some offer both so that no one who must abstain is kept from the table.
Was It Only Grape Juice?
Some sincere Christians, having seen what drink did to the homes around them, have taught that the good wine of the Bible was unfermented juice. But the case does not hold. Noah drank of the wine, and was drunken (Genesis 9:21). Paul says, be not drunk with wine, and no one needs that warning about juice. At Corinth some left the Lord’s Supper drunken (1 Corinthians 11:21). Jesus was slandered as a winebibber because he drank wine where John the Baptist did not (Luke 7:33-34). Juice that would keep without turning to wine came only in the 1800s. The wine of Scripture was wine, which is why the Bible both praises it and warns about it.
Drunkenness Is Sin
The Bible that calls wine a gift calls drunkenness a sin.
And be not drunk with wine, wherein is excess; but be filled with the Spirit;
Ephesians 5:18 (KJV)
Excess means a wasted, unruly life. Paul sets two fillings side by side. The drunkard lets something outside him take over his mind and lift his heart for a few hours. God fills his people with his own Spirit, and the fruit is singing and thanksgiving (5:19-20). Many drink to feel brave or to bear the night. The Spirit gives what the bottle only promises, and he leaves no ruin in the morning.
Wine is a mocker, strong drink is raging, and whosoever is deceived thereby is not wise (Proverbs 20:1). It mocks the one who trusts it.
Who hath woe? who hath sorrow? who hath contentions? who hath babbling? who hath wounds without cause? who hath redness of eyes? They that tarry long at the wine; they that go to seek mixed wine. Look not thou upon the wine when it is red, when it giveth his colour in the cup, when it moveth itself aright. At the last it biteth like a serpent, and stingeth like an adder.
Proverbs 23:29-32 (KJV)
The serpent is a picture, and the harm it pictures is real. The drunk man says what he never would sober, his world reels like a ship’s mast, and he wakes up beaten without having felt it (23:33-35). Then the saddest line of all. When shall I awake? I will seek it yet again. That is bondage.
Drunkenness is not only falling down in the street. It is drinking until your judgment is dulled and you are no longer master of yourself. Paul lists it among the works of the flesh, and says that they which do such things shall not inherit the kingdom of God (Galatians 5:21). Drunkards stand beside thieves and adulterers in 1 Corinthians 6:10. Scripture also pronounces a woe on him that makes his neighbour drunken (Habakkuk 2:15). The host who keeps pouring for a friend who has had enough shares the sin.
Free to Drink, Free to Abstain
Since Scripture allows wine and forbids drunkenness, a believer may drink in moderation with thanks, or he may abstain, and either may do it to the Lord. No man and no church may add a rule to God’s Word and bind a conscience with it.
God alone is Lord of the conscience, and hath left it free from the doctrines and commandments of men which are in anything contrary to his Word, or beside it, in matters of faith or worship.
Westminster Confession of Faith 20.2
Beside it means added to it. But the Confession guards the other side just as firmly.
They who, upon pretense of Christian liberty, do practice any sin, or cherish any lust, do thereby destroy the end of Christian liberty; which is, that, being delivered out of the hands of our enemies, we might serve the Lord without fear, in holiness and righteousness before him, all the days of our life.
Westminster Confession of Faith 20.3
Upon pretense means using liberty as an excuse. Christ did not free you from sin so that you could drink your way back into it. Paul’s word about food fits the cup as well.
Let not him that eateth despise him that eateth not; and let not him which eateth not judge him that eateth: for God hath received him.
Romans 14:3 (KJV)
The one who drinks must not despise the one who abstains as narrow. The one who abstains must not judge the one who drinks as worldly. Both give God thanks, and both do it to the Lord (14:6).
Faithful Reformed people have differed here. In the 1800s many Presbyterian ministers, having watched drink ruin families, urged total abstinence on every Christian. Others held moderate drinking free. A church may wisely counsel abstinence in a hard age, but it may not call wine itself a sin, because God does not. The Reformed Presbyterian Church once required total abstinence of every member and officer. In the 1980s its Synod ruled that the Testimony strongly recommends abstinence but does not demand it, and in 1998 the promise to abstain was taken out of the vows of its officers. The Testimony still teaches that, to avoid harming our neighbor and to help one another live a disciplined life, it is altogether wise and right for Christians to abstain from the use, sale, and making of alcoholic drinks (RP Testimony 26.6). If you belong to a Reformed Presbyterian congregation, give that counsel real weight, and talk with your elders.
For the Sake of Your Brother
It is good neither to eat flesh, nor to drink wine, nor any thing whereby thy brother stumbleth, or is offended, or is made weak.
Romans 14:21 (KJV)
The weaker brother is not merely someone who disapproves. He is one whom your example may lead against his conscience, or back into a sin that once ruled him. Take heed lest by any means this liberty of yours become a stumblingblock to them that are weak, Paul says. To wound such a conscience is to sin against Christ, who died for that brother (1 Corinthians 8:9-13). If a friend at your table is fighting to stay sober, leave the bottle in the cupboard. Liberty is never the last word. Love is.
When It Is Wise to Abstain
A Christian who may drink is not bound to, and Scripture honors some who did not.
He shall separate himself from wine and strong drink, and shall drink no vinegar of wine, or vinegar of strong drink, neither shall he drink any liquor of grapes, nor eat moist grapes, or dried.
Numbers 6:3 (KJV)
The Nazarite vow was taken freely by one who wished to be set apart to the Lord for a season (Numbers 6:2). The Rechabites drank no wine for generations at their father’s charge, and God held up their faithfulness as a rebuke to Judah, which would not keep his word (Jeremiah 35:6, 14). The lesson there was obedience. God never made either path a law for all his people. They are examples for those who choose to abstain, and some have good reason to.
- A family history of addiction. If drink ruined a parent or grandparent, you may be wise to leave it alone. All things are lawful unto me, Paul said, but I will not be brought under the power of any (1 Corinthians 6:12).
- Recovery. If drink once ruled you, the cup is a door back into the old bondage. Keep it shut, and let no one shame you for it.
- A calling. Kings were warned against wine lest they forget the law (Proverbs 31:4-5). A pastor, or anyone who works among those who struggle, may abstain so that nothing he does becomes their excuse.
- An unsettled conscience. Whatsoever is not of faith is sin (Romans 14:23). If you are not sure before God that you may, do not.
The Law of the Land and the Life of Your Neighbor
Let every soul be subject unto the higher powers. For there is no power but of God: the powers that be are ordained of God.
Romans 13:1 (KJV)
Where the law sets an age for drinking, a Christian under that age keeps it, because God set that ruler over him. A teenager who drinks behind his parents’ backs disobeys both. An adult who buys drink for other people’s children sins with them. For more, read What the Bible Says About Government.
Drunk Driving
Thou shalt not kill reaches further than murder. The Larger Catechism says the sixth commandment forbids the immoderate use of drink, and whatever else tends to destroy anyone’s life (WLC 136). Driving after drinking gambles with your neighbor’s life. Moses’ law made a man build a wall around his flat roof, that thou bring not blood upon thine house, if any man fall from thence (Deuteronomy 22:8). God holds a man guilty for the danger he could have prevented. Do not drive when you have been drinking, and do not ride with anyone who has.
Marijuana and Other Drugs
Scripture does not name marijuana or pills, but it says plainly what a Christian’s mind is to be.
Be sober, be vigilant; because your adversary the devil, as a roaring lion, walketh about, seeking whom he may devour:
1 Peter 5:8 (KJV)
The lion is a picture, and the enemy it pictures is real. To be sober is to keep a clear and watchful mind, for they that be drunken are drunken in the night, and we are of the day (1 Thessalonians 5:6-8). A man can drink a glass of wine with supper and keep his head, but a drug taken to get high is taken for the altered mind itself. That is drunkenness by another road. Where the law now allows it, the call to be sober has not changed.
Medicine prescribed by a doctor is a different thing. The Larger Catechism counts a sober use of physic, the old word for medicine, among the duties of the sixth commandment (WLC 135). Pain medicine after surgery, or medicine for anxiety or depression, taken as directed, is a lawful means of preserving life. Scripture even says, Give strong drink unto him that is ready to perish (Proverbs 31:6). Taking more than you were told, or taking it for the feeling, is another matter.
If Drink Has Hold of You
Perhaps you hide how much you drink, or have promised to cut back and could not. Then you are in bondage, and you need a deliverer.
First, hear this. If you drink heavily every day, do not stop all at once on your own. Stopping suddenly can bring seizures and can kill. See a doctor this week, tell him the whole truth about how much you drink, and let someone go with you. The same is true of daily pills like Xanax or Valium. God works through means, and a doctor and treatment are among them.
Then tell your pastor or an elder. You were not meant to fight this in secret. Read Drink or drugs have hold of me, and for the daily fight, Mortify. Get the bottles out of the house, and stay away from the friends who pull you back. Make not provision for the flesh (Romans 13:14). You are not only giving something up. You are being filled with the Spirit, whose joy does not end in shame.
If you love someone who drinks, his choices are not your fault, and you cannot stop him by your own effort. Pray, speak the truth in love, and lean on your church. If he is a danger to you or your children, your safety comes first.
Washed and Justified
Paul wrote this to a church that had drunkards in it.
Nor thieves, nor covetous, nor drunkards, nor revilers, nor extortioners, shall inherit the kingdom of God. And such were some of you: but ye are washed, but ye are sanctified, but ye are justified in the name of the Lord Jesus, and by the Spirit of our God.
1 Corinthians 6:10-11 (KJV)
They had been drunkards, and now they were washed, set apart for God, and declared righteous. That pardon is held out to you.
Look at the Lord Jesus on the cross. They gave him to drink wine mingled with myrrh, and he received it not (Mark 15:23). Many take it to have been a drink to dull the pain. In the garden he had prayed about another cup, the cup of his Father’s wrath against sin (Matthew 26:39). He drank that one to the bottom with a clear mind, for drunkards and for all who come to him, and he rose again. If you have never come to him, read The Gospel, and come today.
Confess the sin by name, and the things you did while drunk. Make right what you can. If someone was hurt or killed because of your drinking, Christ forgives that too, but pardon with God does not cancel earthly justice. If you fall again, do not hide from him. If old guilt keeps returning after you have confessed it, read What I did is too great to forgive.
What to Do This Week
- If you drink, give thanks. Whether therefore ye eat, or drink, or whatsoever ye do, do all to the glory of God (1 Corinthians 10:31). Ask yourself whether you could go a month without it, gladly. If not, put it down and talk to someone.
- If you abstain, keep it free of pride. The kingdom of God is not meat and drink, but righteousness, and peace, and joy in the Holy Ghost (Romans 14:17).
- If you host, host with love. Have something good for those who do not drink, and never press a glass on anyone.
If You Are a Parent
In Proverbs 23 a father says, My son, give me thine heart (23:26), and a few verses later he warns his son about the wine that bites like a serpent. Talk to your teens about drink before the world does.
- Teach both halves. Show them that wine is God’s gift and drunkenness is sin.
- Tell them the family history. If addiction runs in your family, say so plainly and early.
- Teach them to keep the law. Underage drinking is not a rite of passage. It is disobedience to rulers God set over them, and to you.
- Let your example speak. If you drink, let them never see you drunk or see you need it. If you abstain, do not teach them that Christians who drink are lesser Christians.
- Give them a way out. Tell them that if they ever need to leave a place where there is drink, or the driver has been drinking, they can call you and you will come. Get them home safe first, and talk the next day.
For more, read The Teen Years.