Episode Transcript
Carey Griffel: Welcome to Genesis Marks, the spot where we raid the ivory tower of biblical theology without ransacking our faith. My name is Carey Griffel and I hope you've been enjoying the episodes that I've been doing about alcohol and its symbolism in Scripture. Today we finally are going to get to the topic of the cup of wrath. We're gonna be talking about wine as joy turned judgment. That's going to be one of our big themes today.
[00:00:39] We're also gonna be talking about how wrath is not arbitrary and it is not about some scales of justice, but really it's relational. It's about consequence. And again, we can ask why wine? Well, I'm going to suggest to you that wrath in Scripture in this picture of the cup is fermented desire. It is a desire that is aged in rebellion and poured out because this is what we have asked for.
[00:01:16] And really that aspect of time is an interesting one that comes into play with the image of wine. And we'll talk a little bit about that. I've already talked quite a bit about how the cup has two sides to it. We have joy and celebration, and we have wrath and destruction and ruin.
[00:01:37] I've been talking about Mark Scarlata book, Wine, Soil and salvation in the Hebrew Bible and New Testament, and I will be pulling again from that book as well as a few other sources today.
[00:01:51] I also wanna give a shout out to Geoff Johnson of the YouTube channel, Storeroom of Scripture. He gave me some great Scriptures and directions to go to for this episode, and if you wanna check out a really careful go through of the book of Revelation, I really suggest his YouTube channel. He's still in the middle of the process of going through Revelation, but he has some really interesting ideas and he's treating it very carefully and very seriously and very in context. So go check that out if you're interested.
[00:02:25] We have talked already about wine as celebration. And wine and the vine is used as a really strong representation of some positive things in Scripture, but it's also used as a negative description as well.
[00:02:43] Scarlata says, quote, " Wine and viticulture metaphors are frequently employed through the Bible, but of the 26 metaphors that contain vine imagery, 22 are found within prophecies of condemnation. Israel's moral and ethical disobedience to the law is portrayed through various images, the defilement of the land, a useless vine, or the production of rotten grapes.
[00:03:13] " God's response to Israel's sin is often depicted by the biblical authors through the poetic inversion of wine from a celebratory life-giving drink to a vehicle of judgment and death." End quote.
[00:03:30] What we're talking about, then, is really the fermentation of a broken covenant.
[00:03:36] And I am going to go ahead and front load what I want to say here about wrath in general, and I'll do that because I don't want it to get lost in the details of what we'll talk about in these various passages and the imagery of wine as being a corrupt kind of a drink.
[00:03:56] Now, admittedly what I'm gonna say about wrath in general, it's a little bit systematic and it's a little bit big picture, but I know you're gonna want to know where I'm landing and how I'm approaching this. So I will share that with you upfront, especially since sometimes I talk about how judgment and justice is a little bit of a wider picture than what we get in a lot of formulations in Christian theology.
[00:04:25] And when people go those kinds of directions, understandably, I think there's a reaction like, well, wait, what about the wrath of God? And I don't think we should do away with the concept of the wrath of God because it's obviously a very strong thread through scripture.
[00:04:45] Wrath is a big deal and wrath is not done away with, but we really need to take care in thinking about it because even though it's an emotionally laden word, I think we need to not presume that this concept is about the angry God. But I also want to not presume that it is just about some impassionate scales of justice, and it's not about any emotional reaction at all.
[00:05:19] Now, of course, we talk about God in very anthropomorphic ways, right? We talk about him like he's a human in a lot of ways because we need to relate to him on a personal level because he is a personal being, even though he's transcendent. And we are in his image, which isn't a physical thing, and it's not about certain qualities, but our qualities do reflect him.
[00:05:46] And so in some sense, our emotions do come from God, right? He created us with them. And God loves us. So if God loves us, he's also going to experience some negative emotions, or at least have the equivalent of those in a God shaped way.
[00:06:05] So even though the image of the wrath is not about an angry God, there still can be some element of anger there and upset, right? Like, why would God be emotionally perturbed by something? What makes God care about something enough to invoke his wrath? Is it just about people messing up and then God being mad about that, like an angry father? And then either, well, darn it, God's gotta do something because you messed up. Or else he's angry that you messed up and that's going to provoke him.
[00:06:45] One way or another, many people think that this is about God saying, you guys broke the rules and so now I'm going to send you to hell, kind of a thinking. And personally, I think that's the worst way of seeing what's going on. And tracking through the context of scripture I think is really helpful if you can set those ideas down for a moment and actually look at what Scripture is saying. Too many people presume that the wrath of God is enacted simply because people have messed up and violated some set of rules that are posted on the cafeteria wall.
[00:07:28] In fact, Scripture itself gives us far better reasons if we're interested in looking at it.
[00:07:35] I also wanna say that how we see this is likely to be related to our own experiences with parents or authority figures in addition to how we've been taught from the pulpit. And this is why I wanted to adequately share the message of joy and provision that we see in wine. Because where we start with our image of who God is, is pretty essential. And I'm convinced that the image does in fact, begin in the cup of true communion rather than in the cup of wrath.
[00:08:11] And by the way, I think this same thing is going on with the concept of sacrifice for people. If you presume from the start, as many people do, especially coming from Protestant circles, that sacrifice is about death and appeasement, then you might be led to think that the entirety of the sacrificial system is an accommodation. It's something that God is using and that he didn't institute it himself. I personally don't think that's the case for the simple reason that sacrifice is about communion and not appeasement. And communion is something that does come from the beginning that is instituted by God.
[00:09:00] Also, this is why I I don't think that chasing Adam out of the garden is an act of wrath. And the sacrifices outside the garden in Genesis four are not inherently about appeasement or substitution. It's true that many people cannot see the sacrificial system without those elements though.
[00:09:22] But again, it is all about where you start and what you see as the center. So that's why I started with the cup of joy and really emphasized that because even though that might be kind of not the intriguing image that the cup of wrath is, I think that is where things start.
[00:09:45] Now, here's the big picture view of wrath in this metaphor of the cup that I see. And no, the cup of wrath isn't the only image of wrath that we had in Scripture, certainly. The other images that we'll talk about at some other time provide other meanings. But here's my suggestion to you. I want to suggest that the imagery of the cup of wrath is one that demonstrates that God's wrath poured out, is in direct relationship to one's corrupt desires.
[00:10:22] I think that is what makes this such a powerful image, because what God gives as a sign for his provision and faithfulness turns to an image of our selfish desires providing the means of judgment. And not only that, but judgment coming from previous provision from God. This is us twisting what God gives us in joy and fellowship and communion and using it for our own destruction.
[00:10:53] There's various ways that that actually looks when you see it played out in the real world, including war and oppression and injustice. And it might seem unfair that something like famine and pestilence might be seen as this as well. But I'll tell you what, if we're going down the root of interpretation where God is choosing the damned and glorying himself in that, well, that's just twisted.
[00:11:28] The aspect of our desire leading us to this is crucial, and that is biblical theology. I think missing the context of the people being tied to the land is going to mess up our theology. We need to have these metaphors rooted in our minds in the way that the ancient person would have, which honestly, that shouldn't be that hard.
[00:11:56] But you know, this week I saw Answers in Genesis suggest that the cosmic temple is somehow only something that a scholar can possibly comprehend, which is silly. It's not a difficult metaphor to understand. Biblical theology and understanding the ancient world is not really that hard, but it is foreign, and so it takes a little bit of work to get there, but I'm happy to say that not only scholars are starting to understand this stuff.
[00:12:31] And another point, God uses instruments to enact judgment, but that's not like God throwing lightning bolts from heaven or having control over the whole chess board. It is again, God allowing others to be given up to their own desires and those overwhelm the people who are being judged. That's basically what happens when you choose not to follow God and not to live righteously.
[00:13:00] That's not like God working with or orchestrating evil. It's like, God says, really? You guys want that? Well, okay, let's see what it gets you then.
[00:13:14] And essential for what I'm suggesting is that all of this with desire and the other things that I'm talking about, it connects directly to what we see in the garden. But my point there isn't that Adam was under the wrath of God in severe judgment. Because I think the images we have in the atmosphere of the garden are images of mercy and continued provision, but it's a provision that takes into account the decisions that Adam has made.
[00:13:45] So there does remain a consequence. And we might say that that consequence is in some sense the wrath of God poured out, but not in the sense of balance scales or that this wrath is the same scale as the wrath that is poured out after God has been patient. In the end, I think there's two metaphors.
[00:14:10] Both are giving over to what you want, but wrath is about real devastating consequence where you've had some chance and the patience has just run out. And then you have the lighter versions of wrath where God is trying to push you in the right direction and giving you over to what you want, in the hopes of restoration, right? In both cases we have justice being meted out, justice, of course being the twin sides of punishment and restoration.
[00:14:47] And what we see in the primeval history after Adam are the patterns of refusal to turn back to God. And it's that refusal, the continued refusal, that will lead to the outpouring of actual wrath at some point in the future. It's not a result of simply one mistake or one choice.
[00:15:12] And by the way, I want to make sure I mention that I don't think the flood was a case of God pouring out wrath because God isn't seen as wrathful, but sorrowful. And that matters. Remember, it's not necessarily about God's exact emotions, but those are communicating something about God. God is long suffering and he has a heart for his people and doesn't want to see them living out these consequences.
[00:15:46] Further, the outpouring of the wrath will lead to restoration, at least as far as the people of God are concerned. Scripture doesn't really provide an image of that relationship repair for people who are not following God and whose hearts really are against him. That's where we get things like the Day of the Lord.
[00:16:10] God's wrath is not done away with. It is not erased. It is not brushed to the side. It is something real that is poured out.
[00:16:22] The flood is not that pouring out of wrath exactly, but it's a type of the coming judgment in the future because it is an instance of judgment. And I think there's a strong point to be made that it does take time for God to get to that point of wrath. And the image of wine being fermented and taking time is part of that metaphor.
[00:16:49] Wrath comes not in response to a single disobedience, but a track record of turning from God and proving that you are unfaithful. And God, who remains faithful, and who offers provision for those who delight in him, it is God who's providing that way of justice and restoration for those people. Even if, for a time, they have turned away.
[00:17:16] The picture is not fully clear with Adam. What we see there is far more mercy than wrath. But throughout the primeval history of Genesis one through 11, we do see that intensification. So the reason for the wickedness and evil in the world is not merely one instance, one mistake, one sin, but it's rather the pattern of behavior. And that pattern leads to destruction. But the pattern also includes righteousness and positive justice, like what we see with Noah being the man of righteousness.
[00:17:58] Now, incidentally, when I'm talking about human desire and giving us up to our desires, that doesn't negate the influence of the dark divine realm. But we should not lose sight of the fact that the influence would have no hold on us if it were not for our corrupted human desire to begin with. But we'll get into that kind of wrath against the powers at another time.
[00:18:25] With all of that being said, let's get into some preview of scripture here. This is something that Geoff helped bring out for me this week. In Revelation 1619, it is said that Babylon will be drinking from the cup of the wine of God's furious wrath. You turn over to the next chapter in Revelation 17, and it is the 10 horns of the beast itself that seem to be the instrument of this wrath.
[00:18:56] Revelation 1619 says, quote, " And the great city was split into three parts and the cities of the nations fell and Babylon the great was remembered before God to give her the cup of wine of his furious wrath." End quote.
[00:19:14] Jumping over to Revelation 17, 16, it says, quote, " And the 10 horns that you saw and the beast. These will hate the prostitute and will make her desolate and naked, and they will eat her flesh and will burn her up with fire." End quote.
[00:19:33] Likewise in Habakkuk, it's about evil nations taking out one another.
[00:19:39] Habakkuk two verses 15 and 16 say, quote, " Woe to him who gives a drink to his neighbors, pouring out your wrath and also making them drunk in order to see their nakedness. You'll be sated with shame rather than glory. Drink also yourself and expose yourself. The cup of the right hand of Yahweh will come around upon you and disgrace upon your glory." End quote.
[00:20:08] Now here in these verses in Revelation and the ones I just read, we have very layered imagery, don't we? We have wine drunkenness, sexual immorality, or nakedness probably also this is calling up a lot of war and violence. It is very complicated imagery because it is pulling up so many frames at once.
[00:20:34] These metaphors are anything but not real. Of course, they're real. And they're connected to events in history. But describing them as metaphors is something that is going to pack a whole lot more information into the story.
[00:20:51] Now in relation to this imagery of nakedness and wrath, this is what Scarlata has to say, quote, " The phrase, in order to gaze on their nakedness, alludes to the story of Noah and to his son Ham, gazing on his nakedness after he got drunk. We recall that the Hebrew euphemism of seeing one's nakedness can be another way of referring to sexual relations.
[00:21:17] " In this instance, the prophet appears to be condemning the Babylonians for using their power to take advantage of others, sexually. Rape and sexual abuse were common occurrences in ancient warfare, but the prophet condemns such unethical and violent acts.
[00:21:34] " The phrase pouring out your wrath is then poetically reversed by the prophet so that it is the cup of God's wrath that is poured out upon the Babylonians. The debasement and sexual crimes against their victims will become a sign of their contempt and shame when they suffer a similar fate. Their own drunkenness will make them vulnerable to the violence of others as they suffer their own humiliation, a consequence which later came at the hands of the Persian empire." End quote.
[00:22:07] This is a classic case of the bad guys defeating themselves. We see the same in 1 Enoch in relation to the flood.
[00:22:16] First Enoch 10, nine says, quote, " And to Gabriel, the Lord said, proceed against the bastards and the reprobates and against the children of adultery and destroy the children of adultery and expel the children of the Watchers from among the people them against one another so that they may be destroyed in the fight for length of days, have they not." End quote.
[00:22:45] This passage describes the judgment against the offspring of the Watchers, the Nephilim, who are made to destroy each other, reflecting the theme of self-inflicted wrath.
[00:22:59] Now, I will be talking later about the wrath against the gods of the nations. But you can't divorce that from the wrath of the people.
[00:23:08] In Hosea who comes from the northern tribes of Israel, he says in chapter two, verse eight, quote, "She did not know that it was I who gave her the grain, the wine and the oil, and who lavished upon her silver and gold that they used for Baal." End quote.
[00:23:29] This is a connection to the people worshiping the Canaanite God, Baal, who was said to be a storm God. And so the Canaanites thought that it was Baal who gave them rain and provision, but Hosea is saying, no, no, no. It is God who gave you those things, and you are turning around and using those things to worship another deity. God provided, and yet the people turned away from him.
[00:23:56] In Hosea 10 verses one through two, it says, quote, " Israel is a luxuriant vine. He yields fruit for himself. The more his fruit increased, the more he made numerous altars. The more his land prospered, the more he improved his stone pillars. Their heart is false. Now, they must bear their guilt. He himself will break down their altars. He will destroy their stone pillars." End quote.
[00:24:28] Is this just about God being jealous in the sense that he can't stand to let other gods have any of their attention? Obviously not. The other gods are judged as we'll discuss later because of some particular things, things that the people are also judged about.
[00:24:47] Okay, so we are talking about the cup of wrath today. So I'm pretty much going to confine my imagery to wine and cups and things like that. But the first and only appearance of the word wrath in Genesis is in chapter 27. This is with Rebekah talking to Jacob about the wrath of Esau.
[00:25:11] Genesis 27, 44 through 45 says, quote, " Stay with him a few days until the wrath of your brother has turned, until the anger of your brother turns from you and he has forgotten what you have done to him. Then I will send you and bring you from there. Why should I lose the two of you in one day?" End quote.
[00:25:35] There are several other places in the Torah that talk about wrath. Of course we could talk quite a bit about the exodus and wrath, but if we go to the end of Torah and we look at the end of Deuteronomy, wrath is tied to land, soil, obviously curses, and the loss of fruit.
[00:25:55] I won't read this lengthy passage, but Deuteronomy 29 talks about the future and looking forward to the time when the people are not going to be faithful and they're going to end up kicked out of the land because of that. Moses calls them to remember their time in Egypt, but he knows that they will instead turn to idols and they will turn away from worshiping Yahweh who saved them out of Egypt.
[00:26:25] Deuteronomy 29, verse 20 says, quote, " Yahweh will not be willing to forgive them for, by then, the anger of Yahweh will smoke and his passion against that man and all the curses written in the scroll will descend on him, and Yahweh will blot out his name from under Heaven." End quote.
[00:26:46] Okay, so here we have a passage that seems like Yahweh is not going to be forgiving. But notice some of this subtle language: " for by then the anger of Yahweh will smoke." There's a suggestion that he has been patient and he gets to a point where it's just, clearly the people are not going to repent and something needs to be done.
[00:27:12] Verse 25, it brings out that they abandoned the covenant of Yahweh.
[00:27:17] Verse 26, they served other gods and bowed down to them.
[00:27:21] Verse 28, Yahweh uproots them from their land in anger and in wrath and in great fury, and he cast them into another land.
[00:27:32] Well, we know that this is the exile, and the exile was meant for their turning back to Yahweh and repenting.
[00:27:40] Obviously what we have in Deuteronomy 29 is the framework of wrath as a covenantal response to this relational breakdown and people turning away from Yahweh. But judgment is in fact not permanent. There is a time when it is too late, but that doesn't discount or negate the purifying aspect, and we have to realize there are multiple referen right?
[00:28:08] We have the people who are immediately affected or judged, the people who go into exile and they're not coming back. But we also have the people who come after that who do return from exile. And we have the people who remain in the land as the remnant. They are described as the poor people of the land.
[00:28:32] So we must take all of the evidence and Scripture into account and not just cherry pick the things that we happen to prefer and say, well, look, God can't forgive when really he can. He just gets to a point where that's not gonna work anymore.
[00:28:51] And frankly, yes, I'm talking to you, all of you, eschatological systems or other systematic theologies that overly simplify the meaning and purpose of the text to get rid of all ambiguity and all crossover in imagery and meaning. And that includes being so sure about what the afterlife is like.
[00:29:17] Like if you go, eternal conscious torment, you're putting certain passages as primary and relegating others as being merely metaphorical. The same can be said with conditional immortality or annihilation. And the same with anyone who wants to argue for or lean towards universal reconciliation.
[00:29:40] I'm sorry, but just like all eschatological systems cheat, so do all views of the afterlife. You have to cherry pick verses and prioritize some and deprioritize others. And, look, to some degree, that's just something we have to live with if we want to come to any conclusions. And that's okay. Not saying you can't personally do that, but I am saying that our biases reign in how we work out interpretation, always.
[00:30:15] Alright, so there is more I could say about this idea of exile as judgment on the people and how that is not permanent.
[00:30:23] Of course, we have the two different exiles, right? First we have the northern kingdom that goes into exile. And Ezekiel brings out the idea that Judah follows her sister into exile. I won't read this passage, but in Ezekiel 23, he talks about the sister's cup. That is talking about the northern kingdom who had already gone into exile. There are going to share in the cup of exile.
[00:30:54] But let's talk about that imagery of the cup for a minute. The cup is not just about wine itself, although that's probably what we're supposed to be thinking of is generally usually in the cup, but it is a symbol for the portion from God that one receives. You can have a cup overflowing and that is the sign of blessing.
[00:31:17] You can also have a cup that is poisoned or otherwise not a delicious cup to drink that we'll talk about here in a minute. Or it's empty and it's drained. That is a sign of God's curse.
[00:31:33] It is basically a metaphor that is very connected to inheritance.
[00:31:38] We have the empty cup. We see this in Psalm 11 verses five through seven, which say quote, " Yahweh tests the righteous but the wicked and the lover of violence his soul hates. He will rain coals on the wicked. Burning sulfur and scorching wind will be the portion of their cup. For Yahweh is righteous. He loves righteous deeds. The upright shall see his face." End quote.
[00:32:09] So the burning sulfur, that's kind of the fire imagery that we often have with wrath, but also scorching wind, and that will be the portion of their cup. This is the image of a cup that has nothing in it.
[00:32:23] Of course, when we're talking about inheritance, we talk about the land, right? The land is the inheritance. The reason the land is the inheritance is because the land is what is going to sustain the people. That's how we live in the land. Without land, you need some other means of sustaining, which is why the Levites have the temple cult and they are to be sustained that way because they have no land on which to sustain themselves. So the idea of the cup and the land is very intimately connected.
[00:33:00] In Isaiah 24, we have some really strong imagery about the earth and the land. Verse four says, the land is dried up.
[00:33:10] Verse five says, the land is defiled.
[00:33:13] Verse six says that curse devours the land and the inhabitants suffer their guilt.
[00:33:20] Verse seven, the new wine dries up.
[00:33:23] Verse eight, the joy of the tambourine has stopped.
[00:33:27] Verse nine, they do not drink wine with song.
[00:33:31] Verse 10, the city of emptiness is broken.
[00:33:35] Verse 11, there's an outcry over the wine in the streets.
[00:33:40] Verse 12, desolation is left in the city.
[00:33:43] Verse 13 ends with, quote, "For it shall be like this in the midst of the earth among the nations, like the beating of an olive tree, like the gleanings when a grape harvest is at an end." End quote.
[00:33:59] Now, I've seen people take passages like that and they say, well, surely the people have more concerns than wine. And it's like, ouch. Talk about missing the point there and missing that emphasis on what that metaphor means.
[00:34:19] Psalm 60 is another powerful passage that has land and wine in parallel. Psalm 60, verses one through three say, quote, " Oh God, you have rejected us. You have broken us. You have been angry. Restore us. You have made the land quake. You have split it open. Heal its fissures because it totters. You have shown your people hard things. You have given us wine that staggers." End quote.
[00:34:52] Scarlata says, quote, "When wine takes on the symbol of wrath, it is no longer a drink to bring relief or ease the toil of life, but rather it turns into something that is often forced upon the people by God with the consequences of becoming dazed, perplexed, confused, and overwhelmed.
[00:35:14] " What is important in the parallelism between the land quaking and Israel reeling, is that the psalmist links God's judgment upon the earth to his judgment upon the people. The two are inseparably bound together, and the people who are made to drink wine from the cup of wrath suffer the same fate as the land." End quote.
[00:35:36] So Psalm 60 is about God causing the land to quake. We could jump to Psalm 75, which is about the nations doing this, and God keeping it steady. So it's like, which one is it? Well, it's both. And they're not contradictory. We have to see how those things work together.
[00:35:57] Yes, we have God who is pouring out his wrath, but that is intimately connected to the nations and giving the people over to what they want.
[00:36:07] But even when that happens, even when the nations come and create destruction, God still comes to the aid of his people because he is faithful. And that might be really hard and seemingly contradictory, but if you keep in mind those two sides of justice, then I think that helps to clarify that. Yes, you have punishment on the one side, but you have restoration on the other, and you have to have both.
[00:36:40] You don't get to the end of justice without both.
[00:36:46] I mentioned Psalm 75 earlier. Psalm 75 8 says, quote, " For in the hand of the Lord there is a cup with foaming wine, well mixed. He will pour a draft from it and all the wicked of the earth shall drain it down to the dregs." End quote.
[00:37:08] Okay, so there's some really interesting imagery coming up here. First of all, why is wine foaming?
[00:37:16] Now, I know for a fact that some of you listening to this have made alcohol yourselves. You know how it works. You know what it looks like. You know what's required to create alcohol. Some of you haven't, so I'm going to describe a little bit here. Yes, I have seen alcohol made, and it's kind of gross.
[00:37:41] You have the base liquid. Then you have things like the yeast or other things like depending on if you're doing beer or mead or wine or cider or whatever, right?
[00:37:54] But the foaming picture here is that yeast foams, right? If you've ever made bread, you see the yeast foaming. That's the picture we have here. So what we have going on is the actual fermentation. If the wine is foaming, it is being fermented. So this picture in Psalm 75 is of wine that is actively being fermented.
[00:38:19] This is an active thing that God is doing. And then Psalm 75 describes God pouring it and it describes the wicked of the earth draining it down to the dregs. Now, what is the dregs? Well, I used to think that the dregs were just like wine solids. Like maybe in the past especially, maybe there were still bits of the skin of the grape in the wine ' cause their filtering wasn't as good as ours.
[00:38:50] So maybe that's what it's talking about. And even if you've ever had a bottle of wine that sits for a long time, you get some little solid pieces at the bottom. But Scarlata brings up the point that it's really probably talking about that layer of yeast on the bottom that settles down to the bottom and it creates kind of this sludge. And I've seen it and it's really gross and nasty and that is not what you want to drink with your wine.
[00:39:24] That's not gonna make it taste good and it's just nasty besides. So we get this picture of God actively fermenting the wine, and he gives it directly to the people without filtration, without pouring it off. They have to drink the whole thing down to that sludge on the bottom, and that is gross.
[00:39:48] But we have quite a few passages in Scripture where it's talking about wine on its dregs. In Jeremiah 48, for instance, it has that imagery. So this word in Hebrew, it can refer to like those wine solids, but it can also refer to that layer on the bottom of the wine as it's being fermented and Jeremiah 48 is a picture of that description. And that's not the only place in Scripture where it brings that out. So this is not the case of, you're just drinking the cup that has been filtered and properly done, but this is wine that is prepared and the minute it's ready, the people are going to drink it.
[00:40:35] But there's also that picture of patience, right? Because you have to be patient for the wine to build that up and to actually be fermented and foaming. So I think that there's an emphasis on the active nature of what God's doing, the emphasis on preparation, the emphasis on patience. And the emphasis on people being so eager to drink the wine that they will willingly drink it down to those dregs.
[00:41:07] And again, we have this imagery that is both going towards Israel as well as the nations.
[00:41:15] Isaiah 51 17 says, quote, "Rouse yourself, rouse yourself. Stand up O Jerusalem, you who have drunk at the hand of the Lord, the cup of his wrath, who have drunk to the dregs the bowl of staggering." End quote.
[00:41:34] Now, it's also possible that there is the idea of poison being included here. We have that imagery going on back in Deuteronomy 32, which we'll probably talk about in the future.
[00:41:47] We've talked about other prophets where you gave the others the cup and now you get to drink it yourself. So that's probably a picture of both Israel and the nations drinking the cup of wrath. And in Jeremiah 25, Jeremiah is the prophetic cup bearer to the nations.
[00:42:07] But the thing about this imagery is that the nations aren't seen as gaining repentance.
[00:42:14] To the idea of Jeremiah as the cup bearer, Scarlata says, quote, "In most instances, the cup of wrath comes directly from the divine hand, but now the prophet bears the chalice that will make all who drink it go out of their minds. The staggering and madness from drunkenness are paralleled with the experience of being defeated in battle.
[00:42:39] " Here the prophet draws two images together, the cup of wine and the sword to express the analogous experience of complete disorientation. As one who is inebriated loses all control of their senses, so too do those who face the overwhelming brutality of the enemy's sword. Jeremiah, the cup bearer is called to serve the wine of God's wrath to the table of nations, beginning with Jerusalem and Judah. Judgment begins at home with God's covenant people, but it does not end there. The Lord is depicted as having authority over all nations, and so the list of other kingdoms that drink from the cup extends from Egypt to Babylon.
[00:43:24] " The episode turns darker as the Lord commands Jeremiah in Jeremiah 25 verses 27 through 28, ' Then you shall say to them, thus says the Lord of hosts, the God of Israel, drink, get drunk and vomit, fall and rise no more because of the sword that I am sending among you. And if they refuse to accept the cup from your hand to drink, then you shall say to them, Thus says the Lord of hosts, you must drink.'" End quote.
[00:43:56] The Lord of hosts, of course, is conjuring up that imagery of military battle.
[00:44:03] Jeremiah still understands that the Babylonians are the instrument of God's judgment, but in his later oracles against the nations, he directs his prophecies to Edom.
[00:44:15] Now, if you're trying to systematize all of that and come up with only one thing and say that one thing is exactly like another thing, that gets really complicated, really fast.
[00:44:27] I'm going to suggest to you that we really need the concept of the metaphor and the imagery being pulled up before we just go to that systematic one-on-one, connecting the dots thing.
[00:44:41] Okay. So we go forward into the book of Jeremiah, and Jeremiah changes the metaphor of the Lord's cup of wrath. Babylon is described as a nation who will drink from the cup, but it's also described as the cup itself.
[00:44:56] Jeremiah 51 7 says, quote, " Babylon was a golden cup in the Lord's hand, making all the earth drunken. The nations drink of her wine, and so the nations went mad." End quote.
[00:45:12] We can connect this back to the book of Revelation in chapter 14 verse eight.
[00:45:17] But Scarlata says, quote, "Jeremiah's previous image of the king at the banquet table serving out the cup of the wine of wrath is now identified as Babylon, the golden cup. The image of the golden chalice or bowl is well attested in the ancient near East. These were precious containers reserved for royalty, and they suit the context of God as king wielding his golden cup as he pours out its wine on all the nations.
[00:45:47] " The metaphor has also slightly shifted. Since Jeremiah is no longer the cupbearer who served the Babylonians God's wrath, instead, it is now the Lord himself who uses Babylon to bring drunkenness, madness and destruction. The wine of the golden cup is like the blood of battle, wrecking havoc on all the peoples through Babylonian armies that are poured out by the hand of God." End quote.
[00:46:14] Scarlata goes on to say, quote, " The prophet Habakkuk, who was a contemporary of Jeremiah, makes similar use of Babylon and the cup of wrath metaphor. In this instance, however, the prophet highlights the immoral actions of the Babylonians and the recompense they will receive from the Lord. The condemnation comes in a series of five woe oracles, all denouncing the unethical actions of the Babylonians who have been used as God's instrument of judgment.
[00:46:46] " The gentile nation, however, will still be held accountable for their unethical behavior. They have acted dishonestly in their financial transactions. They have acquired gain through corrupt means. They have established their cities through unlawful violence and bloodshed, and they have treated their neighbor treacherously by making them drink the cup of their wrath." End quote.
[00:47:12] Now, all of that will apply to when we're talking about Psalm 82 at a different time, but for now, we will note that there are very particular reasons why God is pouring out his wrath upon those people. They are not his covenant people, and yet they are still receiving the cup of wrath because of their behavior. And their behavior has to do with justice.
[00:47:40] Now, of course, there's a lot of imagery in Scripture about banquets and feasting. Banquets and feasting are really important to negotiations of political, societal relationships at every level of society, basically. A lot of times they have ritual and certain practices, right? You go to a wedding and you're going to expect to see certain things done at a wedding banquet or some sort of reception, right? So even today we have ritual. You go to a Thanksgiving dinner, there will be certain rituals and practices you will be expected to conform to at that dinner.
[00:48:22] So just like today, we have different levels of feasting, the ancient Israelites also had that. Poor people feasted at certain times, but wealthier people feasted probably more often and more elaborately.
[00:48:37] The idea of feasting and banquets is generally a very positive one, right? But it is also used for negative things. We see wine as being a way that people are exposed to their enemies, and that's a very common motif. And I won't read all of these, but I'll just list a few of them.
[00:49:02] In second Samuel 13, we have that whole terrible sorded affair with David's children, with Amnon and Absalon and Tamar. First Kings 16, we have drinking that leads to being killed in a military coup.
[00:49:19] In Daniel five, we have King Belshazzar's feast. That one's a really interesting one because it involves the profaning of items from the Jewish temple and using those things to worship false gods. By the end of the chapter, Belshazzar is dead.
[00:49:37] We have Esther and the royal banquet there. She gets the king to do what she wants, and the very gallows that Haman has prepared for Mordecai is used by the king to hang Haman himself. So it's not always the death of the king, but here it's the enemy of the Jews who is killed.
[00:49:57] Really interesting story in the book of Judith as well, which a lot of Protestants probably haven't read. Let me go ahead and read Scarlett's description of the book of Judith here.
[00:50:10] Scarlata says, quote, " The final deadly banquet comes from the apocryphal book of Judith and follows the pattern of dangerous feasts that lead to death. The book's characters and scenes consistently upend the reader's expectations through the seemingly powerless widow, , Judith, and the mighty leader of the Assyrian army, Holofernes. With iconic twists, suspense, and the use of wine, Judith is able to behead Holofernes in the middle of his camp and escape completely unnoticed. Her courage, wisdom and faithfulness are praised by the authors, though her methods of seduction, lying, and murder make her character morally equivocal.
[00:51:00] " Judith approaches the camp of Holofernes and reports that the Jews have committed a great sin by consuming the first fruits of the grain and the tithes of wine and oil, and that she has been sent to assure the army general that God has given the Jews into his hand. Pleased with the news, Holofernes invites her to the intimacy of his tent and prepares for her a feast with some of his own delicacies and with some of his own wine to drink.
[00:51:29] " Judith refuses the gesture in order to remain pure before the Lord. But Holofernes holds another banquet on the fourth day for all of his personal attendants. The feast descends quickly into a drunken party. Judith refuses to participate in it, but she responds ironically that it is the greatest day of her life.
[00:51:50] " Judith 1217 through 20 says, quote, ' So Holofernes said to her, have a drink and be merry with us. Judith said, I would gladly drink, my lord, because today is the greatest day in my whole life. Then she took what her maid had prepared and ate and drank before him. Holofernes was greatly pleased with her and drank a great quantity of wine, much more than he had ever drunk in any one day since he was born.' End quote. The additional description of Hal's drinking more wine than he has ever drunk before, sets up the climatic scene of Judith bearing the sword of her enemy and then decapitating him. The Jewish military victory that ensues the following day is a sign of God's grace upon his people and the courage of Judith that has enabled the Jews to defeat the Assyrian armies." End quote.
[00:52:47] So even though Judith here is kind of a morally questionable character, in some sense, we have a clear trajectory of excess and debauchery leading to death. And Jewish prophets and heroes like Judith abstain for greater good. They were morally outstanding and able to resist the excesses of wine. But that wasn't indicating that wine was a negative thing, and Judith did, after all consume a little bit.
[00:53:18] Now the image of God giving something as a blessing and then turning that around and using it as a means of judgment is also related to the people of God. Because Jerusalem and Judah are seen as a means of judgment themselves. the people of God are seen to be blessings to the nations, right? But they're also judged and then they're used as an instrument of judgment before being ultimately redeemed.
[00:53:46] Now, if you want to go full eschatology on this, you certainly can, but the level of complication to create a simple, straightforward system will, again, by necessity, require you to cherry pick verses, and put more weight on some than others.
[00:54:06] Which if that is your jam, I am certainly not going to stop you. But some things to keep in mind, however, are just how much Christ has embodied the nation of Israel. And then the church is the embodiment of Christ present on earth today.
[00:54:26] So how you figure out what to join together and what to split apart in Scripture according to which passages are which, and how you harmonize or not, and how you decide what's a metaphor and what's not, it's all going to come down to your own personal hermeneutical principles and your own biases and what you want to accomplish in all of that.
[00:54:51] But in the end, judgment and justice as twin sides to one coin, you have one side of ruin and the other side of hope, and we cannot lose sight of the opposite side.
[00:55:06] Scarlata says, quote, One final way in which we see wine used as a sign for the curses of God is in the futility of planting and the inability to reap the fruit of one's work.
[00:55:19] " We saw how Deuteronomy presented a sense of justice and moral balance by excusing a man from war so that he might return to his newly planted vineyard and enjoy its wine, in Deuteronomy 20 verse six. The reversal of this is found later when Moses declares the covenant curses that the Israelites will experience if they abandon the law.
[00:55:43] " Deuteronomy 28 39 says, quote, ' You shall plant vineyards and dress them, but you shall neither drink the wine nor gather the grapes for the worm shall eat them.' The result of disobedience is futility rather than blessing.
[00:55:59] " Previously, Moses had spoken to the Israelites about going into the promised land and inheriting 'hewn cisterns that you did not hew, vineyards and olive groves that you did not plant' as a sign of God's salvation. The agricultural gifts of vineyard and fruit bearing trees also came with a warning that the Israelites should not forget God or what he had done in delivering them from Egypt.
[00:56:25] "Moses now emphasizes the fact that Israel should always remain a grateful people in every circumstance, giving thanks for God's gifts from the soil. Working, planting, harvesting, and making wine are futile in the eyes of the biblical authors if they are not done with a sense of benediction." End quote.
[00:56:46] The ability to enjoy the fruits comes with covenantal faithfulness and enough sobriety to keep those covenants and not fall into debauchery, excess, and false desire that leads not to salvation, but to ruin.
[00:57:03] Here's what it all boils down to. I like this quote from Scarlata, so this will probably be the last one I'll give to you, but Scarlata says, quote, "The poetry of the prophets and the biblical authors takes one of the most basic pleasures of life in the ancient world, growing, making, and drinking wine, and turns it into a curse when Israel disobeys God's command. Deprivation from the fruits of one's own vineyard, the inversion of the cup of blessing that becomes the cup of wrath, the pressing of grapes. An amphora of wine resting on the lees are all creative metaphors and images used to convey the suffering that comes from disobedience.
[00:57:48] "To convey the seriousness and dire consequences of transgressing God's commands, the biblical authors turn to wine to highlight how the gift of salvation can become the curse of condemnation. God's judgment on the people, however, also includes judgment on the land. Not only would Israel have to drink from the cup of wrath, but the biblical authors depict the land and animal kingdom suffering as well.
[00:58:15] "The Israelites life is bound to the community of the land, the community of place, and this includes all who live there with them, whether human soil, plant, bird, or beast. It may seem unfair that the land suffers for the people's transgressions, but the biblical understanding of sin is as a force that breaks down the order of human and natural world.
[00:58:41] " Violence, injustice and hatred all lead society toward chaos in the eyes of the biblical authors, and the land responds to human action, whether in fruitfulness and blessing or in barrenness and curse ." End quote.
[00:58:58] But again, this is not about the angry pagan God. People disobeying God and then God getting so angry at them that he has to do something about it. Nor is it about some impassionate scales of justice.
[00:59:16] It is about setting things in right, not merely letting out some temper.
[00:59:22] A quote from Abraham Herschel says, quote, "The anger of the Lord is instrumental, hypothetical, conditional, and subject to his will. There is no divine anger for anger's sake. Its meaning is instrumental: to bring about repentance. Its purpose and consummation is its own disappearance." End quote.
[00:59:50] I like that. Now, of course, Scarlata and many other people will bring all of these ideas into modern ethics and how we treat the land and each other. And that includes things like technology that is based on massive consumption that we have today and all of that. But I will say also that how we treat the land matters very much, but it is primarily about relationship and fellowship, still. That can go onto what we're doing with the land and how we're interacting with the world with technology and things like that.
[01:00:26] But it is so very much about the relationship of each other and how we are in communion with God or not, and that includes being in communion with each other.
[01:00:38] God's wrath is revelatory. It shows what is there already. And it seems like its end is to undo itself, right? God's wrath gets meted out, and by that actually happening, justice ends up being done, whatever that's going to look like for individuals and people, right?
[01:01:03] Whether you are in alignment with God or not, what we gain is an inheritance that we have brought upon ourselves in either aligning with God and partaking of his bountiful goodness or not.
[01:01:19] Basically, God says, you wanted this cup. Here you go. The question is, are we choosing wisely? Or are we choosing poorly in what we want to partake of? Do we take the golden cup of the worldly, war hungry empire, or do we take the cup of a carpenter?
[01:01:41] Remember, only the penitent man will pass.
[01:01:47] All right. I hope you guys enjoyed this episode. There will be more coming out in the podcast about wrath, especially in relation to the gods of the nations and how that relates to God's pouring out his wrath on the gods as well as on people. And what does that look like? What is that relationship? We'll track that further imagery of wrath in other ways beyond the cup.
[01:02:13] We'll probably look at the Day of the Lord. We will also track the wine element into the New Testament. Lots more to come with this series that I had no idea I was starting when I started it, but I hope you're enjoying it. And if you have any questions, please do let me know. You can find me on Facebook, or you can find me through my website at genesis marks the spot.com, where you can find lots of blog posts these days, actually. I have really been doing a lot more fitting in of writing of blog posts into my workflow, so lots more to come for that. You can either go to my blog where it has a little tab on my website. Or you can sign up for my newsletter. And in my newsletter I will be providing links to all of my current blog posts.
[01:03:09] So that's another way that you can find those. And I try to share most of them on Facebook as well in my discussion group. So some extra material there for you to look at. You can also find ways to help support my podcast on my website, and I want to give a big shout out to those of you who do. Thank you guys. Really appreciate you and your questions and the things that you interact with me on. I'm very grateful to help you in the ways that I can in whatever that looks like. And thank you guys for all of your support in the various ways that you support me. Which just includes listening and rating the podcast and sharing the episodes with other people who might enjoy this content. Really appreciate all of you, but for now, I wish you all a blessed week and we will see you later.
