Is it ok for Christians to drink? - A Biblical perspective on alcohol

As a Christian minister it’s a question I’ve been asked many times over the years, nor has my answer ever changed. Having written about it before, still the question persists, so I’m writing about it again.

And that question is this: ‘Is it ok for Christians to drink alcohol?’

My answer remains the same, which is the answer revealed in God’s Word, the Holy Bible, which is an absolute, definite, unequivocal and resolutely resounding…Maybe.

You see, the short answer - and the one which often most shocks many believers is, Yes, alcohol is ok. But the slightly longer explanation outlines some important qualifications.

In this article we shall examine why so many people (Christians and non-believers alike) imagine it is wrong for Christians to drink, and compare what they have been taught with what the Bible says. But in so doing we shall also look at those circumstances in which the Bible does advise against it.

Hebrews 4:12-13 famously says:

For the Word of God is living, and powerfully working, and sharper than every two-edged sword, and piercing as far as the division of both soul and spirit, of both joints and marrow, and able to judge of the thoughts and intentions of the heart; and there is no creature unrevealed before him; but all things are naked and laid open to his eyes, with whom is our account.

So, along the way I expect to slaughter a few people’s sacred cows and maybe tread on a few toes, but I’ve never been afraid to do so because of something Jesus once cautioned his disciples:

Woe unto you, when all men shall speak well of you! for so did their fathers to the false prophets. (Luke 6:26)

And to those tempted to dismiss my words before even giving me the opportunity to present the Biblical case I would add the warning of Proverbs 18:13 -

He that answers a matter before he hears it, it is folly and shame unto him.

It was customary in Jesus’ day for rabbis to accompany one another and ask whoever was teaching questions to test their argument, but Jesus also often faced a hostile audience of teachers who sought not just to clarify his teachings but to counter them. To just such an audience Jesus once responded in Mark 7:13, where he castigated certain scribes and Pharisees whom he accused of…

'Making the word of God of no effect through your tradition, which you have delivered: and many such things do you'.

In fact, we know from Scripture that Jesus respected not only the written Word of God that we call the Old Testament but the Oral Law that had grown out of centuries of interpretation of Scripture by the Jewish sages and which was widely cited in applying it. But Jesus was also aware that a lot of dross had crept in in the guise of wisdom but which actually ran contrary to the Bible. In other words, Jesus knew the difference between interpreting the Word and adding to it, as we see in Mark 7:5-8,

Then the Pharisees and scribes asked Him, “Why do your disciples not walk according to the tradition of the elders, but eat loaves with unwashed hands?”

 

But he answered and said to them, “Well has Isaiah prophesied of you hypocrites, as it is written, ‘This people honours me with their lips, but their heart is far from me. However, they worship me in vain, teaching for doctrines the commandments of men.’ For laying aside the commandment of God, you hold the tradition of men, the dippings of pots and cups. And many other such things you do.”

This was a point of frequent contention between Jesus and the religious authorities and remains so today for several reasons, foremost among which is self-righteousness. We know this because of Jesus’ choice of words in calling the scribes and Pharisees ‘hypocrites’ which was simply the Greek for ‘actor’, or someone whose outward actions are inconsistent with who they really are.

Another popular term you may have heard applied to such people, and often directed at Christians, is sanctimonious - which is Latin and literally means ‘simulating holiness’, and is sometimes rendered as ‘holier than thou’; a term used in Isaiah 65:5. However, the context is more telling if we read verses 1 to 5, because God himself says.

“I am sought by those who asked not for me; I am found by those who did not seek me. I said, ‘Behold me, behold me’, to a nation not calling on my name. I have spread out my hands all the day to a rebellious people who walk in the way not good, after their own thoughts; a people who without ceasing provoke me to anger to my face; who sacrifice in gardens, and burn incense on the bricks; a people who remain among the graves, and sleep in the tombs, who eat swine's flesh, and broth from hateful things in their vessels; who say, ‘Keep to yourself, do not come near me; for I am holier than you’. These are a smoke in my nose, a fire that burns all the day.”

The reason the context here is so crucial is what it reveals about these people to whom God attributes the proud boast ‘I am holier than thou’. When read carefully, the shocking truth that emerges is that these people are not merely claiming to be better than their fellows, but actually consider themselves more holy than God.

That, Isaiah reveals, is God perspective on self-righteousness. No wonder then that it was Jesus’ viewpoint as well.

Another popular motivation for hypocrisy that derives from self-righteousness is control, which Jesus addresses in Luke 11:46.

And he said, “Woe to you also, lawyers! Because you burden men with burdens hard to bear, and you yourselves do not touch the burdens with one of your fingers.”

And again, in Matthew 23:15.

“Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you compass sea and the dry land to make one proselyte, and when he is made, you make him twofold more the child of hell than yourselves.”

Sound familiar? I remember years ago hearing an apocryphal account of a pastor who disliked pineapple. He didn’t teach it was wrong or sinful to eat pineapple, but he made no secret of his aversion and always avoided the fruit.

So far so good, you might suppose. What’s wrong with that? To which the answer is ‘absolutely nothing’. There’s nothing at all in the Bible to suggest that eating pineapple is wrong, but neither is it required. We’re free to choose according to personal preference and this pastor chose not to eat pineapple. What went wrong was that as the pastor's personal preference became common knowledge among his flock others began to emulate him in not eating pineapple as well, until eventually it became the tradition among them that there was somehow something not quite right about it and eating pineapple became frowned upon.

It’s not wrong to declare God’s standards nor to set a good example. But we err when we begin to confuse our own standards with God’s and set ourselves as the one whose example should be followed. The apostle Paul put it this way in 2 Corinthians 10:12 -

For we do not dare to rank or compare ourselves with some of the ones commending themselves. But they, measuring themselves among themselves, and comparing themselves to themselves, are not perceptive.

 

The pineapple scenario already mentioned appears quite similar to how many churches approach the issue of alcohol. Someone somewhere at some time had a personal issue with alcohol or had a personal dislike for liquor which became enshrined as a tradition until it became frowned upon and even regarded as sinful.

The same can be said of many things which are actually morally neutral but fall foul of those whose personal proclivities combine with a censorious disposition to frown upon those things of which God’s Word actually expresses approval or, as is the case with alcohol, sex and money, God explicitly says may be sanctified.

 

Possibly the most misquoted passage in all Scripture is 1 Timothy 6:10, which is so often rendered as ‘money is the root of all evil’, when what it actually says is:

For the love of money is the root of all evil: which while some coveted after, they have erred from the faith, and pierced themselves through with many sorrows.

‘Love of money’ is a phrase in English but a single word in Greek (philarguria) and is just that - a form or aspect of the sin of covetousness. Money of itself is not evil, although the Bible does often refer to it as ‘unrighteous mammon’ and ‘filthy lucre’, not because it is inherently sinful or dirty, but by virtue of its being tainted by association with what it is so often used pay for. Money could be sitting in your pocket, purse or wallet right now that was once used to pay a prostitute, buy pornography, or was squandered on illegal drugs.

So, how can money be sanctified? Quite simply, though tithes and offerings. It’s a Biblical principle that I am sorry to say has been made contentious in the Church through ignorance and misunderstanding which has led to it being taught badly at both extremes. There are those who insist that tithing is still commanded of Christians, whilst others teach that tithing is not even in the New Testament. Both are mistaken. Tithing is most certainly integral to the New Covenant but is no longer a matter of law but a revelation of the heart, and I cringe when I hear it taught otherwise.

Nor is the argument that, because Christians are under grace and not law we are freed from tithing, any more convincing. No, under grace Christians are freed from the obligation to tithe, which makes them free to choose to do so, which is something very different. As the apostle Paul says, in 2 Corinthians 9:7 -

Every man according as he purposes in his heart, so let him give; not grudgingly, or of necessity: for God loves a cheerful giver.

If it’s got to be prised from the rigor mortis grip of your frozen white fingers, God doesn’t want it, because anything that has to be taken from you is not given by you.

I do not teach, nor ever shall, that tithing is a matter of law under the New Covenant of grace. Nor will I teach that God condemns or curses those who don’t tithe, nor loves or favours more those who do. It’s not a tax and it’s not a debt, it’s a gift of gratitude or it’s nothing at all, which is something that both extremes of teaching seem to miss entirely.

The principle is very closely linked to that of ‘firstfruits’, which is as much part of the New Testament as the Old, and is nicely summed up by the apostle Paul in Romans 11:16,

If the dough offered as firstfruits is holy, so is the whole lump, and if the root is holy, so are the branches.

Firstfruits is mentioned so often in the Bible that it’s a teaching in its own right which we haven’t room here to examine thoroughly. Suffice to say, the principle is that the firstfruits is an offering is representative of the whole, so that when we dedicate the first ten percent of our increase as an offering to God, the whole amount is sanctified. Some refer to this as the tithe, but there’s a bit more to it than that. Nevertheless it puts into perspective the claim of some Christian ministers that tithing is not mentioned in the New Testament. That would certainly have surprised the writer of Hebrews 7:1-10, who said this:

For this Melchizedek, king of Salem and priest of the Most High God, met Abraham returning from the slaughter of the kings and blessed him. To him Abraham also gave a tenth of all. He was first by interpretation king of righteousness, and after that also king of Salem, which is king of peace, without father, without mother, without descent, having neither beginning of days nor end of life, but made like the Son of God, he remains a priest continually.

 

Now consider how great this man was, to whom even the patriarch Abraham gave the tenth of the spoils. And truly they who are of the sons of Levi, who receive the office of the priest, have a commandment to take tithes of the people according to the Law, that is, from their brothers, though they come out of the loins of Abraham.

 

But he whose descent is not counted from them received tithes from Abraham and blessed him who had the promises. And without all contradiction the lesser is blessed by the better.

 

And here men who die receive tithes; but there he receives them, of whom it is witnessed that he lives. And if I may say so, Levi, also, who receives tithes, paid tithes in Abraham. For he was still in the loins of his father when Melchizedek met him.

If the words ‘Baby’ and ‘Bathwater’ spring immediately to mind it's because, in their eagerness to emphasise that Christians are under grace and not law, too many teachers have been quick to castigate tithing, which was actually practiced by Abraham under grace when the Law was 400 years yet future.

Hebrews 13:4 famously declares:

Marriage is honourable in all, and the bed undefiled: but whoremongers and adulterers God will judge.

If that could be any clearer I don’t know how, because it states God‘s position unambiguously. Sex was God’s idea from the beginning, and he is neither coy nor embarrassed about it. The Bible has a lot to say about sex and as far as God is concerned the sexual relationship between a husband and wife is something very special - indeed it is sacred, sanctified and entirely holy. But, as Hebrews 13:4 also makes abundantly clear, God takes an entirely different view of sex outside the marital relationship.

That, he says, is another matter entirely. That, God says, is sin. Adultery is sin, fornication is sin, homosexual practices are sin, sex with animals is sin, pornography is sin…and the list goes on.

But because something that God created as holy and made to be beautiful can be profaned doesn’t mean that we throw the baby out with the bathwater. (There‘s that expression again.) Just because our towns and cities are replete with prostitutes and brothels; because fornication is a mainstay of sit-coms, soap operas and cinema; because between 3 and 5 percent of the population are homosexual; and because pornography is a zillion-dollar mega-industry, doesn’t mean that married Christians should be embarrassed about sex, nor would any sensible person suggest that married couples need to become celibate. Indeed, the vast majority of people would consider such a notion as idiotic verging on the insane.

Nor do we consider that marriage ought to be discouraged on the grounds that married couples having a sexual relationship with one another might offend the asexual. And who are the asexual when they’re at home? They are those who have no particular proclivity towards the physical expression of sexuality at all. Only those who haven’t read the Bible may be excused from being unaware that Jesus makes mention of them in Matthew 19:12.

For there are eunuchs who were born thus from their mother's womb, and there are eunuchs who were made eunuchs by men, and there are eunuchs who made eunuchs of themselves for the sake of the kingdom of Heaven. He who is able to receive, let him receive it.

Jesus is speaking figuratively here, using eunuchs as an understood metaphor. Literal eunuchs were relatively common right up until a little more than a hundred years ago, but are much rarer today. And a eunuch, for those who don’t know, is a man who has been castrated, which Deuteronomy 23:1 graphically describes as,

"…one whose testicles are crushed or whose male organ is cut off…”

There are those, says Jesus, who have been born that way, referring to those who are physically unimpaired but asexually inclined. Others who have been made that way by men, referring to the painful physical punishment meted out in those days to certain criminals, prisoners of war, and those employed in a king‘s harem. And there are those who choose to be, by which Jesus means those who have chosen to live a celibate life.

Some people, then, are celibate by choice and those who are not have no right to criticise that choice. It’s a perfectly respectable position to hold and it would be a gross insult to suggest otherwise.

So, money can be sanctified or profaned and likewise, sex can be holy or profaned or even avoided altogether. But what has that got to do with alcohol? Because while it is obvious that alcohol can be profaned or avoided it certainly cannot be described as holy - can it?

The answer to that last question may surprise many Christians, because it is an absolute affirmative - Yes it can. That’s right, God doesn’t only approve of alcohol, he even sanctifies its use on certain occasions.

Nowhere is this more clearly illustrated than in Deuteronomy 14:22-27.

Tithing you shall tithe all the increase of your seed that the field yields year by year. And you shall eat before Yahweh your God in the place which he shall choose to cause his name to dwell there, the tithe of your grain, of your wine, and of your oil, and the firstlings of your herd and of your flock; that you may learn to fear Yahweh your God all your days.

 

And if the way is too long for you, so that you cannot carry it, because the place is too far from you which Yahweh your God shall choose to set his name there, when Yahweh your God shall bless you;

 

Then you shall give it for silver, and bind up the silver in your hand. And you shall go to the place which Yahweh your God shall choose. And you shall pay the silver for whatever your soul desires, for oxen, or for sheep, or for wine, or for strong drink, or for whatever your soul desires.

 

And you shall eat there before Yahweh your God, and you shall rejoice, you and your household. And you shall not forsake the Levite who is within your gates, for he has no portion nor inheritance with you.

The occasion referred to in this passage is Sukkoth - the Feast of Tabernacles - one of the seven annual feasts of Yahweh held throughout the year. These feasts were Passover, Unleavened Bread (incorporating Firstfruits), Pentecost, Trumpets, Atonement, Tabernacles and the distinct Eighth or Last Great Day of the Feast.

Every one of them is a type and shadow of the saving work of the Messiah - pointing either to that already fulfilled, and that yet to be fulfilled by Christ Jesus.

Passover represents Jesus’ death and finished work on the Cross for the atonement of our sins. And indeed, he was crucified on Passover in accordance with God’s calendar and timetable.

Unleavened Bread is a seven-day festival, so closely associated with Passover as to be virtually synonymous. It begins and ends with an annual Sabbath (Day of Rest), and thus represents the complete rest from sin made possible by Jesus’ death.

Firstfruits actually occurs during this time as we read in Leviticus 23:10-11,

Speak to the sons of Israel, and you shall say to them, “When you come in to the land which I am giving to you, and have reaped its harvest, and have brought in the sheaf, or the beginning of your harvest, to the priest, then he shall wave the sheaf before Yahweh for your acceptance; on the morrow of the Sabbath the priest shall wave it.”

The idea of a ‘wave offering’ is something else of significance that is often missed by modern Christians who see it as something weird that religious people did a long time ago. But God doesn’t do weird for the sake of it, he hides things in type and shadow for those who are hungry enough to seek them out for themselves. And the idea of a wave offering was that it represented Jesus before the altar.

Indeed, there were other offerings offered on other occasions which were called the wave offering and heave offering, which have even clearer typology because a wave offering was waved from side to side while a heave offering was lifted up and down, not only representing Christ’s ministry to man and God, but forming a cross.

The sheaf waved by the priest during Firstfruits represented the resurrected Christ: the Firstfruits of the Resurrection from the dead, three days after his crucifixion.

And that, incidentally, is one reason why firstfruits and tithing are linked because, as we read earlier in Hebrews 7:8,

And here men who die receive tithes; but there he receives them, of whom it is witnessed that he lives.

Fifty days later, Pentecost celebrates the Holy Spirit falling in power upon the disciples gathered in Jerusalem and the establishment of the Church.

The Feast of Trumpets follows a few months later as a type yet to be fulfilled at Christ’s return.

Next, comes the Day of Atonement (literally Atonements or Coverings) when Satan is bound and cast into the Abyss.

Penultimately, the Feast of Tabernacles representing the Millennium (Thousand year reign on earth of Christ with his saints).

And lastly, the Last Great Day of the Feast, foretells of the White Throne Judgement, when the rest of the dead are raised to face God’s judgement at the hands of the risen Christ.

So, the Feast days mentioned in Deuteronomy 14 are far from insignificant, which explains the central role of alcoholic drink which God himself prescribes to be enjoyed during it. This is because wine is not just a drink in the Bible, but a metaphor for ‘joy’ of any kind. And that’s why the very first miracle Jesus ever performed was to turn water into wine at a wedding in Cana, because God considers marriage a joyous occasion and social fellowship as something of the utmost importance, which is why Jesus was there, and why, when his mother pressed him he acceded to performing such a miracle. If you need some persuasion, check out John 2:1-11.

And on the third day a marriage took place in Cana of Galilee, and the mother of Jesus was there. And Jesus and his disciples also were invited to the marriage.

And being short of wine, the mother of Jesus said to him, “They have no wine.”

Jesus said to her, “What is that to me and to you, woman? My hour has not yet come.”

 

His mother said to the servants, “Whatever he says to you, do”.

 

And there were six stone waterpots standing, according to the purification of the Jews, each containing two or three measures.

 

Jesus said to them, “Fill the waterpots with water.” And they filled them to the top. And he said to them, “Now draw out and carry to the master of the feast.” And they carried it.

 

But when the master of the feast tasted the water that had become wine, and did not know from where it was (but the servants drawing the water knew), the master of the feast called the bridegroom, and he said to him, “Every man first sets on the good wine, and when they have drunk freely, then the worse. You have kept the good wine until now.”

 

This beginning of the miraculous signs Jesus did in Cana of Galilee. And it revealed his glory, and his disciples believed into him.

Jewish weddings in Jesus’ day could last for several days, and often involved the whole community, so no wonder when the wine ran out Jesus made plenty more - between 120 and 180 gallons, we are told.

Everyone knows the story, but some like to twist it to fit their own prejudice and pretend that the wine Jesus created wasn’t alcoholic. But a close reading of the text exposes that as utterly fanciful, because the master of the feast who was entirely ignorant of where the wine had come from actually remarked on its quality in terms that make is abundantly clear that it was quite potent.

“Every man first sets on the good wine, and when they have drunk freely, then the worse. You have kept the good wine until now”, he said. By this he meant that it was the custom to serve the best wine first so that when people had drunk enough of it that their senses were sufficiently impaired by the alcohol that they couldn’t discern the difference, wine of lesser quality would be substituted.

If the wine wasn’t alcoholic that would not have been true, so clearly the argument is disingenuous and a distortion of Scripture.

Likewise, some argue that Yahweh did not mean alcoholic beverage in Deuteronomy 14. This again is special pleading from a position of prejudice based on a fundamental ignorance of Hebrew, which is not in the least ambiguous. God instructs his people, in verse 26:

‘And you shall pay the silver for whatever your soul desires, for oxen, or for sheep, or for wine, or for strong drink, or for whatever your soul desires.’

The Hebrew for wine, is יין (yayin) which invariably means ‘fermented wine’, while that for strong drink שׁכר (shekar) means ‘intoxicating or intensely alcoholic liquor’.

Alcohol, especially in the form of wine, was ubiquitous in Israel and pivotal to any festival commanded by (except for Atonement, which is a solemn fast), and is one reason you may recall from the Gospels that the disciples fell asleep in the garden of Gethsemane when they went there with Jesus on the night he was betrayed (Matthew 26:40 & Mark 14:37). They had just had a Passover meal which typically involves drinking four or five cups of wine, and remained as yet oblivious of all that was yet to happen and did not share in Jesus’ anxiety, so no wonder they were ‘tired’.

So, there’s no getting around the fact that God himself explicitly and specifically approves of the consumption of alcohol. He doesn’t have a problem with it, even if religion does. Indeed, Jesus himself was the target of religious criticism in his day for precisely because he enjoyed a drink, in an incident recorded in two Gospels:

'But to what shall I liken this generation? It is like unto children sitting in the markets, and calling unto their fellows, and saying, "We have piped unto you, and you have not danced; we have mourned unto you, and you have not lamented". For John came neither eating nor drinking, and they say, "He has a demon". The Son of man came eating and drinking, and they say, "Behold a man gluttonous, and a drunkard, a friend of tax collectors and sinners". But wisdom is justified of her children.' (Matthew 11:16-19)

And the Lord said, 'To what then shall I liken the men of this generation? And to what are they like? They are like unto children sitting in the marketplace, and calling one to another, and saying, 'We have piped unto you, and you have not danced; we have mourned to you, and you have not wept. For John the Baptist came neither eating bread nor drinking wine; and you say, "He has a demon". The Son of man has come eating and drinking; and you say, "Behold a gluttonous man, and a winebibber, a friend of tax collectors and sinners!" ' (Luke 7:31-34)

Jesus was not amused, but rather lamented that there are some folks with whom you cannot win but rather with whom ‘you’re damned if you do and you’re damned if you don’t’. Clearly, religious people don't change much.

 

So we’ve seen that the consumption of alcohol is often commended in the Bible, but what of those who were commended or commanded to the contrary, the Rechabites and the Nazarites? Both are often cited as examples of Christian virtue because they abstained from alcohol, and many have sought to emulate them in the name of abstinence.

 

First of all, who were the Rechabites? One place we find them is in Jeremiah 35:3-10.

Then I took Jaazaniah the son of Jeremiah, the son of Habaziniah, and his brothers, and all his sons, and the whole house of the Rechabites. And I brought them into the house of Yahweh, into the room of the sons of Hanan the son of Igdaliah, a man of God, which was near the room of the rulers, above the room of Maaseiah the son of Shallum, the keeper of the door. And I set pots full of wine, and cups, before the sons of the house of the Rechabites. And I said to them, “Drink wine!”

 

But they said, “We will drink no wine, for Jonadab the son of Rechab our father commanded us, saying, ‘You shall drink no wine, you nor your sons forever. Nor shall you build houses, nor sow seed, nor plant a vineyard, nor have anything; but all your days you shall live in tents, so that you may live many days in the land where you are strangers.’ So we have obeyed the voice of Jonadab the son of Rechab our father in all that he has commanded us, to drink no wine all our days, we, our wives, our sons, nor our daughters; nor to build houses for us to live in. Nor do we have vineyard, nor field, nor seed. But we have lived in tents, and have obeyed and done according to all that Jonadab our father commanded us.”

What we see here is a family honouring the vow of their forefather down through the generations, which is noble and commendable. However, that part of that vow was to abstain from drinking alcohol is incidental, and it is their honourable attitude that the Bible commends, not merely the fact that they didn‘t take strong drink.

 

Likewise the Nazarite vow was a very solemn undertaking which is outlined in Numbers 6:1-13.

And Yahweh spoke to Moses, saying, “Speak to the sons of Israel, and say to them, ‘When a man or a woman shall vow a vow, a vow of a Nazarite, to be separated to Yahweh, he shall separate 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.

 

All the days of his Nazariteship he shall eat nothing that is made of the grapevine, from grape seeds even to a stem.

 

All the days of his vow to separate, no razor shall come upon his head. Until all the days are fulfilled in which he separates to Yahweh, he shall be holy.

He shall let the locks of the hair of his head grow.

 

All the days that he separates to Yahweh, he shall not come near any dead body.

He shall not make himself unclean for his father, or for his mother, or for his brother, or for his sister, when they die, because his separation to his God is upon his head.

 

All the days of his separation he is holy to Yahweh. And if any man dies very suddenly beside him, and he has defiled the head of his consecration, then he shall shave his head in the day of his cleansing, on the seventh day he shall shave it.

 

And on the eighth day he shall bring two turtle-doves or two young pigeons to the priest, to the door of the tabernacle of the congregation. And the priest shall offer the one for a sin offering and the other for a burnt offering, and make an atonement for him, because he sinned by the dead, and shall make his head holy that same day.

 

And he shall set apart to Yahweh the days of his separation, and shall bring a lamb of the first year for a guilt offering. But the former days shall be lost, because his separation was defiled.’ ”

You can hardly but notice that there is an awful lot more to being a Nazarite than merely abstaining from alcohol: You cannot cut your hair, you cannot eat grapes or use vinegar, and you cannot come into contact with a dead body - including your own family.

It was a form of austerity denoting separation, and was generally temporary. Only two rare instances are found where God commanded it be lifelong - in the case of Samson and of John the Baptist. So, if you ever meet someone who is abstinent from alcohol and claims it is because they have taken a Nazarite vow, watch them closely, because if they enjoy a piece of fruitcake or Christmas pudding, sprinkle vinegar on their fish and chips, or do not have long hair, the chances are they’re lying. What they are really doing is trying to justify their personal preference behind a cloak of righteousness.

What they have done is confused type and antitype, and misunderstood the two distinct meanings of holiness.

Holy simply means separated and set apart which, in relation to human beings, generally means dedicated to God. The reason God is holy is because he is transcendent and wholly separate from his Creation. He is eternal, we are temporal. He is perfect, we are imperfect. He is morally good, we are not…and so on.

But when the Bible speaks of a man being holy it does not necessarily denote some paragon of virtue and moral perfection but rather that he is separated, set apart and dedicated to God in some respect. We see this lived out in the example of Samson, who was a far from moral man, yet he was consecrated as a Nazarite before his birth.

So, for me as a Christian drinking alcohol is not a problem. I’m free to drink alcohol if I want to. - Is that right?

Yes, that’s right.

It’s not a sin, in fact God is pretty cool with it. - Is that correct?

That’s correct.

So, under grace and not under law I can drink as much alcohol as I like, whenever I like, wherever I like and with whomever I like. - Isn’t that what we’ve just demonstrated from the Bible?

Well, No. Which answer takes us right back to that ‘Maybe’ at the beginning of this article, because there are circumstances in which drinking alcohol is not a good thing to do, and the Christian life is not about how much sin I can get away with but how much love I can walk in.

Like sex and money, alcohol is fundamentally morally neutral, but the same cannot always be said of how it is used.

Drunkenness is wrong, because it impairs our faculties and injures our health. Furthermore it often leads to violence and misery, and when frequently indulged, can result in poverty. Drunkenness while operating machinery or driving a vehicle is recklessly inconsiderate and frequently kills, not only the drinker, but innocent bystanders. Acute alcoholic binging can actually kill on the spot, while chronic alcohol abuse will kill insidiously, destroying not only the drinker’s body but his relationships along the way.

That much is obvious. But suppose you are a moderate and responsible drinker. That makes ok then, doesn’t it?

Once again the answer is No, for reasons outlined by the apostle Paul in his famous dissertation on tolerance, in Romans 14:12-21.

So then each of us will give an account of himself to God. Therefore let us not pass judgment on one another any longer, but rather decide never to put a stumbling block or hindrance in the way of a brother.

 

I know and am persuaded in the Lord Jesus that nothing is unclean in itself, but it is unclean for anyone who thinks it unclean.

 

For if your brother is grieved by what you eat, you are no longer walking in love. By what you eat, do not destroy the one for whom Christ died. So do not let what you regard as good be spoken of as evil.

 

For the kingdom of God is not a matter of eating and drinking but of righteousness and peace and joy in the Holy Spirit.

 

Whoever thus serves Christ is acceptable to God and approved by men.

So then let us pursue what makes for peace and for mutual upbuilding.

 

Do not, for the sake of food, destroy the work of God. Everything is indeed clean, but it is wrong for anyone to make another stumble by what he eats.

 

It is good not to eat meat or drink wine or do anything that causes your brother to stumble.

The fact is, drinking alcohol is not a sin per se, except if by doing so we knowingly cause offence to another or set an example to a weaker brother or sister for whom it is an issue and thereby undermine their faith. Because Paul sums up in verses 22-23,

The faith that you have, keep between yourself and God. Blessed is the one who has no reason to pass judgment on himself for what he approves. But whoever has doubts is condemned if he eats, because the eating is not from faith. For whatever does not proceed from faith is sin.

And it’s a point that Paul makes elsewhere, in 1 Corinthians 6:12,

"All things are lawful for me," but not all things are helpful. "All things are lawful for me," but I will not be enslaved by anything.

And, in 1 Corinthians 10:23,

"All things are lawful," but not all things are helpful. "All things are lawful," but not all things build up. Let no one seek his own good, but the good of his neighbour.

What Paul is saying is simply that if you have a friend or acquaintance, or some colleague or family member who has been hurt by alcohol or suffered abuse from an alcoholic, or has simply been told that drinking alcohol is a sin, not only would you be crass in offering them a drink, but you may be guilty of unkindness towards them if you drink while they are present. Paul is not saying, be a hypocrite, but he is exhorting us to be discrete.

And remember Paul’s admonition that ‘whatever does not proceed from faith is sin.’ One of the ways that doubt often manifests itself is when we start to make excuses for our behaviour. And when people start looking for loopholes or excuses to allow them to behave in a certain way, it’s often a warning sign that they know better but want to feel justified about sinning.

A fairly reliable rule of thumb in matters of conscience is to ask ‘Am I sure about this?’

If the answer is yes, then go ahead and do it.

But if the answer is ‘I’m not sure’, then don’t, because that‘s an expression of doubt, and doubt is a lack of faith, and ‘whatever is not of faith is sin.’