Water transformed to wine is analogous of doctrine transformed to God’s happiness, John 15:1-2Title: Water transformed to wine is analogous of doctrine transformed to God’s happiness, John 15:1-2.
Significant to the use of the vine analogy is wine production which was often associated with happiness in the ancient world.
Our Lord’s first miracle, turning water in earthen vessels (representing the word of God in man) to wine in the same vessels (representing perfect happiness in man). When the wine was given to the head waiter he said:
John 2:1 And on the third day there was a wedding in Cana of Galilee, and the mother of Jesus was there;
Mary had been there since the beginning of the wedding. Every wedding lasted several days depending on provisions, and Jesus arrives late because He has just traveled from Judah.
Don’t forget that the Apostle John was given commission by our Lord at the cross to care for His mother. Both John and Mary were at this wedding and I’m sure that they reminisced over this day again and again. John’s commission was not only to take care of her day to day physical needs, but as an apostle and teacher, he was commissioned to take care of her spiritual needs. I truly believe that under the teaching of John, the writer of our Gospel and one of the greatest witnesses for Christ for all time, that she became a winner, mature believer.
As for the wedding, these people are peasants or else they would have not run out of wine. Jesus is invited because the family knows His family and so Jesus attends a celebration of someone He has known who does not posses much. [Does that not sound like you and I?]
TLJC has known you from long ages past and He knew that you didn’t have much, so He who was rich became poor, so that you could become rich.
Jer 1:5 "Before I formed you in the womb I knew you, And before you were born I consecrated you; I have appointed you a prophet to the nations."
Although the next passage is in reference to Israel, remember that Israel is a picture of the believer’s soul. This was written to them through the prophet as they were poised to be conquered by their surrounding enemies.
Isa 43:10-11 "You are My witnesses," declares the Lord , "And My servant whom I have chosen, In order that you may know and believe Me, And understand that I am He. Before Me there was no God formed, And there will be none after Me. "I, even I, am the Lord ; And there is no savior besides Me.
Savior refers to deliverance from the second death as well as all other hindrances and calamities. Our number one calamity is our fallen state which destines us for the second death and from which we have been delivered as believers.
Our second calamity that we need to be delivered from is the system of thinking we all begin the CWL with that prevents us from sharing the happiness of God. Therefore our vessels need to be filled with the water of the word of God that it may be transformed into the happiness of God.
We all run out of the crappy wine that we think is happiness. It’s all pseudo-human-chasing-happiness that constantly depends on circumstances and other people. That type of so-called happiness has no basis or relationship to God’s perfect and immutable happiness. That’s the crappy wine of the peasant that quickly runs out. Christ arrives to change all that by providing God’s happiness.
John 2:2 and Jesus also was invited, and His disciples, to the wedding.
John 2:3And when the wine gave out, the mother of Jesus said to Him, "They have no wine."
“They have no wine,” means that Mary thinks they should leave.
This doesn’t mean that Mary or Jesus were there to drink wine. We have no indication that they did even drink at all, but in the ancient world, if the wine ran out the wedding would usually end and in this case it would have ended early. So this is like being at a football game and the home team is losing 50 – 0 in the fourth quarter. There’s no hope of victory so let’s get out before the traffic builds up. That’s what Mary is suggesting.
John 2:4And Jesus said to her, "Woman, what do I have to do with you? My hour has not yet come."
We have a weak translation here: “what do I have to do with you?” = “what is this to you and Me?”
It’s not time for Jesus to leave. He will “leave” when the cross comes, which is what He means when He says, “My hour has not yet come.”
Christ is about to do a miracle. This is His calling card as will be the rest of His miracles. This is behind the meaning of His statement, “My hour has not yet come.”
The miracles will cease a few days before the cross, but not now since that hour is 3.5 years yet future and He’s about to perform his first one. This is the beginning of His ministry. So what Mary says is out of line and she is rebuked for it.
So many commentators, who have been so influenced by the pagan mother son worship that began thousands of years ago in Babylon and was also a part of many very old religions, and even continues today, cannot bring themselves to say that Mary was rebuked by Jesus and was out of line.
Jesus calls her “woman” showing her that she is just another person who does not understand the plan of God for the Lord’s ministry. This reveals to us that action in the plan of God is not done in partners. You do not produce fruit with someone; you do so from your own communion with Christ. The Lord’s biological mother is unknowingly attempting to take control of His ministry by saying it’s time to leave. The Lord says, “Stop woman, this lack of wine is nothing between you and Me.”
The wine, or lack of at the wedding, has nothing to do with what must be done at the cross. It is only after the cross that the wine of happiness can be given to man.
So the Lord will perform His first miracle to show what His cross will do and that is to provide a destiny for every believer to share in the happiness of God.
This is truly behind the meaning of: John 15:5 "I am the vine, you are the branches; he who abides in Me, and I in him, he bears much fruit; for apart from Me you can do nothing.
The wedding feast will go on, which is analogous to the fact that the happiness of the believer will perpetuate through the rest of his life, whether in adversity or prosperity, and on into eternity.
Mary has enough doctrine to know when she’s been rebuked and she humbly comes to an understanding that Jesus has something to do at this wedding. This makes her a great woman, but in no way is she sinless or the “mother of God.”
John 2:5His mother said to the servants, "Whatever He says to you, do it."
John 2:6Now there were six stone waterpots set there for the Jewish custom of purification, containing twenty or thirty gallons each.
We must understand the typology here.
As a reminder: Typology: the use of objects, persons, events, or rituals as analogies for truths concerning Christ and His churchbody.
The object, person, event, or ritual is the type and what it represents is the antitype.
6 = the number of man [that’s numerology]. Stone = the vessel of man. Water = doctrine. Wine = sharing the happiness of God.
John 2:7Jesus said to them, "Fill the waterpots with water." And they filled them up to the brim.
Notice that Christ asked that the pots first be filled with water. This is analogous to the inculcation of doctrine. He could have made wine out of thin air. He didn’t need the pots to be filled with water, but He gave these instructions knowing that we would understand that water represented the word of God.
Filling to the brim indicates a maximum amount of doctrine in the soul referring to daily inculcation.
Our Lord was thinking of the future when His church would understand typology and He gave instructions thinking of your instruction.
In His deity He always knew who you were, and I mean specifically you. When He asked for water He was thinking of your future understanding of just what the water represented, and when He turned it into wine He was continuing to think about you.
John 2:8And He said to them, "Draw some out now, and take it to the headwaiter." And they took it to him.
It was given to the headwaiter to confirm its authenticity. It was truly great wine as an experienced headwaiter would know.
The headwaiter is analogous to the pastor-teacher who tastes the happiness of the Lord and then communicates it to his congregation.
Communication of the awesomeness of the wine was accomplished by the headwaiter.
John 2:9And when the headwaiter tasted the water which had become wine, and did not know where it came from (but the servants who had drawn the water knew), the headwaiter called the bridegroom,
John 2:10and said to him, "Every man serves the good wine first, and when men have drunk freely, then that which is poorer; you have kept the good wine until now."
The wine is made out of water, but still something was made out of nothing. Although wine is mostly water (approx. 81%) with our modern knowledge of chemistry we now know the chemical composition of the ethanol and other components often found in wine (sugars, sulfites, proteins, amino acids, vitamins, minerals, and other things like tannins). Water is made out of hydrogen and oxygen only with a small percentage of impurities, whereas ethanol is hydrogen, oxygen, and carbon. The other components include phosphorus and nitrogen and a number of other elements not found in all water.
This means that God’s happiness is formed in you out of something brand new that didn’t exist in you before which alludes to all the new doctrines you learn and new principles and applications of old doctrines you’ve had.
In no way is God’s happiness a remodeling of your old pseudo-happiness that always depended on circumstances.
God’s happiness is not something that was ever within you before nor has it anything to do with the pseudo-happiness of man.
An unbeliever can have a form of happiness based on divine establishment principles that is miniscule compared to God’s happiness and is not at all a relative of it. |