DID JESUS TURN WATER INTO WINE?

The famous miracle of the wedding feast of Cana, the transmutation of water into wine, is famous because it is an excuse for debauchery.

The miracle is recounted in John chapter 2.

It does not say that Jesus miraculously turned water into wine. It says that water was made wine but does not say how he did it. He could have put something in the water to make artificial wine. It says it was a sign but helping others is a sign of God’s love in the Christian faith. If Jesus could create wine what did he need the water for? He could have used empty jars instead of jars of water.

It will be answered that if Jesus put something in the water then he must have been playing a trick for the result would not be wine. But people in those days relied on smell and taste and colour to tell what something was. Maybe Jesus believed it was wine he made.

If Jesus changed the water into wine with supernatural power then why did the waiter in charge not know about it? If Jesus had done a miracle he would not have hidden it. This is a clue that nothing supernatural occurred.

Christians will surmise that Jesus did tell everybody later on but didn’t do it just then because the guests would look for more water to be turned into wine. But if people were that fond of the bottle he would never have told the story to anybody and the author of John made the water into wine up. Perhaps the waiter in charge was not told for he would not believe it. But it didn’t matter what he thought as long as he was told. He would have to have been told for the water for the purification would have been noticed missing.

Sceptics would think they could not tell in case there would be a scandal for letting Jesus put something in the water. Many would not approve.

John believed in the wisdom of God and in the infallibility of Jesus. Mary, Jesus’ mother, told Jesus that there was no wine. He told her it was not his hour yet so he would do nothing. He meant he had not reached the hour of attaining supernatural power yet and would do no miracle. Yet he went and changed the water. This tells us he did it naturally. That is how you reconcile the contradiction.

To Nicodemus, Jesus moaned that nobody believed in his supernatural claims to have come from Heaven and to be infallible (John 3:32). This includes Mary for Nicodemus did not know of her as an obvious exception and didn’t need to be mentioned. So, Mary did not believe that Jesus could do miracles proving that Mary knew that what happened at Cana was natural and not magical or that she would have denied the story of the wine that has come down to us. She would have believed if it had been a miracle. She did not believe that Jesus’ conception was a miracle.

The superintendent of the banquet tasted Jesus’ wine and thought that the best wine was still being served even though the guests were drunk and would not have noticed if they got cheap wine. Would God who forbids drunkenness turn water into wine at a stage in the feast in which the bad wine was ready to be served for the guests were too intoxicated to care or notice? The miracle must not have been supernatural. There must have been some wine left when the superintendent thought the cheap wine was not done yet that the others knew nothing about. Jesus probably mixed it up with the water.
 
Now, is the gospel nodding its head to drunkenness? Now, is the gospel nodding its head to drunkenness? Yes. We must conclude that there is an antinomian (belief that we don’t need to try and keep the law of morality) influence in the gospel. Antinomians can lie and can expect us to take their gospels as true. That’s another way that the gospel of John gives support to those who wish to challenge the miracle stories.  It shows there were good liars about – that is if you think the gospel stories are good lies. Many people think they are bad lies.