Growing up going the meetings for the first 18 years of my life, I remember well the “emblems” being passed around near the conclusion of Sunday morning meeting. A quarter-slice of white bread and a small cup of Welch’s grape juice were placed on a plate that sat on a small table, usually in the middle of the room, covered by a small cloth. When the time came they would be passed around the room, as the professing members would solemnly pinch off a small piece of the bread and then sip from the cup. I remember the excitement I would feel at times when, because of where I happened to be sitting, I would get the opportunity to pass the plate to the next person beside me. Having no other frame of reference, this ritual seemed perfectly normal and reverent. It should be noted that some 2×2s outside the United States do use wine, according to some reports.

It was not until later that I realized that the early Christians used actual wine, and it was much later that I learned that the use of non-fermented grape juice came directly out of the American temperance movement of the mid-19th Century. In 1869 Dr. Thomas Bramwell Welch, a Methodist, developed a way to boil Concord grapes that effectively killed the yeast which stopped the fermentation process. Soon many Protestant denominations adopted this non-alcoholic grape juice as their sacramental “wine” during their remembrance of the Lord’s Supper. Despite their claims to be separate from the rest of the “worldly” religions, the irony is that the 2×2 Fellowship merely copied the other Protestant groups in their adoption of grape juice.

For a group that claims to follow the church of the New Testament more closely than anyone else, the absence of the use of wine is conspicuous. In general, 2×2s accept that the New Testament is the fulfillment of the Old Testament, and that the “emblems” are the New Testament version of the Jewish Passover meal. The four cups of wine used in the Jewish Seder meal are based on Exodus 6:6-7 where God promises Moses four distinct expressions of rescue for the Israelites in Egypt.

Cup 1: Sanctification: “I will bring you out from under the burdens of the Egyptians”, meaning God is setting Israel apart as a holy nation, separate from Egypt.

Cup 2: Deliverance: “I will rescue you from their bondage”, meaning physical liberation from slavery and the power of the Pharaoh.

Cup 3: Redemption: “I will redeem you with the outstretched arm and with great judgments”, meaning a buying back of the Israelites and foreshadowing the blood of the Passover lamb

Cup 4: Consummation/Praise: “I will take you as my people, and I will be your God”, meaning the final marriage covenant between God and His people, realized at Mount Sinai

After drinking the third cup at the Last Supper, Jesus told the Apostles he would not drink wine again until the Kingdom of God arrived, and they left the room without drinking the fourth cup (Mt 26:29, Mk 14:25). By abstaining from the “fruit of the vine” Jesus was marking the end of his time on earth and initiating a new, ultimate covenant sealed by his blood. It was the fourth cup that Jesus prayed to have pass him in the Garden at Gethsemane due to the suffering it represented. In this grove of olive trees, the Arabic word, gat shemanim translates to “oil press”, which is deeply symbolic of the spiritual and emotional “crushing” pressure of bearing all the sins of the world. Indeed, his anguish was so profound that his perspiration became like “great drops of blood falling down to the ground” (Lk 22:44). Finally, while on the cross, Jesus said “I thirst” and drank the sour wine offered up on a hyssop branch. It was the drinking of this fourth cup that Jesus was referring to when he said “it is finished”, meaning he was drinking the fourth and final cup of the Passover meal.

The symbolism of the hyssop branch cannot be ignored, either . At the first Passover the Israelites were instructed to use hyssop branches to apply the sacrificial lamb’s blood to the doorposts of their homes (Ex 12:22) so that death would pass over them. By having the sour wine passed to him on the cross, Jesus is identified as the ultimate, spotless Passover Lamb whose blood is being shed for the salvation of humanity. The hyssop branch further symbolizes purification such as the cleansing rites for lepers (Lev 14) and spiritual cleansing, “Purge me with hyssop, and I shall be clean” (Ps 51:7)

In antiquity, the Greek word for wine oinos (οἶνος) and the Jewish Passover phrase "fruit of the vine" referred specifically to fermented wine. This comes from the Oral Torah and Rabbinic liturgy (Mishnah Berakhot 6:1). The Talmud provides the scriptural reasoning by linking the blessing of wine with the “gladdening of the heart” (Ps 104:15) and “cheering the hearts of men” (Judges 9:13). It should be remembered that Passover occurs in the spring, whereas the harvesting of grapes occurred in the summer, allowing time for fermentation to take place, a chemical process for which there was no available technology to halt to create grape juice.

It was this understanding of the symbolic significance of wine that the earliest Christians retained, so with the 2×2 Fellowship’s claim of following the New Testament Christians more closely than anyone else, it is curious that they mostly use grape juice in their eucharistic “remembrance”. Even the 2×2 apologist Cornelius Jaenen admits that this was the earliest understanding by the New Testament church in his citation of Clement of Alexandria who lived from 150-215 AD in his famous work Paedagogus (Book 2, chapter ii). There are also references from Justin Martyr (100-164 AD) in his First Apology (chapter 65-67) and Cyprian of Carthage (200-258 AD) in his Letter to Caecilius.

The consistent use of wine is not simply a Catholic phenomenon. Famous Protestant scholars such as J.N.D. Kelly, Jaroslav Pelikan and Philip Schaff also confirmed that the earliest church perpetuated the element of wine. This is explored in more depth in my article “Grape Juice Jugglery”. Responding to the temperance movement of the 19th Century attempting to substitute grape juice for wine, the highly influential Baptist preacher Charles H. Spurgeon strongly defended the historic use of fermented wine:

"Theories which have been advanced are utterly untenable. We wish the utmost success to the abstinence cause, and, therefore, trust that there will be no pressing of the question of unfermented wine at the Communion... it will be contrary to the Divine precedent."

As Protestant theologian Keith Mathison points out further, “at the time of the sixteenth-century Protestant Reformation, there were disagreements over virtually every other issue related to the sacrament, but there was no disagreement over the use of wine.”. This insight into the entire history of Christian belief is remarkable in its refutation of 2×2 doctrine.

So, the cumulative evidence from the Jewish tradition, the Old Testament, the New Testament, the writings of the early Church Fathers, and the testimony of respected Protestant historians proves that wine was the universal element used in the Eucharist by the earliest Christians. Even disregarding doctrinal disagreements about the precise nature of Christ’s actual presence in the sacrament, the historical record leaves no doubt that fermented wine - not unfermented grape juice - was employed in Christian worship from the apostolic age onward. Consequently, if the 2x2 Fellowship claims to preserve the beliefs and practices of the primitive Church more faithfully than any other Christian body, their rejection of wine presents a fatal inconsistency. The historical evidence shows that on this point, the 2×2 Fellowship has not simply deviated, but rather departed from, the “Divine precedent” of using wine.

Keith A. Mathison, Given For You, 2002, P&R Publishing. pp. 301-304

Charles Spurgeon's review of The Wines of the Bible: an Examination and Refutation of the Unfermented Wine Theory by the Rev. A. M. Wilson. (reviewed 1877, The Sword and the Trowel, p. 437)