Better Than Wine

Scripture Verse(s)

Solomon’s Song 1:2

“Thy love is better than wine.”

Keys to the Verse

Speaker: Bride/Church/Believer

Thy Wine: Bridegroom/Jesus Christ

Pastor’s Opening Statement

THE Scriptural emblem of wine, which is intended to be the symbol of the richest earthly joy, has become desecrated in process of time by the sin of man. I suppose, in the earlier ages when the Word of God was written, it would hardly have been conceivable that there could have existed on the face of the earth such a mass of drunken men and women as now pollute and defile it by their very presence. For man, nowadays, is not content with the wine that God makes, but he manufactures some for himself of which he cannot partake, at least in any abundance, without becoming drunken. Redeem the figure in our text, if you can, and go back from the drinking customs of our own day to more primitive and purer times, when the ordinary meal of a man was very similar to that which is spread upon this communion table, — bread and wine, — of which men might partake without fear of evil effects; but do not use the metaphor as it would now be understood amongst the mass of mankind, at least in countries like our own.

Pastor’s Main Theme(s)

I. First, then, I want to prove to you that CHRIST’S LOVE IS BETTER THAN WINE BECAUSE OF WHAT IT IS NOT.

It is so, first, because it may be taken without question. There may be, and there always will be in the world, questions about wine. There will be some who will say, and wisely say, “Let it alone.” There will be others who will exclaim, “Drink of it abundantly;” while a third company will say, “Use it moderately.” But there will be no question amongst upright men about partaking to the full of the love of Christ.

II. Secondly, CHRIST’S LOVE IS BETTER THAN WINE BECAUSE OF WHAT IT IS.

Let me remind you of some of the uses of wine in the East. Often, it was employed as a medicine, for it had certain healing properties. The good Samaritan, when he found the wounded man, poured into his wounds “oil and wine.” But the love of Christ is better than wine; it may not heal the wounds of the flesh, but it does heal the wounds of the spirit.

III. “Thy loves are better than wine,” and this teaches us that CHRIST’S LOVE MAY BE SPOKEN OF IN THE PLURAL, because it manifests itself in so many ways. 

I ask all renewed hearts that have been won to Jesus, the virgin souls that follow him whithersoever he goeth, to walk with me in imagination over the sacred tracks of the love of Christ. Think, beloved, of Christ’s covenant love, the love he had to us before the world was. Christ is no new lover of his people’s souls; but he loved them ere the day-star knew its place, or the planets began their mighty revolutions.

IV. For my last point, and that is, CHRIST’S LOVE IN THE SINGULAR, a theme which might well suffice for half a dozen sermons at the very least.

Look at the text as it stands: “Thy love is better than wine.” Think, first, of the love of Christ in the cluster. That is where the wine is first. We talk of the grapes of Eshcol; but these are not worthy to be mentioned in comparison with the love of Jesus Christ as it is seen, in old eternity, in the purpose of God, in the covenant of grace, and afterwards, in the promises of the Word, and in the various revelations of Christ in the types and symbols of the ceremonial law. There I see the love of Christ in the cluster.

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