This Week’s Focus Passage: Matthew 26:29

‘Until that day when I drink it new with you in my Father’s kingdom.’

    What a day that will be; that day when the Bridegroom shall come for His bride, the Church, and take us away to the marriage supper of the Lamb. It should be no wonder if we long for that day in a manner and with a true heart after God entirely superlative to that longing that a maiden has as she awaits her wedding day, which is but a dim shadow by comparison with the coming of our Bridegroom. Who is like unto Thee, O Lord, who is like unto Thee, must we cry! This is the true consummation of all things; the summary of all of God’s plans for the exaltation of His Son, and for His own glory. Did not Isaiah speak of this very day, by way of prophecy, many years before the advent of the One who was happily announced by the Friend of the Bridegroom that pointed Him out to the view of his hearers as ‘The Lamb of God that taketh away the sin of the world?’ Was not John the Baptizer speaking of the same Bridegroom and the same marriage supper of the Lamb of whom Isaiah spoke in Isaiah 25:6-8, when he beautifully and wonderfully declared?

        ‘And in this mountain will Jehovah of hosts make unto all     peoples a feast of fat things, a feast of wines on the lees, of fat things full     of marrow, of wines on the lees well refined. And he will destroy in this     mountain the face of the covering that covereth all peoples, and the veil     that is spread over all nations. He hath swallowed up death for ever;     and the Lord Jehovah will wipe away tears from off all faces; and the     reproach of his people will he take away from off all the earth: for     Jehovah hath spoken it.’

    When Isaiah speaks of such things as ‘all peoples,’ as well as, ‘a feast of wines on the lees,’ along with, ‘He hath swallowed up death for ever,’ including, ‘the Lord Jehovah will wipe away tears from off all faces,’ and finally, that, ‘the reproach of his people will he take away from off all the earth;’ what could he be making reference to if not ‘that day when I drink it new with you in my Father’s kingdom’? The ‘all peoples’ is a common metaphor for the ultimate inclusion of all the Gentiles, or all of the nations; ‘a feast of wines on the lees’ certainly puts us in mind of these very words of our Savior spoken to his own disciples at the inauguration of the Lord’s supper. ‘He hath swallowed up death for ever,’ is quoted by the apostle Paul as he speaks of the last things, as another apostle, in his Revelation of Jesus Christ, alludes to the expectation that, ‘the Lord Jehovah will wipe away tears from off all faces’ in his seventh chapter of that book which brings the canon of the Scriptures to its close. Matthew Henry seems to agree with this eschatological understanding of Isaiah; he has said:

        If we suppose (as many do) that this refers to the great joy     which there should be in Zion and Jerusalem when the army of the     Assyrians was routed by an angel, or when the Jews were released out     of their captivity in Babylon, or upon occasion of some other equally     surprising deliverance, yet we cannot avoid making it to look further, to     the grace of the gospel and the glory which is the crown and consumm-

    ation of that grace; for it is at our resurrection through Christ that the     saying here written shall be brought to pass; then, and not till then (if     we may believe St. Paul), it shall have its full accomplishment: Death is     swallowed up in victory, 1 Cor. xv. 54. This is a key to the rest of the     promises here connected together. And so we have here a prophecy of     the salvation and the grace brought unto us by Jesus Christ, into which     the prophets enquired and searched diligently, 1 Pet. I 10.

    While we are perhaps slumbering and sleeping as did both the wise and the foolish virgins of Matthew 25, what joy it shall be at the time we hear that midnight cry, ‘Behold, the bridegroom! Come ye forth to meet him.’ Those of us, who by God’s grace have oil in our lamps, and are ready will go in with him to the marriage feast, and the door will be shut. But what after the door is shut? Will we not experience that promised blessing expressed in Luke 12:37, where Jesus has said, ‘Blessed are those servants, whom the Lord when he cometh shall find watching: verily I say unto you, that he shall gird himself, and make them sit down to meat, and shall come and serve them?’   At time will the children of Abraham according to faith see their Melchizedek bring forth bread and wine. Then will we understand more fully perhaps the statement of the marveling steward of the wedding feast in John 2, when he exclaimed, ‘But thou hast kept the best wine for last.’

    We recall that Jesus in His glorified body, prior to His ascension, demonstrated to His disciples that His was a real body. In His post-resurrection appearance, Jesus ate both bread and fish with His disciples, but there is no record that he partook of any wine with them on those occasions. Does this not perfectly concur with His promise, ‘I shall not drink henceforth of this fruit of the vine, until that day when I drink it new with you in my Father’s kingdom.’? That wonderful privilege is likely reserved for the marriage supper of the Lamb when He shall drink the fruit of the vine anew with us in His Father’s kingdom. What joy it shall be when we hear the voice of a certain king, saying, ‘Behold, I have made ready my dinner; my oxen and my fatlings are killed, and all things are ready: come to the marriage feast.’ Matthew 22:4. 

    In Acts 10:11ff., we read of Peter, ‘the heaven opened, and a certain vessel descending, as it were a great sheet, let down by four corners upon the earth: wherein were all manner of fourfooted beasts and creeping things of the earth and birds of the heaven. And there came a voice to him, Rise, Peter; kill and eat. But Peter said, Not so, Lord; for I have never eaten anything common and unclean. And a voice came unto him the second time, What God hath cleansed, make not thou common.’ When the Bridegroom passes that blessed cup that He, and we, have waited to drink anew with Him in His Father’s kingdom, can we imagine any one of the privileged guests saying, ‘Not so, Lord?’

David Farmer

Elder, Fellowship Bible Church