John 2:10

And saith unto him, Every man setteth on first the good wine; and when men have drunk freely, then that which is worse; thou hast kept the good wine until now.

First the good wine ... then ... worse ... In these words, the ruler of the feast unconsciously recorded the sordid economy of this world which first entices with that which is beautiful and desirable, and then punishes and frustrates with that which is worse. Of course, the ancient toastmaster was merely stating a commonly known fact, but the perception of John led him to see in that chance remark a universal law with profound applications far beyond the restricted situation that prompted its utterance. As Morrison said:

Why, think you, did this saying so impress John that it lingered ineffaceably in his memory? Was it merely because of the pleasure it evoked to hear his Master's handiwork so praised? I think there was a deeper reason. John was by nature an idealist, loving to find the abstract in the concrete; and, in the particular instance of that moment, he was quick to see the universal law.[7]

AFTERWARD; THAT WHICH IS WORSE

1. In the history of Adam's race, first there was Paradise and the garden of Eden; then came the temptation and fall, the curse, the expulsion, and the flaming sword that pointed in every direction.

2. In the progression of physical life on earth, first there are the joys of childhood, the excitement and pleasure of youth; and afterwards there are the labor and strife, weakness, senility, and death. This physical progression to that which is worse is among the saddest and most pitiful qualities of mortal life. Wordsworth captured the full pathos of it thus:

The rainbow comes and goes, And lovely is the rose. Shades of the prison house begin to close Upon the growing boy. The sunshine is a glorious birth; But yet I know, where'er I go, That there hath passed away A glory from the earth. Where is it now, the glow and the dream? At length the man perceives it die away And fade into the light of common day.[8]

3. In the enticement to sin, the death's head is always hidden behind the smiling mask of beauty and delight. The smile of the adulteress ends in blood upon the threshold, and the sparkling cup conceals the poisonous asp at the bottom of it (Proverbs 23:21,32).

4. In life's arrangements without consideration of God, the progression is ever downward and toward that which is worse. Marriages where God is not a partner move unerringly in the direction of futility and sorrow. Prodigals move invariably in their thoughtless and licentious freedom, not to honor, but to the swine pen. Many an arrangement of business, employment, or pleasure is begun with high hopes and expectations; but, if God is not in the arrangement, it moves inexorably to lower and lower levels to become finally a state of crime and shame. Afterward, that which is worse.

5. In the longer progression of unconsecrated life, as it regards time and eternity, the same wretched deterioration occurs. However glorious or desirable the state of the wicked in this present life may appear to be, it is only for a little while, followed by the terrors of a hopeless grave and the punishments of hell. Some people refuse to believe in any such thing as hell; but intelligent reasoning, as well as divine revelation, supports the conviction that awful retribution is stored up for the wicked after death. Again from Morrison:

I believe in law; I believe in immortality; I believe in the momentum of a life. And if the momentum of a life be downward, and be unchecked by the strong arm of God, how can we hope that it will be arrested by the frail and yielding barrier of the grave? ... If sin conceals the worse that is behind tomorrow, may it not also conceal the worse that lies behind the grave?[9]

6. In the progression of the material universe, all material things being inferior to the great spiritual realities, there is the same downward course. The sun itself will finally become a burned-out star and our earth but a dead speck of dust in space. As Dr. Moody Lee Coffman stated in a lecture on The Origin of the Inanimate:

The universe must be reckoned as becoming more disordered with time. All other known physical laws may be extrapolated backward in time as well as forward, but the second law of thermodynamics insists that entropy monotonically increases. Time cannot be reversed in direction to change this fact. No violation has ever been observed. All the experience of mankind leads us to believe the universe must work its way to a uniform heat sink with no potential for doing useful work. It is the second law of thermodynamics.[10]

This profound observation is but the scientific way of saying, "afterward, that which is worse." The apostles of Jesus warned people to live lives founded upon spiritual principles and unhesitatingly predicted the end of the physical world, as, for example in Peter's foretelling the destruction of the earth and its works (2 Peter 3:10f).

7. In the corruption and defilement of man's moral nature, through the ravages of sin, it is always "afterward, that which is worse." Sin always begins with so-called minor departures from the word of God; but the descent of the soul towards reprobacy and debauchery is constant and accelerated in its declension from God. The miserable history of Sodom and Gomorrah has been endlessly repeated by all of the nations that have turned away from God. "Evil men and impostors shall wax worse and worse, deceiving and being deceived" (2 Timothy 3:13). "Worse and worse" is the law of all sin and turning away from God.

From the above considerations, it is clear enough that the ancient master of ceremonies at Cana uttered a truth far more comprehensive than the primary application of it. No wonder the apostle remembered and recorded it!

And when men have drunk freely ... People have gone to great lengths to defend the Lord against any implied approval of excessive drinking; but no such defense is necessary. It is not implied that any of the guests at that wedding had exceeded the bounds of propriety. He merely stated what was publicly recognized as a fact, and there can be no question of the truth of what he said.

Thou hast kept the good wine until now ... This is the converse of the proposition stated above. The contrast between the way God does things and the performance of people apart from God is dramatically stated. With sinful men, it is ever "afterward, that which is worse"; but with God in Christ it is ever "the best wine last!" This truth also has a wide application.

THE BEST WINE SAVED FOR LAST

1. In God's great act of creation, the best wine came last. First, the earth was without form and void, and darkness moved upon the face of the deep. Afterward came light, vegetation, lower forms of animal life, and finally man created in the image of God!

2. In the dispensations of God's grace, the same progressive betterment is observed. The patriarchal, Mosaic, and Christian dispensations of God's mercy appeared in ascending order of benefit and glow.

3. In Scriptural revelation, the same progression to that which is better appears. As the writer of Hebrews expressed it:

God, having of old time spoken unto the fathers in the prophets by divers portions and in divers manners, hath at the end of these days spoken unto us in his Son, whom he appointed heir of all things (Hebrews 1:2).

4. In the earthly life of our Lord, the wonder of Bethlehem and the angelic announcement of a Saviour born culminated in the far more wonderful event of Jesus' death and resurrection for the salvation of mankind. The best wine came last.

5. The progression of the Christian life follows the same pattern. The enthusiasm and joy of the novice convert to Christ resolve into a far more wonderful experience of the mature Christian.

The difference in Christ and the devil is just this, that the devil's tomorrow is worse than his today; but the morrow of Christ, for every man who trusts him, is always brighter and better than his yesterday. Every act of obedience on our part gives us a new vision of his love.[11]

One of the hymns of the pioneers was "Brighter the Way Groweth Each Day"; and all who have ever followed the Lord have found it so.

6. In time and eternity, we may be certain that God has kept the best until last. Joyful and fulfilling as the Christian life assuredly is, the full glory of it will not be realized until "that day" when the Lord shall provide the crown of life to all them that have loved his appearing. No description of heaven is possible. Language itself, as a means of communicating thought, breaks down under the weight of superlative metaphor employed by the inspired writers who received from God visions of the Eternal City. The throne of God is there, the river of life, the tree of life, the gates of pearl, the streets of gold, the protective wall, and the Saviour's own face as the light - who can fully understand such things as these? But of one thing we may be certain: when the trials, sorrows, tribulations, heartaches, and sufferings of our earthly pilgrimage have ended, and when we awaken to behold the Saviour's face in the eternal world, we shall cry adoringly, "Lord, thou hast reserved the best until now."

Note: A somewhat fuller treatment of the spiritual import that may be found in John's great signs is entered here, with reference to the first of them, than will be undertaken with regard to the others, as an example of the kind of interpretation possible in all of them. That such implications are indeed to be found in these mighty signs is perfectly evident; but the critical device of making the spiritual import of these wonders the basis of denying that they actually occurred is satanic. A lie has no spiritual import of the kind evident in John's signs; and therefore the very quality of their spiritual application is a proof that the events themselves happened, that they are historical facts.

[7] G. H. Morrison, The Wings of the Morning (London: Hodder and Stoughton), p. 1.

[8] William Wordsworth, Ode on the Intimations of Immortality.

[9] G. H. Morrison, op. cit., p. 6.

[10] Moody Lee Coffman, The Origin of the Inanimate (Atlanta, Georgia: Religion, Science, Communication Research and Development Corporation, 1972), p. 75.

[11] G. H. Morrison, op. cit., p. 11.