How Do We Apply The Story of Christ Turning Water Into Wine In Our Daily Lives?

Hi Mike,

The first recorded miracle of Christ is the turning of water to wine in John 2.

Can you comment on the spiritual significance of this miracle and how it applies to our lives?

Thanks for the help.

Your brother in Christ,
C____

Hi C​____​,

You ask:

“Can you comment on the spiritual significance of… the first recorded miracle of Christ… turning… water into wine… and how it applies to us today?”

Thank you for your question. As you have noticed, we are told this is the first of Christ’s miracles, which indicates that the spiritual significance of this miracle will have something to do with the beginning of our spiritual birth and how the holy spirit deals with us at that beginning state of our spiritual development.

The story of this miracle informs us that six water pots of stone were “filled to the brim… with water”:

Joh 2:6  And there were set there six waterpots of stone, after the manner of the purifying of the Jews, containing two or three firkins apiece.
Joh 2:7  Jesus saith unto them, Fill the waterpots with water. And they filled them up to the brim.

The number six, the water and the stone, one and all, allude to the carnality of our unstable, yet stony human hearts. Mankind was created along with the rest of the beasts of the earth on the sixth day, and hence he is forever associated with the number six:

Gen 1:27  So God created man in his own image, in the image of God created he him; male and female created he them.
Gen 1:28  And God blessed them, and God said unto them, Be fruitful, and multiply, and replenish the earth, and subdue it: and have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over every living thing that moveth upon the earth.
Gen 1:29  And God said, Behold, I have given you every herb bearing seed, which is upon the face of all the earth, and every tree, in the which is the fruit of a tree yielding seed; to you it shall be for meat.

Gen 1:31  And God saw every thing that he had made, and, behold, it was very good. And the evening and the morning were the sixth day.

The three sixes of Revelation 13 indicate that flesh is being judged as unworthy of the kingdom of God. But notice that we are told this “is the number of mankind”:

Rev 13:18 Here is wisdom. Let him who has a mind calculate the number of the wild beast, for it is the number of mankind, and its number is six hundred sixty-six.” (CVL)

Here are the URLs for the studies of the numbers 3 and 6:

Number Three: The Process of Spiritual Completion Through Judgment
Numbers: Six

The pots of stone symbolize the vessels into which we first receive the word of God as “carnal… babes in Christ”:

1Co 3:1  AND I, brethren, could not speak unto you as unto spiritual, but as unto carnal, even as unto babes in Christ.
1Co 3:2  I have fed you with milk, and not with meat: for hitherto ye were not able to bear it, neither yet now are ye able.
1Co 3:3  For ye are yet carnal: for whereas there is among you envying, and strife, and divisions, are ye not carnal, and walk as men?
1Co 3:4  For while one saith, I am of Paul; and another, I am of Apollos; are ye not carnal?

Four times within four verses we are told that we all begin our walk in Christ as “carnal… babes in Christ”, a Truth which is lost in the two false doctrines of a ten-second sinner’s prayer and the substitutionary death of Christ, replacing the Biblical doctrine of “filling up in [our] bodies which is behind of the afflictions of Christ… dying daily [and being] crucified with Christ, [and the necessity of] suffering… fiery trials… with Him”:

Col 1:24  Who now rejoice in my sufferings for you, and fill up that which is behind of the afflictions of Christ in my flesh for his body’s sake, which is the church:

1Co 15:31  I protest by your rejoicing which I have in Christ Jesus our Lord, I die daily.

Gal 2:20  I am crucified with Christ: nevertheless I live; yet not I, but Christ liveth in me: and the life which I now live in the flesh I live by the faith of the Son of God, who loved me, and gave himself for me.

Rom 8:17  And if children, then heirs; heirs of God, and joint-heirs with Christ; if so be that we suffer with him, that we may be also glorified together.

1Pe 4:12  Beloved, think it not strange concerning the fiery trial which is to try you, as though some strange thing happened unto you:
1Pe 4:13  But rejoice, inasmuch as ye are partakers of Christ’s sufferings; that, when his glory shall be revealed, ye may be glad also with exceeding joy.

The answer to your question concerning the spiritual significance of the first miracle of turning water into wine at a wedding feast centers around the beginning of our calling as immature, hard-hearted, “carnal babes in Christ”. We know this is true because there are six stone pots which are “filled to the brim”​ with “unstable… water”.

This is what we are told of the negative symbolism of ‘stone’:

Eze 11:19  And I will give them one heart, and I will put a new spirit within you; and I will take the stony heart out of their flesh, and will give them an heart of flesh:

Eze 36:26  A new heart also will I give you, and a new spirit will I put within you: and I will take away the stony heart out of your flesh, and I will give you an heart of flesh.
Eze 36:27  And I will put my spirit within you, and cause you to walk in my statutes, and ye shall keep my judgments, and do them.

Mat 13:5  Some fell upon stony places, where they had not much earth: and forthwith they sprung up, because they had no deepness of earth:

Mat 13:20  But he that received the seed into stony places, the same is he that heareth the word, and anon with joy receiveth it;
Mat 13:21  Yet hath he not root in himself, but dureth for a while: for when tribulation or persecution ariseth because of the word, by and by he is offended.

These verses give us the negative application of ‘stone’ and the positive application of ‘flesh’. A “stony heart” symbolizes a carnal mind and heart, while at the same time “an heart of flesh” is contrasted with a “stony heart” and is ​symbolic of “My spirit within you”.

The final symbol we must understand is the ‘water’ which filled the “pots of stone… to the brim”. Since all of this concerns the beginning of Christ’s miracles, it therefore must be centered around the beginning of our conversion as carnal babes in Christ. As such we must understand the negative, carnal, Biblical application of water:

Gen 49:4  Unstable as water, thou shalt not excel; because thou wentest up to thy father’s bed; then defiledst thou it: he went up to my couch.

Eze 7:17  All hands shall be feeble, and all knees shall be weak as water.

James tells us:

Jas 1:8  A double minded man is unstable in all his ways.

The positive application of water is “the word” of God, but as carnal babes in Christ that word falls in stony places and does not take root, making us all, at the beginning of our conversion, “unstable as water”.

Eph 5:26  That he might sanctify and cleanse it with the washing of water by the word,

Now we come to the symbolism of the ‘wine’ into which the unstable ‘water’ is transformed. Throughout the gospels ‘wine’ is used as a type of “My [Christ’s] blood of the New Testament which is shed for many”:

Mar 14:24  And he said unto them, This is my blood of the new testament, which is shed for many.
Mar 14:25  Verily I say unto you, I will drink no more of the fruit of the vine, until that day that I drink it new in the kingdom of God.

Luk 22:20  Likewise also the cup after supper, saying, This cup is the new testament in my blood, which is shed for you.

Joh 6:54  Whoso eateth my flesh, and drinketh my blood, hath eternal life; and I will raise him up at the last day.
Joh 6:55  For my flesh is meat indeed, and my blood is drink indeed.
Joh 6:56  He that eateth my flesh, and drinketh my blood, dwelleth in me, and I in him.

Paul repeats this symbolism of wine in the New Testament:

1Co 11:25  After the same manner also he took the cup, when he had supped, saying, This cup is the new testament in my blood: this do ye, as oft as ye drink it, in remembrance of me.

Christ tells us we must both eat [His] flesh and drink [His] blood” to have eternal life (Joh 6:54). But both symbolize Him and His words and His doctrine:

Joh 6:54  Whoso eateth my flesh, and drinketh my blood, hath eternal life; and I will raise him up at the last day.
Joh 6:55  For my flesh is meat indeed, and my blood is drink indeed.
Joh 6:56  He that eateth my flesh, and drinketh my blood, dwelleth in me, and I in him.
Joh 6:57  As the living Father hath sent me, and I live by the Father: so he that eateth me, even he shall live by me.
Joh 6:58  This is that bread which came down from heaven: not as your fathers did eat manna, and are dead: he that eateth of this bread shall live for ever.

But Christ’s own interpretation of those words is found in this same chapter where He tells us what really does give us life eternal:

Joh 6:63  It is the spirit that quickeneth [Greek: ‘gives life’]; the flesh profiteth nothing: the words that I speak unto you, they are spirit, and they are life.

Now we can understand how we are to apply this story of turning the unstable water of our carnal immaturity as babes in Christ into the life-giving wine which is “the New Testament” in Christ’s life-giving blood which we must drink to have eternal life. The way we apply this story to our daily lives is to do more than merely hear the words of our Lord, which is what all immature… “carnal… babes in Christ” do, and we must do the things He tells us to do, and live by His words which “are spirit and are life” (Joh 6:63).

Luk 6:46  And why call ye me, Lord, Lord, and do not the things which I say?
Luk 6:47  Whosoever cometh to me, and heareth my sayings, and doeth them, I will shew you to whom he is like:
Luk 6:48  He is like a man which built an house, and digged deep, and laid the foundation on a rock: and when the flood arose, the stream beat vehemently upon that house, and could not shake it: for it was founded upon a rock.
Luk 6:49  But he that heareth, and doeth not, is like a man that without a foundation built an house upon the earth; against which the stream did beat vehemently, and immediately it fell; and the ruin of that house was great.

“The Rock… the Bread… [and] the wine are all one and the same thing. They are the words of Christ which are spirit and are life because they reveal who He is, and knowing Him is to know His Father, and that is the same as “the Words that I speak to you are spirit and are life”, which is the very same thing as knowing Christ and His Father:

Joh 6:63  It is the Spirit that makes alive, the flesh profits nothing. The words that I speak to you are spirit and are life.

Joh 17:3  And this is life eternal, that they might know thee the only true God, and Jesus Christ, whom thou hast sent.

I hope this helps you to apply the story of Christ turning the water into wine in your personal life. Knowing Christ is not just a matter of our intellect. Rather,​ it is a matter of “doing the things [He] says”.

Your brother in Christ,
Mike