Subject Ninety-nine

THE FIRST SIGN—WATER CHANGED INTO WINE

Scripture: John 2:1-11

1. The Lord came to Cana
   1. The Lord came to Cana. Cana means a land of reeds, signifying weak and fragile people. Isaiah 42:3 says, “A bruised reed He will not break.” So the reeds refer to those who are weak, fragile, and bruised. The Lord coming to Cana meant He came to the place of fragile people. Cana is in Galilee, a place despised by people.
      This message uses the weak and fragile people as a base, so it talks about man’s weaknesses. Man is weak and bruises easily. Once pressed, he is bruised; once touched, he falls.
   2. The Lord came to Cana on the third day, the day of resurrection. This means the Lord came to the fragile people in resurrection, or the resurrected Lord came to the fragile people. The foregoing chapter talks about the Lamb of God who takes away the sins of the world. When the Lamb of God took away the sins of the world, He entered into resurrection; that is, He came the third day to bring enjoyment to man’s life.
2. The Lord was invited to the wedding
   1. Marriage is the most important event to man, and wedding signifies the enjoyment of life. Human life depends firstly on the creation of God and secondly on marriage. Without marriage, there would be no continuation and therefore no existence of man. Thus marriage is human life, and wedding is the enjoyment of the human life. The Lord coming to the wedding meant He had come into human life and into the enjoyment of the human life.
   2. The center of the wedding feast was wine. Wine is the life-juice of the grape. Though it is a liquid, it is different from water. Water does not grow out from something, but wine does. The center of the wedding is the wine, signifying that the enjoyment of human living depends on life. Without life, there is no enjoyment.
   3. The wine is limited; it runs out. This signifies our human life will die. Not only the old couples die, but also the young couples die. If, in a couple, one dies, the enjoyment is also gone. This is the running out of wine in the wedding. When life ends, the human living and the enjoyment of human life also ends. A newlywed couple might get tuberculosis while they are enjoying the pleasures of human life; then there would be the running out of the wine. An old couple married for fifty years is also running out of wine. If they drink a little more, it would still run out.
3. The Lord changed water to wine
   1. He did not follow man’s will. Mary first told Him that there was no wine, but the Lord did not do anything then. This is to say that the Lord does things not according to man’s will. You might be very anxious in hoping your husband, wife or children will be saved, but the Lord purposely slows down His work.
   2. The Lord does everything according to His own will. When all the opinions of man have ceased, then He starts doing something.
   3. Before the Lord changed water into wine, there were six stone waterpots. Six is the number of man, for man was created on the sixth day. Stone is natural, thus six stone waterpots signify the created human beings and those that do not have God.
   4. There was only water in the stone waterpots. Water signifies death, and wine signifies life. The Lord used His life with His creating power to change water into wine, that is, to change death into life.
   5. This wine is not a natural wine, but a miraculous wine. The wine in the wedding feast was natural wine, which meant the center of the enjoyment of life depended on the natural life, and this life will run out. Since the Lord had come in, the life which man received was God’s eternal life. The enjoyment of this new life is endless, and causes the wedding to last until eternity.
4. This is the beginning of signs
   1. All the signs which the Lord did had this sign as a beginning. All the work which the Lord has done upon us is that of signs, to change the death in us into life. Giving us life is the beginning of all His works.
   2. The Lord changing death into life was a miracle among miracles and was the biggest miracle in all His miracles. Moody once said that the biggest miracle which the Lord ever did was to give life to those who were dead in sins.
5. Results
   1. To satisfy the enjoyment of human life.
   2. To express God’s glory and God Himself. God’s glory can only be manifested when man receives the resurrection life.