Articles
The God Who Treads The Winepress Alone
Who is this who comes from Edom, with garments of glowing colors from Bozrah, this One who is majestic in his apparel, marching in the greatness of his strength?
"It is I who speak in righteousness, mighty to save."
Why is your apparel red, and your garments like the one who treads in the wine press?
"I have trodden the wine trough alone, and from the peoples there was no man with me. I also trod them in my anger and trampled them in my wrath; and their lifeblood is sprinkled on my garments, and I stained all my raiment. For the day of vengeance was in my heart, and my year of redemption has come. I looked and there was no one to help. And I was astonished and there was no one to uphold; so my own arm brought salvation to me, and my wrath upheld me. I trod down the peoples in my anger and made them drunk in my wrath, and I poured out their lifeblood on the earth." (Isa 63:1-6)
This text in Isaiah is somewhat strange. In question and answer format, it depicts God as a divine warrior who stamps on the nations as if they were grapes in a wine press, and the blood of those nations is like the juice of the wine that stains his garments. This is not the only place in the Bible that uses this image (cf. Lam 1:15; Joel 3:13; Rev 14:17-20). It is actually quite gory if one stops and thinks about it. But this text tells us something about God, and we would do well to pay attention.
Isaiah 63:1-6 and Isaiah 59:15-21 are mirrors to each other. Both texts depict God as a divine warrior. But in addition to that, both passages emphasize his "aloneness." In Isa 59:15-16, God is upset that there is no man to act to save his people, and so he has to gird himself with armor to save them himself. In Isa 63:5, God again notices that there is no one to help, and he reacts by using his "arm" to bring salvation to himself—so he can trod the peoples for judgment (63:6). God treads the winepress alone (63:3). No one else does it with him.
This passage cannot be read in isolation! Isaiah 53 describes a suffering servant of the Lord who suffers and dies for the sins of the people. He pours himself out to death (Isa 53:12) so that they can live. If we read Isaiah holistically, we know that God has first (through his servant) shed his own blood to atone for the nations before he has set out to tread their blood in the winepress of wrath. One might wonder why he has bothered to substitute himself for the sins of the nations if he is just going to punish them for their sins anyways! (In fact, some people are so bothered by this fact that they resort to denying that Jesus really did anything to take the punishment for our sins!)
But the real message that the text is putting forth is that the atonement of the suffering servant will ultimately not benefit everyone. While the offer of salvation is made freely available to all, there will still be many nations who reject the offer of salvation that God has extended. Thus, what was meant to be a "year of redemption" will also be a "day of vengeance" (Isa 63:4). The Spirit of Yahweh came on his servant so he could proclaim both both a favorable year and a day of vengeance (Isa 61:1-2). The reason for this is because redemption and vengeance are two sides of the same coin! (Is it any wonder that the Hebrew word for "redeemer" and the word for "avenger" are in fact the same word (go'el)?) These two ideas are inseparable from one another. The salvation of the righteous demands the punishment of the wicked.
The wrath of God is not a diametric opposite to the love of God, but rather a necessary consequence of it. For those who reject his love, he has nothing left to give but wrath. The Son was sent into the world because of God's love and desire to save, not because God wanted to judge and destroy (John 3:16-17). However, a rejection of God's love and the crucified Son effectively invites judgment onto oneself (John 3:18). The wrath of God is the direct result of men who love darkness rather than light (John 3:19).
The act of judgment in Isaiah 63 is depicted as a grueling grievous task. God does not appear to enjoy doing this, any more than he might have enjoyed suffering alone on the cross. But just as he suffers for our sins alone, so he treads the winepress of wrath alone. He does these things alone so that we might not be permanently alone, but rather that we might be with him forever. May God help us to see his love and justice for what they are—not as opposites, but as fundamental intertwined features of his character.
