In the ancient Near East, where water was scarce, wine was a necessity rather than a luxury, so it came to symbolize sustenance and life. Because it was bound up with the community's ongoing life, alongside grain and oil, it also represents the covenant blessings God promised Israel for obedience and would withhold for disobedience. Wine further stands for joy, celebration, and festivity, expressing God's abundant blessings. Wine has a double potential: it can be abused, leading to loss of self-control (Proverbs 20:1; Ephesians 5:18), so at Cana Jesus provided enough for the guests to enjoy themselves without becoming drunk. When the wine ran out, the feast began to lose its joy, and Christ's miracle restored it. This parallels the sinner's need for salvation. Christ makes up the deficiency, as He does in salvation (Acts 4:12). When a person accepts Christ, repents, and is baptized, he becomes a new creation, just as the water became the finest new wine, and great joy results. The miracle manifested Christ's glory (John 2:11), as bringing sinners to salvation does.

Wine symbolizes rejoicing and gladness that enhance a meal beyond physical satisfaction. Psalm 104:15 states that wine makes man's heart glad, and Judges 9:13 declares that wine cheers both God and man. This rejoicing connects to a restored covenant relationship with God, as Zechariah 10:6-7 prophesies that the hearts of Ephraim will rejoice as if with wine because of mercy and renewed fellowship. The miracle at Cana in John 2, where water became wine, foreshadowed the New Covenant that would bring true spiritual rejoicing rather than reliance on manmade rituals. The wine of Passover represents the blood of Jesus Christ and seals the New Covenant relationship. Multiple accounts record His words that the cup is the New Covenant in His blood, shed for many for the remission of sins, with the assurance that He will drink it new in the Kingdom of God. Blood symbolizes life given as a pledge of faithfulness, as seen when the Old Covenant was ratified with blood from burnt offerings and peace offerings in Exodus 24:8. Under the New Covenant described in Hebrews 8:10-12, God places His laws in minds and hearts, becomes the God of His people, and shows mercy by remembering sins no more. This covenant enables personal knowledge of God and Jesus Christ, which Jesus identifies as eternal life in John 17:3. The blood of the covenant is ingested rather than sprinkled externally, effecting an internal change that perfects those who remain faithful. Hebrews 12:24 identifies this blood as speaking better things than that of Abel and serving as a guarantee of the process leading to the spirits of just men made perfect. Jesus explains in John 6:53-57 that drinking His blood grants eternal life, ensures resurrection, and results in mutual abiding. The Passover wine thus commemorates the covenant that imparts abundant spiritual life and stands as God's pledge to complete His work in those who value it properly.

In the New Testament, wine represents the covenantal relationship with God. At the Passover on the eve of His crucifixion, Jesus said the cup of wine represented the New Covenant in His blood (Luke 22:20; I Corinthians 11:25), a covenant that would cost Him His life. At the wedding in Cana, the people had water for man-devised purification rites but lacked wine, just as the Jewish nation lacked the New Covenant. By miraculously supplying wine, Christ met a physical need and pointed to the greater spiritual need He would fill. Unlike the Old Covenant, the New Covenant brings forgiveness, a personal relationship with the Father and the Son, and the divine law written on the heart (Hebrews 8:8-12). The blood symbolized by the wine flows into a person, whereas the blood that ratified the Old Covenant was merely sprinkled on the outside (Exodus 24:8). Wine also gladdens the heart (Psalm 104:15; Judges 9:13), and the wine of the covenant likewise cheers and heartens believers for spiritual reasons. Zechariah 10 likens the restored relationship of Israel and Judah with God to a heart rejoicing as if with wine. God will regather them, offer them the blood of the New Covenant, free them from the enslaving traditions of Judaism and Babylonish Christianity, and they will rejoice as that spiritual wine gladdens their hearts.

The red Passover wine symbolizes the blood of Christ, shed for the remission of sins under the new covenant (Matthew 26:28). Drinking it means accepting His sacrifice, which forgives sin and wipes the slate clean. But Jesus commands believers to drink of the cup, not merely the wine, and drinking a cup means accepting whatever it contains. The cup of Christ is the cup of blessing, the fellowship or sharing of His blood (I Corinthians 10:16), over which thanks and praise are offered to God. It also recalls the betrothal custom in which a bride who drank from the groom's cup accepted the marriage covenant, so drinking pictures accepting betrothal to Christ. The cup also carries suffering. Jesus told James and John they would drink His cup, and He Himself drank the cup of the Father's wrath against sin in Gethsemane. Drinking it pledges a willingness to walk His path and endure whatever He appoints. It also means exclusive loyalty to Him, since the cup of the Lord cannot be mixed with Babylon's cup of fornications or the cup of demons. Yet it is also the cup of salvation, which leads to glory, resurrection, and reigning with Christ in His Kingdom. Because of all this, participants must examine themselves beforehand and drink in a worthy manner, neither unworthily nor by abstaining.

The source does not explain wine's symbolism in full, but it establishes the setting in which wine stands for what Israel lacked. At the wedding in Cana, the first of John's eight signs, Mary says, "They have no wine," and her words describe more than a wedding feast. They describe the physical nation, which had no symbolic wine. In its place the nation had only water, kept in six stone waterpots for purification rituals according to the manner of the Jews. These rituals came from the minds of men rather than from Scripture, and Jewish tradition and the Oral Law pushed God's pure Word into the background. Israel's spiritual blindness followed from this, so that the people could not recognize their King standing among them. Six is the number of man, and the stone vessels may represent hearts of stone, unable to change and unable to have a meaningful relationship with the Creator. The waterpots held between 120 and 180 gallons, an abundance of human tradition. What the nation lacked and needed was wine, which stands in contrast to this abundance of ceremonial water. Wine thus points to the missing spiritual reality that Jesus, the promised Messiah, came to supply to His own people.

The wine of the Passover symbolizes the covenantal relationship with God. All three synoptic gospels and Paul in I Corinthians 11 describe the cup as containing the blood of the covenant. Matthew adds that this blood accomplishes the remission of sins, but forgiveness does not stand alone; it comes through the New Covenant, which contains forgiveness and much more, including knowing the Father and the Son, a relationship Jesus calls eternal life. Biblically, blood symbolizes life. Besides providing atonement, where one life pays the life-debt of another, blood also represents life given as a pledge of faithfulness. The Sinai covenant was sealed with blood from burnt and peace offerings, not a sin offering. The New Covenant is likewise sealed with blood, but instead of being sprinkled on the outside, it is ingested into the innermost parts of the person, and it is infinitely more precious than the blood of oxen. It testifies of eternal life and pledges God's loyalty to those in the covenant. Hebrews 13:20-21 shows that God makes us complete through the blood of the covenant, so the blood pledges that He will finish His purpose, culminating in spiritual completion. Drinking the wine takes in that pledge, and those who do not count the blood of the covenant as common are made complete.