"Jew & Gentile One in Messiah"

As it was in the beginning so it will be in the end-of-days

Yochanan/John chapter 7 as we look at a very familiar passage. I don’t know of a preacher anywhere who doesn’t have at least one message on this passage in John 7:37-38. “Now on the last day, the great day of the feast, Yeshua stood and cried out, saying, "If anyone is thirsty, let him come to Me and drink. He who believes in Me, as the Scripture said, "From his innermost being will flow rivers of living water.'" Rivers of Living Water is the theme of songs, sermons and even entire ministries and their conferences. But most folks miss a very important message that is staring at them from the page of this very Jewish book. Let’s go back to the opening statement of this passage. “Now on the last day, the great day of the feast..” What day of what feast? In order to fully understand Adonai’s anointed word, you must understand Adonai’s appointed times.

The last day of this feast is a day unlike all other days! This day is called Hoshanna Rabbah, which means the Great Hosanah, the Great Cry to Adonai. On this day, at about 3 o’clock in the afternoon, the High Priest leads a procession off the Temple Mount and through the streets of Jerusalem. Their goal is the Pool of Bethsaida; you remember that this was the place that the crippled man told the disciples, “every day the water comes alive and in it is healing.” The High Priest arrives at the pool just as the water comes alive. Filling a golden pitcher of this Mayim Chaim, this Living Water, he leads the procession back to the altar of the Temple. There, he is handed a silver pitcher full of wine. Pouring them out together, he prays for two things. First, he prays for rains, the former and the later rains.

Then he prays “Adonai in heaven, send Your Messiah soon and in our days. We cry out for our Moshiach (our Messiah) now. Yeshua stood and cried out, saying, "If anyone is thirsty, let him come to Me and drink. He who believes in Me, as the Scripture said, "From his innermost being will flow rivers of living water.'" This statement was, to the Jewish people gathered there, a clear and bold declaration by Yeshua that He was the long awaited Messiah of Israel, the Anointed One of God who had come to save the people from their enemies, who actually came to save the people from themselves, from their own sinful ways that had long separated them from their Adonai who is Kadosh, Kadosh, Kadosh (Holy, Holy, Holy).

If you read the rest of the chapter, you see that from verse 40 through verse 52, the crowd is in disarray. Some ask if He is the Messiah, others insist that the Messiah will not come from the Galilee. Finally, scripture tells us in verse 53, they all went home, “But Yeshua went to the Mount of Olives,” we read in chapter 8. Continue with me: “Early in the morning He came again into the temple, and all the people were coming to Him; and He sat down and began to teach them. The scribes and the Pharisees brought a woman caught in adultery, and having set her in the center of the court, they said to Him, "Teacher, this woman has been caught in adultery, in the very act. Now in the Law Moses commanded us to stone such women; what then do You say?" They were saying this, testing Him, so that they might have grounds for accusing Him. But Jesus stooped down and with His finger wrote on the ground.

First, let’s start at the beginning of this passage. Where was Jesus teaching? In the Temple, yes, but in which part? The Temple is grand and has many sections, but because the religious leaders soon brought Him a woman caught in adultery, He must have been in the Court of the Women, because these leaders would have brought her to no other place there. So we find Yeshua teaching even women in the Temple; not altogether unique, but certainly noteworthy. Now, let’s look at this whole issue of the woman caught in adultery. Many teach that this passage demonstrates that Yeshua did away with the Law of Moses and replaced it with His own Law of Grace. Those who teach this should learn some of the Law of Moses and they would not teach such foolishness. In the first place, I believe every word of the Bible, so when I read in Yochanan 1:1-3 & 14: “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was in the beginning with God. All things came into being through Him, and apart from Him nothing came into being that has come into being. And then in John 1:14, “And the Word became flesh, and dwelt among us, and we saw His glory, glory as of the only begotten from the Father, full of grace and truth.” Why I just believe that is true.

Now, if Yeshua is the Word become flesh and in Him all of Adonai is revealed fully, then He not only would not break His own Law, He could not do so! It would make Adonai a liar to presume that Adonai. who is the same yesterday, today and forever, would change His mind about adultery! Let’s go on. To understand this passage and to grasp the message that Yeshua taught those who tried to trick Him as well as what He taught the woman, you must first read Leviticus 20:10, the Law against adultery. In that passage you find this important directive: “If there is a man who commits adultery with another man's wife, one who commits adultery with his friend's wife, the adulterer and the adulteress shall surely be put to death.” You see, the man who commits adultery must be condemned as well. According to Jewish L, according to the Law of Moses, there is no such thing as a woman caught in adultery. Only a couple may e condemned. Then, to further grasp His message, you should understand that the Laws regarding capital punishment in Israel were very strict and well defined. Only could charges be brought when two “blameless witnesses” brought the accusation and they must have seen the act committed firsthand. Then, if the judges agreed with the charges, these two “blameless witnesses” were to cast the first stones.

When He asked her where were her accusers, He followed the letter of the Law again by stating “neither do I accuse you.” Only those who caught her in the very act could, according to the Law of Moses, accuse her. Rather than change the Law to suit His own purpose, Jesus, once again showed those with Him, that He came to fulfill the Law. He never broke His own commandments, and He never will. He did, however, make one slight adjustment to this case. You see, with the circumstances as presented, the woman should have been set free. But Yeshua charged her with a great burden, He said, “Go, and sin no more.” In this He showed Himself to be the One who created the Law of Moses that the religious leaders were testing Him on. Verse 12 contains a simple statement that caused an even greater stir than that caused when Jesus declared Himself Messiah on the day before. All He said was, “I am the Light of the world; he who follows Me will not walk in the darkness, but will have the Light of life.” What could cause such a stir as we read in verses 13 through 58? Such a debate and argument erupted that it ended in verse 59 when “they picked up some stones to throw at Him…:

Why did the religious Temple leaders get so upset over a simple thing like saying He was the Light of he World? Again, with an understanding of the Jewish calendar and of Adonai appointed times, it becomes much more clear. On the day after the Feast of Tabernacles, Jewish people celebrate one final day o rejoicing. It is a day called Shmini Atzeretz, which means the Eighth and Final Day. On that day, about 24 hours after the water pouring ceremony of Hoshanah Rabbah, there is a gathering of all the women of Israel in the Court of the Women. They sing songs of rejoicing and praise, they dance before the L-rd waving banners and flags and torches. Then, they process off the Temple Mount into the streets of Jerusalem.

As they dance through the streets, the city comes alive with rejoicing and with the light of the flames as the procession passes by. When they return to the Temple Mount, in the Court of the Women, there has been erected a Menorah. Now most menorahs are seven-branched candle holders that are found in dining rooms and living rooms of Jewish people all over. But this menorah is special. It is 80 feet tall and does not hold candles, but at each of the seven places has a bath of 30 gallons of fine oil. The torches are given to the husbands of the dancers; these women are too smart to climb an 80 foot tall scaffold holding a lit torch, so they send their husbands!

When the Menorah is lit, the entire city of Jerusalem is awash in its glow. Because the city sits within the bowl of its hills and because this Menorah is so bright and so high, every corner of every home is alit with its radiance. The rabbis say that to see Jerusalem in those days was to experience the Radiant Glory of Adonai that has been lost since the Shekinah left the Temple. They all this the “Light of Jerusalem.” So it was in this glorious setting that Yeshua proclaimed “I am the Light of the World. His light would illuminate every corner of every heart of all of mankind and would reveal the glory of Adonai throughout all the earth.

The Feast of Succot/Tabernacles Overview

The Feast of Tabernacles is a week-long autumn harvest festival. Tabernacles is also known as the Feast of the Ingathering, Feast of the Booths, Sukkoth, Succoth, or Sukkot (variations in spellings occur because these words are transliterations of the Hebrew word pronounced “Sue-coat”). The two days following the festival are separate holidays, Shemini Atzeret and Simkhat Torah, but are commonly thought of as part of the Feast of Tabernacles.

The Feast of Tabernacles was the final and most important holiday of the year. The importance of this festival is indicated by the statement, “This is to be a lasting ordinance.” The divine pronouncement, “I am the Lord your God,” concludes this section on the holidays of the seventh month. The Feast of Tabernacles begins five days after Yom Kippur on the fifteenth of Tishri (September or October). It is a drastic change from one of the most solemn holidays in our year to one of the most joyous. The word Sukkoth means “booths,” and refers to the temporary dwellings that Jews are commanded to live in during this holiday, just as the Jews did in the wilderness. The Feast of Tabernacles lasts for seven days and ends on the twenty-first day (3x7) of the Hebrew month of Tishri, which is Israel’s seventh month.

This holiday has a dual significance: historical and agricultural (just as Passover and Pentecost). Historically, it was to be kept in remembrance of the dwelling in tents in the wilderness for the forty-year period during which the children of Israel were wandering in the desert.

It is expounded in Leviticus 23:43 That your generations may know that I made the children of Israel to dwell in booths, when I brought them out of the land of Egypt: I am the LORD your God.
What were they to remember?

Matthew Henry’s commentary explains,
1.) The meanness of their beginning, and the low and desolate state out of which God advanced that people. Note: Those that are comfortably fixed ought often to call to mind their former unsettled state, when they were but little in their own eyes. 2.) The mercy of God to them, that, when they dwelt in tabernacles, God not only set up a tabernacle for Himself among them, but, with the utmost care and tenderness imaginable, hung a canopy over them, even the cloud that sheltered them from the heat of the sun. God’s former mercies to us and our fathers ought to be kept in everlasting remembrance. The eighth day was the great day of this holiday, because then they returned to their own houses again, and remembered how, after they had long dwelt in tents in the wilderness, at length they came to a happy settlement in the land of promise, where they dwelt in goodly houses. And they would the more sensibly value and be thankful for the comforts and conveniences of their houses when they had been seven days dwelling in booths. It is good for those that have ease and plenty sometimes to learn what it is to endure hardness.
They were to keep this holiday in thankfulness to God for all the increase of the year; however, the emphasis is that Israel’s life rested upon redemption which in its ultimate meaning is the forgiveness of sin. This fact separates this holiday from the harvest festivals of the neighboring nations whose roots lay in the mythological activity of the gods.

Was the first Thanksgiving a Feast of Tabernacles Celebration?

Many Americans, upon seeing a decorated sukkah for the first time, remark on how much the sukkah (and the holiday generally) reminds them of Thanksgiving. The American pilgrims, who originated the Thanksgiving holiday, were deeply religious people. As they were trying to find a way to express their thanks for their survival and for the harvest, it is quite possible that they looked to the Bible (Leviticus 23:39) for an appropriate way of celebrating and based their holiday in part on the Feast of Tabernacles.

Note: celebrating Thanksgiving on the third Thursday of November was established by the American government and may not necessarily coincide with the pilgrim’s first observance.

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