The Real Reason that Jesus is the Light of the World “I am the Light of the world. He who follows me will not walk in darkness but will have the light of life.” That’s why Jesus declared, in John, …More
The Real Reason that Jesus is the Light of the World
“I am the Light of the world. He who follows me will not walk in darkness but will have the light of life.” That’s why Jesus declared, in John, Chapter 8, Verse 12.
What most people don’t realize, however, is that Jesus made this profound proclamation at the culmination of the Jewish feast of Booths or Tabernacles.
If atheists, liberals and even Jews realized the supernatural specificity with which Jesus Christ fulfilled Old Testament prophecy and type, they might bow down in humble repentance for their unbelief.
When Jesus proclaimed: I am the light of the world, he was in Jerusalem. He was there for the Old Testament Feast of Tabernacles. In John, chapter 7 we read that Jesus went up for the Feast.
This week-long observance was one of the most important in the Old Testament. It commemorated God’s protection of the Hebrew people during their 40 years in the wilderness. It had been observed since the time of Moses – over 1,000 years before the birth of Jesus Christ.
But in Jesus’ day, there were two very important ceremonies that were included as part of the commemoration. The first to mention is the Water-drawing ceremony, and the second is the Illumination ceremony.
As part of the Water-drawing ceremony, the High Priest would lead a procession from the Temple in Jerusalem to the pool of Siloam or Silo. When the High Priest reached the pool, he filled a golden container with water. The High Priest then led a large procession back to the Temple – to the sound of trumpets, singing and shouting. As the procession moved, the Priest would quote Isaiah 12:3:
“With joy you will draw water from the wells of salvation.”
When the High Priest reached the Temple, he poured the water into a basin as the congregation sang Psalm 118:25: “Save now I beseech thee O Lord.”
This water drawing ceremony was part of the Feast of Tabernacles for over 100 years before the birth of Jesus Christ. It was meant to thank God for his abundance of water and rain. It was included in the Feast of Tabernacles because this commemoration had many elements. One of those was In Gathering, an agricultural festival. The feast of Tabernacles acknowledged God’s goodness in providing food for the harvest and water for consumption and survival.
It was on the final day of this Feast – the culmination of the event – that Jesus made His proclamation. “Now on the last day, the great day of the Feast, Jesus 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.’” - John 7:37-38
There was no denying the meaning of Jesus.
During the Feast in which they chanted the words of Isaiah – “with joy, you will draw water from the wells of salvation”…and during the Feast in which the congregation shouted: “Save us now I beseech thee, O Lord”…Jesus stood and cried out in the midst of the multitude that anyone who thirsts should come to Him and that all who believe in Him will have rivers of living water.
At the culmination of the event which acknowledged God’s provision of water for their survival, Jesus was identifying Himself as the God who had provided water for the Israelites in the wilderness. There was no need for them to signify it any longer in their feast. He was here now, in Person, in their presence – and the Living Water He would provide was the Spirit that would bring them unto eternal life, a never-ending stream that would perpetually quench their thirst.
Could any author of fiction have conjured up such a story? One that is so powerful, moving, and simple in its basic content that it has changed all of history while appealing to men and women of every class and rank – yet so thematically rich that almost none of those who call themselves Christians have yet discovered the depth of its meaning and fulfillment? Such as how precisely Jesus fulfilled the Water Drawing Ceremony?
No.
Jesus’s proclamation which indicated that He was the fulfillment of the Water-Drawing Ceremony… that He was the God in Whom their thirst will be quenched… that He was the One Who would save them now…speaks to the absolute authenticity of the Biblical account about Jesus Christ and Jesus’s fulfillment of Old Testament Type and Prophecy. But there’s more.
The other ceremony that was part of the Feast of Tabernacles in the time of Jesus was the Illumination Ceremony. During the Illumination Ceremony, huge candelabras were set up in the part of the Temple called the Court of the Women. The candelabras which were 75 feet tall transmitted light that could be seen throughout Jerusalem.
The Mishnah, a Jewish rabbinical work, says: “There was no courtyard in Jerusalem that was not lit up with the light.”
The Illumination Ceremony was meant to remind the people of God’s presence among them, after they left Egypt for the wilderness. Exodus 13:21-22:
“By day the Lord went ahead of them in a pillar of cloud to guide them on their way and by night in a pillar of fire to give them light, so that they could travel by day or night.”
God was a pillar of fire to give them light. Nehemiah 9:12:
“By day you led them with a pillar of cloud, and by night with a pillar of fire to give them light on the way they were to take.”
God who revealed Himself in the Burning Bush… God who alone is eternal existence… God who called Himself I AM… led them as a pillar of cloud by day and as a pillar of fire by night. The Feast of Tabernacles was primarily dedicated to the remembrance of this Presence.
The primary aspect of the Feast was the construction of booths or tabernacles in which the Israelites would live temporarily to remind them of how they spent their time in the wilderness.
The Illumination Ceremony recalled this Presence of God - He who was their Light in the darkness. And it was on the morning after the Feast of Tabernacles had ended as the torches that had transmitted light across Jerusalem were still burning, that Jesus proclaimed:
“I am the light of the world: he who follows me, will not walk in darkness, but will have the light of life.”
- John chapter 8, verse 12
There was no doubt about His meaning. Jesus was identifying Himself as the God who was the Pillar of Fire to give them light. He was here now, and there was no need to signify it any more in their Feast. Those who truly followed Him would never see darkness. They would have the eternal Light of Life.
But there was another Divine indication in what Jesus told them. It served to directly refute His critics.
Just a few verses before, Jesus proclaimed Himself the Light of the World. In John 7:52, we read that some of the Pharisees objected to Jesus’s prophetic credentials on the grounds that He was a Galilean. John 7:52:
“They answered, and said to him: Art thou also a Galilean? Search the scriptures, and see, that out of Galilee a prophet rises not.”
They claimed that a prophet – and God Incarnate would be the greatest of all the prophets – could not come from Galilee. However, by proclaiming that He was the Light of the World, Jesus not only indicated that He was the fulfillment of their Feast of Tabernacles – that He was the God who gave them light in the wilderness – but He also subtly directed their attention to a prophecy in Isaiah 9:1-2. It speaks of the Light which the Messiah will bring, and it associates that Light with Galilee:
Isaiah 9:1-2:
“But there will be no more gloom for her who was in anguish; in earlier times He treated the land of Zebulun and the land of Naphtali with contempt,
but later on He shall make it glorious, by the way of the sea, on the other side of the Jordon, Galilee of the Gentiles. The people who walk in darkness will see a great light; Those who live in a dark land, The light will shine on them.”
Thus, in one stunning response, Jesus not only announced His Presence as the Pillar of Fire and the Light of the World – the true fulfillment in Person of what they had been signifying for generations - but He simultaneously refuted their objection to His Divine claims.
Additionally, by directing our attention to Isaiah, Jesus pointed us to another messianic prophecy made by Isaiah 700 years before Christ’s birth. Isaiah 9:6-7:
“For to us a child is born, to us a son is given; and the government shall be upon his shoulder, and his name shall be called Wonderful, Counselor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace.
Of the increase of his government and of peace there will be no end, on the throne of David and over his kingdom, to establish it and to uphold it with justice and with righteousness from this time forth and forevermore.”
Isaiah prophesied that God the Mighty would be born as a child and that He would be the Son of David.
Jesus fulfilled all of this, and announced it to them during the Feast of Tabernacles. This brings us to another point, namely: why it’s a mortal sin for people to observe the Old Testament ceremonies after the promulgation of the Gospel.
There are many false Christians who still celebrate some or all of these Old Testament feasts – despite claiming to believe in Christ. Even if they don’t do so themselves, many people hold that it’s okay for others to observe these feasts. This is gravely wrong and offensive to God.
In fact, at the Catholic Council of Florence, the Catholic Church dogmatically declared that since Christ fulfilled the Old Testament ceremonies and feasts, they have passed away and it’s a mortal sin to observe them anymore.
St. Thomas Aquinas explained why it’s a denial of Christ to continue to observe these feasts after the promulgation of the Gospel.
St. Thomas Aquinas, Summa Theologica, Part 1-2. Question 103, Article 4:
“All ceremonies are professions of faith, in which the interior worship of God consists. Now man can make profession of his inward faith, by deeds as well as by words: and in either profession, if he makes a false declaration, he sins mortally.
For by them [the fathers of old] was it said: ‘Behold a virgin shall conceive and bear a son,’ where the verbs are in the future tense: whereas we express the same by means of verbs in the past tense, and say that she ‘conceived and bore.’
In like manner the ceremonies of the Old Law betokened Christ as having yet to be born and to suffer: whereas our sacraments signify Him as already born and having suffered.
Consequently, just as it would be a mortal sin now for anyone, in making a profession of faith, to say that Christ is yet to be born, which the fathers of old [i.e., of the Old Testament] said devoutly and truthfully;
so too it would be a mortal sin now to observe those ceremonies which the fathers of old [i.e., of the Old Testament] fulfilled with devotion and fidelity.”
In other words, since the ceremonies of the Old Law pointed forward to Christ – and He has come and fulfilled them – to observe them after He has come is to deny indeed that Jesus Christ has come and fulfilled them.
With all of these facts in mind, no reasonable person could deny the Divine arrangement in Jesus’s proclamation during the Feast of Tabernacles. He is the water in the desert, and the light in the darkness. No author of fiction could have conceived such a story. One that is so simple, that it has appealed to the masses of all generations. One that is so consistent and powerful that it has changed the world and all of history. And one that is so deep that those who have followed it throughout their lives have not yet plumbed its depths.
No, this is not fiction or fantasy. This is God-ordained and God-fulfilled history. It was arranged with the same awe-striking precision and magnificence as God’s creation of the world and everything in it. It was thus ordered so that people would know the Truth and the purpose of their existence, and what God wanted them to do and believe.
Those who do not wish to remain in darkness – now and forevermore – need to recognize and embrace the Light. Job 10:21-22:
“Before I go and return no more to a land that is dark and covered with the mist of death, a land of misery and darkness, where the shadow of death and no order but everlasting horror dwelleth.”
Matthew 4:16-17: “The people who were sitting in darkness saw a great light, and those who were sitting in the land and shadow of death, upon them a light dawned. From that time, Jesus began to preach and say, ‘Repent, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand.”
The Real Reason that Jesus is the Light of the World
“I am the Light of the world. He who follows me will not walk in darkness but will have the light of life.” That’s why Jesus declared, in John, Chapter 8, Verse 12.
What most people don’t realize, however, is that Jesus made this profound proclamation at the culmination of the Jewish feast of Booths or Tabernacles.
If atheists, liberals and even Jews realized the supernatural specificity with which Jesus Christ fulfilled Old Testament prophecy and type, they might bow down in humble repentance for their unbelief.
When Jesus proclaimed: I am the light of the world, he was in Jerusalem. He was there for the Old Testament Feast of Tabernacles. In John, chapter 7 we read that Jesus went up for the Feast.
This week-long observance was one of the most important in the Old Testament. It commemorated God’s protection of the Hebrew people during their 40 years in the wilderness. It had been observed since the time of Moses – over 1,000 years before the birth of Jesus Christ.
But in Jesus’ day, there were two very important ceremonies that were included as part of the commemoration. The first to mention is the Water-drawing ceremony, and the second is the Illumination ceremony.
As part of the Water-drawing ceremony, the High Priest would lead a procession from the Temple in Jerusalem to the pool of Siloam or Silo. When the High Priest reached the pool, he filled a golden container with water. The High Priest then led a large procession back to the Temple – to the sound of trumpets, singing and shouting. As the procession moved, the Priest would quote Isaiah 12:3:
“With joy you will draw water from the wells of salvation.”
When the High Priest reached the Temple, he poured the water into a basin as the congregation sang Psalm 118:25: “Save now I beseech thee O Lord.”
This water drawing ceremony was part of the Feast of Tabernacles for over 100 years before the birth of Jesus Christ. It was meant to thank God for his abundance of water and rain. It was included in the Feast of Tabernacles because this commemoration had many elements. One of those was In Gathering, an agricultural festival. The feast of Tabernacles acknowledged God’s goodness in providing food for the harvest and water for consumption and survival.
It was on the final day of this Feast – the culmination of the event – that Jesus made His proclamation. “Now on the last day, the great day of the Feast, Jesus 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.’” - John 7:37-38
There was no denying the meaning of Jesus.
During the Feast in which they chanted the words of Isaiah – “with joy, you will draw water from the wells of salvation”…and during the Feast in which the congregation shouted: “Save us now I beseech thee, O Lord”…Jesus stood and cried out in the midst of the multitude that anyone who thirsts should come to Him and that all who believe in Him will have rivers of living water.
At the culmination of the event which acknowledged God’s provision of water for their survival, Jesus was identifying Himself as the God who had provided water for the Israelites in the wilderness. There was no need for them to signify it any longer in their feast. He was here now, in Person, in their presence – and the Living Water He would provide was the Spirit that would bring them unto eternal life, a never-ending stream that would perpetually quench their thirst.
Could any author of fiction have conjured up such a story? One that is so powerful, moving, and simple in its basic content that it has changed all of history while appealing to men and women of every class and rank – yet so thematically rich that almost none of those who call themselves Christians have yet discovered the depth of its meaning and fulfillment? Such as how precisely Jesus fulfilled the Water Drawing Ceremony?
No.
Jesus’s proclamation which indicated that He was the fulfillment of the Water-Drawing Ceremony… that He was the God in Whom their thirst will be quenched… that He was the One Who would save them now…speaks to the absolute authenticity of the Biblical account about Jesus Christ and Jesus’s fulfillment of Old Testament Type and Prophecy. But there’s more.
The other ceremony that was part of the Feast of Tabernacles in the time of Jesus was the Illumination Ceremony. During the Illumination Ceremony, huge candelabras were set up in the part of the Temple called the Court of the Women. The candelabras which were 75 feet tall transmitted light that could be seen throughout Jerusalem.
The Mishnah, a Jewish rabbinical work, says: “There was no courtyard in Jerusalem that was not lit up with the light.”
The Illumination Ceremony was meant to remind the people of God’s presence among them, after they left Egypt for the wilderness. Exodus 13:21-22:
“By day the Lord went ahead of them in a pillar of cloud to guide them on their way and by night in a pillar of fire to give them light, so that they could travel by day or night.”
God was a pillar of fire to give them light. Nehemiah 9:12:
“By day you led them with a pillar of cloud, and by night with a pillar of fire to give them light on the way they were to take.”
God who revealed Himself in the Burning Bush… God who alone is eternal existence… God who called Himself I AM… led them as a pillar of cloud by day and as a pillar of fire by night. The Feast of Tabernacles was primarily dedicated to the remembrance of this Presence.
The primary aspect of the Feast was the construction of booths or tabernacles in which the Israelites would live temporarily to remind them of how they spent their time in the wilderness.
The Illumination Ceremony recalled this Presence of God - He who was their Light in the darkness. And it was on the morning after the Feast of Tabernacles had ended as the torches that had transmitted light across Jerusalem were still burning, that Jesus proclaimed:
“I am the light of the world: he who follows me, will not walk in darkness, but will have the light of life.”
- John chapter 8, verse 12
There was no doubt about His meaning. Jesus was identifying Himself as the God who was the Pillar of Fire to give them light. He was here now, and there was no need to signify it any more in their Feast. Those who truly followed Him would never see darkness. They would have the eternal Light of Life.
But there was another Divine indication in what Jesus told them. It served to directly refute His critics.
Just a few verses before, Jesus proclaimed Himself the Light of the World. In John 7:52, we read that some of the Pharisees objected to Jesus’s prophetic credentials on the grounds that He was a Galilean. John 7:52:
“They answered, and said to him: Art thou also a Galilean? Search the scriptures, and see, that out of Galilee a prophet rises not.”
They claimed that a prophet – and God Incarnate would be the greatest of all the prophets – could not come from Galilee. However, by proclaiming that He was the Light of the World, Jesus not only indicated that He was the fulfillment of their Feast of Tabernacles – that He was the God who gave them light in the wilderness – but He also subtly directed their attention to a prophecy in Isaiah 9:1-2. It speaks of the Light which the Messiah will bring, and it associates that Light with Galilee:
Isaiah 9:1-2:
“But there will be no more gloom for her who was in anguish; in earlier times He treated the land of Zebulun and the land of Naphtali with contempt,
but later on He shall make it glorious, by the way of the sea, on the other side of the Jordon, Galilee of the Gentiles. The people who walk in darkness will see a great light; Those who live in a dark land, The light will shine on them.”
Thus, in one stunning response, Jesus not only announced His Presence as the Pillar of Fire and the Light of the World – the true fulfillment in Person of what they had been signifying for generations - but He simultaneously refuted their objection to His Divine claims.
Additionally, by directing our attention to Isaiah, Jesus pointed us to another messianic prophecy made by Isaiah 700 years before Christ’s birth. Isaiah 9:6-7:
“For to us a child is born, to us a son is given; and the government shall be upon his shoulder, and his name shall be called Wonderful, Counselor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace.
Of the increase of his government and of peace there will be no end, on the throne of David and over his kingdom, to establish it and to uphold it with justice and with righteousness from this time forth and forevermore.”
Isaiah prophesied that God the Mighty would be born as a child and that He would be the Son of David.
Jesus fulfilled all of this, and announced it to them during the Feast of Tabernacles. This brings us to another point, namely: why it’s a mortal sin for people to observe the Old Testament ceremonies after the promulgation of the Gospel.
There are many false Christians who still celebrate some or all of these Old Testament feasts – despite claiming to believe in Christ. Even if they don’t do so themselves, many people hold that it’s okay for others to observe these feasts. This is gravely wrong and offensive to God.
In fact, at the Catholic Council of Florence, the Catholic Church dogmatically declared that since Christ fulfilled the Old Testament ceremonies and feasts, they have passed away and it’s a mortal sin to observe them anymore.
St. Thomas Aquinas explained why it’s a denial of Christ to continue to observe these feasts after the promulgation of the Gospel.
St. Thomas Aquinas, Summa Theologica, Part 1-2. Question 103, Article 4:
“All ceremonies are professions of faith, in which the interior worship of God consists. Now man can make profession of his inward faith, by deeds as well as by words: and in either profession, if he makes a false declaration, he sins mortally.
For by them [the fathers of old] was it said: ‘Behold a virgin shall conceive and bear a son,’ where the verbs are in the future tense: whereas we express the same by means of verbs in the past tense, and say that she ‘conceived and bore.’
In like manner the ceremonies of the Old Law betokened Christ as having yet to be born and to suffer: whereas our sacraments signify Him as already born and having suffered.
Consequently, just as it would be a mortal sin now for anyone, in making a profession of faith, to say that Christ is yet to be born, which the fathers of old [i.e., of the Old Testament] said devoutly and truthfully;
so too it would be a mortal sin now to observe those ceremonies which the fathers of old [i.e., of the Old Testament] fulfilled with devotion and fidelity.”
In other words, since the ceremonies of the Old Law pointed forward to Christ – and He has come and fulfilled them – to observe them after He has come is to deny indeed that Jesus Christ has come and fulfilled them.
With all of these facts in mind, no reasonable person could deny the Divine arrangement in Jesus’s proclamation during the Feast of Tabernacles. He is the water in the desert, and the light in the darkness. No author of fiction could have conceived such a story. One that is so simple, that it has appealed to the masses of all generations. One that is so consistent and powerful that it has changed the world and all of history. And one that is so deep that those who have followed it throughout their lives have not yet plumbed its depths.
No, this is not fiction or fantasy. This is God-ordained and God-fulfilled history. It was arranged with the same awe-striking precision and magnificence as God’s creation of the world and everything in it. It was thus ordered so that people would know the Truth and the purpose of their existence, and what God wanted them to do and believe.
Those who do not wish to remain in darkness – now and forevermore – need to recognize and embrace the Light. Job 10:21-22:
“Before I go and return no more to a land that is dark and covered with the mist of death, a land of misery and darkness, where the shadow of death and no order but everlasting horror dwelleth.”
Matthew 4:16-17: “The people who were sitting in darkness saw a great light, and those who were sitting in the land and shadow of death, upon them a light dawned. From that time, Jesus began to preach and say, ‘Repent, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand.”
The Real Reason that Jesus is the Light of the World