Blog 58 showed Bullinger’s version of the third-sixth sign’s chiasmus. The third and sixth signs happened on a Sabbath, the sacred time of meeting with YHWH in the Tabernacle, His light shining on His people, blessing them with His name. From the fourth day of creation, the lights of heaven showed forth the glory of God upon the earth, proclaiming the works of His hands, the mo’edim, the Feasts of YHWH. On the fourth day of the week, a Wednesday Passover, the Father gave His Son as a sacrificial gift to cleanse the land and bear away humanity’s sins, creating sacred space and holy people in which He could dwell. At Mount Sinai, Israel could symbolically enter the Tabernacle after the first atoning ritual in Leviticus 16, the focal center of the Pentateuch Torah. Being in the Presence of a holy God at sacred appointed times can only happen if a tabernacle, a tent of meeting, exists. This blog will uncover why John’s third and sixth signs, representing the Last Day of Unleavened Bread and the Day of Atonements, are in a chiastic relationship.

Since both the third and sixth signs occurred on the Sabbath, it is natural to find a mention of light in each of their discourses. John the Baptist testified to the truth that the Light, Yeshua, was the “Lamb of God who takes away the sins of the world” (Jhn. 1:7). For a time, the Baptist was himself a burning and shining lamp they listened to and rejoiced in, but it had little effect on their hearts (Jhn. 5:33). The Light of the World’s words had a profound impact on people’s hearts. The true Shepherd of Israel was walking in the temple on the Feast of Dedication (Festival of Lights, 25 Kislev, the ninth month) in the sixth sign’s discourse. This is a remarkable link to Ezekiel’s hithallek in the temple made without hands marked with the perfections of holiness, 52, 25 (see Blog 112). By laying down His life for the sheep, the Shepherd’s atoning blood cleansed the temple, purified the altar, and provided everlasting oil for the lamps to shine upon the bread, showcasing a decisive victory over the enemy. He became the tabernacle and its function, the tent of meeting, providing sacred menorah light from heaven and at-one-ment with God, a perpetual Sabbath rest.

The third and sixth signs anchor on the witness of Yeshua’s works as a truthful marker of His identity. Both identify the works of Yeshua and define covenantal salvation through a focus on the Sabbath, the goal of creation. While John the Baptist and the Festival of Lights were earthly witnesses of God’s name, the works (erga) of the Father done in Yeshua provided a heavenly witness signifying His deity and that the Father had sent Him (Jhn. 5:36; 10:25).

Yeshua’s Sabbath works pointed to the relationship He had with the Father. In the third sign, Yeshua answered the Jews, “My Father has been working until now, and I have been working,” making Him equal with God (Jhn. 5:17-18). He knew He could do nothing of Himself, but by the righteous life of the Father in Him, He did not seek His own will but the will of the Father who sent Him (Jhn. 5:30). In the sixth sign, He boldly claimed, “I and My Father are one,” and “the works I do are done in My Father’s name” (Jhn. 10:25, 30). Unlike any human, Yeshua was God and was with God, seeing and hearing the Father. He overcame lameness and blindness in the two men so that sight and mobility powered them to “walk before Me and be blameless” within the light of the Tabernacle. Yeshua’s healing of the men’s infirmities revealed their growing relationship with the Father and the Son.

In the third sign, the pool of Bethesda (by the Sheep Gate) and the sent waters of the pool of Siloam in the sixth sign were sourced from the Gihon, flowing from the temple mount. The first mikveh waters formed when the earth rose out of the waters of tohu and bohu on the third day, creating the mountain with its streams of living water and the dry ground of God’s new creation (Gen. 1:10). Both signs show the enemy destroyed and His people, having passed through the waters of judgment, walking on a highway to the Mountain of God, intimating that life and judgment are through the Son (Jhn. 5:14, 24-30, third sign; 9:11, 39-41, sixth sign). Both men’s healing results in their worship of Yeshua and walking before Him, growing in the knowledge of God.

Jewish authorities questioned Yeshua’s healings, seeing them as breaking the Sabbath, yet He had, in truth, loosed the men from fruitless bondage. Hearing His voice, the men had a developing relationship with the real temple, Yeshua, yet the Jews cast the restored men out of the physical temple, cutting them off from worship. But Yeshua drew them closer to oneness and worship of God. Even in the grave, His people will hear His voice and come out of darkness into light (Jhn. 5:25, third sign) and follow their Shepherd’s voice (Jhn. 10:2-3, sixth sign).

YHWH’s names, corresponding to John’s third and sixth signs, connect to the Sabbath sign. YHWH-nissi is the covenant God who fights our battles, wielding the rod of Elohim, births us through the sea on dry land, and brings us under His banner of love, the Sabbaths¹. YHWH-roi is the covenant Shepherd God who leads us through a second exodus to a new birth, overcoming the last enemy, death, by His Day of Atonements Shabbat Shabbaton². Having overcome all our enemies, He shepherds us with His rod to feed in His pastures and lie down in rest beside still waters.

When humanity’s warfare has ended and our iniquities pardoned, the God of all comfort speaks.