What does Jesus mean when He says that no one can come to Him unless the Father draws him? Some understand this as irresistible grace, a work of God that inevitably brings selected people to saving faith. Others understand drawing as a physical action that brings the dead from their graves. I don’t believe either reading accounts for Jesus’ explanation. The Father draws people to the Son through His gracious testimony, and the Son promises to raise the believer at the last day.
We cannot come without God’s help. He sent the Son, reveals the truth, and convicts us through His Spirit. We supply none of those things. But dependence on grace does not establish that grace cannot be resisted. Jesus explains the Father’s drawing through teaching, hearing, and learning, while John’s Gospel repeatedly describes people refusing the testimony God has given. I want to follow that explanation without overlooking the assurance in the same sentence: Christ will raise the person who comes to Him.
Coming to Jesus Means Believing
Before the Bread of Life discourse in John 6, Jesus confronted people who claimed to trust Moses while rejecting the One Moses wrote about. Their problem was not that God had left them without testimony. They searched the very Scriptures that pointed to Christ:
You search the Scriptures, for in them you think you have eternal life; and these are they which testify of Me. But you are not willing to come to Me that you may have life. "I do not receive honor from men. But I know you, that you do not have the love of God in you. I have come in My Father's name, and you do not receive Me; if another comes in his own name, him you will receive. How can you believe, who receive honor from one another, and do not seek the honor that comes from the only God? Do not think that I shall accuse you to the Father; there is one who accuses you–Moses, in whom you trust. For if you believed Moses, you would believe Me; for he wrote about Me. But if you do not believe his writings, how will you believe My words?"
John 5:39-47
Jesus holds these hearers responsible when He says, “you are not willing to come to Me.” They wanted honor from one another and would not receive the Son who came in His Father’s name. Reading Scripture had not made them humble before its Author. They could discuss Moses while refusing the person to whom his writings directed them.
I need to keep their refusal alongside what Jesus says about the Father’s drawing. God’s testimony is necessary, but hearing it does not force a person to believe. Jesus does not praise these men for possessing some independent ability to save themselves. He exposes their unwillingness to receive the revelation they already had. That confrontation also prepares us for John 6, where another group appeals to Moses while failing to recognize the Son.
Near Passover, Jesus fed about five thousand men with five barley loaves and two small fish. The crowd identified Him as the promised Prophet and intended to take Him by force to make Him king. Jesus withdrew rather than submit to their plans. They had received an extraordinary sign, but their enthusiasm did not mean they understood His mission.
That evening His disciples crossed the sea, and Jesus came to them walking on the water. The next day, the crowd traveled to Capernaum in search of Him. They had gone to considerable effort to find Him, but Jesus explained why that pursuit still fell short of faith:
On the following day, when the people who were standing on the other side of the sea saw that there was no other boat there, except that one which His disciples had entered, and that Jesus had not entered the boat with His disciples, but His disciples had gone away alone– however, other boats came from Tiberias, near the place where they ate bread after the Lord had given thanks– when the people therefore saw that Jesus was not there, nor His disciples, they also got into boats and came to Capernaum, seeking Jesus. And when they found Him on the other side of the sea, they said to Him, "Rabbi, when did You come here?" Jesus answered them and said, "Most assuredly, I say to you, you seek Me, not because you saw the signs, but because you ate of the loaves and were filled. Do not labor for the food which perishes, but for the food which endures to everlasting life, which the Son of Man will give you, because God the Father has set His seal on Him." Then they said to Him, "What shall we do, that we may work the works of God?" Jesus answered and said to them, "This is the work of God, that you believe in Him whom He sent." Therefore they said to Him, "What sign will You perform then, that we may see it and believe You? What work will You do? Our fathers ate the manna in the desert; as it is written, 'He gave them bread from heaven to eat.'" Then Jesus said to them, "Most assuredly, I say to you, Moses did not give you the bread from heaven, but My Father gives you the true bread from heaven. For the bread of God is He who comes down from heaven and gives life to the world." Then they said to Him, "Lord, give us this bread always."
John 6:22-34
These people wanted another meal. Jesus had supplied bread, and they were looking for more of what had filled their stomachs. They had benefited from the sign without receiving what it revealed about Him. Seeking help from Jesus is not necessarily the same as believing in Him; a person can want His gifts while refusing His authority and the life He offers.
When Jesus directed them to food that endures to everlasting life, they asked what works they should perform. He told them to believe in the One the Father sent. Faith receives God’s provision; it does not put God in our debt. Calling belief the work God requires here does not turn it into a meritorious achievement that purchases salvation.
Their appeal to manna exposed another misunderstanding. Moses had not been the ultimate giver of that bread, and manna had sustained mortal people who eventually died. The Father now gives the true Bread from heaven, the One who gives life to the world. When the crowd asked to receive this bread always, Jesus identified the gift they needed:
And Jesus said to them, "I am the bread of life. He who comes to Me shall never hunger, and he who believes in Me shall never thirst. But I said to you that you have seen Me and yet do not believe. All that the Father gives Me will come to Me, and the one who comes to Me I will by no means cast out. For I have come down from heaven, not to do My own will, but the will of Him who sent Me. This is the will of the Father who sent Me, that of all He has given Me I should lose nothing, but should raise it up at the last day. And this is the will of Him who sent Me, that everyone who sees the Son and believes in Him may have everlasting life; and I will raise him up at the last day."
John 6:35-40
Jesus is Himself the Bread of Life. The crowd wanted a continuing supply of bread, much as the Samaritan woman had first wanted water that would spare her more trips to the well. In both encounters, Jesus directed the hearer beyond an immediate physical benefit to the life found in Him.
Verse 35 puts coming and believing alongside each other: “He who comes to Me shall never hunger” and “he who believes in Me shall never thirst.” The crowd had already crossed the sea and was standing near Him, yet Jesus said they did not believe. Coming to Christ for life therefore means more than traveling to His location. It means receiving Him in trusting dependence.
That use of coming governs the discussion in verse 44. Jesus is describing people receiving Him by faith, not bodies being pulled from graves. Those who come have everlasting life now, and He promises their resurrection in the future. We should keep both promises without making them the same event.
Jesus also says that all the Father gives Him will come and that He will never cast out the one who comes. The Father’s initiative and the Son’s faithfulness belong together. I don’t have to approach Jesus wondering whether He secretly intends to refuse me. His promise concerns the person who comes, and He has plainly said He will receive that person.
Calvinist interpreters understand the Father’s giving as the selection of particular people whom He will infallibly bring to faith. I read it with the Father’s testimony throughout John’s Gospel: through Scripture, signs, the Son’s words, and the Spirit’s work, God makes His Son known. Those who truly receive the Father’s teaching recognize and come to the Son. Claiming to know the Father while rejecting Jesus exposes a refusal of His testimony.
The text says all whom the Father gives will come. It does not say here that God eternally refuses to draw everyone else or that He regenerates selected unbelievers before they believe. Verse 40 describes the Father’s will in terms that invite every hearer to look to the Son and believe. I understand the giving in that revealed relationship between Father, Son, and believers, rather than supplying a decree that excludes everyone else from a genuine opportunity to respond.
Christ will lose nothing entrusted to Him. That gives me confidence in His obedience and care rather than in my ability to keep myself saved. A person who is truly born again does not move in and out of eternal life. Jesus receives and keeps that believer and promises to raise him bodily.
This assurance belongs to someone who has genuinely been born again, not merely someone who calls himself a Christian. A religious title, a period of outward discipleship, or participation in church activities cannot establish that new birth has taken place. Regeneration makes a person a new creation, and his conduct supplies evidence of that life without earning or maintaining it. Security in Christ does not excuse lawlessness. I discuss this more fully in A Complete Bible Study on Being Born Again.
How the Father Draws
The hearers’ next objection concerned Jesus’ claim to have come from heaven. They thought knowing His family settled the question of His identity. Jesus answered that earthly familiarity could not replace learning from the Father:
The Jews then complained about Him, because He said, "I am the bread which came down from heaven." And they said, "Is not this Jesus, the son of Joseph, whose father and mother we know? How is it then that He says, 'I have come down from heaven'?" Jesus therefore answered and said to them, "Do not murmur among yourselves. No one can come to Me unless the Father who sent Me draws him; and I will raise him up at the last day. It is written in the prophets, 'And they shall all be taught by God.' Therefore everyone who has heard and learned from the Father comes to Me.
John 6:41-45
Calling Him Joseph’s son, they assumed that knowing His family enabled them to dismiss His claim to a heavenly origin. Recognizing the eternal Son required receiving God’s revelation, rather than treating that familiarity as sufficient reason to refuse His words.
We should not soften the words “No one can come.” Sin darkens our understanding and turns our desires away from God. We seek human approval, defend our own standing, and resist unwelcome truth. A sinner cannot save himself, produce the gospel, bring the Son down from heaven, or manufacture the Spirit’s conviction. There would be no saving opportunity unless God first acted.
Yet neither the necessity of drawing nor the word itself tells us that the Father draws only an eternally selected few, or that drawing must be regeneration before faith. Jesus immediately speaks of being taught by God and of hearing and learning from the Father. His explanation directs us to God’s gracious communication of the truth and our reception of it.
He quotes the prophets in support of that explanation. Isaiah 54 describes Zion’s restoration, the enlargement of her blessing, and the righteousness and peace God promises His people. Within that promise we read:
All your children shall be taught by the LORD, And great shall be the peace of your children.
Isaiah 54:13
Jesus cites this as “And they shall all be taught by God.” He then says that everyone who has heard and learned from the Father comes to Him. The Father’s teaching does not lead people away from the Son or leave them free to claim devotion to God while denying Jesus. When His instruction is truly received, the learner recognizes the One He sent.
Hearing words and learning from the Father are not interchangeable descriptions of everyone in the crowd. Many heard Jesus speak and still resisted Him. They judged His claims by their appetite, their religious expectations, or their familiarity with His family. Learning involves receiving what God teaches, rather than merely being present when it is spoken.
Receiving that teaching does not earn eternal life any more than accepting bread means a beggar has bought it. Faith supplies neither the Savior nor the testimony that makes Him known. The sinner depends on what God has graciously provided and responds to the truth instead of rejecting it.
Jesus ends verse 44 with “I will raise him up at the last day.” Those who hold irresistible grace point to the same person being drawn and raised as evidence that everyone drawn must be saved. I understand the promise in the light of Jesus’ description of coming and believing: the person drawn by the Father who comes to the Son will certainly be raised. Verse 45 identifies those who come as those who hear and learn. His promise secures the believer’s future; it does not define drawing as resurrection or, in my judgment, cancel the refusals described elsewhere in this Gospel.
The Greek verb behind drawing is helko, which can be translated draw, pull, or drag according to its setting. Peter drew his sword in John 18, and the disciples hauled a net of fish in John 21. In Acts 16, Paul and Silas were dragged into the marketplace; in Acts 21, Paul was dragged from the temple. James describes rich oppressors dragging believers into court. These uses can involve considerable force, so I would not weaken the word into a casual suggestion.
But a physical use does not determine everything the verb means in a different setting. A sword, a net, a prisoner, and a person receiving divine teaching are not identical objects of an identical action. The NET translators’ note on John 6:44 likewise recognizes the forceful uses while observing that the wording does not itself state whether this drawing is irresistible. Jesus’ explanation about teaching, hearing, and learning must govern our reading here.
We make comparable distinctions in English when we speak of drawing water, drawing a crowd, or drawing a conclusion. An English comparison cannot settle a Greek text, but it illustrates why collecting the strongest physical uses of a word is not enough to establish its meaning everywhere. The Father’s drawing is a powerful, gracious work that brings truth to a responsible hearer. I do not understand the hearer as an object incapable of resisting that work.
John 12 supplies another use of the same verb. Greeks had come seeking Jesus, and He spoke about His approaching death and the reach of His work beyond Israel:
"Now My soul is troubled, and what shall I say? 'Father, save Me from this hour'? But for this purpose I came to this hour. Father, glorify Your name." Then a voice came from heaven, saying, "I have both glorified it and will glorify it again." Therefore the people who stood by and heard it said that it had thundered. Others said, "An angel has spoken to Him." Jesus answered and said, "This voice did not come because of Me, but for your sake. Now is the judgment of this world; now the ruler of this world will be cast out. And I, if I am lifted up from the earth, will draw all peoples to Myself." This He said, signifying by what death He would die.
John 12:27-33
John expressly explains that being lifted up refers to the death Jesus would die. The drawing described here proceeds through the crucified Christ and the proclamation of His gospel. It is not postponed until a physical gathering at the end of time.
The NKJV supplies and italicizes “peoples” to express the Greek word for all; there is no separate Greek noun meaning peoples in that phrase. The NET translation note makes the same point about its supplied noun. The arrival of Greeks helps explain the passage’s international reach. Jesus is not the possession of one nation, and sex, rank, or distance does not put someone beyond the gospel’s invitation.
I understand Christ’s drawing as a genuine gracious appeal to every person, rather than an irresistible work restricted to a preselected group. Christ gives His flesh for the life of the world. Yet drawing all peoples cannot mean that every individual will inevitably be saved. John 12 also describes unbelief after signs, a preference for human praise, rejection of Jesus’ words, and future judgment. Universalism, the belief that everyone will finally be saved, does not fit that setting. The drawing reaches people who can refuse it.
That refusal appears elsewhere in Jesus’ ministry. His lament over Jerusalem holds His desire to gather her children alongside their unwillingness:
"O Jerusalem, Jerusalem, the one who kills the prophets and stones those who are sent to her! How often I wanted to gather your children together, as a hen gathers her chicks under her wings, but you were not willing! See! Your house is left to you desolate; for I say to you, you shall see Me no more till you say, 'Blessed is He who comes in the name of the LORD!'"
Matthew 23:37-39
The city had killed the prophets and rejected God’s messengers. Jesus’ desire to gather her children was sincere, and her refusal brought judgment. Stephen later confronted Jerusalem’s leaders with the same pattern of resistance:
"You stiff-necked and uncircumcised in heart and ears! You always resist the Holy Spirit; as your fathers did, so do you. Which of the prophets did your fathers not persecute? And they killed those who foretold the coming of the Just One, of whom you now have become the betrayers and murderers, who have received the law by the direction of angels and have not kept it."
Acts 7:51-53
Stephen named the prophets their fathers had persecuted and the Just One his hearers had betrayed and murdered. He called this resistance to the Holy Spirit. Luke 7:30 likewise says the Pharisees and lawyers rejected God’s purpose for themselves by refusing John’s baptism. These passages describe people resisting God’s gracious testimony, not people earning salvation through an unaided decision.
Calvinists distinguish a general call that can be resisted from an inward, effectual call that certainly brings the elect to faith. Effectual means it accomplishes that result. The Westminster Confession, chapter 10, teaches that God renews the wills of those He has chosen so that they come willingly. I should not describe their doctrine as people being saved while still unwilling to believe. Their claim is that a particular work of grace makes them willing and is invariably successful.
I disagree that John 6 requires that distinction between two kinds of calling. Jesus explains drawing through the Father’s teaching and the hearer’s learning, while the wider biblical witness describes genuine resistance to God’s gracious work. Calvinists interpret those refusals as resistance to the general call; I understand them as evidence that grace does not make the response inevitable. My disagreement concerns that additional restriction of saving grace, not whether God must act first. I examine the larger system in A Biblical Examination of Calvinism.
Receiving Christ and the Father’s Grant
In John 6, the teaching in the synagogue at Capernaum continues with Jesus explaining what it means to receive the Bread of Life. He begins this part of the discourse with the plain statement that the person who believes in Him has everlasting life. That statement helps us understand the imagery that follows:
Most assuredly, I say to you, he who believes in Me has everlasting life. I am the bread of life. Your fathers ate the manna in the wilderness, and are dead. This is the bread which comes down from heaven, that one may eat of it and not die. I am the living bread which came down from heaven. If anyone eats of this bread, he will live forever; and the bread that I shall give is My flesh, which I shall give for the life of the world." The Jews therefore quarreled among themselves, saying, "How can this Man give us His flesh to eat?" Then Jesus said to them, "Most assuredly, I say to you, unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink His blood, you have no life in you. Whoever eats My flesh and drinks My blood has eternal life, and I will raise him up at the last day. For My flesh is food indeed, and My blood is drink indeed. He who eats My flesh and drinks My blood abides in Me, and I in him. As the living Father sent Me, and I live because of the Father, so he who feeds on Me will live because of Me. This is the bread which came down from heaven–not as your fathers ate the manna, and are dead. He who eats this bread will live forever." These things He said in the synagogue as He taught in Capernaum.
John 6:47-59
Manna sustained people temporarily, but it could not keep them from dying. Jesus gives everlasting life, and the bread He would give for the world’s life was His flesh. His real incarnation and sacrificial death belong to the gift He offers. Admiring Jesus as a teacher does not give us life while we reject Him as the eternal Son who became man and gave His body for us.
The crowd asked how He could give them His flesh to eat. Their question resembles Nicodemus asking about entering a womb again or the Samaritan woman first thinking only about water from a well. Jesus was speaking of life received from Him, and they reduced His words to a crude physical transaction.
His language about eating His flesh and drinking His blood makes our dependence on Him unmistakable. We need the whole Christ, not selected teachings detached from His person, His lordship, or His saving death. Feeding on Him means receiving Him by faith and depending on Him for life. It is consistent with the coming and believing He has already described.
I do not understand this as cannibalism or as a promise that Communion causes the new birth. Communion later remembers and proclaims His body and blood; it neither repeats His sacrifice nor changes bread into His physical body. Eating the elements does not grant eternal life. Jesus repeatedly directs His hearers to believe in Him, and His promises attach everlasting life to that reception.
Some who had followed Him nevertheless found this teaching offensive. Jesus addressed their complaints and again spoke about the Father’s grant:
Therefore many of His disciples, when they heard this, said, "This is a hard saying; who can understand it?" When Jesus knew in Himself that His disciples complained about this, He said to them, "Does this offend you? What then if you should see the Son of Man ascend where He was before? It is the Spirit who gives life; the flesh profits nothing. The words that I speak to you are spirit, and they are life. But there are some of you who do not believe." For Jesus knew from the beginning who they were who did not believe, and who would betray Him. And He said, "Therefore I have said to you that no one can come to Me unless it has been granted to him by My Father." From that time many of His disciples went back and walked with Him no more.
John 6:60-66
These disciples objected to what Jesus said about Himself and their dependence on Him. He pointed them to His future ascension, back to where He had been before, and said the Spirit gives life. His words are spirit and life. He was not retracting the truth of His incarnation or the gift of His flesh for the world. He was correcting a way of hearing that reduced His revelation to physical consumption while refusing faith.
Jesus knew who did not believe and who would betray Him. His repeated statement that no one can come unless the Father grants it explains why human familiarity, cleverness, or religious effort cannot secure life. Salvation remains God’s gift. He sends the Son and opens the way through His testimony; we do not reach into heaven and obtain the Savior for ourselves.
I would not take these disciples’ departure as proof that no grace had ever reached them. They had heard Christ’s words, seen His sign, and followed Him, yet now walked away in offense and unbelief. A grant from the Father cannot become something a sinner earns, but neither do I understand it to mean God withholds every genuine opportunity and then condemns people for lacking one. The same discourse that establishes our dependence on God exposes refusal of the Son He has revealed.
Jesus then asked the twelve whether they also wanted to leave:
Then Jesus said to the twelve, "Do you also want to go away?" But Simon Peter answered Him, "Lord, to whom shall we go? You have the words of eternal life. Also we have come to believe and know that You are the Christ, the Son of the living God." Jesus answered them, "Did I not choose you, the twelve, and one of you is a devil?" He spoke of Judas Iscariot, the son of Simon, for it was he who would betray Him, being one of the twelve.
John 6:67-71
Peter confessed Jesus as the Christ, the Son of the living God, and asked where else they could go for eternal life. He had heard and received Jesus’ words. When other disciples left because they rejected those words, Peter acknowledged that the life he needed could be found in no one else.
Jesus’ reply did not allow Peter’s confession to stand as proof that every member of the twelve possessed saving faith. Judas had genuinely been chosen for apostolic office and had accompanied Jesus, but he remained an unbeliever. Jesus already knew he would betray Him. Choosing someone for service is not automatically the same as choosing him for life in Christ; Scripture also speaks of choices for historical purposes and covenant privileges. We need to ask what the choice concerns in each passage.
For that reason, Judas’ place among the twelve is not by itself a refutation of effectual drawing. John 6:44 concerns coming to Christ for life, whereas Judas’ appointment concerns his office and physical nearness to Jesus. His unbelief does warn us against seeking assurance in a religious position. A truly born-again believer is secure, but walking among disciples and holding office are no substitute for having the Son.
Christ Will Raise Every Believer
Jesus promises resurrection in John 6:39, 40, 44, and 54. He speaks of those the Father gives Him, those who see the Son and believe, those drawn who come, and those who feed on Him. I understand these as overlapping descriptions of believers, not four separate groups. Later, when Lazarus had died, Martha expressed the same expectation of resurrection at the last day:
Jesus said to her, "Your brother will rise again." Martha said to Him, "I know that he will rise again in the resurrection at the last day." Jesus said to her, "I am the resurrection and the life. He who believes in Me, though he may die, he shall live. And whoever lives and believes in Me shall never die. Do you believe this?" She said to Him, "Yes, Lord, I believe that You are the Christ, the Son of God, who is to come into the world."
John 11:23-27
Jesus did not correct Martha for expecting a future resurrection. He revealed Himself as the Resurrection and the Life, the One in whom that hope rests. The eternal life He gives now does not prevent a believer’s body from dying, but death will not have the final claim on that body. He has authority to raise His people into immortal life.
I would not reduce that promise to a metaphor for spiritual renewal. Nor does Jesus merely hope that a believer will remain eligible to be raised. He says, “I will raise him up.” The Son who receives His people will keep them and complete their salvation, including the redemption of their bodies. His promise is the reason for their confidence.
Resurrection is therefore central to John 6:44, but it is the future action the Son promises, not the meaning of the Father’s drawing. John 6 does not supply the full sequence of that future event. Paul gives further detail when comforting believers about Christians who have died:
But I do not want you to be ignorant, brethren, concerning those who have fallen asleep, lest you sorrow as others who have no hope. For if we believe that Jesus died and rose again, even so God will bring with Him those who sleep in Jesus. For this we say to you by the word of the Lord, that we who are alive and remain until the coming of the Lord will by no means precede those who are asleep. For the Lord Himself will descend from heaven with a shout, with the voice of an archangel, and with the trumpet of God. And the dead in Christ will rise first. Then we who are alive and remain shall be caught up together with them in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air. And thus we shall always be with the Lord. Therefore comfort one another with these words.
1 Thessalonians 4:13-18
The Lord descends, the dead in Christ rise first, and living believers are then caught up with them to meet Him in the air. First Corinthians 15 adds the promise of bodily transformation and immortality. Those who have died in Christ will not miss His coming, and those still living will join them.
I believe the full prophetic witness teaches a pre-Tribulation gathering of the church, followed by a literal seven-year Tribulation and Christ’s bodily return to establish His literal thousand-year reign. After the thousand-year reign, unbelievers are raised for the Great White Throne judgment. That sequence rests on the wider teaching of Scripture, rather than being contained in the expression “last day” alone.
I understand that expression within the final period of God’s prophetic plan and its climactic resurrection hope. It need not collapse every resurrection and judgment into one indistinguishable moment. John 6 assures believers that Christ will raise them; Paul’s letters explain the church’s gathering, and Revelation and other prophecy disclose the later sequence. I set out that wider case in The Pre-Tribulation Rapture.
Reading John 6:44 in Its Full Context
The whole discourse keeps God’s initiative, our response, and Christ’s assurance together. The Father must draw; no sinner supplies his own Savior or creates the truth that reveals Him. The person who hears and learns comes to the Son, and the Son receives and keeps him. Coming and believing describe receiving life now, while resurrection is promised for the future.
I therefore cannot make drawing mean either a physical pull from a grave or irresistible regeneration of selected unbelievers before faith. Neither can I turn feeding on Christ into a ritual that saves. These readings move away from the teaching, hearing, learning, and believing Jesus Himself describes. Our ability to resist grace does not mean we can come without grace, and accepting God’s gift leaves us no basis for boasting.
Jesus later spoke again about the unity of His message with the Father’s testimony. His words explain both the invitation to believe and the seriousness of refusing it:
Then Jesus cried out and said, "He who believes in Me, believes not in Me but in Him who sent Me. And he who sees Me sees Him who sent Me. I have come as a light into the world, that whoever believes in Me should not abide in darkness. And if anyone hears My words and does not believe, I do not judge him; for I did not come to judge the world but to save the world. He who rejects Me, and does not receive My words, has that which judges him–the word that I have spoken will judge him in the last day. For I have not spoken on My own authority; but the Father who sent Me gave Me a command, what I should say and what I should speak. And I know that His command is everlasting life. Therefore, whatever I speak, just as the Father has told Me, so I speak."
John 12:44-50
Believing in Jesus means receiving the Father who sent Him. He came as light so that those who believe would no longer remain in darkness. People could hear His words and reject them, but their refusal would not cancel their responsibility. Although He came to save the world, His words would judge the person who rejected Him at the last day.
The One speaking is the eternal Son, fully God and fully man, born of a virgin and completely sinless. He came from heaven and gave His flesh for the life of the world. Wicked men physically tortured, punished, and killed Him, yet He willingly bore that real punishment for our sins in His innocent body. His saving work through His shed blood and death was complete before His burial and bodily resurrection. The Father did not punish, curse, abandon, strike, bruise, or pour wrath on Jesus.
Christ died for the whole world, and God’s offer of salvation is genuine for every person. The Spirit convicts through God’s truth, and the crucified Son draws through His cross and the gospel that proclaims it. People can resist and reject that grace; each must repent and believe in Jesus Christ. Everyone who truly believes is forgiven and justified, meaning declared righteous before God. That person is born again as a new creation, indwelt and sealed by the Holy Spirit. These truths belong to the Bible’s larger teaching about salvation, or soteriology.
Jesus will never cast out the one who comes or lose any of His own. Obedience does not earn or keep eternal life, but genuine new birth produces a changed direction. A profession that excuses lawlessness cannot supply assurance merely by using Christian words. Judas’ religious office did not give him life; Peter confessed that Jesus alone had the words of eternal life.
I don’t want debate over drawing to obscure that personal invitation and assurance. There is no reason to boast that I found Christ without grace, and no reason to wait for proof that I belong to a hidden class before responding. The Father has given His testimony so that we will look to His Son and believe. If I am defending my appetite, my reputation, or my religious standing against what Jesus says, the crowd’s refusal should warn me. Receiving His gift does not earn it, and the person who comes will be welcomed, kept, and raised bodily by the Son.
My Final Thoughts
I understand the Father’s drawing as His gracious initiative in making the Son known and teaching us through His testimony. We cannot come without that work, but Scripture does not permit me to treat resistance to grace as unreal. Jesus calls us to hear and learn, to come and believe, rather than harden ourselves against Him. He also promises the believer a future bodily resurrection. Our salvation begins with God’s provision, is received through faith, and will be brought to completion by the Son who refuses to lose His own.
Israel lived in temporary shelters during the Feast of Tabernacles to remember the LORD’s care in the wilderness, while also celebrating the harvest He had provided. The same feast later forms the setting for Jesus’ offer of living water and appears in Zechariah’s prophecy of the coming King. I want to follow those connections carefully, beginning with what God commanded Israel and keeping His promises to that nation in view as we consider what the feast teaches us.
The LORD’s Feast of Booths and Ingathering
Then the LORD spoke to Moses, saying, "Speak to the children of Israel, saying: 'The fifteenth day of this seventh month shall be the Feast of Tabernacles for seven days to the LORD. On the first day there shall be a holy convocation. You shall do no customary work on it. For seven days you shall offer an offering made by fire to the LORD. On the eighth day you shall have a holy convocation, and you shall offer an offering made by fire to the LORD. It is a sacred assembly, and you shall do no customary work on it. 'These are the feasts of the LORD which you shall proclaim to be holy convocations, to offer an offering made by fire to the LORD, a burnt offering and a grain offering, a sacrifice and drink offerings, everything on its day– besides the Sabbaths of the LORD, besides your gifts, besides all your vows, and besides all your freewill offerings which you give to the LORD. 'Also on the fifteenth day of the seventh month, when you have gathered in the fruit of the land, you shall keep the feast of the LORD for seven days; on the first day there shall be a sabbath-rest, and on the eighth day a sabbath-rest. And you shall take for yourselves on the first day the fruit of beautiful trees, branches of palm trees, the boughs of leafy trees, and willows of the brook; and you shall rejoice before the LORD your God for seven days. You shall keep it as a feast to the LORD for seven days in the year. It shall be a statute forever in your generations. You shall celebrate it in the seventh month. You shall dwell in booths for seven days. All who are native Israelites shall dwell in booths, that your generations may know that I made the children of Israel dwell in booths when I brought them out of the land of Egypt: I am the LORD your God.'" So Moses declared to the children of Israel the feasts of the LORD.
Leviticus 23:33-44
The feast began on the fifteenth day of Israel’s seventh month, known by the later Jewish name Tishri. Trumpet blowing marked the first day of that month, and the Day of Atonement came on the tenth. Five days later, after gathering the produce of the land, Israel began seven days of rejoicing before the LORD. The study on the Feasts of the LORD places these appointments within the wider calendar.
Sukkot is the Hebrew plural of sukkah, a booth or temporary shelter. The name Tabernacles refers to those shelters, rather than the Mosaic Tabernacle, Israel’s portable sanctuary. God’s dwelling with His people is a larger biblical theme that connects with the feast, but a family’s booth and the sanctuary were different things.
God required a holy assembly and rest from customary work on the first day. The people lived in booths for seven days, followed by another sacred assembly and rest on the eighth. That last assembly belonged to the same festival season but was distinct from the seven booth days. Later Jewish usage calls it Shemini Atzeret, the assembly of the eighth. Numbers gives it its own smaller schedule of offerings; Scripture does not command an eighth day of booth dwelling.
Some Christians see completion or a new beginning in the eighth day. I can consider that possibility without treating the calendar as a code that identifies a future event. God explicitly commanded a sacred assembly and offerings. He did not explain every meaning later interpreters have attached to the number eight, and those suggestions should not displace the instruction He actually gave.
Native Israelites were to leave their permanent dwellings and spend seven days in booths so their descendants would remember the LORD’s care after the exodus. A settled family with a house and a gathered harvest could look back on ancestors who had lived without those advantages in the wilderness. Their present stability had not made them independent of the God who sustained their forefathers.
God also commanded them to take fruit from beautiful trees, palm branches, leafy boughs, and willows from the brook, and rejoice before Him. These were gifts of His creation used in worship under His direction. Later Jewish practice identified particular species and prescribed how to use them. We should distinguish those developed customs from the wording in Leviticus, which does not turn the plants into charms or give each one a hidden prophetic meaning.
"Three times you shall keep a feast to Me in the year: You shall keep the Feast of Unleavened Bread (you shall eat unleavened bread seven days, as I commanded you, at the time appointed in the month of Abib, for in it you came out of Egypt; none shall appear before Me empty); and the Feast of Harvest, the firstfruits of your labors which you have sown in the field; and the Feast of Ingathering at the end of the year, when you have gathered in the fruit of your labors from the field. "Three times in the year all your males shall appear before the Lord GOD.
Exodus 23:14-17
Exodus calls the feast Ingathering because the produce had been gathered from the fields. It was the third annual pilgrimage season, after Unleavened Bread and the Feast of Harvest, also called Weeks. Israel’s men were to appear before the Lord, bringing gifts instead of arriving empty-handed. The study on the Feast of Unleavened Bread examines the earlier appointment.
Tabernacles therefore joined remembrance of the wilderness to gratitude for life in the land. The LORD had given the fields, the rain, and the strength to work. Crediting Baal with the harvest, or boasting as though their own labor explained everything, would deny the One they had come to worship. This was also a national gathering under God’s covenant, rather than a collection of private family celebrations.
Joy, Sacrifice, Scripture, and Restored Worship
"You shall observe the Feast of Tabernacles seven days, when you have gathered from your threshing floor and from your winepress. And you shall rejoice in your feast, you and your son and your daughter, your male servant and your female servant and the Levite, the stranger and the fatherless and the widow, who are within your gates. Seven days you shall keep a sacred feast to the LORD your God in the place which the LORD chooses, because the LORD your God will bless you in all your produce and in all the work of your hands, so that you surely rejoice. "Three times a year all your males shall appear before the LORD your God in the place which He chooses: at the Feast of Unleavened Bread, at the Feast of Weeks, and at the Feast of Tabernacles; and they shall not appear before the LORD empty-handed. Every man shall give as he is able, according to the blessing of the LORD your God which He has given you.
Deuteronomy 16:13-17
God named the people who were to share the feast: sons and daughters, servants, Levites, strangers, the fatherless, and widows. The owner of a productive field was not to reserve the celebration for people whose circumstances matched his own. Servants were included in the rejoicing, while those without secure land or family support were welcomed into the community’s abundance.
The Levite did not have the ordinary tribal inheritance of farmland. Widows and fatherless children had lost important family provision, and strangers could not simply assume the security of a settled Israelite household. God included them by name. I need to notice that before reducing gratitude to a private feeling about what I possess. Israel’s thanksgiving involved making room for other people, not enjoying God’s gifts while ignoring those who lacked them.
Each man gave according to the blessing he had received. His gift expressed gratitude; it was not a payment to secure a more profitable harvest next year. The celebration also required substantial sacrifices, with the offerings for each day specified in Numbers.
'On the fifteenth day of the seventh month you shall have a holy convocation. You shall do no customary work, and you shall keep a feast to the LORD seven days. You shall present a burnt offering, an offering made by fire as a sweet aroma to the LORD: thirteen young bulls, two rams, and fourteen lambs in their first year. They shall be without blemish. Their grain offering shall be of fine flour mixed with oil: three-tenths of an ephah for each of the thirteen bulls, two-tenths for each of the two rams, and one-tenth for each of the fourteen lambs; also one kid of the goats as a sin offering, besides the regular burnt offering, its grain offering, and its drink offering. 'On the second day present twelve young bulls, two rams, fourteen lambs in their first year without blemish, and their grain offering and their drink offerings for the bulls, for the rams, and for the lambs, by their number, according to the ordinance; also one kid of the goats as a sin offering, besides the regular burnt offering with its grain offering, and their drink offerings. 'On the third day present eleven bulls, two rams, fourteen lambs in their first year without blemish, and their grain offering and their drink offerings for the bulls, for the rams, and for the lambs, by their number, according to the ordinance; also one goat as a sin offering, besides the regular burnt offering, its grain offering, and its drink offering. 'On the fourth day present ten bulls, two rams, and fourteen lambs in their first year, without blemish, and their grain offering and their drink offerings for the bulls, for the rams, and for the lambs, by their number, according to the ordinance; also one kid of the goats as a sin offering, besides the regular burnt offering, its grain offering, and its drink offering. 'On the fifth day present nine bulls, two rams, and fourteen lambs in their first year without blemish, and their grain offering and their drink offerings for the bulls, for the rams, and for the lambs, by their number, according to the ordinance; also one goat as a sin offering, besides the regular burnt offering, its grain offering, and its drink offering. 'On the sixth day present eight bulls, two rams, and fourteen lambs in their first year without blemish, and their grain offering and their drink offerings for the bulls, for the rams, and for the lambs, by their number, according to the ordinance; also one goat as a sin offering, besides the regular burnt offering, its grain offering, and its drink offering. 'On the seventh day present seven bulls, two rams, and fourteen lambs in their first year without blemish, and their grain offering and their drink offerings for the bulls, for the rams, and for the lambs, by their number, according to the ordinance; also one goat as a sin offering, besides the regular burnt offering, its grain offering, and its drink offering. 'On the eighth day you shall have a sacred assembly. You shall do no customary work. You shall present a burnt offering, an offering made by fire as a sweet aroma to the LORD: one bull, one ram, seven lambs in their first year without blemish, and their grain offering and their drink offerings for the bull, for the ram, and for the lambs, by their number, according to the ordinance; also one goat as a sin offering, besides the regular burnt offering, its grain offering, and its drink offering. 'These you shall present to the LORD at your appointed feasts (besides your vowed offerings and your freewill offerings) as your burnt offerings and your grain offerings, as your drink offerings and your peace offerings.'" So Moses told the children of Israel everything, just as the LORD commanded Moses.
Numbers 29:12-40
The first day required thirteen bulls, two rams, and fourteen lambs without blemish. The number of bulls decreased by one each day, ending with seven on the seventh day, for seventy in all. Grain and drink offerings accompanied the animals, and a goat was offered for sin each day in addition to the regular burnt offering. On the eighth day the distinct schedule required one bull, one ram, seven lambs, and a goat for sin.
Later interpreters connected the seventy bulls with the nations. That is an interpretation of the number, rather than an explanation Numbers itself gives. The chapter is clear about the cost and order of Israel’s worship: the regular daily offerings continued, and vowed or freewill gifts did not replace what God required. A plentiful harvest did not remove their need to deal with sin, and joy did not authorize them to devise their own service.
The feast was also a time for the whole people to hear God’s law. Every seventh year, during the year of release, the gathering included a public reading addressed to adults, children, and the stranger within their gates.
So Moses wrote this law and delivered it to the priests, the sons of Levi, who bore the ark of the covenant of the LORD, and to all the elders of Israel. And Moses commanded them, saying: "At the end of every seven years, at the appointed time in the year of release, at the Feast of Tabernacles, when all Israel comes to appear before the LORD your God in the place which He chooses, you shall read this law before all Israel in their hearing. Gather the people together, men and women and little ones, and the stranger who is within your gates, that they may hear and that they may learn to fear the LORD your God and carefully observe all the words of this law, and that their children, who have not known it, may hear and learn to fear the LORD your God as long as you live in the land which you cross the Jordan to possess."
Deuteronomy 31:9-13
Moses wanted the people to hear, learn to fear the LORD, and carefully obey His words. Children who had not known these things needed to be taught; descent from Israel would not automatically give them knowledge of God. Hearing Scripture kept the celebration directed toward the One who had delivered and provided for them. A harvest festival without that instruction could become mere sentiment or take on the religion of Israel’s neighbors.
Later, the seventh-month feast provided the setting for Solomon’s dedication of the temple. Israel brought the ark into the house built for the LORD, and His glory interrupted the priests’ service.
Now Solomon assembled the elders of Israel and all the heads of the tribes, the chief fathers of the children of Israel, to King Solomon in Jerusalem, that they might bring up the ark of the covenant of the LORD from the City of David, which is Zion. Therefore all the men of Israel assembled with King Solomon at the feast in the month of Ethanim, which is the seventh month. So all the elders of Israel came, and the priests took up the ark. Then they brought up the ark of the LORD, the tabernacle of meeting, and all the holy furnishings that were in the tabernacle. The priests and the Levites brought them up. Also King Solomon, and all the congregation of Israel who were assembled with him, were with him before the ark, sacrificing sheep and oxen that could not be counted or numbered for multitude. Then the priests brought in the ark of the covenant of the LORD to its place, into the inner sanctuary of the temple, to the Most Holy Place, under the wings of the cherubim. For the cherubim spread their two wings over the place of the ark, and the cherubim overshadowed the ark and its poles. The poles extended so that the ends of the poles could be seen from the holy place, in front of the inner sanctuary; but they could not be seen from outside. And they are there to this day. Nothing was in the ark except the two tablets of stone which Moses put there at Horeb, when the LORD made a covenant with the children of Israel, when they came out of the land of Egypt. And it came to pass, when the priests came out of the holy place, that the cloud filled the house of the LORD, so that the priests could not continue ministering because of the cloud; for the glory of the LORD filled the house of the LORD. Then Solomon spoke: "The LORD said He would dwell in the dark cloud. I have surely built You an exalted house, And a place for You to dwell in forever."
1 Kings 8:1-13
The priests placed the ark in the Most Holy Place, and the cloud filled the temple so that they could not continue ministering. Solomon had built an exalted house, but the LORD’s presence gave it a significance no finished building could supply for itself. In his dedication prayer, Solomon also acknowledged that even heaven could not contain God. The temple was a real dwelling for His name and glory, without confining His being to its walls.
That temple was later destroyed when Babylon conquered Jerusalem and carried Judah into exile. A remnant returned under Persian rule, rebuilt the temple, and eventually restored the city’s wall. In Nehemiah 8, the renewed community gathered to hear Scripture, and the heads of households, priests, and Levites came to Ezra to understand it more fully. They found the command to dwell in booths and acted on it.
Now on the second day the heads of the fathers' houses of all the people, with the priests and Levites, were gathered to Ezra the scribe, in order to understand the words of the Law. And they found written in the Law, which the LORD had commanded by Moses, that the children of Israel should dwell in booths during the feast of the seventh month, and that they should announce and proclaim in all their cities and in Jerusalem, saying, "Go out to the mountain, and bring olive branches, branches of oil trees, myrtle branches, palm branches, and branches of leafy trees, to make booths, as it is written." Then the people went out and brought them and made themselves booths, each one on the roof of his house, or in their courtyards or the courts of the house of God, and in the open square of the Water Gate and in the open square of the Gate of Ephraim. So the whole assembly of those who had returned from the captivity made booths and sat under the booths; for since the days of Joshua the son of Nun until that day the children of Israel had not done so. And there was very great gladness. Also day by day, from the first day until the last day, he read from the Book of the Law of God. And they kept the feast seven days; and on the eighth day there was a sacred assembly, according to the prescribed manner.
Nehemiah 8:13-18
The people gathered branches and built booths on rooftops, in courtyards, in the temple courts, and in public squares. The command became something they did together, while the Book of the Law was read each day. Nehemiah describes very great gladness and says Israel had not done so since Joshua’s time. I understand that to describe the renewed keeping of the booth command in this manner, rather than deny every celebration of the feast in the intervening centuries. The earlier temple dedication already places worship in this festival season.
They kept the seven days and the prescribed sacred assembly on the eighth. Their joy came with renewed attention to God’s instruction, rather than with permission to ignore it. Israel’s national life also remained central to this gathering after exile. The study on the twelve tribes of Israel follows that identity through Scripture.
The Word Tabernacled Among Us
The LORD’s glory filled Israel’s sanctuary. John describes the eternal Son Himself coming to live among us, using dwelling language to explain His incarnation.
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 were made through Him, and without Him nothing was made that was made. In Him was life, and the life was the light of men. And the light shines in the darkness, and the darkness did not comprehend it. There was a man sent from God, whose name was John. This man came for a witness, to bear witness of the Light, that all through him might believe. He was not that Light, but was sent to bear witness of that Light. That was the true Light which gives light to every man coming into the world. He was in the world, and the world was made through Him, and the world did not know Him. He came to His own, and His own did not receive Him. But as many as received Him, to them He gave the right to become children of God, to those who believe in His name: who were born, not of blood, nor of the will of the flesh, nor of the will of man, but of God. And the Word became flesh and dwelt among us, and we beheld His glory, the glory as of the only begotten of the Father, full of grace and truth. John bore witness of Him and cried out, saying, "This was He of whom I said, 'He who comes after me is preferred before me, for He was before me.'" And of His fullness we have all received, and grace for grace. For the law was given through Moses, but grace and truth came through Jesus Christ. No one has seen God at any time. The only begotten Son, who is in the bosom of the Father, He has declared Him.
John 1:1-18
John begins his Gospel with the eternal Word, who was with God and was God, and through whom everything was made. The Word then became flesh and “dwelt” among us. The Greek verb eskēnōsen can be expressed as “tabernacled” or “pitched His tent.” The Son truly became man, and His glory was made known among the people He came to save.
I see a clear connection with God’s dwelling among His people, without needing to turn every part of an Israelite booth into a prediction about Jesus. John is declaring the incarnation, God the Son taking true humanity. That declaration neither makes Israel disappear nor says that every promise associated with Tabernacles has already been fulfilled.
Later in the Gospel, Jesus goes to Jerusalem for the feast itself. By then, Jewish practice included customs beyond the commands we have read in Moses. The Mishnah describes water brought from Siloam and poured at the altar and large lamps in the temple courtyard. These accounts of temple practice help explain the festival background; they do not make those ceremonies Mosaic commands or tell us the exact moment at which Jesus spoke.
Jesus’ brothers urged Him to go to Judea and display His works publicly. John says they did not believe in Him. Jesus refused to let their demand determine His timing, remaining in Galilee before going to the feast privately. In the middle of the feast He taught openly in the temple, where some praised Him and others accused Him of deceiving the people. Fear of the authorities restrained open discussion, while the leaders sought an opportunity to seize Him.
After these things Jesus walked in Galilee; for He did not want to walk in Judea, because the Jews sought to kill Him. Now the Jews' Feast of Tabernacles was at hand. His brothers therefore said to Him, "Depart from here and go into Judea, that Your disciples also may see the works that You are doing. For no one does anything in secret while he himself seeks to be known openly. If You do these things, show Yourself to the world." For even His brothers did not believe in Him. Then Jesus said to them, "My time has not yet come, but your time is always ready. The world cannot hate you, but it hates Me because I testify of it that its works are evil. You go up to this feast. I am not yet going up to this feast, for My time has not yet fully come." When He had said these things to them, He remained in Galilee. But when His brothers had gone up, then He also went up to the feast, not openly, but as it were in secret. Then the Jews sought Him at the feast, and said, "Where is He?" And there was much complaining among the people concerning Him. Some said, "He is good"; others said, "No, on the contrary, He deceives the people." However, no one spoke openly of Him for fear of the Jews. Now about the middle of the feast Jesus went up into the temple and taught. And the Jews marveled, saying, "How does this Man know letters, having never studied?" Jesus answered them and said, "My doctrine is not Mine, but His who sent Me. If anyone wills to do His will, he shall know concerning the doctrine, whether it is from God or whether I speak on My own authority. He who speaks from himself seeks his own glory; but He who seeks the glory of the One who sent Him is true, and no unrighteousness is in Him. Did not Moses give you the law, yet none of you keeps the law? Why do you seek to kill Me?" The people answered and said, "You have a demon. Who is seeking to kill You?" Jesus answered and said to them, "I did one work, and you all marvel. Moses therefore gave you circumcision (not that it is from Moses, but from the fathers), and you circumcise a man on the Sabbath. If a man receives circumcision on the Sabbath, so that the law of Moses should not be broken, are you angry with Me because I made a man completely well on the Sabbath? Do not judge according to appearance, but judge with righteous judgment." Now some of them from Jerusalem said, "Is this not He whom they seek to kill? But look! He speaks boldly, and they say nothing to Him. Do the rulers know indeed that this is truly the Christ? However, we know where this Man is from; but when the Christ comes, no one knows where He is from." Then Jesus cried out, as He taught in the temple, saying, "You both know Me, and you know where I am from; and I have not come of Myself, but He who sent Me is true, whom you do not know. But I know Him, for I am from Him, and He sent Me." Therefore they sought to take Him; but no one laid a hand on Him, because His hour had not yet come. And many of the people believed in Him, and said, "When the Christ comes, will He do more signs than these which this Man has done?" The Pharisees heard the crowd murmuring these things concerning Him, and the Pharisees and the chief priests sent officers to take Him. Then Jesus said to them, "I shall be with you a little while longer, and then I go to Him who sent Me. You will seek Me and not find Me, and where I am you cannot come." Then the Jews said among themselves, "Where does He intend to go that we shall not find Him? Does He intend to go to the Dispersion among the Greeks and teach the Greeks? What is this thing that He said, 'You will seek Me and not find Me, and where I am you cannot come'?" On the last day, that great day of the feast, Jesus stood and cried out, saying, "If anyone thirsts, let him come to Me and drink. He who believes in Me, as the Scripture has said, out of his heart will flow rivers of living water." But this He spoke concerning the Spirit, whom those believing in Him would receive; for the Holy Spirit was not yet given, because Jesus was not yet glorified.
John 7:1-39
In the temple, Jesus told His hearers that His teaching came from the One who sent Him. Their claim to honor Moses did not agree with their desire to kill Him. They accepted circumcision on the Sabbath so that the law would be kept, yet resented His making a man completely well. Jesus called them to righteous judgment because their accusation could not be justified by a sincere reading of the law. Some believed in Him, but the opposition continued.
On the last day, the great day of the feast, He stood and called the thirsty to come to Him and drink. Water naturally belonged to the festival’s concerns: the people remembered wilderness provision and depended on rain for the land. The water-pouring custom adds historical background, but John does not say Jesus cried out at the precise instant a priest poured it. His invitation remains clear without that reconstructed scene.
Jesus directed people to Himself and promised rivers of living water from within the believer. John explains that He meant the Holy Spirit, whom those believing in Him would receive after His glorification. The water was not a ritual object they needed to obtain. They were to believe in the Son, who would give them the Spirit.
John 8:12 also records Jesus calling Himself the light of the world near this feast setting. In the received New Testament text used here, the account of the woman caught in adultery stands between the festival debate and that declaration. The lamp-lighting custom may illuminate the background, but John does not name the ceremony in that verse. The eternal Word is the giver of light and life, rather than one more religious light competing for attention.
The Church Receives Christ Without Replacing Israel
Believers now receive eternal life and the indwelling Holy Spirit through Christ. God’s presence among His people is therefore a present blessing, and Israel’s feast can teach us grateful dependence on Him. Its command to include servants, widows, and strangers makes me ask who gets left out when I celebrate what God has provided. A household with room at its table can share more than words of thanks.
Receiving those blessings does not make the church Israel’s replacement. Zechariah still describes Jerusalem, the nations, and their King, with an annual feast in a future earthly reign. Jesus has come in the flesh, and the Spirit indwells believers, but He has not yet returned bodily to reign from Jerusalem over the nations. Calling the present church age the complete fulfillment of Tabernacles would leave that promised future unexplained.
The apostles did not command Gentile Christians to travel to Jerusalem, live in booths, or offer the sacrifices in Numbers 29. Neither salvation nor Christian growth depends on keeping this feast. A believer may voluntarily build a booth or remember the occasion to learn and give thanks, provided he acknowledges that this does not reproduce the full Mosaic service with Israel’s temple and priesthood.
I have no reason to mock that voluntary remembrance, and the person observing it has no right to call another Christian disobedient for declining to join him. Using Hebrew words or following a calendar does not raise our standing before God. We should receive the instruction Scripture gives through the feast without imposing an additional requirement on another believer’s conscience or promoting it as a higher form of Christianity. Only Christ can justify a sinner.
The Returning King and the Nations
Zechariah 14 places the future observance of Tabernacles after the LORD comes to deliver Jerusalem and reign over the nations. The chapter begins with the attack from which He rescues His people.
Behold, the day of the LORD is coming, And your spoil will be divided in your midst. For I will gather all the nations to battle against Jerusalem; The city shall be taken, The houses rifled, And the women ravished. Half of the city shall go into captivity, But the remnant of the people shall not be cut off from the city. Then the LORD will go forth And fight against those nations, As He fights in the day of battle. And in that day His feet will stand on the Mount of Olives, Which faces Jerusalem on the east. And the Mount of Olives shall be split in two, From east to west, Making a very large valley; Half of the mountain shall move toward the north And half of it toward the south. Then you shall flee through My mountain valley, For the mountain valley shall reach to Azal. Yes, you shall flee As you fled from the earthquake In the days of Uzziah king of Judah. Thus the LORD my God will come, And all the saints with You. It shall come to pass in that day That there will be no light; The lights will diminish. It shall be one day Which is known to the LORD– Neither day nor night. But at evening time it shall happen That it will be light. And in that day it shall be That living waters shall flow from Jerusalem, Half of them toward the eastern sea And half of them toward the western sea; In both summer and winter it shall occur. And the LORD shall be King over all the earth. In that day it shall be– "The LORD is one," And His name one. All the land shall be turned into a plain from Geba to Rimmon south of Jerusalem. Jerusalem shall be raised up and inhabited in her place from Benjamin's Gate to the place of the First Gate and the Corner Gate, and from the Tower of Hananel to the king's winepresses. The people shall dwell in it; And no longer shall there be utter destruction, But Jerusalem shall be safely inhabited. And this shall be the plague with which the LORD will strike all the people who fought against Jerusalem: Their flesh shall dissolve while they stand on their feet, Their eyes shall dissolve in their sockets, And their tongues shall dissolve in their mouths. It shall come to pass in that day That a great panic from the LORD will be among them. Everyone will seize the hand of his neighbor, And raise his hand against his neighbor's hand; Judah also will fight at Jerusalem. And the wealth of all the surrounding nations Shall be gathered together: Gold, silver, and apparel in great abundance. Such also shall be the plague On the horse and the mule, On the camel and the donkey, And on all the cattle that will be in those camps. So shall this plague be. And it shall come to pass that everyone who is left of all the nations which came against Jerusalem shall go up from year to year to worship the King, the LORD of hosts, and to keep the Feast of Tabernacles. And it shall be that whichever of the families of the earth do not come up to Jerusalem to worship the King, the LORD of hosts, on them there will be no rain. If the family of Egypt will not come up and enter in, they shall have no rain; they shall receive the plague with which the LORD strikes the nations who do not come up to keep the Feast of Tabernacles. This shall be the punishment of Egypt and the punishment of all the nations that do not come up to keep the Feast of Tabernacles. In that day "HOLINESS TO THE LORD" shall be engraved on the bells of the horses. The pots in the LORD's house shall be like the bowls before the altar. Yes, every pot in Jerusalem and Judah shall be holiness to the LORD of hosts. Everyone who sacrifices shall come and take them and cook in them. In that day there shall no longer be a Canaanite in the house of the LORD of hosts.
Zechariah 14:1-21
Zechariah begins with Jerusalem being attacked and its people suffering terribly. The LORD then goes out to fight the nations, His feet stand on the Mount of Olives, and the mountain splits to provide a valley. Living waters flow from Jerusalem, and the LORD becomes King over all the earth. These geographical and public events do not describe the present church age. I understand them as promises of Christ’s bodily return, Israel’s restoration, and His reign over the nations.
Revelation 20 supplies the duration of that earthly kingdom: a literal thousand years. During that reign, survivors from the nations that attacked Jerusalem will go there annually to worship the King, the LORD of hosts, and keep Tabernacles. The feast that gathered Israel after harvest will be honored internationally before Israel’s Messiah. The nations will acknowledge the King who supplies their needs, while Jerusalem retains its place in the promise.
The prophecy also describes what happens when a family of the earth refuses to come: there will be no rain. Egypt is named specifically and will not escape the appointed punishment. Its agriculture relied heavily on the Nile rather than local rainfall, but that circumstance could not make it independent of the King’s command. Zechariah expressly includes Egypt under the plague for refusing to keep the feast.
Holiness will extend through ordinary life in Jerusalem and Judah. The horses’ bells will bear the words “HOLINESS TO THE LORD,” and cooking pots will be holy for the LORD’s service like the bowls before the altar. Zechariah does not confine reverence to a ceremonial corner of public life. Yet the nations remain mortal peoples who can refuse worship and require discipline. That condition distinguishes this earthly reign from the final new creation, where death and rebellion will be gone.
God’s Final Dwelling and Our Present Tent
Revelation 21 follows the thousand-year reign, Satan’s final release and rebellion, and the Great White Throne judgment. The dwelling John describes belongs to the new creation that follows those events.
Now I saw a new heaven and a new earth, for the first heaven and the first earth had passed away. Also there was no more sea. Then I, John, saw the holy city, New Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God, prepared as a bride adorned for her husband. And I heard a loud voice from heaven saying, "Behold, the tabernacle of God is with men, and He will dwell with them, and they shall be His people. God Himself will be with them and be their God. And God will wipe away every tear from their eyes; there shall be no more death, nor sorrow, nor crying. There shall be no more pain, for the former things have passed away." Then He who sat on the throne said, "Behold, I make all things new." And He said to me, "Write, for these words are true and faithful." And He said to me, "It is done! I am the Alpha and the Omega, the Beginning and the End. I will give of the fountain of the water of life freely to him who thirsts. He who overcomes shall inherit all things, and I will be his God and he shall be My son. But the cowardly, unbelieving, abominable, murderers, sexually immoral, sorcerers, idolaters, and all liars shall have their part in the lake which burns with fire and brimstone, which is the second death."
Revelation 21:1-8
John sees a new heaven and earth and the New Jerusalem coming down from God. God dwells with His redeemed people, wipes away every tear, and removes death, sorrow, and pain. His dwelling with humanity reaches its permanent fulfillment after the final judgment.
These conditions differ from Zechariah’s description of nations that can disobey and lose their rain. Revelation does not command annual Tabernacles observance in eternity. It promises life in the new creation after evil has been irreversibly excluded. Keeping the order of Revelation 20–21 lets us receive both promises without treating the kingdom’s discipline of mortal nations as though it were the final state.
We still live in bodies that weaken and die while we wait for God to fulfill His promises. Paul calls this mortal body a tent and explains why we can face its loss with hope, looking forward to the bodily life God has prepared.
For we know that if our earthly house, this tent, is destroyed, we have a building from God, a house not made with hands, eternal in the heavens. For in this we groan, earnestly desiring to be clothed with our habitation which is from heaven, if indeed, having been clothed, we shall not be found naked. For we who are in this tent groan, being burdened, not because we want to be unclothed, but further clothed, that mortality may be swallowed up by life. Now He who has prepared us for this very thing is God, who also has given us the Spirit as a guarantee. So we are always confident, knowing that while we are at home in the body we are absent from the Lord. For we walk by faith, not by sight. We are confident, yes, well pleased rather to be absent from the body and to be present with the Lord. Therefore we make it our aim, whether present or absent, to be well pleasing to Him. For we must all appear before the judgment seat of Christ, that each one may receive the things done in the body, according to what he has done, whether good or bad.
2 Corinthians 5:1-10
Our earthly tent is the mortal body. Paul longs for mortality to be swallowed up by life, rather than for permanent existence without a body. Believers who die are with the Lord while awaiting bodily resurrection; God’s promise reaches beyond preserving a soul apart from the body. He will raise and transform His people for embodied life with Christ.
The Holy Spirit is God’s guarantee of that future. We walk by faith while we wait, and we aim to please Christ because we will answer to Him for what we have done in the body. Eternal security does not release us from that accountability. Our hope rests in the Savior who gave Himself for us, rather than in performing a festival correctly.
Jesus Christ is the eternal Son, fully God and fully man, born of a virgin and without sin. Wicked men tortured Him and inflicted real bodily punishment before killing Him on the cross. He willingly bore that suffering for our sins and shed His blood for the whole world. His saving work through His blood and death was complete before His burial and bodily resurrection. The Father did not punish, curse, abandon, strike, bruise, or pour wrath on Jesus. The saving work was the united purpose of the Father and the willing Son.
God offers salvation genuinely to everyone, though a person may resist His grace. Those who repent and believe in Christ are forgiven and justified, meaning declared righteous before God. They receive new birth, and the Holy Spirit indwells and seals them, making salvation eternally secure. Their conduct should give evidence of that new life; it does not earn salvation or keep them saved. A Christian profession alone does not establish that someone has been born again, and assurance never permits lawlessness.
Keeping a feast cannot provide that standing with God. We come to Christ and drink by faith, receiving the Spirit He promised, while still awaiting resurrection and the King’s public reign. A permanent house and money saved are benefits to receive gratefully, but neither can guarantee our security. Remembering God’s provision should make us generous toward people who lack those advantages, rather than complacent about our own.
My Final Thoughts
Tabernacles taught Israel to remember the LORD’s wilderness care, rejoice in His harvest provision, and share that joy with people whose lives were less secure. Jesus stood at the feast and offered the Spirit’s living water to those who believed in Him. We receive that gift now without replacing Israel or turning its calendar into a requirement for the church. The returning King will keep His promises to Jerusalem and the nations, and God’s final dwelling with His redeemed people will be free of death and sorrow. I want us to live with grateful dependence on Him as we wait for those promises to be fulfilled in their proper time.
When Jesus offered living water to the Samaritan woman, she asked for it so she would no longer need to return to the well to draw water. That would have spared her some work, but Jesus was offering far more than an easier daily routine. He was promising everlasting life. To understand His words, we need to consider what Scripture says about people turning away from the God who gives them life and how He calls them back to Himself.
The Thirst Only God Can Meet
In Jeremiah 2, the Lord confronts Judah over its betrayal of Him. He had brought their fathers out of Egypt, sustained them through the wilderness, and given them a fruitful land. Yet the priests had stopped seeking Him, the rulers had transgressed against Him, and the prophets were speaking by Baal. The people were giving their allegiance to idols after receiving so much from the God who had delivered them.
For My people have committed two evils: They have forsaken Me, the fountain of living waters, And hewn themselves cisterns – broken cisterns that can hold no water.
Jeremiah 2:13
A spring supplies fresh water, while a cistern is a pit that stores water collected from elsewhere. Digging a cistern was useful work, provided it could hold what went into it. But these people had abandoned a flowing fountain to depend on cracked storage pits. God uses that absurd exchange to expose what Judah had done in forsaking Him for idols that could not sustain them.
The Hebrew phrase mayim chayyim means living waters, a description used for fresh or flowing water. Jeremiah calls the Lord the maqor, meaning fountain or source. He is the One who gives life, and His people had chosen to turn elsewhere.
I need to be honest about the two evils God names here. I might admit that something has become a distraction or that I have allowed a bad habit to get out of hand, yet avoid admitting that I am turning away from Him. Judah’s problem went much deeper than poor judgment about what would make life comfortable. They had abandoned the Lord, and admitting that their substitutes had disappointed them would not excuse that disloyalty.
Hewing a cistern took considerable effort, which means we should be careful about assuming that a hardworking person is necessarily heading in the right direction. Someone can spend years pursuing financial security and still refuse to entrust his life to God. Money can pay his bills, but it cannot forgive his sins or reconcile him to the Lord. If protecting his income becomes a reason to disregard what God has said, he has made financial security more important than obeying Him.
The same thing happens with approval. If I am willing to lie because I cannot bear having people think poorly of me, their opinion has become more important to me than obeying God. We can also use pornography or endless entertainment to avoid facing what is wrong, seeking relief while refusing to repent. Even something good, such as family or ministry, can become an idol when we use it to justify disobedience. Being devoted to a good thing does not give us permission to push God aside.
I also need some discernment when examining where I turn for help. Asking a friend for counsel when I am lonely or ashamed is perfectly reasonable, and God often helps us through other people. But if I keep looking for someone who will reassure me that a sin is acceptable, I am seeking permission to avoid repentance. Another person’s agreement cannot make my disobedience right. God is merciful to expose that, even when I would rather defend myself than admit it.
Long before Jeremiah rebuked Judah, Israel had learned through actual thirst how dependent they were on the Lord. After crossing the Red Sea, they traveled for three days through the Wilderness of Shur without finding water. When they finally reached Marah, the water there was undrinkable.
Now when they came to Marah, they could not drink the waters of Marah, for they were bitter. Therefore the name of it was called Marah. And the people complained against Moses, saying, “What shall we drink?”
Exodus 15:23-24
Moses cried out to the Lord, who showed him a tree. When Moses cast it into the water, the Lord miraculously made it sweet and fit to drink.
I do not need to pretend a painful circumstance is pleasant before I ask God for help. The people complained against Moses, and Moses cried out to the Lord with the need they were all facing. Marah does not promise that every difficulty will immediately disappear when we pray, but I can bring my distress to God honestly without accusing Him of failing me. Cheerful religious language is a poor substitute for that kind of prayer.
At Rephidim, the people again had no water. They quarreled with Moses and questioned whether the Lord was even among them, despite the provision they had already received. God told Moses to go ahead of the people with the elders of Israel and gave him a specific instruction concerning the rock at Horeb.
Behold, I will stand before you there on the rock in Horeb; and you shall strike the rock, and water will come out of it, that the people may drink.
Exodus 17:6
Moses did as God commanded, and the people received water through the miracle the Lord had promised. He named the place Massah and Meribah because of their testing and contention. Although their accusation against the Lord was wrong, He mercifully provided for them.
We should keep this event distinct from the later water crisis at Kadesh in Numbers 20. There God told Moses to speak to the rock, but Moses angrily addressed the congregation and struck it twice. Water still came, yet the Lord rebuked Moses and Aaron for failing to believe Him and honor Him as holy before the people. They would not lead the assembly into the land He had promised. However frustrated Moses was with the people, he had no right to change God’s instructions. When I judge a decision only by whether it produced the result I wanted, I can overlook my own disobedience in much the same way.
Paul refers to Israel’s wilderness provision when warning the Corinthians about idolatry. They needed to understand that receiving God’s blessings did not make them immune to the consequences of rebellion.
and all drank the same spiritual drink. For they drank of that spiritual Rock that followed them, and that Rock was Christ.
1 Corinthians 10:4
I understand Paul to be identifying Christ as the divine source of Israel’s provision throughout their journey. He sustained the people who drank the water that came from the physical rock. Paul is not describing Jesus as a literal stone or saying a magical boulder traveled behind Israel. He is explaining that they depended on Christ, even though they repeatedly quarreled with Moses and questioned the Lord’s care for them.
The eternal Son of God who sustained Israel is also the Savior who gave His life for sinners. Fully God and fully man, Jesus lived without sin and willingly offered Himself to be slain as the perfect sacrifice for our sins. Wicked men tortured and crucified Him, but the Father did not punish or abandon Him. His shed blood and death accomplished our redemption before His burial and bodily resurrection. Father and Son remained united in that saving work. The life He offers freely was secured through a sacrifice we could never provide for ourselves.
Isaiah also uses the language of thirst and water when he announces God’s invitation to receive what we cannot buy.
Ho! Everyone who thirsts, Come to the waters; And you who have no money, Come, buy and eat.
Isaiah 55:1
God invites the thirsty to receive what they cannot pay for. His generosity leaves us no room to claim that we have earned the life He gives. Ezekiel describes another need we cannot remedy through our own efforts: cleansing from sin and a change within us.
Then I will sprinkle clean water on you, and you shall be clean; I will cleanse you from all your filthiness and from all your idols. I will give you a new heart and put a new spirit within you.
Ezekiel 36:25-26
God addressed this promise to Israel, including His pledge to gather His people into their land. He would cleanse them from their idols, give them a new heart, and put His Spirit within them. An outward washing or an improvement in their circumstances would not accomplish that. They needed God to change them inwardly, and Jesus later spoke about that need when a teacher of Israel came to see Him.
Nicodemus was a Pharisee and ruler of the Jews who visited Jesus at night in John 3. He acknowledged that Jesus’ signs showed God was with Him. But recognizing those signs did not mean Nicodemus already possessed the life Jesus was about to describe. For all his religious knowledge and standing, he needed to be born again.
Jesus answered, “Most assuredly, I say to you, unless one is born of water and the Spirit, he cannot enter the kingdom of God.”
John 3:5
I understand the water in Jesus’ explanation in light of God’s promise of cleansing in Ezekiel 36. Jesus was speaking of the cleansing and new life God gives through His Spirit, rather than teaching that water baptism produces regeneration. Baptism is an act of obedience after salvation; going into the water cannot give someone the inward life that only God can supply.
Jesus speaks of being born again in John 3:3 and John 3:7. The Greek word translated again, anothen, can also mean from above. Nicodemus asked how a grown man could enter his mother’s womb and be born a second time. Jesus explained that the Spirit gives a life that natural birth cannot produce.
Paul explains in Titus that salvation comes through God’s mercy rather than our record of righteous deeds.
not by works of righteousness which we have done, but according to His mercy He saved us, through the washing of regeneration and renewing of the Holy Spirit.
Titus 3:5
When I use the word regeneration, I mean that someone has genuinely been born again. A person can call himself a Christian and improve some habits without receiving new life from God. In regeneration, God makes the believer alive, and the Holy Spirit indwells and seals him. His assurance rests in Christ, but we should also expect evidence of that new life in his conduct. Obedience does not earn or keep salvation, and being born again does not mean a person never sins. It does mean we cannot treat a Christian label as sufficient while dismissing the need for any change in how we live.
Jesus Gives Living Water
In John 4, Jesus speaks with someone whose circumstances are very different from those of Nicodemus. He stops at Jacob’s well in Samaria while His disciples go to buy food and asks a Samaritan woman for a drink. She is surprised that a Jewish man would ask her, because hostility had divided Jews and Samaritans for generations. Their disagreement included competing claims about where God should be worshiped.
Jesus tells her that if she knew God’s gift and who was speaking to her, she would ask Him for living water. She wonders how He can supply it without a vessel to draw from the deep well. He explains that His gift will meet a need Jacob’s well cannot.
Jesus answered and said to her, “Whoever drinks of this water will thirst again, but whoever drinks of the water that I shall give him will never thirst. But the water that I shall give him will become in him a fountain of water springing up into everlasting life.”
John 4:13-14
Ordinary water satisfies thirst for a while, and then we need another drink. Jesus promises everlasting life, with the water He gives becoming a fountain within the person who receives it. The woman asks for this water so she will not thirst or need to keep coming to the well. She is still thinking about the work of drawing water, but Jesus proceeds to address her life before God.
He tells her to call her husband, and she answers that she has none. Jesus acknowledges the truth in her reply, then tells her that she has had five husbands and that the man she now has is not her husband. We are not told how those earlier marriages ended, but Jesus knew the truth about her present situation. He did not need her to give Him a respectable version of her life before He could offer her grace. At the same time, His kindness gave her no reason to conceal her sin.
Recognizing Him as a prophet, she raises the dispute over worship on Mount Gerizim or in Jerusalem. Jesus explains that salvation is of the Jews; the Messiah comes through God’s covenant promises to Israel. Yet the hour is coming when true worshipers will worship the Father in spirit and truth, without worship being confined to either place. When she mentions the coming Messiah, Jesus identifies Himself to her.
She had been speaking with the very One who could give the life He described. She could not obtain it by proving that her people had worshiped at the right mountain, any more than Nicodemus could obtain new birth through his standing among the Jews. Both needed what Christ gives. When we come to Him in faith, we are receiving His gift rather than presenting credentials that oblige Him to save us.
Later, in John 7, Jesus gives a public invitation during the Feast of Tabernacles, when Israel remembered God’s care in the wilderness. He calls the thirsty to Himself, just as He had offered living water to the woman at the well.
On the last day, that great day of the feast, Jesus stood and cried out, saying, “If anyone thirsts, let him come to Me and drink. He who believes in Me, as the Scripture has said, out of his heart will flow rivers of living water.”
John 7:37-38
Jesus connects coming to Him and drinking with believing in Him. He does not restrict His invitation to people with an impressive religious background. Christ died for the sins of the world, and His offer of salvation is genuine for every person who hears it. People can resist His grace and reject Him, but I should never tell a sinner that Christ’s invitation was not meant for him. We can call people to repent and trust the Savior without wondering whether He is willing to receive them.
John then explains what Jesus meant by the rivers of living water.
But this He spoke concerning the Spirit, whom those believing in Him would receive; for the Holy Spirit was not yet given, because Jesus was not yet glorified.
John 7:39
The Holy Spirit had already been active in creation and had spoken through the prophets and empowered God’s servants. John’s words look ahead to His promised New Covenant ministry following Jesus’ glorification. Jesus would first die and rise bodily, then ascend to the Father and send the Spirit.
Living water is therefore more than the relief we feel after an encouraging conversation or a good worship service. The divine Person of the Holy Spirit comes to dwell within the believer because of Christ’s accomplished redemption. God Himself has taken up residence in him. The believer has not become self-sufficient or acquired a supply of spiritual life that he can manage apart from the Lord.
When Jesus speaks of rivers flowing from within the believer, I understand Him to be describing a life that will benefit others too. The Spirit produces holiness and love in us, which should affect how we treat people. If I speak about being filled with the Spirit while treating someone cruelly or refusing to tell the truth, I need to repent of that conduct. His work should be evident as we pray for others, speak truthfully about Christ, and serve people who need help.
Every genuine believer is indwelt and sealed by the Spirit, and believers are also commanded to be filled with Him and not to grieve Him. We do not earn His presence through obedience, and we do not need a particular feeling to prove that He is there. His commands require us to depend on Him and obey His Word. Assurance in Christ gives me reason to trust the Lord through discouragement, without giving me an excuse to ignore what He says.
Alongside these promises of inward renewal, God has made promises concerning the earth itself. Ezekiel 47 describes water flowing from the temple and bringing life along its course. Zechariah 14 places living waters flowing from Jerusalem in the setting of the Lord’s return and reign over the earth. I understand these as events in His future earthly kingdom. That is part of my premillennial reading: Christ returns before establishing His literal thousand-year reign. Reducing these prophecies to descriptions of our feelings or of church growth would overlook what God has promised concerning Israel and the land.
Revelation then takes us beyond Christ’s return, His thousand-year reign, and final judgment to the new heaven and new earth. In the New Jerusalem, John sees the river of life flowing from the throne of God and the Lamb.
And he showed me a pure river of water of life, clear as crystal, proceeding from the throne of God and of the Lamb.
Revelation 22:1
Life in that city comes from God Himself. As Revelation closes, the invitation to receive life freely is addressed to those who hear its words now.
And the Spirit and the bride say, “Come!” And let him who hears say, “Come!” And let him who thirsts come. Whoever desires, let him take the water of life freely.
Revelation 22:17
The Spirit and the bride say, “Come!” and the hearer is also to say, “Come!” Having heard His invitation, I should be willing to bring it to others, including people whose past I might be tempted to hold against them. Christ offers mercy that none of us could earn, and we have no right to withhold His invitation from someone we dislike.
That generosity does not mean our salvation cost nothing. The Lamb who was slain is the risen Lord who gives us life. He calls us to turn from sin and trust Him, and no one needs to accumulate enough merit before coming. The person who receives His gift has every reason to be grateful to the Savior who paid so dearly to provide it.
My Final Thoughts
When God exposed Judah’s broken cisterns, He was calling His people back to Himself. I need to hear that rebuke when I begin excusing disobedience to protect something I am afraid to lose. Whatever relief I gain from doing that cannot reconcile me to God or give me new life. Jesus gives the life I cannot produce, and He calls me to receive it in repentance and faith. If you have been trying to make yourself deserving of salvation, you can come to Him now with the sin you need forgiven. He already knows what needs cleansing, and He offers the mercy you cannot earn.
