How would God prove to you or anyone else that He exists, that the Bible is reliable and that Jesus is his son? I’m talking about really proving all three of those things. If God expects something from you or if you are going to alter the way that you think about life, then I think it’s reasonable to want proof before you change anything.
There is this really interesting book in the Bible; Exodus, the second book which immediately follows Genesis. It contains so many memorable stories. Many people who have not read Exodus none-the-less have some familiarity with many of these stories. It’s starts with the birth of Moses, and it’s a dramatic story. And it’s a story that many young children learn about by coloring pictures of it in Sunday school. The younger children are probably not aware of the tension in it. Pharaoh was killing all the Hebrew baby boys, (the Hebrews were slaves to the Egyptians at that point) so in a desperate attempt to spare her son’s life, Moses’ mother placed him into a basket designed to float on the river and pushed him away from the shore and away from her protective, loving arms. That helpless mother watched as her defenseless son drifted down the river. She had no idea what would become of him, but at that point, the unknown (as fraught with danger as it was) was better than what most likely awaited him when she could no longer keep him hidden. As “fate” would have it, Pharaoh’s daughter saw the basket with the child and miraculously decided to adopt the baby as her own. What a memorable and fun story. No wonder children have it in their coloring books.
But the story involving Moses continued. He is then raised in Pharaoh’s palace and there he is immersed in Egyptian culture and science. However, later when he was an adult, he was forced to flee into the desert to save his life. (more about that part of the story later) In the desert, he met some sisters at a well, married one of them and became a shepherd for the next forty years. Over the course of those years, Moses had two sons and slowly became a quiet, peaceful, old shepherd who tended to his own affairs. This seemed like a happy ending to a nice little story about a baby who was born as a slave, rose to the top, lost it all and then found happiness and tranquility in a simple, pastoral family life. But that was not the end of the story. It was only the beginning of the story for Moses. He then had that iconic encounter with God at the Burning Bush where God introduced himself to Moses by name and commissioned him for a task. And it was not just any task; it was a major nation-altering mission. God wanted to send him back into Egypt to confront Pharaoh. (“Let my people go!”) Moses’ mother had floated him down into Pharaoh’s palace which saved his life, and later when he was grown Moses ran away from Pharaoh in order to save his life. And now God was sending him back to Pharaoh to free “his” people. The story and the drama just keep building.
In Exodus, we read about so many well-known, iconic anecdotes; the famous Ten plagues, the Red Sea crossing, the institution of Passover, manna in the desert, water gushing from a rock when their thirst was at the end, military battles, the Ten Commandments on tablets of stone… twice, God appearing on top of the mountain in a kind of fearsome and fiery earthquake, the institution of key laws for community living on which many western societies base their legal systems, the exact construction of the tabernacle where God promised to dwell, the astonishingly sinful worship of the golden calf by the new nation, the construction of the ark of the covenant( think Raiders of the Lost Ark), wandering in the desert for forty years until they came to the edge of the Promised Land and finally the death of Moses. As is apparent, Exodus is so full of so many iconic, important-to-know stories. Every culturally literate person should be familiar with that book. And Exodus was recorded circa 1,400 BCE. Among the many important stories, it recounts the details of the life of Moses from birth to death. That book has passed through the centuries and can be read by us today. It truly is a remarkable historical treasure.
But back to our original question; what does all of that interesting information prove? If we are being honest, all of that by itself proves absolutely nothing. So what? Passover was instituted and has been practiced by the Jewish people for over three and a half Millennium. Yes, that is vitally important for the Jewish religion; and yes, it is significant that it has been practiced for all that time. However, it really doesn’t prove that all those stories happened. And God may exist, but a book written about him doesn’t prove it. And a book with incredible stories is not necessarily reliable just because an ancient people attest to it. And finally, that book seems to have nothing whatsoever to do with Jesus who is alleged to be God’s very son. The book is fascinating, but by itself, it proves nothing. Let’s leave our examination of Exodus for now and skip forward in the Bible to the Gospels to see if they offer any clues to unlock the mystery of Exodus.
Jesus once said, “I’m going to tell you something before it happens so that when it happens, you will believe.”(John 14:29) What a simple, straight-forward and powerful way to communicate something profound about the human psyche! Jesus understood and was explaining to his disciples the idea that there is a powerful connection between predicting the future accurately and the human mind immediately trusting the person giving the prediction. An example of what Jesus was referring to can be found In John chapter 2 where a story is recorded about Jesus saying something relating to his resurrection. The disciples remembered that prediction after he had been resurrected, and they believed both what Jesus had said and they believed the Bible. Let’s read it for ourselves. 22 When therefore he[Jesus] was risen from the dead, his disciples remembered that he had said this unto them; and they believed the scripture, and the word which Jesus had said. (John 2:22). Jesus told them before it happened, so that when it did happen, they believed. The reason for the connection between accurate predictions and faith is quite simple. Despite any science fiction story to the contrary, everyone as far as we can reasonably know is constrained by the human limitations of time. A normal human cannot know with 100% certainty what will happen beyond the point in time in which they exist. So, if someone told you about something that will happen in the future and it came to pass as predicted, then you would know that that person was not constrained by that common human limitation. You would know that something out-of-the-ordinary was going on. And that is what Jesus did. He told us what was going to happen. He told us exactly why he told us. And then it happened. Pretty straight-forward and transparent.
What Jesus did in the Gospels conforms with what God did all throughout the Bible. There is a verse in Isaiah where God essentially said that He predicts the future and that propensity to make predictions is unique amongst all other Gods/religions. (Isaiah 46:9-10) That is a true statement regarding the uniqueness of the Bible and the issue of predictions. There is no other religion that has anywhere near the number of predictions that the Bible has. There is not even a close second. One could argue that predictive prophecy is one thing that sets the Bible apart. Taken as a whole, the Bible is a series of predictions because God likes to tell humanity what will happen before it happens, so that when it does happen, we will believe. I like that approach to religion. The Bible does not demand a blind faith devoid of evidence. It is a book that respects the human capacity for logic. I like to think of it as a logical approach to faith. Reading the Bible requires faith because the God of the Bible cannot be seen with the human eye, but the Bible provides reasons for that faith in that unseen God. The Bible is God telling us what will happen before it happens, so that when it happens, we will believe.
And the predictions in the Bible are unique for several reasons. First, they are specific. They aren’t just some general pronouncements that could be fulfilled any number of ways. For example, the Messiah was predicted to be born from one particular small town called Bethlehem (Micah 5:2) If anyone was born in the thousands of cities that were not Bethlehem, then you would know that they could not be the predicted Messiah. So first, Biblical predictions are very specific. You know categorically if they come true or not because they are so specific. They are not unclear vagaries where scholars must debate whether or not they came true. God predicted that the Messiah would be born in Bethlehem. That is black and white. A second aspect to the predictions in the Bible is that almost all of them were impossible to be self-fulfilled. For example, Psalm 22 recounts the actions of people after the death of the Messiah. And the people were not disciples or friends of the Messiah. They were enemies. One group that was referenced in this prediction was some Roman soldiers and another group was the Jewish leaders who had condemned the Messiah to be crucified. It would have been impossible for the predicted Messiah to control the actions of his enemies after he had died. God had inoculated his predictions against self-fulfillment. The third important aspect to the predictions in the Bible is that there are so many of them. As stated previously, the Bible stands alone in this aspect. The Bible is thoroughly founded on predictive prophecy unlike any other religion. With regard to the Jewish Messiah for example, there are over 100. If the Bible had recorded one prediction regarding the Messiah, then it’s fulfillment could be considered coincidental. However, when the number of predictions about the Messiah grows to over 100, the sheer volume becomes more difficult to dismiss as coincidental. The high number of predictions that came true is the third key aspect to their believability.
But let’s not forget about the Book of Exodus and how I am proposing that it proves three things: that God exists, that the Bible is reliable and that Jesus is his son. I was reading in the fifth book of the Bible, Deuteronomy, and I stumbled across a key to unlock the mystery. In Deuteronomy 18:18-19 God told Moses that in the future there would be a special prophet who would be like Moses, and God would require people to obey that prophet. What did God mean by saying that this future prophet would be like Moses? Did that mean that this future person would be a prophet like Moses, or did God imply that this future prophet would be like Moses? In other words, did the recorded details of the life of Moses foreshadow this future special prophet in a specific way. Then I thought about God and the Bible and His propensity to predict the future. And as stated previously, I thought about why God liked to make predictions; because predictions that came true inspired faith in the reader. And then I got to thinking about Exodus. Exodus is all about Moses, but its literary structure is like the Gospels of Matthew or Luke. Both Exodus and those Gospels start with a unique birth story and end with a death where the body could not be found in the sepulcher. And I wondered that maybe God was trying to tell us something. Maybe God was telling us to go back and read Exodus with Jesus in mind. Had God embedded in that ancient volume the details about Jesus’ life 1400 before Jesus was born? Was God telling us about the details of Jesus’ life before it happened so that when those details were lived out by Jesus, we would believe. After studying it thoroughly, I am convinced that God did just that. Almost every story about Moses in Exodus has a parallel story with Jesus in the Gospels. Almost no story is left out. Some of the details about Moses are so intricate, and yet the details about Jesus match them precisely. It is remarkable. And there are so many of these details that it certainly goes beyond a coincidental explanation. Based on that evidence, I am convinced that the author of the Bible must exist outside of time. The author had to have known the end of the story at the start. When we read Exodus, God wants us to know that he told us before it happened so that when it happened, we would believe.
Feel free to skip ahead to the “26 details” section of this article, but for those of you who are interested, I have begun with a short introduction to help the reader understand more fully the context of these predictions.
Introduction: The Moses Prophecies
“19 There was a certain rich man, which was clothed in purple and fine linen, and fared sumptuously every day:20 And there was a certain beggar named Lazarus, which was laid at his gate, full of sores,21 And desiring to be fed with the crumbs which fell from the rich man’s table: moreover the dogs came and licked his sores.22 And it came to pass, that the beggar died, and was carried by the angels into Abraham’s bosom: the rich man also died, and was buried;23 And in hell he lift up his eyes, being in torments, and seeth Abraham afar off, and Lazarus in his bosom.24 And he cried and said, Father Abraham, have mercy on me, and send Lazarus, that he may dip the tip of his finger in water, and cool my tongue; for I am tormented in this flame.25 But Abraham said, Son, remember that thou in thy lifetime receivedst thy good things, and likewise Lazarus evil things: but now he is comforted, and thou art tormented.26 And beside all this, between us and you there is a great gulf fixed: so that they which would pass from hence to you cannot; neither can they pass to us, that would come from thence.27 Then he said, I pray thee therefore, father, that thou wouldest send him to my father’s house:28 For I have five brethren; that he may testify unto them, lest they also come into this place of torment.29 Abraham saith unto him, They have Moses and the prophets; let them hear them.30 And he said, Nay, father Abraham: but if one went unto them from the dead, they will repent.31 And he said unto him, If they hear not Moses and the prophets, neither will they be persuaded, though one rose from the dead.”(Luke 16:19-31)
Jesus talked about heaven and hell a lot. He told many stories describing heaven. (The kingdom of heaven is like…) He referenced hell a lot too. In all of his references about hell, he presupposed that it was a real place of physical torment and it should be avoided. Having said that, Jesus told only one extended story about hell, and it’s the one printed above.
Jesus taught people using story-telling quite a bit. Perhaps because stories have a way of keeping our attention. They are also more easily remembered than, for example, a five-point sermon expounding on various doctrines. And yet, stories do communicate much information. The information contained within a story can slip into our consciousness without us even noticing it, so it’s helpful to stop and examine the “message” of a story. When we pause to analyze the story printed above, we come away with several distinct ideas. First, Jesus essentially said that hell was a place of extreme physical and psychological torment, and by contrast heaven was a place of comfort. We also learn that upon death, we either go to heaven or hell and once there, we cannot switch. And although the details are not explicitly laid out, the determination of which place we go has something to do with how we live or what we thought while we were alive on earth. We also learn that success in this life is not a precursor to success in the afterlife. As a matter of fact, in this story, success in the afterlife was the opposite of success in this life. And finally, we learn that in hell people are fully conscious and filled with regret because in this case the rich man wanted to warn his loved ones to live a life that avoided an eternity in hell.
Jesus concluded his story about hell with a curious admonition. It is that admonition that we will explore in this study because that admonition applies to us as well. In fact, we are in the same situation as the audience who heard Jesus tell this story for the first time. Jesus stated that if we don’t hear Moses and the prophets, then we will not be able to be persuaded even if someone returned from the dead and tried to warn us. That’s powerful. Whatever it means to “hear” Moses, Jesus said that it was more persuasive than if someone returned from the dead to warn us about hell. I can only imagine how impactful it would be if someone I knew came back to life to warn me about the torments of hell, and yet Jesus said that what we have with Moses is more persuasive than that.
What does it mean to “hear” Moses? It probably means several things. But for the purpose of this study, the aspect of Moses that we will focus on are his predictive qualities. Moses and the prophets documented predictions. Fulfilled predictions can be persuasive, and those predictions are what this study will focus on.
In our story, Jesus stated that his listeners “had” Moses. When Jesus said that, Moses was not around to talk to or teach the people. He had been dead for over 1,400 years. So what did Jesus mean when he said that his audience “had” Moses? I would suggest that he meant that his listeners “had” the writings of Moses. For that audience, Moses was known only through words on a page handed down to them through many generations of faithful scribes. Little snippets of biographical details and a comprehensive system of worship established by Moses were revealed to Jesus’ audience not because Moses told them, but simply by the words that were handed down to them through time. And we have the same thing. The only thing that differentiates us from that audience is time. All that we can know about Moses is given to us by the same words that were given to Jesus’ contemporaries. They are the words contained in the first five books of the Bible. And, we have that too. So when Jesus said to his listeners that they “had” Moses, he could have said the exact same thing to us today.
There are many reasons that we can trust that the words we have are the same words that Jesus’ audience had. But the recent discovery of the Dead Sea Scrolls might be the most convincing. Every book of the Bible (except Esther) was discovered in the caves in and around Qumran. And those discoveries confirm that the Bible has remained essentially unchanged for over two thousand years. And perhaps more importantly, those scrolls also confirm that the words of Moses were recorded and documented for at least two centuries before Jesus was even born proving that any prediction that Moses made about Jesus was recorded in writing before Jesus fulfilled them.
Whether or not Moses existed in history is a bit of a red herring to this study. I’ve done research on the historicity of Moses delving into details of whether or not he was a real person. I happen to think he did exist. There is much historical evidence to confirm this conclusion. But for the sake of argument and in light of this study, let’s stipulate that Moses did not exist. How would that conclusion affect these predictions? In short, they would not. Ultimately the Bible is God’s message to you. He used men to communicate those words, but the words themselves contain the thoughts of God to you. So even if Moses did not exist, these words do. And these words are God’s words. And contained within the pages of God’s Holy Bible are hundreds of predictions about Jesus. And those predictions were written, recorded and canonized before Jesus was born. Listen to God’s words to you from the book of Isaiah the Prophet. God is saying that there is no God like him who can predict the future. “ For I am God, and there is none else; I am God, and there is none like me,10 Declaring the end from the beginning, and from ancient times the things that are not yet done, saying, My counsel shall stand, and I will do all my pleasure.” (Isaiah 46:9b-10)
When Jesus warned his audience (and us) about getting stuck in the torments of an eternity in hell, he said that we had all that we needed in order to avoid that horrible fate. He was essentially saying that the predictions that Moses gave us would be enough for us to be able to “hear” him. At the very least, he should have our attention. If we ignore that, then it’s our own fault. Jesus didn’t explicitly say that it was our own fault, but I am saying it. The rich man in Jesus’ story ignored Moses, and he was in the process of paying an eternally heavy price for that apathy and lack of curiosity. If we ignore the fulfilled predictions about Moses and Jesus contained in the Bible, then it is our own fault too. Jesus simply implored us in a loving way to “hear” Moses so that we don’t end up in the torments of hell filled with eternal regret like the rich man in his story. I can’t imagine how awful it would be to wake up in hell and realize that Jesus was right and this story applies to us. We would have had Moses too, and yet we would have ignored him for whatever reason.
Side Note: Money
One side note before we begin our study. Jesus warned us about wealth. He said that it was deceptive. Wealth had the ability to deceive us. He also said that it made it difficult for those possessing it to get into heaven. 24 “And again I say unto you, It is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle, than for a rich man to enter into the kingdom of God.” (Matthew 19:24) The image of a camel and the eye of a needle makes sense within context. At night during the time of Jesus, the gates to the city would be shut for security reasons, but individuals could still get into the city by passing through a much smaller opening in the city wall on foot. That opening was called the eye of the needle. But if a wealthy man, travelling on camel, came after the gates had been closed, it was much more difficult to get the camel through. All of the man’s possessions had to be offloaded, and then the camel had to be forced to get down to its knees to more or less crawl through. Apparently getting a camel through that eye of the needle was a spectacle and was difficult if not impossible to accomplish. The bottom line is that Jesus was flatly stating that it was very difficult for a rich man to get into heaven.
Why is that? What is it about wealth that makes it difficult for us to get into heaven? Is being wealthy wrong? Well, that’s not what Jesus said exactly. He just said that it was difficult, but not impossible, to get into heaven if you have it. Again, why is that? I suggest the reason is that wealth has the capability to dull our sense of curiosity and it blinds us to our own need. We are all familiar with the popular expression, “Life is good”. We’ve seen it on T-shirts. But is that seemingly innocuous expression getting to the heart of the problem with wealth. Wealth can lull us into a mindset of not worrying about an afterlife when this life is so good. Many of our lives have just the right mix of comfort, challenge, entertainment, and satisfaction. Perhaps so much so that we’ve become blinded to the need to think about life beyond this one. Beyond the one we can see. But does thinking along those lines reveal how we have been deceived by our wealth. Is life so good for most of us that we have become dull and complacent about the afterlife and how we need to prepare for that. I shudder to think that many of us will recall this story about the rich man when we die and pass into eternity. What a horrible realization!
I suppose that the opposite of comfort and complacency might be an attitude of seeking. God places a premium on the person who seeks. “But without faith it is impossible to please him[God]: for he that cometh to God must believe that he is, and that he is a rewarder of them that diligently seek him.” (Hebrews 11:6) The seeker is the opposite of the complacent person. The seeker is not content with this life, and the seeker has come to the realization that he has no control over his afterlife and must seek guidance and help. While life may be good, the seeker has come to the conclusion that it’s not good enough. Something is missing, and so he is on a mission to find out what that missing piece is.
An Overview of the writings of Moses
In this study, we will explore the life of Moses. What we know about Moses is contained in the first five books of the Bible. We will pay particular attention to the second book, Exodus; but before we do, I will give a thumb-nail sketch of all five of the books. Genesis is the first book. It is very readable and contains many fascinating stories that shed light on who God is and what man’s nature is like. Genesis opens with the story of Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden. Some main take-aways from the Garden of Eden story are that God wants fellowship with both a man and a woman. God created a world where that was possible and that was good for a while, until the man and woman messed that up by rebelling against God. It is an over-simplification, but the remainder of the Bible addresses that very first dynamic: God created mankind for fellowship with him, mankind messed it up by disobeying, God being God was forced to banish man from his presence because of his rebellion, but finally God had a plan to fix that separation and restore fellowship between himself and mankind.
Highlights from the rest of Genesis include the story of Noah’s ark which essentially explores how bad life can get because of that separation. It got so bad that God wiped everyone out with a flood and started over with Noah. Then we read about how a man heard the call of God and heeded that call. That man was Abraham. The rest of Genesis tells the story of Abraham’s family who became known as the Israelites. Through some twists and turns, the Israelites end up in Egypt. Unfortunately, over time, they became slaves to the Egyptians. Then after 400 years, they cried out to God for deliverance. And that’s where the book of Genesis ends and the book of Exodus begins.
In Exodus we read about how God heard the desperate pleas of the Israelites, and so he called Moses to rise up and deliver them from bondage. That deliverance came through the ten plagues and the Red Sea, and after about one year, the Israelites travelled to Mt Sanai where they worshiped God. Once again, God declared his intention to have fellowship with mankind. He gave them detailed instructions regarding a tabernacle that God would actually dwell in and live among the people. God said that if the people followed the laws that he gave them, then He would dwell amongst them. The main set of laws are known as the Ten Commandments. The Israelites would be known as a covenant people. If they did thus and so, then God would enter into covenant, and He would live among them and bless them. But almost immediately, the same problem that revealed itself in the Garden of Eden, disobedience, erupted again. The Israelites disobeyed the Ten Commandments almost immediately. As we read through the Bible, we are starting to get the idea that mankind has a problem. We can’t help but disobey God. We simply want to do things our own way. And that’s where the book of Exodus ends.
The third book of the Bible is Leviticus. In that book, God said that He knows Israel is faithless and disobedient, and He is holy and all powerful. Those two sides of a covenant relationship don’t mix well. But God had a solution. God began to explain that solution in the third book. Since He is all powerful and holy, if we disobey him, then he is obligated to either kill us or banish us to some dungeon somewhere. A ruler cannot have his subjects disobeying his commands. So God’s solution was that he would accept the death of an animal in our place when we disobey. A foundation of this system of substitutionary sacrifice was that all mankind needed to acknowledge that God is all-powerful and we disobey him constantly. But God in his mercy would accept the sacrifice of an animal instead of us.
The fourth book of the Bible, Numbers, picked up the story about one year after the Israelites had left Egypt and followed the narrative for the next forty years as the Israelites wandered through the desert. As promised, God was willing to lead them into the Promised Land. However, on their way, the same recurring problem showed itself over and over again; God was all-powerful, but the Israelites were faithless, complaining, and rebellious. The breaking point for God was when the Israelites refused to enter the Promised Land because of fear. They were unwilling to trust God’s power and promises even though He had demonstrated his worth in those areas by delivering them from the bondage of Egypt which was the most powerful nation on earth. At first God wanted to kill everyone, but Moses intervened and God agreed to let them live. However, as punishment God promised that that generation would not enter the Promised Land. God declared that they must wander in the desert for forty years, and he would bring their children into the Promised Land. That’s where the book of Numbers ends.
The fifth book of the Bible, Deuteronomy, is essentially a series of speeches by Moses to that second generation. Forty years had passed, and it was time for them to trust in God’s power and enter the promised land. The summary of those speeches is essentially this: Your parents failed to trust God, and they constantly disobeyed. Don’t be like them.
Of course, this summary of the first five books is an oversimplification, but it serves our purpose. To recap, God created mankind for fellowship, but we keep messing it up because we don’t seem to be capable of obeying his simple commands. God, is all powerful, and so He is forced to destroy us when we disobey. God set up a system of substitutionary animal sacrifice that will atone for our sin. But all throughout the first five books, God hinted that he had an even better plan. A more permanent solution to our rebellion problem. And in the speech by Moses recorded in Deuteronomy, God elaborated on the details of that solution.
The Prediction by Moses
Moses was aware that he was an old man, and therefore, he was close to death. That seems minor to us as we read about it thirty-five hundred years later, but to Moses’ audience, that was a jarring thought. Moses was everything to that small nation. He had been their deliverer. Somehow, Moses had rescued them from a world superpower. It was inconceivable that he had accomplished that great task. Then he had led them through many trials and tribulations in the desert. He was much more than their leader. He was their identity…their everything. The thought of him dying and not being with them must have been a terrifying thought. Moses tried to re-assure them. He said, don’t worry, just obey God ,and He will be with you. Don’t worry, just obey God? That was their problem and they knew it.
But then Moses, speaking on behalf of God, said something else. He said, that sometime in the future, God will send a person kind of like me, only better. That alone must have been reassuring. God was not going to abandon them. At least not until this special leader showed up. And Moses, went on to describe how they were to be able to identify this special person. Looking back, we now know that Moses said that the details of his life would be the identifying markers of this future special person’s life. Let’s read the passage for ourselves. ” And the Lord said unto me [Moses], They [the Israelites] have well spoken that which they have spoken. I will raise them up a Prophet from among their brethren, like unto thee, [Moses] and will put my words in his mouth; and he shall speak unto them all that I shall command him. And it shall come to pass, that whosoever will not hearken unto my words which he shall speak in my name, I will require it of him“ (Deut. 18:17-19).
I don’t think I’m killing the suspense by saying that Jesus is that special person. If there is suspense in this study, it will begin and build as we analyze the details of Moses’ life and realize how many of them match the details of Jesus’ life. We will examine the details about Moses as recorded in the second book of the Bible, Exodus. Again, that book covers the one year of time when Moses led the people from bondage in Egypt to worshipping God at the Mountain of God in Sanai. It’s remarkable that almost every story about Moses correlates to a story recorded about Jesus in the Gospels. In many of these stories, there are many detailed points of correlation. As we analyze each successive detail it becomes increasingly improbable that this correlation could be merely coincidental. God clearly did not want there to be any mistaking of who that special person would be. The first disciples clearly understood that the details of Moses’ life were actually predictions and that Jesus was the fulfillment of those predictions.
What did the Disciples think of Moses’ Prediction
The Apostle Peter referenced that prophecy in Deuteronomy in his first sermon. ” For Moses truly said unto the fathers, A prophet shall the Lord your God raise up unto you of your brethren, like unto me; him shall ye hear in all things whatsoever he shall say unto you. And it shall come to pass, that every soul, which will not hear that prophet, shall be destroyed from among the people” (Acts 3:22-23). Peter was saying that Jesus was the fulfilment of that specific prophecy from the book of Deuteronomy. Steven also referenced this prophecy in Acts chapter 7. Steven was retelling the history of the Jewish people from the time of Moses to the present, and when he got to the time of Jesus he said this: ” This is that Moses, which said unto the children of Israel, A prophet shall the Lord your God raise up unto you of your brethren, like unto me; him shall ye hear” (Acts 7:37). Steven, also, was saying that Jesus was the fulfilment of the prophecy in Deuteronomy. In Acts 28, when the Apostle Paul was under house arrest, people came to him to discuss Jesus. ” And when they had appointed him a day, there came many to him into his lodging; to whom he expounded and testified the kingdom of God, persuading them concerning Jesus, both out of the law of Moses, and out of the prophets, from morning till evening. And some believed the things which were spoken, and some believed not” (Acts 28:23-24). In John chapter 6 some men had just witnessed one of Jesus’ miracles, and their reaction was to assert that Jesus must be the fulfillment of that prophecy in Deuteronomy. Then those men, when they had seen the miracle that Jesus did, said, This is of a truth that prophet that should come into the world. (John 6:14)
Even Jesus referred to the prophecy regarding Moses and himself. Jesus said, “Do not think that I will accuse you to the Father: there is one that accuseth you, even Moses, in whom ye trust. For had ye believed Moses, ye would have believed me; for he wrote of me. But if ye believe not his writings, how shall ye believe my words” (John 5:45-47)? And as we noted earlier, Jesus also referred to the testimony of Moses regarding himself in Luke chapter 16. “And he said unto him, If they hear not Moses and the prophets, neither will they be persuaded, though one rose from the dead” (Luke 16:31). In Luke 24, Jesus reasoned with the two men on the road to Emmaus, and he tried to convince them that he was, in fact, the Messiah. ” And beginning at Moses and all the prophets, he expounded unto them in all the scriptures the things concerning himself… And he said unto them, These are the words which I spake unto you, while I was yet with you, that all things must be fulfilled, which were written in the law of Moses, and in the prophets, and in the psalms, concerning me. Then opened he their understanding, that they might understand the scriptures.” (Luke 24:27,44-45).
Now let’s examine the book of Exodus and look for the points of connection between Moses and Jesus. Let’s notice that almost every detail about Moses has a connection with Jesus and as we do, let’s consider the probability of this being the case. The references sighted will be in the order as they appear in the book of Exodus. I encourage you to get a Bible and follow along. I am just picking out references for points of connection. If you read along, the stories will be much richer. You will also begin to notice that almost every detail about Moses corresponds to a detail about Jesus. As you read along, you will notice that almost nothing is left out.
Also, the wonderful thing about the Moses prophecies is that they don’t depend on a particular translation. Please use the Bible that you have on the shelf for this study. Exodus is simply the story of a man’s life. A word here or a phrase there does not change the fact that the details of Moses’ life pre-figure the details of Jesus’ life convincingly and comprehensively.
Let’s read it for ourselves.
Detail #1- Political Environment
The political environment during the time surrounding the births of Moses and Jesus was very similar.
Moses: 15 And the king of Egypt spake to the Hebrew midwives, of which the name of the one was Shiphrah, and the name of the other Puah:16 And he said, When ye do the office of a midwife to the Hebrew women, and see them upon the stools; if it be a son, then ye shall kill him: but if it be a daughter, then she shall live17 But the midwives feared God, and did not as the king of Egypt commanded them, but saved the men children alive.18 And the king of Egypt called for the midwives, and said unto them, Why have ye done this thing, and have saved the men children alive?19 And the midwives said unto Pharaoh, Because the Hebrew women are not as the Egyptian women; for they are lively, and are delivered ere the midwives come in unto them.20 Therefore God dealt well with the midwives: and the people multiplied, and waxed very mighty….22 And Pharaoh charged all his people, saying, Every son that is born ye shall cast into the river, and every daughter ye shall save (Exodus 1:15-20,22).
When Moses was born, the ruler at that time, Pharaoh, felt threatened by the growing Israelite population. The Israelites were slaves, but their nation was growing. Pharaoh was worried that they would become so numerous that they could overthrow their slave masters. So, Pharaoh instructed the mid-wives to kill the infant Israelite boys in order to suppress the population growth.
Jesus: Now when Jesus was born in Bethlehem of Judaea in the days of Herod the king, behold, there came wise men from the east to Jerusalem,2 Saying, Where is he that is born King of the Jews? for we have seen his star in the east, and are come to worship him.3 When Herod the king had heard these things, he was troubled, and all Jerusalem with him.4 And when he had gathered all the chief priests and scribes of the people together, he demanded of them where Christ should be born.5 And they said unto him, In Bethlehem of Judaea: for thus it is written by the prophet,6 And thou Bethlehem, in the land of Juda, art not the least among the princes of Juda: for out of thee shall come a Governor, that shall rule my people Israel.7 Then Herod, when he had privily called the wise men, enquired of them diligently what time the star appeared.8 And he sent them to Bethlehem, and said, Go and search diligently for the young child; and when ye have found him, bring me word again, that I may come and worship him also. Alive…11 And when they[the three wise men] were come into the house, they saw the young child with Mary his mother, and fell down, and worshipped him: and when they had opened their treasures, they presented unto him gifts; gold, and frankincense and myrrh.12 And being warned of God in a dream that they should not return to Herod, they departed into their own country another way…. Then Herod, when he saw that he was mocked of the wise men, was exceeding wroth, and sent forth, and slew all the children that were in Bethlehem, and in all the coasts thereof, from two years old and under, according to the time which he had diligently inquired of the wise men(Matthew 2:7-8,11-12,16).
When Jesus was born, the ruler at the time, King Herod, also felt threatened. Herod was concerned about a prophecy regarding a potential new Israelite king. He became aware that three wise men were searching for this new king of the Jews, and he instructed them to let him know when they found him. Herod’s plan was to kill this potential rival king, and he wanted the wise men to find the child for him.
An interesting corollary to this detail is that both Pharaoh and Herod were tricked by the people they had instructed to do something about their concern. Pharaoh had instructed the midwives to kill all the Hebrew boys. They did not do that, and they even lied about it. It’s an interesting side note that this deception by the midwives pleased God. Likewise, Herod instructed the wise men to let him know when they found Jesus. They had agreed but then changed when God warned them in a dream. So, in both cases the political ruler who tried to have Moses or Jesus killed was tricked.
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Detail #2- Jewish Heritage
Both Moses and Jesus were Jewish.
Moses: And there went a man of the house of Levi, and took to wife a daughter of Levi.2 And the woman conceived, and bare a son: and when she saw him that he was a goodly child” (Exodus 2:1-2).
Obviously, Moses was Jewish. Really nothing more need be said about that. The above referenced verse documents this simple fact.
Jesus: The book of the generation of Jesus Christ, the son of David, the son of Abraham.2 Abraham begat Isaac; and Isaac begat Jacob…And Jacob begat Joseph the husband of Mary, of whom was born Jesus, who is called Christ.17 So all the generations from Abraham to David are fourteen generations; and from David until the carrying away into Babylon are fourteen generations; and from the carrying away into Babylon unto Christ are fourteen generations (Matthew 1:1-2,16-17).
Many people are surprised to learn that Jesus was Jewish as well. Since the church that worships him today is comprised mostly of Gentiles, many people just assume that Jesus was something besides a Jew. But the Jesus that is presented in the Gospels is thoroughly Jewish. As a matter of fact, the very first verse of the Gospel according to Matthew begins by tracing his lineage back to Abraham. In addition, Jesus observed all of the Jewish customs. To read the Gospels is to be immersed in the Jewish customs of that era. Further, the Twelve Apostles that he chose were all Jewish as well. And as explained in another detail, Jesus’ initial focus was reaching the children of Israel with his message. So, it’s clear that the Jesus that is presented in the Gospels is thoroughly Jewish. But there is something more that connects Jesus specifically to Moses with regard to being Jewish.
Moses is known for many things, but certainly one of the main things that distinguishes Moses is the fact that he gave the Israelites the Law that established the Jewish faith (i.e. The Mosaic Law). It was Moses who came down Mt. Sinai with the Ten Commandments, and it was Moses who wrote the first five books of the Bible (Pentateuch) which contain all the laws and regulations that pertain to the Jewish faith.
Jesus’ connection to this aspect of Moses is quite profound. Jesus affirmed the Law of Moses in the most emphatic way possible. “Think not that I am come to destroy the law, or the prophets: I am not come to destroy, but to fulfil. For verily I say unto you, Till heaven and earth pass, one jot or one tittle shall in no wise pass from the law, till all be fulfilled.Whosoever therefore shall break one of these least commandments, and shall teach men so, he shall be called the least in the kingdom of heaven: but whosoever shall do and teach them, the same shall be called great in the kingdom of heaven (Matthew 5:17-19). Jesus affirmed this central aspect of Moses’ life. And Jesus also affirmed the prophetic nature of the law and proclaimed that he was come to fulfill it. “For had ye believed Moses, ye would have believed me; for he wrote of me. But if ye believe not his writings, how shall ye believe my words?” (John 5:46-47)
Detail #3- To Egypt
When they were babies, both Moses and Jesus were taken to Egypt to ensure their safety.
Moses: And the child grew, and she brought him unto Pharaoh’s daughter, and he became her son. And she called his name Moses: and she said, Because I drew him out of the water. ” (Exodus 2:10)
As stated in point #1, when Moses was born, Pharaoh was trying to kill all the baby boys. After Moses was born, Moses’ mother tried to keep him hidden. As the child grew, she could no longer keep his existence a secret, so she put him in a basket and let it float down the river into the very heart of Egypt. Moses floated by Pharaoh’s palace, and Pharaoh’s daughter saw the basket, plucked it out of the water and eventually adopted Moses as her son. Moses lived his life in Pharaoh’s courts. For safe keeping, God had provided a place for him in the very heart of Egypt.
Jesus: “And when they were departed, behold, the angel of the Lord appeareth to Joseph in a dream, saying, Arise, and take the young child and his mother, and flee into Egypt, and be thou there until I bring thee word: for Herod will seek the young child to destroy him. When he arose, he took the young child and his mother by night, and departed into Egypt” (Matthew 2:13-15)
Jesus’ parents were well aware that King Herod was trying to kill Jesus. He had killed every two-year-old boy and younger in the town of Bethlehem. Consequently, God instructed Joseph in a dream to take Jesus to Egypt for safekeeping. Joseph took Jesus to Egypt as per God’s instruction in order to keep Jesus safe much like Moses was kept safe in the very center of Egypt.
Detail #4- Royalty
Both Moses and Jesus divested themselves of royalty to both identify with the Jewish people and to redeem them. Moses forsook the courts of the king of Egypt, and Jesus left the courts of heaven.
Moses: 10 And the child grew, and she brought him unto Pharaoh’s daughter, and he became her son. And she called his name Moses: and she said, Because I drew him out of the water.11 And it came to pass in those days, when Moses was grown, that he went out unto his brethren,(Exodus 2:10-11)
From this verse, it’s clear that Moses grew up in the royal courts of pharaoh. He was, by implication, trained in the royal ways of Pharaoh. In short, Pharaoh was the king of Egypt, and that potentially made Moses a future prince of Egypt. But when Moses became a man, he left the courts of Pharaoh to “look on the plight” of the Israelites. Through a series of events, Moses rejected his royal identity and training and chose to identify with the Israelites in a way that was unmistakable and did not allow him to go back on this identification with the Israelites. The author of the letter to the Hebrews describes it this way. “By faith Moses, when he was come to years, refused to be called the son of Pharaoh’s daughter; Choosing rather to suffer affliction with the people of God.” (Hebrews 11:24-25) So Moses had at one point lived in the courts of Pharaoh and was Pharaohs daughter’s son, and yet he chose to identify with the slaves. Moses divested himself of royalty to identify with the Israelites.
Jesus: “Who, being in the form of God, thought it not robbery to be equal with God: But made himself of no reputation, and took upon him the form of a servant, and was made in the likeness of men.” (Philippians 2:6-7)
The Apostle Paul described Jesus in a way similar to Moses. Jesus was God. He was equal with God. By implication he lived in heaven with God. And yet he chose to leave heaven and come to earth and become a man in order to identify with the Israelites. Jesus divested himself of royalty to identify with the Israelites.
Detail #5- Shepherd
Both Moses and Jesus were identified as being shepherds.
Moses: “Now Moses kept the flock of … his father in law, the priest of Midian: and he led the flock to the backside of the desert, and came to the mountain of God, even to Horeb.” (Exodus 3:1)
Moses was trained in the courts of Pharaoh for the first part of his life, and he spent the end of his life leading the Israelites through the desert, much like a shepherd. However, his main actual profession was that of a shepherd. He spent the years spanning young adulthood up until he was eighty being a shepherd.
Jesus: “I am the good shepherd, and know my sheep, and am known of mine. As the Father knoweth me, even so know I the Father: and I lay down my life for the sheep. And other sheep I have, which are not of this fold: them also I must bring, and they shall hear my voice; and there shall be one fold, and one shepherd.” (John 10:14-16)
Jesus used metaphors extensively and effectively throughout his life as a teaching tool. The quote above are the words of Jesus describing himself as a good shepherd. It is interesting that Moses’ main profession prefigured a prominent metaphor that Jesus used to describe himself and his ministry.
Detail #6- God has a Name
Both Moses and Jesus made God’s name known.
Moses: “And Moses said unto God, Behold, when I come unto the children of Israel, and shall say unto them, The God of your fathers hath sent me unto you; and they shall say to me, What is his name? what shall I say unto them? (Exodus 3:13) “And God said moreover unto Moses, Thus shalt thou say unto the children of Israel, the Lord God of your fathers, the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob, hath sent me unto you: this is my name for ever, and this is my memorial unto all generations.” (Exodus 3:15)
Most people are surprised to learn that God has a personal name. Most people are content to refer to God by his title which is “the LORD.” And that is perfectly fine. If the president of the United States came to your home and you forgot his name or did not feel comfortable using his name, then calling him Mr. President would be perfectly appropriate. But having said that, God does have a name, and he encouraged us to use it. God’s personal name is written in the Bible over 6,000 times. It was first revealed by Moses. If you want to know where God’s personal name is recorded in the Scripture, then simply pick up a Bible and start reading anywhere in the book of Exodus. Every time that you see the word, LORD (all capital letters), it represents his personal name. The Bible translators translated God’s personal name that way out of respect and reverence. There is after all a commandment regarding the prohibition of taking God’s name in vain. I suppose the logic follows that if you don’t pronounce the name, then you’re probably not in danger of taking it in vain. So, representing God’s personal name as LORD was the safe way to translate it.
Moses was the first to know God by his name, and he made that name known to all of humanity. God revealed his name to Moses who in turn revealed that name to us when he wrote the Bible. Again, when you see LORD in all capital letters, it is the reverent translation of God’s sacred personal name, and we know God’s personal name because Moses made it known to us in the pages of the Bible.
But all this cannot hide the fact that the God of the Bible does indeed have a personal name, and He has encouraged us to use it. He directs us to call on his name in times of trouble. And he encouraged us to speak it when we worship him. “O give thanks unto the Lord; call upon his name: make known his deeds among the people. Sing unto him, sing psalms unto him: talk ye of all his wondrous works Glory ye in his holy name: let the heart of them rejoice that seek the Lord. Seek the Lord, and his strength: seek his face evermore.”(Psalm 105:1-4) Every time that you read “the LORD” (all capital letters) in those verses, keep in mind that that title is a respectful substitution for God’s actual name. And he spelled it out for us to make it simple. It is represented by four Hebrew letters,(yod-hey-vav-hey) and it is probably pronounced Yahweh or something close to that. Scholars call those four sacred letters the tetragrammaton. Please research this subject for yourself, and if you feel comfortable, then begin to address God with his personal name. But before you do, you should also probably research what God meant when he commanded us to not take his name in vain. It is a serious sin to break one of God’s Ten Commandments. The study of God’s name is a rich and fascinating subject that goes beyond the scope of this book. Here we are focused on the connections between Moses and Jesus.
Jesus: “These words spake Jesus, and lifted up his eyes to heaven, and said, Father, the hour is come; glorify thy Son, that thy Son also may glorify thee: As thou hast given him power over all flesh, that he should give eternal life to as many as thou hast given him. And this is life eternal, that they might know thee the only true God, and Jesus Christ, whom thou hast sent. I have glorified thee on the earth: I have finished the work which thou gavest me to do. And now, O Father, glorify thou me with thine own self with the glory which I had with thee before the world was. I have manifested thy name unto the men which thou gavest me out of the world.” (John 17:1-6)
Some scholars have argued that by the time that Jesus lived which was one thousand four hundred years after the command to not take God’s name in vain, the sacred name (the tetragrammaton and/or Yahweh) had fallen from every day use perhaps out of respect and also fear of saying that name in vain which was an extremely serious sin. Some people have argued that Jesus may have spoken the sacred name in his first public appearance as he read from the book of Isaiah. Jesus said that the Spirit of the Lord was on him (Luke 4:18 & Isaiah 61:1) and some have argued that he actually uttered the sacred name rather than substituting it with the accepted title. At the end of that first sermon recorded in Luke 4, the Bible says that the leaders of the synagogue were filled with wrath, and so much so that they wanted to kill him. There were many things that Jesus said in that sermon that had the potential to offend those leaders to that degree, but the Bible says that after Jesus read the name, all eyes were “fastened on him.” In other words, he had their undivided attention. So perhaps Jesus departed from accepted convention and had uttered the sacred personal name of God and that made the people extremely angry. Regardless, Jesus concluded the above referenced prayer by declaring that he had manifested God’s name unto his disciples much like Moses had manifested God’s name to eveeryone in the pages of Exodus.
Detail #7- Miracles
Both Moses and Jesus not only performed miracles, but they accomplished them for the expressed purpose of proving that they were sent by God.
Moses: “And it shall come to pass, if they will not believe thee, neither hearken to the voice of the first sign, that they will believe the voice of the latter sign. And it shall come to pass, if they will not believe also these two signs, neither hearken unto thy voice, that thou shalt take of the water of the river, and pour it upon the dry land: and the water which thou takest out of the river shall become blood upon the dry land.” (Exodus 4:8-9)
Moses performed miraculous signs to prove that he was sent from God. God had given Moses two signs for the expressed purpose of giving him credibility to the people he was sent to redeem. The two signs were when his rod became a snake and when his hand became leprous and then was made whole again.
Jesus. “Believe me that I am in the Father, and the Father in me: or else believe me for the very works’ sake.” (John 14:11)
One of the main ways that Jesus proved to the people that he was sent from God was by performing miracles. The Bible is replete with story after story of Jesus healing people. That was one of the main identifying markers that proved that Jesus was in fact God’ son. In the verse that is printed above, Jesus is essentially saying that the miracles that he performed were proof that he had been sent by God. That’s a rather unique attribute. Not many people would have been able to claim that they performed miracles in order to prove that they were sent by God. So similar to the reasons Moses performed miracles, Jesus not only performed miracles like Moses did, but he did them in order to convince people to believe in him.
Finally, God said to Moses that if the people don’t believe you after you perform the two signs, then pour water onto the land, and it will become blood. At the end of Jesus’ ministry, after he had performed many miracles, he shed his blood. When the soldier thrust the spear in Jesus’ side as recorded in the Gospels, the blood must have run down the cross and onto the land. This progression of miracles matches what God instructed Moses to do fourteen hundred years before.
Detail #8- God and Prophet
Both Moses and Jesus were identified as being a god and both had a prophet.
Moses: “And the Lord said unto Moses, See, I have made thee a god to Pharaoh: and Aaron thy brother shall be thy prophet.” (Exodus 7:1)
Pharaoh, through God’s providence, viewed Moses as a god.
Jesus: “But Jesus held his peace, And the high priest answered and said unto him, I adjure thee by the living God, that thou tell us whether thou be the Christ, the Son of God. Jesus saith unto him, Thou hast said: nevertheless I say unto you, Hereafter shall ye see the Son of man sitting on the right hand of power, and coming in the clouds of heaven. Then the high priest rent his clothes, saying, He hath spoken blasphemy; what further need have we of witnesses? behold, now ye have heard his blasphemy.” (Matthew 26:63-65)
God had providentially allowed Pharaoh to view Moses as a god, and that is something that is true about Jesus. The Bible declares that Jesus is the Son of God. The High Priest refused to accept this about Jesus. Moses had foreshadowed this aspect of Jesus that God had promised to raise up from the Jewish people.
Another detail embedded in this verse had to do with Moses’ brother, Aaron. God said that Aaron will be your prophet. That is a fairly unique way to refer to two people. One was like a god, and the other was his prophet. However, in the Gospels, there is an identical dynamic regarding Jesus and John the Baptist. Jesus was the Son of God, and he had a prophet to prepare the way for him. “But what went ye out for to see? A prophet? yea, I say unto you, and more than a prophet. For this is he, of whom it is written, Behold, I send my messenger before thy face, which shall prepare thy way before thee.” (Matthew 11:9-10) In this verse, Jesus is quoting a prophecy from the book of Malachi (Malachi 3:1), and he was referencing John the Baptist. Aaron was like a prophet to Moses and John the Baptist was the prophet that prepared the way for Jesus.
Finally, there is also an interesting parallel between Pharaoh and the high priest. Clearly, Pharaoh was keeping the Israelites in bondage. That is the primary theme of Exodus. Similarly, the high priest was also keeping people in bondage. Jesus was offering the Israelites entrance into the kingdom of heaven, but the high priest was preventing people from entering in. Instead, the high priest kept the people in bondage to a complex system of rules and regulations. Listen to the words of Jesus as he rebuked them. “But woe unto you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! for ye shut up the kingdom of heaven against men: for ye neither go in yourselves, neither suffer ye them that are entering to go in.” (Matthew 23:13) “And ye shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free.” (John 8:32) Jesus recognized that the high priest was preventing people from leaving the bondage of a religion that held people captive to rules and regulations
To summarize, this detail has three parts to it. Moses was viewed as a god by pharaoh. Moses’ brother, Aaron, was his prophet. And Moses goal was to free people from the bondage of Pharaoh’s kingdom. Jesus had a correlation to all three predictive details.
Detail #9- Redemption
Both Moses and Jesus acted alone and their goal of their efforts was redemption of other people.
Before we highlight these next two details, we need to delve into some heavy-duty theology. But we will explore these profound theological concepts in the beautiful and simple way that the Bible does it- by reading stories. These stories in the Bible will explain to us unique and profound spiritual truths in a profoundly simple and memorable way. As mentioned before, the Bible begins with a story- the Garden of Eden in Genesis 3. It’s the human story. It’s our story. Adam and Eve had fellowship with God and life was perfect. But Adam and Eve disobeyed, and as a consequence, they were banished from that beautiful place and from fellowship with God. Then they had children who had children and so on and so forth. And that’s where you and I enter the story. We are the offspring of Adam and Eve and we are still outside of that perfect place (the Garden of Eden) and outside of that fellowship with God.
It’s at this point of the story (our story) that Jesus showed up. His message was simple. He told the Israelites of his day (and by extension us) that we are still outside of the garden and outside of fellowship with God. But the good news is that he came to take us back to that place and back to the fellowship with God that Adam and Eve had experienced. And he explained how we are to get back there; we need to understand that we are in fact still outside of the garden of Eden’ and we need to trust in him and his method to take us back. That’s it. That’s the story of Adam and Eve. And that is our story. And it’s the story of the Bible writ large. We were created for fellowship with God, but because of our rebellion we severed that fellowship. However, Jesus wants to take us back to that place.
That is also the story of the Israelite people beginning in Genesis 12. God called Abraham, the father of the Israelites. He led him to the promised land, and He personally met with him there and talked with him. They started a relationship. God promised him children and blessing in every way possible. It was reminiscent of the Garden of Eden. But then God predicted something ominous. He said that Abraham’s family would go outside of the Promised Land to another nation and be slaves for 400 years. But they were not to worry because God promised Abraham that He would bring them back to the Promised Land. When the Israelites were in Egypt, they were outside of the promised land. In fact, they were in bondage and needed redemption, so after four hundred years God sent Moses to redeem them. God had explained the mission of Jesus by predicting it with the mission of Moses fourteen hundred years previously.
The Bible introduces us to several concepts that we may not have thought about before. One of these concepts is the idea surrounding redemption. I look at it like this: You and I were not born in the Garden of Eden. We were born outside of that perfect place and outside of fellowship with God. Our original parents, Adam and Eve, disobeyed and were kicked out of that place. They messed up, but if we are honest with ourselves, we can acknowledge that the same rebellious attitude that was in them and got them banished is in us. We know it because we can’t seem to obey God’s simple commands either (i.e., the Ten Commandments). Consequently, we are outside the Garden too, and we are in fact in bondage. Jesus is still inside the garden along with God. In a sense, God gave Jesus in a kind of prisoner exchange. Jesus offered to be a prisoner in your place so that you could go back to the Garden. I cannot do that for you because I am fellow prisoner in the same detention camp. But Jesus could offer that because he was still in the Garden. He had not sinned like we had. And that is redemption. Jesus came from outside our bondage, and he offered to take our place. To serve our sentence. Listen to the words of Jesus to you. 45 For even the Son of man came not to be ministered unto, but to minister, and to give his life a ransom for many. (Mark 10:45) And now let’s see how Moses prefigured Jesus.
Moses: And the Lord spake unto Moses, Go unto Pharaoh, and say unto him, Thus saith the Lord, Let my people go, that they may serve me. And if thou refuse to let them go, behold, I will smite all thy borders with frogs. (Exodus 8:1-2)
As we read through the next chapters of Exodus (7-11) we read about how Moses went about rescuing the Hebrews from bondage and slavery to Pharaoh. God directed Moses to confront Pharaoh ten times. Each time Moses pronounced a specific plague upon the Egyptians if Pharaoh did not comply with God’s demand to let His people go and worship Him. And the point is that Moses confronted Pharaoh by himself. It was not a mass uprising that Moses organized. The Israelites did not as a group over throw their slave masters. It was Moses alone who confronted Pharaoh until Pharaoh relented and let the people go.
Jesus: And began to salute him, Hail, King of the Jews!19 And they smote him on the head with a reed, and did spit upon him, and bowing their knees worshipped him.20 And when they had mocked him, they took off the purple from him, and put his own clothes on him, and led him out to crucify him.(Mark 15:18-20)
All four Gospels highlight the fact that Jesus knew that his mission was to redeem mankind by dying on a cross, and he knew that this was a solitary mission. The Gospels clearly depict a man who was not trying to start an insurrection. Jesus clearly understood that his mission was to die by himself. He defeated Satan by himself. “Who being the brightness of his glory, and the express image of his person, and upholding all things by the word of his power, when he had by himself purged our sins, sat down on the right hand of the Majesty on high.” (Hebrews 1:3)
It is also interesting to note that Moses confronted a political ruler, Pharaoh, as well as spiritual entities that were worshipped by that nation. For example, Heqet was the Egyptian god of fertility and was represented by a frog. So, when Moses announced the plague of the frogs, he was pitting God’s authority over that specific Egyptian deity. And so, it was with all ten plagues. God was demonstrating his supremacy over the Egyptian god of the Nile, the sun (i.e., darkness) and so on and so forth. Likewise, Jesus was confronting a political ruler (the High Priest, Pontus Pilate, and Rome) as well as a spiritual entity, Satan. Satan’s kingdom is marked by death, and so God was demonstrating his supremacy over that deity by overcoming death. So, both Moses and Jesus knew that they had a solitary mission, and they knew that this mission involved the redemption of the Jewish people. And finally, they both knew that they were confronting and defeating both an earthly power and a spiritual power.
As stated, God called Abraham and promised him blessing, but then allowed his family to go into slavery to serve another nation. I suggest that God allowed this detour into bondage for three reasons. First, the story of God’s redemption of mankind is profound and unique and requires telling and re-telling before we can understand it. It’s difficult to imagine why an all-powerful God would provide a way back to the garden of Eden after we had rebelled and been banished from there. This desire to lead us back into the Promised Land and into fellowship with Him speaks to his attributes of love and forgiveness and runs counter to how we might expect God to react when we rebel. God chose the Israelites to demonstrate this message, and it took four hundred years of actual captivity to ingrain in their collectively psyche the concept of bondage and redemption. Do you think Jesus’ central message of bondage and redemption had any resonance with the general Roman population given their history of conquest? The Roman psyche was defined by Pax Romana and dominance. God had allowed Israel to experience 430 years of bondage so that they would understand and yearn for redemption which was Jesus’ central mission.
Secondly, I would suggest that God allowed the Israelites to go into slavery to demonstrate his power. God demonstrated his power over the nation of Egypt, and he demonstrated his power over the various Egyptian deities as well. It was Israel’s hopeless captivity under such a powerful nation that allowed God to show-case his authority over that nation. And finally, God allowed the Israelites to go into bondage and then had Moses redeem them as a prediction for the mission that Jesus would one day fulfill. So, I would suggest that the captivity had a three-fold purpose: to teach redemption, to demonstrate power, and to predict the future.
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Detail #10- Faith
Both Moses and Jesus did all the work by themselves to redeem the Jewish people, and the only thing that each required from their followers was a faith response.
Moses: 13 And the blood shall be to you for a token upon the houses where ye are: and when I see the blood, I will pass over you, and the plague shall not be upon you to destroy you, when I smite the land of Egypt. (Exodus 12:13)
It’s interesting to note that Moses and Jesus required only one thing from the people they redeemed; they needed the people to do one thing to show that they believed in God’s plan. As we read through the story of the exodus in Exodus 7-12, it is clear that the people were merely observers. Moses met with Pharaoh by himself and pronounced plagues, and the people were not involved in any part of this story except and until the very end. Then in Exodus 12 Moses instituted the Passover feast and gave specific instructions for the people to follow. The instructions involved a sacrificial lamb and its blood being painted over the doorposts of their home. Again, up until that point, the people were merely observers, but then God required a response to the work that Moses had done. They had to believe Moses and act on what he had directed. They had to kill a lamb and put its blood over the doorposts of their homes in order to avoid the death of their first born, but that is all that they had to do. After the people had completed a single substitutionary atoning sacrifice, they walked out of the defeated nation of Egypt.
Jesus:“Jesus answered and said unto them, This is the work of God, that ye believe on him whom he hath sent … Verily, verily, I say unto you, He that believeth on me hath everlasting life.” (John 6:29,47)
Jesus made it clear to his disciples that they had only to believe. Jesus knew what his mission was. He alone would battle Satan. Jesus knew that he would be the sacrificial lamb. The only thing required from his disciples in order to save them was belief in Jesus dying on the cross. This was similar to the Israelites. Moses did the work. They merely had only to respond in faith.
The story of the Passover lamb is an allusion to Jesus. When John the Baptist saw Jesus, he exclaimed, “Behold the lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world.” The four Gospels clearly connect Jesus to the Passover celebration as all four explicitly state that Jesus was sacrificed on Passover. As Jesus was nailed to the cross, his blood must have run down the upright beam of the wooden cross.
Side Note: Is the eternal life described in the Gospels too easy to attain?
Do you think that the Bible makes the attainment of eternal life is too easy? Would you rather have to earn it somehow? Would you feel better if you had to accomplish a great task and then be granted eternal life as a reward? But consider the Ancient Israelites. They didn’t have to earn anything. They were told to sacrifice a lamb and put its blood on the doorpost of their homes, and the next day they walked out of bondage. They overcame a world superpower who had held them in bondage for over four hundred years, and all they did was sacrifice a lamb and walk into freedom. Moses had done the hard work when he had confronted Pharaoh with the plagues. All the Israelites had to do was believe that the lamb’s blood would save them from death.
If you are still worried that believing in Jesus is not enough to attain eternal life, then I would also encourage you to read a story in Luke 23. In that story two criminals were crucified along with Jesus. One criminal ‘railed” on Jesus demanding that he deliver them. The other criminal acknowledged his sin and humbly asked Jesus to remember him. Jesus told the humble man that Today shalt thou be with me in paradise. (Luke 23:43) That’s it! That’s all that man did. He may have spent his entire life sinning up to that point, but when he was confronted with Jesus, the Son of God, he had the presence of mind to have the right heart attitude. And for that heart attitude and for his faith in Jesus that criminal was granted eternal life. The key is our attitude. God is looking for humble hearts. “ For God resisteth the proud, and giveth grace to the humble.6 Humble yourselves therefore under the mighty hand of God, that he may exalt you in due time:7 Casting all your care upon him; for he careth for you. (1 Peter 5:5b-7)
There is a well-known verse written by Paul to the church in Ephesus that states that we don’t have to accomplish anything to attain eternal life. We only have to believe in Jesus and his plan of salvation. Paul wrote, “8 For by grace are ye saved through faith; and that not of yourselves: it is the gift of God:9 Not of works, lest any man should boast. (Ephesians 2:8-9) Paul made salvation and the attainment of eternal life very clear. He called it a gift. He spelled it out. He said that we have nothing to do with it. It is a free gift. As a matter of fact, Paul said that if you try to earn it, then you aren’t accepting the free gift. (Romans 11:6) Our only responsibility is to accept the gift by faith. He also said that no one in God’s family (either here on earth or in heaven) will be able to brag about how they deserved heaven. As a result, heaven will be a place full of a lot of humble and grateful people.
To help further explain the free gift of salvation, imagine if you and I were friends. My wife threw a birthday party for me, and she invited you. She told you that you didn’t have to bring a gift. But you like me a lot, and so you wanted to bring a present anyway. Further imagine that you and I share a common hobby. You saw something that you knew would be perfect for that hobby, and you also knew that I did not have that item. You were confident that having it would make me happy, and you looked forward to my reaction when I opened it and realized what you had given me. But then let’s imagine that I opened it and tried to pay you for it. When you said that it was a gift, I started to insist to the point of refusing the gift unless you accepted money for it. At a certain point, you might just tell me to forget it. You might just decide to keep the gift because it isn’t worth the turmoil and awkwardness. You might take the gift home because I just didn’t understand the gift concept. That’s what salvation is like. It’s a free gift that Jesus is offering us, and yet when we try to earn it or pay for it in some way, it only demonstrates that we simply don’t understand. Nothing that we could do can compare to the work that Jesus did on our behalf. When we try to do something to earn his gift, it shows that we don’t really understand the magnitude of what Jesus did when he died on the cross. Our puny efforts to earn eternal life only diminish the immensity of his sacrifice. We could not have done that. We would not have done it. We need to humbly accept what he did as a gift.
Finally, Jesus himself addressed the issue of what you need to do in order to have eternal life. He had just fed a multitude of people in a miraculous way, and some of those people searched for him to get more food. And Jesus encouraged them to not work for regular food, but rather, work for spiritual food that leads to eternal life. And that response got the people’s attention, so they asked, “How do we work for that kind of food?” Listen to Jesus’ reply. Jesus answered and said unto them, This is the work of God, that ye believe on him whom he hath sent. (John 6:29)
This is what it means to put our trust in Jesus. We need to stop trying to be good. We need to stop trying to earn our way into heaven. In trying to earn it, we show that we don’t really understand what God is offering. In trying to be good enough to get into heaven, we are showing that we want to trust in our own moral efforts, whereas the gospel of Jesus implores us to stop trying to be good enough and just accept the gift. We could not and would not have done what Jesus did. He died for something he did not do. He was sacrificed for people who did not deserve it. And he died so that we could have fellowship with his Father. Jesus did not come to call the righteous, but sinners to repentance. (Luke 5:32) Moses and Jesus did all the work and we simply need to gratefully accept the gift and demonstrate that heart attitude by putting the blood over our souls.
Detail #11- The Red Sea and Baptism
Both Moses and Jesus directed their followers to pass through water to be saved. Moses instructed his people to walk through the divided waters of the Red Sea and Jesus directed his followers to be baptized.
Moses: 21 And Moses stretched out his hand over the sea; and the Lord caused the sea to go back by a strong east wind all that night, and made the sea dry land, and the waters were divided.22 And the children of Israel went into the midst of the sea upon the dry ground: and the waters were a wall unto them on their right hand, and on their left. (Exodus 14:21-22)
In Chapter 12, the Israelites had just been saved from death. They trusted Moses and put the blood of the Passover lamb on the doorposts of their homes. This act of faith had spared them from the angel of death. And the Israelites then walked out of Egypt. But at that point Pharaoh changed his mind, and his army pursued the Israelites to bring them back to bondage. Pharaoh pursued them up to the point of the Israelites being trapped between the Red Sea and Pharaoh’s army. And that is when God provided a way through the water for them. Water meant death for the Egyptians, and it could have meant death for the Israelites too, but they trusted God and walked through the water to a secure life on the other shore.
Jesus: “He that believeth and is baptized shall be saved; but he that believeth not shall be damned.” (Mark 16:16)
The words of Jesus echo the exact pattern that the Israelites had just experienced. The Israelites had by faith been delivered from the Egyptians and death by putting the blood of the lamb on the doorposts of their homes, and then by faith they walked through the waters of the Red Sea, and their deliverance was complete. Jesus instructed his disciples to follow that same pattern: believe on the redemptive power of his blood and then walk through the waters of baptism. Baptism is simply a public declaration of an inner belief of the heart.
Detail #12- The song of Moses
Moses Then sang Moses and the children of Israel this song unto the Lord, and spake, saying, I will sing unto the Lord, for he hath triumphed gloriously (Exodus 15:1)
The salvation of the ancient Israelites had been a two-step process. Step one occurred when Moses repeatedly confronted Pharaoh and pronounced plagues on the nation of Egypt. As stated already, it was the tenth plague that finally achieved the goal of their release. After that plague, Pharaoh told the Israelites that they could go. So, all of Israel sacrificed a lamb, and then simply walked out of Egypt and away from captivity. But then Pharaoh had a change of heart, and he gathered his army and chased after the Israelites with the intention of bringing them back into slavery. And, at that point (as discussed in the previous detail) God delivered them again. God parted the Red Sea, and the Israelites walked through unharmed. However, when the Egyptian army followed, they were completely obliterated. It was at that point that the Israelites knew they were totally free. Not only had they walked out, but their Egyptian captors had been destroyed forever. And so, they celebrated with a song- the Song of Moses. The lyrics are about twenty verses long.
Jesus: And I saw another sign in heaven, great and marvellous, seven angels having the seven last plagues; for in them is filled up the wrath of God.2 And I saw as it were a sea of glass mingled with fire: and them that had gotten the victory over the beast, and over his image, and over his mark, and over the number of his name, stand on the sea of glass, having the harps of God.3 And they sing the song of Moses the servant of God, and the song of the Lamb, saying, Great and marvellous are thy works, Lord God Almighty; just and true are thy ways, thou King of saints.4 Who shall not fear thee, O Lord, and glorify thy name? for thou only art holy: for all nations shall come and worship before thee; for thy judgments are made manifest. (Revelation 15:1-4)
It’s interesting to note the reference to the Song of Moses in verse 3. It’s called the Song of Moses and the Song of the Lamb. The allusion to the Lamb is clearly a reference to Jesus who is our Passover lamb. He is God’s ultimate solution to our sin problem. Animal sacrifice had only been a temporary solution, but Jesus became the Lamb of God and was the ultimate solution. But, it’s interesting to note that the Song of Moses is the song of Jesus (the Lamb). Clearly, the writer of Revelation was making the connection between Moses and Jesus.
Detail #13- Food
Both Moses and Jesus provided both bread and meat to their followers in a supernatural way.
Moses “And it came to pass, that at even the quails came up, and covered the camp: and in the morning the dew lay round about the host. And when the dew that lay was gone up, behold, upon the face of the wilderness there lay a small round thing, as small as the hoar frost on the ground And when the children of Israel saw it, they said one to another, It is manna: for they wist not what it was. And Moses said unto them, This is the bread which the Lord hath given you to eat.” (Exodus 16:13-15)
We read in Exodus 16 that the Israelites were complaining about food. Obviously, they had a need. They were wandering in a desert. Again, they were wandering in a desert because of unbelief. If they had trusted God, they would have walked straight into the Promised Land. Consequently, they needed food, and they came to Moses for a solution. As a result, God gave them manna (or bread) in the morning and quail (meat) in the evening. And the provision was clearly miraculous. In this story, there is a direct connection between Moses and Jesus.
Jesus: Two times Jesus was in the wilderness, and people came to him to be healed and to hear him teach. And they became hungry because they stayed so long in the wilderness. Both times, Jesus gave them food in a supernatural way reminiscent of the supernatural way that Moses and God provided food for the Israelites wandering in the desert. Jesus started with a small amount of food. But as his disciples distributed it, the food never ran out. As a matter of fact, they had leftovers. In Mark 6 it is reported that they started with five loaves and two fish, and they fed five thousand men. In Mark 8 they started with seven loaves and a few small fish, and they fed four thousand people. Again, the story of Moses feeding the people in the wilderness with both bread and meat is fairly unique, and yet Jesus feeding people in his day mirrored that unique story very closely.
Jesus then took the connection to a higher level. The miracles in Jesus’ time were meant to get the crowd’s attention and perhaps suggest to them that Jesus is like Moses because he was doing the very same thing as Moses had done. Both Moses and Jesus were feeding them bread and meat in a supernatural way. But then Jesus said that this miracle was actually a metaphor for something even more profound. Some seekers asked Jesus a question, and this is his response. “Then said they unto him, What shall we do, that we might work the works of God? Jesus answered and said unto them, This is the work of God, that ye believe on him whom he hath sent. They said therefore unto him, What sign shewest thou then, that we may see, and believe thee? what dost thou work? Our fathers did eat manna in the desert; as it is written, He gave them bread from heaven to eat. Then Jesus said unto them, Verily, verily, I say unto you, Moses gave you not that bread from heaven; but my Father giveth you the true bread from heaven. For the bread of God is he which cometh down from heaven, and giveth life unto the world. Then said they unto him, Lord, evermore give us this bread. And Jesus said unto them, I am the bread of life: he that cometh to me shall never hunger; and he that believeth on me shall never thirst.” (John 6:28-35) “Verily, verily, I say unto you, He that believeth on me hath everlasting life. I am that bread of life. Your fathers did eat manna in the wilderness, and are dead. This is the bread which cometh down from heaven, that a man may eat thereof, and not die. I am the living bread which came down from heaven: if any man eat of this bread, he shall live for ever.” (John 6:47-51) So yes, Jesus provided food in a supernatural way, much like Moses had done. But Jesus then compared himself to the manna itself. He was claiming that God had sent him and that the people needed him to stay alive.
Detail #14- Rejection
Both Moses and Jesus were rejected by the people they came to redeem.
Moses: “And the people thirsted there for water; and the people murmured against Moses, and said, Wherefore is this that thou hast brought us up out of Egypt, to kill us and our children and our cattle with thirst? And Moses cried unto the Lord, saying, What shall I do unto this people? they be almost ready to stone me. ” (Exodus 17:3-4)
Moses redeemed the people and led them from bondage. Yet it seemed as though the people were always on the verge of stoning him. As a matter of fact, very early in Moses’ ministry, the people were ready to stone him shortly after being delivered through the Red Sea because the people were thirsty, and they held him responsible. At one point, the Israelites even wanted to return to Egypt rather than follow Moses.
Jesus: “And all they in the synagogue, when they heard these things, were filled with wrath, And rose up, and thrust him out of the city, and led him unto the brow of the hill whereon their city was built, that they might cast him down headlong.” (Luke 4:28-29)
Similarly, Jesus was rejected by most of the Jewish religious leaders and by many of his fellow Israelites. In Luke 4, just like it was at the beginning of Moses’ ministry, early on as Jesus was basically announcing his ministry, the people in the local synagogue were enraged to the point of wanting to kill him. They wanted to throw Jesus off a cliff. Again, this is an extremely rare detail. Very early in their ministries, the people were ready to kill both Moses and Jesus.
This rejection of leadership was then also a constant theme throughout their lives. The Pharisees sounded much like the Israelites after the Israelites had left Egypt. “When the chief priests therefore and officers saw him, they cried out, saying, Crucify him, crucify him. Pilate saith unto them, Take ye him, and crucify him: for I find no fault in him. The Jews answered him, We have a law, and by our law he ought to die, because he made himself the Son of God.” (John 19:6-7) So the very people who Jesus came to redeem wanted him killed. Both Jesus and Moses were rejected by the people they came to redeem.
Detail #15- Thirst
Both Moses and Jesus provided water for their followers. In Moses’ case, it was actual water, and in Jesus’ case, it was spiritual water.
Moses: “And all the congregation of the children of Israel journeyed from the wilderness of Sin, after their journeys, according to the commandment of the Lord, and pitched in Rephidim: and there was no water for the people to drink. Wherefore the people did chide with Moses, and said, Give us water that we may drink. And Moses said unto them, Why chide ye with me? wherefore do ye tempt the Lord? And the people thirsted there for water; and the people murmured against Moses, and said, Wherefore is this that thou hast brought us up out of Egypt, to kill us and our children and our cattle with thirst? And Moses cried unto the Lord, saying, What shall I do unto this people? they be almost ready to stone me. And the Lord said unto Moses, Go on before the people, and take with thee of the elders of Israel; and thy rod, wherewith thou smotest the river, take in thine hand, and go. Behold, I will stand before thee there upon the rock in Horeb; and thou shalt smite the rock, and there shall come water out of it, that the people may drink. And Moses did so in the sight of the elders of Israel. And he called the name of the place Massah, and Meribah, because of the chiding of the children of Israel, and because they tempted the Lord, saying, Is the Lord among us, or not?” (Exodus 17:1-7)
It’s shocking how quickly the Israelites lost faith in Moses and God. They were just a few days removed from being miraculously delivered through the Red Sea, and yet they were complaining about Moses leadership and seriously questioning his competency. An interesting detail to highlight is that the people came to Moses and asked him for water. The other interesting point is the comment at the end of this passage regarding not having water. Not having water would be a sign to them that God was not with them. Conversely, having water meant that God was with them.
Jesus: “In the last day, that great day of the feast, Jesus stood and cried, saying, If any man thirst, let him come unto me, and drink.” (John 7:37)
Within the Hebrew context Jesus shouted a simple phrase, and yet it communicated a lot of information to his Israelite audience. Essentially, when Jesus shouted that phrase, he communicated that the people were, right then, in a spiritual desert. They needed water to survive, and Jesus, like Moses, would provide that water. And finally, Jesus’ provision of water would be a sign that God was with them because Jesus was with them. That is a lot of information that got communicated with just one comment, but that was because God had set the stage over fourteen hundred years ago. All of these stories were recorded, reverenced, repeated, and memorized by the scribes and the people for over fourteen hundred years. The Israelites of Jesus’ day were prepared for the life that Jesus lived and the things that he said because those details were predicted in the stories of Moses’ life fourteen hundred years before.
Detail #16- Water from a Rock
Both Moses and Jesus caused water to come from a rock. In Moses’ case it was actual water, and in Jesus’ case it was spiritual water.
Moses: ; And the Lord said unto Moses, Go on before the people, and take with thee of the elders of Israel; and thy rod, wherewith thou smotest the river, take in thine hand, and go. Behold, I will stand before thee there upon the rock in Horeband thou shalt smite the rock, and there shall come water out of it, that the people may drink. And Moses did so in the sight of the elders of Israel. And he called the name of the place Massah, and Meribah, because of the chiding of the children of Israel, and because they tempted the Lord, saying, Is the Lord among us, or not?” (Exodus 17:6-7)
We will use the same passage as the previous detail, but we will highlight a different correlation between Moses and Jesus. To do so we will also jump ahead to the book of Numbers for a second incident involving water coming out of a rock. And the Lord spake unto Moses, saying, Take the rod, and gather thou the assembly together, thou, and Aaron thy brother, and speak ye unto the rock before their eyes; and it shall give forth his water, and thou shalt bring forth to them water out of the rock: so thou shalt give the congregation and their beasts drink.” (Numbers 20:7-8) So these are two distinct incidences where Moses miraculously caused water to gush out of a rock, and in each case, the way that God instructed Moses to make this happen was very different. God directed Moses very precisely in terms of how he wanted to accomplish the two identical miracles. In the story from Exodus, Moses was instructed to strike the rock with the wooden rod of God, and in the story from Numbers, God wanted Moses to speak to the rock in order for water to gush out. So Moses was involved with two distinct stories that had to do with water coming out of a rock. And God was very precise in how he wanted Moses to activate these miracles. And the gushing water meant the difference between life and death. If they did not receive water soon, they were destined to die of thirst. Without water their death was certain. In a sense, the gushing water had brought them back to life from certain death.
Jesus: In the Gospels, there are two distinct resurrection stories which parallel those stories about water coming out of the rock. Jesus was involved with two different resurrection stories where the person came out of a rock (sepulchre), and in each story the resurrection was activated in a different way. The two resurrection stories that we will examine are those of Lazarus and Jesus. This is how the Gospel of John describes the rock from which Lazarus was resurrected. “Jesus … cometh to the grave. It was a cave,[rock] and a stone lay upon it.” (John 11:38) And in the second story, Jesus’ resurrection, it is clear that Jesus came back to life from his burial in a rock. “And laid it in his own new tomb, which he had hewn out in the rock: and he rolled a great stone to the door of the sepulchre.” (Matthew 27:60) So in both of these resurrection stories, the person comes back to life from a rock.
With regard to the two resurrections, Jesus activated each one in a distinctly different way. Jesus called out (or spoke) for Lazarus to “come out” in one incident. “Then they took away the stone from the place where the dead was laid. And Jesus lifted up his eyes, and said, Father, I thank thee that thou hast heard me. And I knew that thou hearest me always: but because of the people which stand by I said it, that they may believe that thou hast sent me. And when he thus had spoken, he cried with a loud voice, Lazarus, come forth. And he that was dead came forth, bound hand and foot with graveclothes: and his face was bound about with a napkin. Jesus saith unto them, Loose him, and let him go. Then many of the Jews which came to Mary, and had seen the things which Jesus did, believed on him.” (John 11:41-45) And in the second resurrection, Jesus came back to life after his death on a wooden cross. No one spoke to activate his resurrection. It happened by the power of God after Jesus had been sacrificed on a wooden cross. So again, Moses was supposed to speak to a rock and have water come out just like Jesus spoke to Lazarus to “come out” of the rock. And then in the second story regarding water gushing out of a rock, Moses was supposed to strike the rock with his wooden rod of God just like Jesus was resurrected out of a rock after he had been sacrificed on a wooden cross.
The metaphorical meaning of water is instructive as well. Obviously, water was needed for the sustainment of life particularly for the Israelites wandering in the desert. Finding water was a major focus. Finding water meant the difference between life and death. Jesus said something interesting and revealing regarding water. “In the last day, that great day of the feast, Jesus stood and cried, saying, If any man thirst, let him come unto me, and drink. He that believeth on me, as the scripture hath said, out of his belly shall flow rivers of living water. (But this spake he of the Spirit, which they that believe on him should receive: for the Holy Ghost was not yet given; because that Jesus was not yet glorified).” (John 7:37-39) John spells it out clearly. Water was the Spirit which would be given to people who believed in the resurrection of Jesus (he came to life out of a rock). The Bible records that many people believed in Jesus after they saw the resurrection of Lazarus (he came to life out of a rock).
Again, this is clear. In the book of John Jesus says, “ Nevertheless I tell you the truth; It is expedient for you that I go away: for if I go not away, the Comforter will not come unto you; but if I depart, I will send him unto you.” (John 16:7) The Spirit will come when Jesus departs. Jesus will send him to people who believe in the resurrection of Jesus. Likewise, Moses provided water from a rock in two distinct stories. In the desert, the provision of water meant life or death. Jesus gave us the Spirit which he compared to rivers of living water flowing out of our belly. And just like people need water in a desert in order to live, we need living water (i.e., the Holy Spirit) in order to live spiritually. The similarities are remarkable.
Side Note: Moses wasn’t sinless, but Jesus was
It should be noted at this point that Moses merely prefigured Jesus, and he was not his equal. Assuredly, he was an extraordinarily gifted leader who had an unusually close relationship with God, but he was a sinful man none-the-less just like you and me and every other person who has ever lived. He was a human who prefigured Jesus as God had predicted. The fact that Moses was a sinner is highlighted by the second story in Numbers. Moses was specifically instructed to speak to the rock only. But Moses struck the rock. As great as Moses was, he did not obey God in this instance, so God made him suffer the consequences of his disobedience. Moses prefigured Jesus. The details of his life predicted the details of Jesus’ life. But it is clear in the Bible that Moses was not sinless, whereas Jesus was without sin. In this one regard, Moses and Jesus were different.
Detail #17- The Cross
At one point in their lives, both Moses and Jesus were up on a hill with outstretched arms on a piece of wood, and because of this situation, the Israelites won a great victory over an enemy of God. In Moses case, the enemy was the Amalekites, a people whom God had sworn that he will have war with forever. In Jesus’ case, the enemy that he defeated was Satan who has been God’s enemy since the Garden of Eden.
.Moses “Then came Amalek, and fought with Israel in Rephidim. And Moses said unto Joshua, Choose us out men, and go out, fight with Amalek: to morrow I will stand on the top of the hill with the rod of God in mine hand. So Joshua did as Moses had said to him, and fought with Amalek: and Moses, Aaron, and Hur went up to the top of the hill. And it came to pass, when Moses held up his hand, that Israel prevailed: and when he let down his hand, Amalek prevailed. But Moses’ hands were heavy; and they took a stone, and put it under him, and he sat thereon; and Aaron and Hur stayed up his hands, the one on the one side, and the other on the other side; and his hands were steady until the going down of the sun. And Joshua discomfited Amalek and his people with the edge of the sword. And the Lord said unto Moses, Write this for a memorial in a book, and rehearse it in the ears of Joshua: for I will utterly put out the remembrance of Amalek from under heaven. And Moses built an altar, and called the name of it Jehovahnissi: For he said, Because the Lord hath sworn that the Lord will have war with Amalek from generation to generation.” (Exodus 17:8-16)
There are a few points of note in this interesting story. First, the Israelites were fighting the Amalekites who were a people that God had sworn that he will be at war with forever. Eventually, God says that he will erase even the memory of Amalek from under heaven. The second detail is that the Israelites fought, but Moses went up on a hill overlooking the battle. And Moses did something a little out of the ordinary. He lifted up his arms as his warriors were fighting. And when Moses lifted his arms, the Israelites prevailed. And when he got tired and let his arms down, the Amalekites prevailed. So, two men, one on either side, held up Moses’ arms, and the Israelites won.
The Bible doesn’t explicitly say, but you get the sense that Moses was holding the rod of God in both hands because at first he was holding up his hand (singular), and he had the rod of God in that hand. Then at some point, he had both hands up. We don’t know for sure, but Moses probably held the rod over his head with an end in each hand because this passage implies that both hands were equally tired, since he had a man hold them up on either side. Now let’s examine this image with a little more depth. A man (Moses) carried a wooden rod up a hill. He held the wood with outstretched arms. There was a man on either side of the man in the middle. While the man was in this position, the sun was going down. And most importantly, it’s imperative that the man maintain this position because as he does, the Israelites defeated the enemy. Their victory was directly connected to his position with outstretched hands on this wood. We know this because when his arms came down, the enemy gained the upper hand, and when his arms went back up, the Israelites gained the upper hand. So, our attention is drawn to what he was doing. He was holding up his hands with a piece of wood. And this is an enemy that God had sworn to have war with forever.
Jesus: “Then delivered he him [Jesus] therefore unto them to be crucified. And they took Jesus, and led him away. And he bearing his cross [wooden] went forth into a place called the place of a skull,(perhaps a hill) which is called in the Hebrew Golgotha: Where they crucified him, and two other with him, on either side one, and Jesus in the midst.” (John 19:16-18) And Mark records this added detail in his Gospel. “And when the sixth hour was come, there was darkness over the whole land until the ninth hour.” (Mark 15:33)
Is this not incredible? We need to stop and think about these two stories. They are practically identical to each other, yet this shared story is so unique in all of human history. A man on a hill, on a cross with a man on either side as the sun is going down, and in this position and because of this position God and his people gained their greatest victory. Jesus hung on a cross with a man on either side as the sun was darkened, and because of this act, God achieved the ultimate victory over his sworn enemy (Satan). Fourteen hundred years before Jesus hung on that cross, God showed us the exact image with Moses. God is telling us that he is in control and we can trust him. “And now I have told you before it come to pass, that, when it is come to pass, ye might believe.” (John 14:29)
There is a verse written by the Apostle Paul in one of his letters that applies to these stories. “For the preaching of the cross is to them that perish foolishness; but unto us which are saved it is the power of God.” (1 Corinthians 1:18) Truly Moses on a hill with outstretched arms on a piece of wood must have looked foolish to the Amalekites, but unto them who were being saved it was the power of God. And truly, Jesus on a hill with outstretched arms on a piece of wood must have looked foolish to the world, but unto them who are being saved it is the power of God.
Detail #18- Mediators
Both Moses and Jesus functioned as mediators between God and man.
Moses: “And Moses said unto his father in law, Because the people come unto me to enquire of God.” (Exodus 18:15)
When Moses’ father-in-law came to visit Moses, he (Moses’ father-in-law) noticed that so many people came to Moses, and because of that Moses was basically too busy. When his father-in-law asked him why so many people were coming to him, Moses simply said that it was because they wanted to know what God thought, and that he was the intermediary. Later the Bible tells us that the people were afraid to talk directly with God. Again, they were content to let Moses be the mediator. “And all the people saw the thunderings, and the lightnings, and the noise of the trumpet, and the mountain smoking: and when the people saw it, they removed, and stood afar off. And they said unto Moses, Speak thou with us, and we will hear: but let not God speak with us, lest we die.” (Exodus 20:18-19) They wanted Moses to be the mediator between them and God because to talk with God face to face was too fearful an encounter. They would just as soon leave that responsibility to Moses. “Go thou near, and hear all that the Lord our God shall say: and speak thou unto us all that the Lord our God shall speak unto thee; and we will hear it, and do it.” (Exodus 20:27) Moses confirmed this fact himself. And God established this intermediary relationship as well. “And Moses alone shall come near the Lord: but they shall not come nigh; neither shall the people go up with him.” (Exodus 24:2)
Jesus: It is perfectly clear that Moses was the mediator between God and man, and this is an exact picture of what God has in mind for Jesus. “For there is one God, and one mediator between God and men, the man Christ Jesus.” (1 Timothy 2:5)
Detail #19- Resurrection: The Morning of the Third Day.
Both Moses and Jesus were involved in a unique incident that had many particular details that match.
Moses “And Moses went up unto God, and the Lord called unto him out of the mountain, saying, Thus shalt thou say to the house of Jacob, and tell the children of Israel.Ye have seen what I did unto the Egyptians, and how I bare you on eagles’ wings, and brought you unto myself.Now therefore, if ye will obey my voice indeed, and keep my covenant, then ye shall be a peculiar treasure unto me above all people: for all the earth is mine:And ye shall be unto me a kingdom of priests, and an holy nation. These are the words which thou shalt speak unto the children of Israel.And Moses came and called for the elders of the people, and laid before their faces all these words which the Lord commanded him.And all the people answered together, and said, All that the Lord hath spoken we will do. And Moses returned the words of the people unto the Lord.And the Lord said unto Moses, Lo, I come unto thee in a thick cloud, that the people may hear when I speak with thee, and believe thee for ever. And Moses told the words of the people unto the Lord.And the Lord said unto Moses, Go unto the people, and sanctify them to day and to morrow, and let them wash their clothes,And be ready against the third day: for the third day the Lord will come down in the sight of all the people upon mount Sinai.And thou shalt set bounds unto the people round about, saying, Take heed to yourselves, that ye go not up into the mount, or touch the border of it: whosoever toucheth the mount shall be surely put to death:There shall not an hand touch it, but he shall surely be stoned, or shot through; whether it be beast or man, it shall not live: when the trumpet soundeth long, they shall come up to the mount.And Moses went down from the mount unto the people, and sanctified the people; and they washed their clothes. And he said unto the people, Be ready against the third day: come not at your wives.And it came to pass on the third day in the morning, that there were thunders and lightnings, and a thick cloud upon the mount, and the voice of the trumpet exceeding loud; so that all the people that was in the camp trembled.And Moses brought forth the people out of the camp to meet with God; and they stood at the nether part of the mount.And mount Sinai was altogether on a smoke, because the Lord descended upon it in fire: and the smoke thereof ascended as the smoke of a furnace, and the whole mount quaked greatly.And when the voice of the trumpet sounded long, and waxed louder and louder, Moses spake, and God answered him by a voice.And the Lord came down upon mount Sinai, on the top of the mount: and the Lord called Moses up to the top of the mount; and Moses went up.(Exodus 19:3-20)
In this story God was foreshadowing specific details regarding the resurrection of Jesus fourteen hundred years before he did it. Let’s examine those details. God and Moses were talking up on the mountain (Sinai, the mountain of God), and they were alone. God was reviewing the covenant with Moses. God said that if the people would obey his voice and keep the covenant, then they would become a special treasure to him. Implied in that designation was blessing and protection. Then God told Moses to go down from the top of the mountain in order to give this message regarding the covenant to the people, and Moses did. After Moses explained the terms of the covenant, the people agreed, and Moses went back up the mountain to relay that message to God. Based on that response, God instructed Moses to warn the people to get ready. God declared that three days from then he would come down and be seen by all the people. God also told Moses to strictly warn everyone not to go near the mountain, or they would be put to death. Then on the morning of the third day, God descended in an extremely pronounced way. The Bible records that there were thunders, lightnings, exceedingly loud trumpet sounds, smoke, fire and an earthquake when God showed up. And finally, on the morning of the third day God called Moses up. And Moses went up to meet with God on top of the mountain of God.
Jesus It is remarkable how many of the details in this Exodus account coincide with details from the story surrounding Jesus and his resurrection. For starters, at the last supper before his crucifixion, Jesus was explaining what the events over the next few days would mean. Jesus said that his death burial and resurrection were going to be the basis of a new covenant. “And he took the cup, and gave thanks, and gave it to them, saying, Drink ye all of it;For this is my blood of the new testament, which is shed for many for the remission of sins.” (Matthew 26:27-28) So in both cases, these events happened within the context of confirming a covenant between God and man.
Secondly, when we read through the Gospels and Letters of Paul, we quickly understand that no event in history is more important to our spiritual life than the death, burial, and resurrection of Jesus. This seems to be echoed in the Moses’ account with the sounding trumpets that were exceedingly loud. In both cases, God was heralding the importance of this event.
Also, in both cases we learn of a prohibition regarding going near the mountain. God had directed the ancient Israelites not to go near the mountain. God warned them that whoever even touched the mountain would have to be put to death. The Gospel according to Matthew depicts a guard that was placed around the tomb where Jesus was buried. “Now the next day, that followed the day of the preparation, the chief priests and Pharisees came together unto Pilate,Saying, Sir, we remember that that deceiver said, while he was yet alive, After three days I will rise again.Command therefore that the sepulchre be made sure until the third day, lest his disciples come by night, and steal him away, and say unto the people, He is risen from the dead: so the last error shall be worse than the first.Pilate said unto them, Ye have a watch: go your way, make it as sure as ye can.So they went, and made the sepulchre sure, sealing the stone, and setting a watch.”(Matthew 27:62-66) Presumably, if someone did attempt to steal the body of Jesus, the guard surrounding the tomb would have put him to death, and this is a detail that matches God’s directive in the Exodus account.
Finally, in the Gospels it is recorded that on the morning of the third day, Jesus was resurrected from the dead and was raised to reign with God in heaven much like God had called Moses up to be with him on the mountain top on the morning of the third day. “In the end of the sabbath, as it began to dawn toward the first day of the week, [which was the morning of the third day] came Mary Magdalene and the other Mary to see the sepulchre. And, behold, there was a great earthquake: for the angel of the Lord descended from heaven, and came and rolled back the stone from the door, and sat upon it.His countenance was like lightning, and his raiment white as snow:And for fear of him the keepers did shake, and became as dead men.” (Matthew 28:1-4) Amazingly, there are four additional details within the resurrection account in Matthew that coincide with details from the Exodus account: there was a great earthquake, the angel of the Lord descended from heaven, there was lightning, and the men who were near the tomb became as dead men. All four of these specific details recorded in the Gospels were prefigured by Moses in the Exodus account. The multiple details in this story alone prove beyond reasonable doubt that the Bible was written by a designer who had control over two human events that were separated by fourteen hundred years.
As I stated in the introduction, there are very few recorded events in Moses’ life that do not have a connection to details in Jesus’ life. God told the Ancient Israelites and us this when he said that he would raise up a prophet that would be like Moses, and if we did not listen to his words, then God would require it of them and us. (Deut. 18:17-19) And remember the words of Jesus. “Do not think that I will accuse you to the Father: there is one that accuseth you, even Moses, in whom ye trust.For had ye believed Moses, ye would have believed me; for he wrote of me.(John 5:45-46)
Detail #20- Israel First
Both Moses and Jesus came first to redeem the Israelites.
Moses: And ye shall be unto me a kingdom of priests, and an holy nation (Exodus 19:6)
It’s obvious that Moses came to redeem the Jewish people. That is what the book of Exodus is all about. We’ve been exploring why Moses came for the Jewish people, and the verse printed above gives us another clue. God had some rather complex concepts to teach mankind, and He needed a nation to understand those concepts so that that nation could teach them to all mankind. God chose the Israelite nation to be the vehicle of that teaching to all the world. He needed a nation, Israel, to point the way to God. Being a kingdom of priests is another way of saying a nation of people who point the way to God.
Again, some of the concepts that God needed us to understand are quite counter intuitive. Namely, mankind was created for fellowship with God. Mankind rebelled, and God banished them from that place of fellowship. Not only was man banished from God’s presence, but he was in fact sent out into another kingdom, Satan’s, and needed redemption. The Israelites needed redemption from bondage in Egypt, and God then sent Moses to redeem them from that bondage. The rest of mankind needs redemption from sin and the curse of sin, and God sent Jesus to redeem us from that bondage. The message that God proclaimed with the Israelites is that they needed redemption, and Moses would bring it. The message that God proclaims with all humanity is that we need redemption, and Jesus brings it.
Jesus: It’s obvious that Moses’ focus was the redemption of the Jewish people. The entire book of Exodus is all about Moses leading the Israelites from slavery in Egypt. The fact that Jesus’ first focus was the Jewish people is less obvious, but still clear. God wants to reach all nations, but He chose one nation to show his nature and his power, and then he used that nation to reach the world. It’s surprising to some people to hear that Jesus came to the Jews first and the Gentiles later since most people who believe in Jesus today are Gentile. However, Jesus made it clear that he came to minister to the Jews first. Listen to the words of Jesus when he sent out his disciples to preach the good news. “These twelve Jesus sent forth, and commanded them, saying, Go not into the way of the Gentiles, and into any city of the Samaritans enter ye not: But go rather to the lost sheep of the house of Israel. And as ye go, preach, saying, The kingdom of heaven is at hand.” (Matthew 10:5-7) And listen to Jesus respond to someone outside the Jewish nation who had approached him with a request. “But he [Jesus] answered and said, I am not sent but unto the lost sheep of the house of Israel.” (Matthew 15:24)
Again, it’s not that Jesus didn’t love every nation. It’s just that his primary focus was to complete the redemption story that God had begun for the Jews fourteen hundred years previously. In retrospect, God’s plan of reaching all mankind by using the Israelites proved to be effective. Today, followers of Jesus comprise one of the world’s major religions. Believers in Jesus come from every nation and ethnicity. It truly is a world religion that cuts across all cultures. But this great religion started with one man (Jesus) who discipled twelve men. And all twelve men were Jewish and understood all of the concepts that God needed them to understand. They understood sin, banishment, bondage, repentance, and redemption. Those twelve men in turn preached this message to fellow Jews who understood these foundational concepts. That target audience was receptive, and they were prepared to understand it and teach it to the rest of mankind. Those first believers in Jesus were Jewish, and they truly became a kingdom of priests pointing the way to God for all nations.
So when Jesus came, his focus was completing that redemption story for the Israelites. But once Jesus was crucified and rose again, he then told Paul in particular to reach all nations with the gospel message. Paul recounts the story in Acts 26 describing how Jesus essentially told him at that point to bring the message of Jesus to all nations. God started with one man and one family and one nation, but his plan all along was to reach all nations both Jewish and Gentile. Listen to this prophecy in the book of Isaiah. “And in that day there shall be a root of Jesse, which shall stand for an ensign of the people; to it shall the Gentiles seek: and his rest shall be glorious.” (Isaiah 11:10) And listen to the words of Paul whom God had made an apostle to the gentiles. “That the blessing of Abraham might come on the Gentiles through Jesus Christ; that we might receive the promise of the Spirit through faith.” (Galatians 3:14) And in Paul’s letter to the Roman church the following is recorded. “For I am not ashamed of the gospel of Christ: for it is the power of God unto salvation to every one that believeth; to the Jew first, and also to the Greek.” (Romans 1:16) So Jesus came to redeem all nations, but he came to the Jews first just like Moses came to redeem the Israelites first.
Detail #21- Intercessors
Both Moses and Jesus interceded on behalf of a sinful group of people.
Moses And the Lord said unto Moses, I have seen this people, and, behold, it is a stiffnecked people:10 Now therefore let me alone, that my wrath may wax hot against them, and that I may consume them: and I will make of thee a great nation.11 And Moses besought the Lord his God, and said, Lord, why doth thy wrath wax hot against thy people, which thou hast brought forth out of the land of Egypt with great power, and with a mighty hand?12 Wherefore should the Egyptians speak, and say, For mischief did he bring them out, to slay them in the mountains, and to consume them from the face of the earth? Turn from thy fierce wrath, and repent of this evil against thy people.13 Remember Abraham, Isaac, and Israel, thy servants, to whom thou swarest by thine own self, and saidst unto them, I will multiply your seed as the stars of heaven, and all this land that I have spoken of will I give unto your seed, and they shall inherit it for ever.14 And the Lord repented of the evil which he thought to do unto his people.(Exodus 32:9-14)
Consider the context of this story. The Israelites had made a golden calf and worshiped it. It was a shockingly sinful act. This broke the first two of the Ten Commandments, and they probably broke a couple more in the process of their “worship.” Moses saw that the people were naked. (Exodus 32:25) And surprisingly, this was very soon after they had agreed to the terms of the covenant (Ten Commandments). This sin was so horrible especially after all that God had just done for them. God had just redeemed them from slavery and expressed his desire to live among them. Their response was to make an idol and worship it. This horrendously faithless act seemed spurred on by nothing more than arbitrary impatience. As a result, God was really angry. He was so angry that he told Moses that he would kill them all and start over with a new nation with Moses as the progenitor. When God declared this intention, Moses interceded with God on behalf of the people. From the story you can see that he pleaded and reasoned with God. Amazingly, God relented based on Moses’ imploring argument.
Jesus: I am reminded of Jesus’ interceding words on the cross. I’m sure God was ready to destroy all mankind for killing his son, yet in that excruciatingly painful moment Jesus interceded for the people who had him crucified. So, in this story, Moses and Jesus mirror each other. “And when they were come to the place, which is called Calvary, there they crucified him, and the malefactors, one on the right hand, and the other on the left. Then said Jesus, Father, forgive them; for they know not what they do.” (Luke 23:33-34) What an amazing display of love and forgiveness! Again, he interceded on behalf of the people that had crucified him.
Side note: Jesus loves you.
Jesus took the penalty that we deserved for a sin that he did not commit. I would not have done it. The excruciating pain and humiliating shame would have been too much for me to accept. In addition, he pleaded with God to forgive us. Because of this extraordinary act of love at the very end of his life on earth, we know that he is willing to forgive us our sin no matter how bad and unforgivable we think our particular sin might be.
Detail #22- Sacrifice
Both Moses and Jesus offered to be sacrificed to atone for the sin of the Jews.
Moses: “And it came to pass on the morrow, that Moses said unto the people, Ye have sinned a great sin: and now I will go up unto the Lord; peradventure I shall make an atonement for your sin. And Moses returned unto the Lord, and said, Oh, this people have sinned a great sin, and have made them gods of gold. Yet now, if thou wilt forgive their sin–; and if not, blot me, I pray thee, out of thy book which thou hast written. ” (Exodus 32:30-32)
This passage is a continuation of the same story as the previous detail where Moses had interceded on behalf of the people. The story implied that Moses was not fully aware of how sinful the people had been. When Moses had interceded, he was not aware that the people had made and worshipped a golden calf. Then he came down the mountain and saw for himself the idol worship and the debauchery. At that point Moses himself became angry. So angry that he ground the golden calf into dust and made the people eat it. In that moment, Moses understood why God was willing to destroy them all and start again. However, Moses did something totally out of the ordinary, and it connects directly with the central mission of Jesus. Moses offered to take the punishment for the people. Moses had nothing to do with this horrendously sinful incident, yet he offered to take the punishment from God on their behalf. Moses had been up on the mountain top communing with God while the people had committed this heinous act. But Moses said to God, please forgive these people and don’t blot their names out of your book of life. Moses said that if you need to hold someone accountable, then hold me accountable. Moses said, “Blot my name out of your book of life instead of those who actually deserve that punishment.” It’s incredible that fourteen hundred years before Jesus came to die on a cross in our place, God told us that it would happen by telling us the story of Moses who offered to take the punishment for other people’s sin.
Jesus: 29 The next day John seeth Jesus coming unto him, and saith, Behold the Lamb of God, which taketh away the sin of the world.(John 1:29)
It’s a challenge to choose just one verse in the Gospels which highlights the fact that Jesus offered to pay the penalty for the sin of others because this fact is the obvious focus of all four Gospels. The words above were spoken by John the Baptist when he saw Jesus for the first time. His realization must have been inspired by the Holy Spirit because he had not yet interacted with Jesus. He simply proclaimed the simple fact that Jesus’ sole mission was to sacrifice himself to save mankind. He was the sacrificial lamb that God had promised.
There is another verse in in the Gospel of John that just might be the most well-known verse in all of the Bible, and it highlights the fact that Jesus was going to offer to take the penalty for the sin of all mankind.. And no man hath ascended up to heaven, but he that came down from heaven, even the Son of man which is in heaven.14 And as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, even so must the Son of man be lifted up:15 That whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have eternal life.16 For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life. (John 3:13-16) Most people are at least familiar with verse 16 perhaps having seen a sign emblazoned with John 3:16 at a sporting event. But many people are not as familiar with the context.
Jesus proclaimed that truth about eternal life while he was talking to a Jewish religious leader, and he was explaining to him spiritual ideas about the afterlife. But before he uttered the famous phrase in verse 16, Jesus referenced a story from the book of Numbers when he alluded to a serpent in the wilderness being lifted up. Here is that story that Jesus referenced. “4 And they journeyed from mount Hor by the way of the Red sea, to compass the land of Edom: and the soul of the people was much discouraged because of the way.5 And the people spake against God, and against Moses, Wherefore have ye brought us up out of Egypt to die in the wilderness? for there is no bread, neither is there any water; and our soul loatheth this light bread.6 And the Lord sent fiery serpents among the people, and they bit the people; and much people of Israel died.7 Therefore the people came to Moses, and said, We have sinned, for we have spoken against the Lord, and against thee; pray unto the Lord, that he take away the serpents from us. And Moses prayed for the people.8 And the Lord said unto Moses, Make thee a fiery serpent, and set it upon a pole: and it shall come to pass, that every one that is bitten, when he looketh upon it, shall live.9 And Moses made a serpent of brass, and put it upon a pole, and it came to pass, that if a serpent had bitten any man, when he beheld the serpent of brass, he lived.” (Numbers 21:4-9)
The fiery serpents were the punishment from God, and the Israelites knew it. They also knew that they deserved the punishment because they had sinned by complaining and not trusting God after all he had done for them. They begged Moses to ask God to take away the fiery serpents. It’s interesting to note that God did not take away the serpents. Rather, he gave a different solution to their sin and punishment problem. As you read above, God instructed Moses to make a brass serpent and put it on a pole. If a man were bitten, if he looked on the brass serpent, he would recover. It’s remarkable that God would essentially predict Jesus’ central mission fourteen hundred years beforehand by recording a fairly unique story about sin, snakes and a solution. Jesus was saying in a profound way that he would become that punishment in order to save sinners. He was saying that he would take the punishment that we deserve. And if we look to him and believe what God has promised about not dying, then we will live.
Side Note: Why would God do that?
I suppose it’s difficult to imagine why an all-powerful God would offer to take the penalty for the rebellion of the people He had created. We simply can’t understand why He would allow His son to pay the penalty that we deserve. The first thing that must be said in response to this is that God is not like us. For my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways, my ways, saith the LORD. (Isaiah 55:8) If we are being honest, we would admit that our natural instincts are selfish. We think of ourselves first. We would not have even considered doing what God did. But God is different. He is loving and that is a difficult concept for us to comprehend. God is love. (1 John 4:8) The reason that God commands us to love Him is because it does not come naturally to us. That instinct and behavior must be commanded by God and obeyed by us. We may never fully comprehend why God would love us simply because we are selfish, and being selfish we have a limited capacity to understand motivations outside of our own experience. We project onto God what is true about us. But again, God told us that He is not like us. God proclaims that he loves us. (John 3:16) At a certain point, this foundational spiritual truth about God must simply be accepted as we will never be able to fully comprehend it. We may only be able to accept it and be grateful for it.
To help us accept this truth on an intellectual level, God gave us predictions. Our limited minds can understand the implication of fulfilled predictions. We cannot make predictions that actually come true. When God does that, our hearts instinctively know that He is in control and He is God. Therefore, He is worthy of our worship. I am God, and there is none like me declaring the end from the beginning. (Isaiah 46:9-10) And as Jesus said, “And now I have told you before it come to pass, that, when it is come to pass, ye might believe. (John 14:29) Fulfilled predictions give the honest seeker all the evidence he or she needs in order to come to a conclusion about God. That is why Jesus had said that these predictions embedded in the life of Moses were powerful. These fulfilled predictions bring us to the edge of a life of faith in the God of the Bible. At the point of intellectual understanding, every honest seeker is then faced with a choice of the heart. The honest seeker may have reasons to trust in this God who can fulfill predictions, but ultimately every seeker must then choose to do so. In the final analysis, after the intellect has been satisfied, the heart must choose. The Bible says that at one point all people will bow before their Maker. It is the wise and humble person who chooses to do so before he passes from this life. Humble yourselves in the sight of the Lord, and He will lift you up. (James 4:10)
Side Note: Am I a sinner?
This might be a good place to briefly talk about sin. A lot of people don’t think that they have sinned all that much (certainly not enough to warrant an animal sacrifice to atone for that sin). And most people assuredly don’t think that they have sinned to the point where a human sacrifice (i.e., Jesus) is needed to make restitution between them and God. If that is your perspective or if you are appalled by a God that would not only accept an animal sacrifice to atone for your sin but prescribe it, then simply put, the gospel of Jesus is not a message for you. The Bible is very clear about the doctrine of sin. The Bible teaches that everyone is a sinner. (1 Chronicles 6:36, Romans 3:23) Further, Jesus flatly stated, “I came not to call the righteous, but sinners to repentance.” (Luke 5:32) I am not saying that your sin is okay. It’s just that your sin is expected as part of being human, and God has a plan to deal with it.
For those who might not accept the fact that they have sinned against God, let me highlight a few of the Ten Commandments which are listed in Exodus 20. God told us to honor our parents. Have you always done that? Have you ever said or done something that brought them shame or showed them disrespect? In the Ten Commandments, God also forbade lying. Have you ever lied? Perhaps you’ve never perjured yourself in court, but have you ever shaded the truth when a friend asked you about something personal? Do you justify that kind of lying as normal? Is God okay with that kind of lying? Or is that not lying…it’s just shading the truth? Also, stealing is prohibited. Have you ever stolen anything? Maybe you’ve never stolen anything big like a car from a stranger, but have you ever taken something from a sibling when you were younger and not told them about it? Do you excuse that kind of stealing because its small? At what point does stealing become stealing to you? The Tenth Commandment gets to our heart. God commands us to not covet. Have you ever wanted something that someone else has (money, approval, recognition, appreciation)? For me, it’s almost impossible not to have coveted. It’s almost beyond my control. Have you ever taken God’s name in vain? (Third Commandment) Do you set apart one day a week to express your trust in God’s provision in your life? (Fourth Commandment) How about the First Commandment? Thou shall have no other gods before Him. Do you value anything more than you value your relationship with God? Have you ever gone through a day without thinking about your Creator, the One who gave you your life?
These are high standards, and no one can be perfect. But, that’s the point. God has high standards and he wants us to know that we haven’t lived up to them. But as I said, the good news (i.e., the gospel of Jesus) is that God is not surprised by our sin, and he has a plan to fix it. He merely asks us to acknowledge our sin and trust in his plan. And for me, my sin is easier to acknowledge when I know that God is aware that everyone is a sinner, and he has a plan to deal with it.
Perhaps after this discussion, you still think you are good enough to get into heaven. I can only say one thing. The God of the Bible clearly teaches that you are not good enough to get into His heaven. The Bible clearly teaches that all have sinned and fall short of God’s standards. We are all on the outside looking in. But again, the Bible also clearly teaches that God is saddened but not surprised by our sin, and he has a plan to deal with it. He sent his son to pay the penalty for our sin, if we by faith humbly accept God’s free and gracious gift, then he will grant us entrance into heaven. But if you still insist that you are good enough to get into heaven, you are in fact calling the God of the Bible a liar, and you are rejecting God’s offer of a free gift of eternal life. If you insist on getting into heaven by being good, then the Bible clearly teaches that you will not get into God’s heaven. You may truly believe that you are good enough by your standards, but getting into God’s heaven is not your reward to grant. You must gain entrance by God’s way.5 But to him that worketh not, but believeth on him that justifieth the ungodly, his faith is counted for righteousness. (Romans 5:4) And he (Abraham) believed in the LORD, and He (God) counted it to him for righteousness. (Genesis 15:6)
I have one final thought about how Jesus dealt with sin. First, Jesus did not ever sin (2 Cor. 5:21, Hebrews 4:15). If anyone had the right to get on a puritanical high horse about people who sinned, it would have been Jesus. And yet, condemning people for being sinners was antithetical to his central mission. He came to save us by dying in our place. (John 3:17) I cannot die in your place because I too am under the same sentence. Consider the ridiculousness of me offering to a judge to serve your jail sentence on your behalf if I were in jail for the same offense. Jesus on the other hand, was able to offer himself as a sacrifice for our sins because he had not sinned. And Jesus managed to thread the needle on this issue of sin. On the one hand, he was not judgmental regarding the sin of fellow humans, but on the other hand, he did not excuse sin. He neither condemned us for sinning nor condoned the sinful behavior.
Consider a story in the Gospel of John chapter 8. The pharisees brought a woman to Jesus, and they wanted Jesus to condemn her. As a matter of fact, they wanted her stoned, and they wanted Jesus to approve of that. She had been caught in the very act of adultery. That’s a clear violation of one of the Ten Commandments. And listen to what Jesus said. To the accusers he said, “He that is without sin among you, let him first cast a stone at her.” (John 8:7) And then to the accused he said, “Neither do I condemn thee: go, and sin no more.” (John 8:11) So Jesus being sinless, certainly had the moral standing to condemn the woman, and yet he explicitly stated that he did not condemn her. But, he did not give her a free pass. He acknowledged her sin and admonished her to sin no more. Again, Jesus threaded the needle on this important doctrine.
Detail #23- Face to Face
Both Moses and Jesus had a close and conversant relationship with God.
Moses: “ And the Lord spake unto Moses face to face, as a man speaketh unto his friend.” (Exodus 33:11)
Moses talked directly with God, and he had a special status as someone who was more than just a prophet. God spoke to Moses like a man speaks to his friend. Again, the concept of Moses being different than just a regular man and God talking directly with him is repeated in Exodus chapter 33. God was foretelling in the way that he communicated with Moses that the future special “Moses” would be more than a prophet. And certainly, Jesus was more than a prophet. He was the Son of God.
Jesus: In Matthew chapter 14, we get the sense that Jesus spent much time in prayer alone with God. ” And when he had sent the multitudes away, he went up into a mountain apart to pray: and when the evening was come, he was there alone.” (Matthew 14:23) “And there came a voice out of the cloud, saying, This is my beloved Son: hear him.” (Luke 9:35) “And Jesus lifted up his eyes, and said, Father, I thank thee that thou hast heard me. And I knew that thou hearest me always: but because of the people which stand by I said it, that they may believe that thou hast sent me.” (John 11:41-42) All of these verses in the Gospels give the sense that Jesus is speaking with God directly and continually and that he is more than a prophet. Jesus was someone who had a special relationship with God. He was more than a prophet. He spoke with God directly. And that is the sense that the life of Moses predicted.
Detail #24- The Body
The bodies of both Moses and Jesus could not be found in the sepulcher.
Moses: “So Moses the servant of the Lord died there in the land of Moab, according to the word of the Lord. And he buried him in a valley in the land of Moab, over against Bethpeor: but no man knoweth of his sepulchre unto this day.” (Exodus 34:5-6)
The body of Moses was never recovered when he died. This is a curious little detail, and yet it is clearly taught in the Bible And more detail regarding the body of Moses is added from the book of Jude. “Yet Michael the archangel, when contending with the devil he disputed about the body of Moses.” (Jude 9) This passage in Jude is also a vague allusion to the three days that Jesus spent in hell. Perhaps Satan thought that the body of Jesus was his possession and was sorely surprised and disappointed when Jesus rose from the dead. The body of Jesus was not Satan’s possession after all. The fact that Moses’ body was never found prefigured Jesus’ death and resurrection.
Jesus: “But Mary stood without at the sepulchre weeping: and as she wept, she stooped down, and looked into the sepulchre, And seeth two angels in white sitting, the one at the head, and the other at the feet, where the body of Jesus had lain. And they say unto her, Woman, why weepest thou? She saith unto them, Because they have taken away my Lord, and I know not where they have laid him.” (John 20:11-13)
Jesus’ death, burial, and resurrection is the heart of the gospel message. Key to that, is the fact that his body was not in the sepulcher after the third day. The Bible clearly taught that Moses’ body could not be found either. Just one more little detail that identifies Jesus as the Messiah.
Detail #25- A Shining Face
Both Moses and Jesus were involved in an encounter that caused their faces to shine.
Moses: “And be ready in the morning, and come up in the morning unto mount Sinai, and present thyself there to me in the top of the mount.” (Exodus 34:2) “And the Lord descended in the cloud, and stood with him there, and proclaimed the name of the Lord.” (Exodus 34:5) “And he was there with the Lord forty days and forty nights; he did neither eat bread, nor drink water. And he wrote upon the tables the words of the covenant, the ten commandments. And it came to pass, when Moses came down from mount Sinai with the two tables of testimony in Moses’ hand, when he came down from the mount, that Moses wist not that the skin of his face shone while he talked with him.And when Aaron and all the children of Israel saw Moses, behold, the skin of his face shone; and they were afraid to come nigh him.”(Exodus 34:28-30) “And till Moses had done speaking with them, he put a vail on his face.”(Exodus 34:33)
Moses went up on the mountain top to meet with God, and during this encounter he received the Ten Commandments. He was up there for forty days and nights. When he came down the mountain, Moses’ face was shining. It was so bright that it made the Israelites afraid, and so Moses put on a vail to cover the brightness.
Jesus: A similar story involving Jesus is recorded in several of the Gospels. “And after six days Jesus taketh Peter, James, and John his brother, and bringeth them up into an high mountain apart,And was transfigured before them: and his face did shine as the sun, and his raiment was white as the light.And, behold, there appeared unto them Moses and Elias talking with him.”(Matthew 17:1-3)“While he yet spake, behold, a bright cloud overshadowed them: and behold a voice out of the cloud, which said, This is my beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased; hear ye him.And when the disciples heard it, they fell on their face, and were sore afraid” (Matthew 17:5-6)
Consider some several interesting parallels that lead to a fascinating point. Both Moses and Jesus went up on the mountain to meet with God. Both had shining faces as a result of this encounter. And their faces caused a reaction of fear in the people who saw it. God descended, covered both of them in a cloud and spoke. An interesting correlating detail is what God said. In Exodus, God proclaimed the name of the LORD, and in Matthew God proclaimed that Jesus was his very son. Finally in Matthew, God explicitly instructed the disciples who were witnessing this to “hear” Jesus. This seems to be a direct allusion to the original prophecy in Deuteronomy where God predicted that in the future a special person would come. In that prophecy, God instructed the people to “hear” this person or God would require it of them. This story in Matthew really highlights and confirms that prophecy that started this study. When God descended in a cloud onto Jesus on the Mt of Olives, he was emphatically saying that this Jesus is that Moses that he had predicted would one day come to redeem the Israelites.
Detail #26- Fasting
Both Moses and Jesus fasted for 40 days.
Moses: “And he [Moses] was there with the Lord forty days and forty nights; he did neither eat bread, nor drink water. And he wrote upon the tables the words of the covenant, the ten commandments.” (Exodus 34:28)
Jesus: The Bible records that Jesus also fasted for 40 days. “And when he [Jesus] had fasted forty days and forty nights, he was afterward an hungred.” (Matthew 4:2) Once again, this is a rather unique and specific detail that connects Moses and Jesus. Not many people fast for forty days and sequester themselves to be alone with God.
Conclusion
When we began this study, we referenced Steven. He was one of the first people to connect Jesus with Moses confirming that Jesus was the fulfillment of the promised redeemer that God would send. Remember, Steven was quoted as saying, “37 This [Jesus} is that Moses, which said unto the children of Israel, A prophet shall the Lord your God raise up unto you of your brethren, like unto me; him shall ye hear. (Acts 7:37) Now we can tell the rest of the story. Steven had been hauled before a religious council. That council had the authority to have him killed (stoned) for false teaching. And they asked him to make his case. Rather than obfuscate, he doubled down. And for his declaration of faith in Jesus, he was in fact killed on the spot. When Steven stated that Jesus was in fact the long-awaited Messiah, he was staking his life on that claim. The other interesting part of this story is that the future Apostle Paul was a participant in Steven’s execution. Paul was specifically named. Of course, this was before Paul had his encounter with the risen Jesus and became a believer himself. Paul was an exemplary Jewish religious leader who later became a believer in Jesus and the apostle to the Gentiles.
I think it’s quite amazing that almost every story about Moses prefigures a detail about Jesus who came fourteen hundred years after those stories were recorded. The predictive quality of those stories speaks to the control that the God of the Bible has over human events. And a God like that is a God worthy of trust. As mentioned previously, the Bible stands alone among world religions in this area of prophecy. When the predictions start to accumulate, the reader should ask himself about the probability of one person fulfilling each and every prediction. Another question that the reader could ask is: if not Jesus, then who? List all of the detailed predictions that are recorded in the Moses prophecies and then ask yourself who else could fulfill them. Who could have lived a life that duplicated all of the wide ranging and disparate details that are recorded about Moses? And remember these predictions in Exodus are only the tip of the iceberg. There are many more predictions outside of Exodus that need to be added to the list. Some of those stories and predictions are quite intricate and yet Jesus fulfilled them all. Again, Jesus respected us enough to provide us with reliable evidence to help us make an informed decision about who he was. Jesus said” And now I have told you before it come to pass, that, when it is come to pass, ye might believe.” (John 14:29)
Do you find yourself starting to believe in this God who predicted Jesus’ life and mission fourteen hundred years before Jesus arrived? Jesus said something interesting regarding that. “Verily, verily, I say unto you, He that heareth my word, and believeth on him that sent me, hath everlasting life, and shall not come into condemnation; but is passed from death unto life.” (John 5:24) When you read these prophecies and realize how Jesus fulfilled them, do you find yourself beginning to trust in Jesus’ Father, the one who sent Jesus to us? I encourage you to tell that to God right now. Your prayer doesn’t have to be elaborate. Just simple and to the point. Perhaps something like, “God, I realize that I haven’t lived up to your standards. In fact, I have sinned against you. I’m sorry. Please forgive me. I do believe in your Son Jesus. I believe you sent him, and I believe that he was sacrificed in my place to atone for my sin. I believe that he rose from the dead. Thank you for your love, acceptance, and forgiveness. Amen”
Do you remember that we talked about the criminal on the cross who was crucified along with Jesus? His heart attitude was humble, and he acknowledged his sin. His prayer was much simpler. He said, “Jesus, remember me when you come into your kingdom.” Maybe that’s a prayer you feel more comfortable saying. For that criminal, the words were not as important as his humble and penitent attitude, and Jesus said to him, “Today, you will be with me in paradise.” (Jesus said that to the man because they both were hanging on a Roman cross and they knew that he was going to pass from this life that very day.)
My hope for you is that you would pray a prayer like that right now. Please don’t put it off. I will end this study by reminding you of the story that started this journey. Jesus told a story about a rich man who woke up and found himself in hell. In that story, the rich man had put off the decision until it was too late. It’s a horrifying thought. You may never be at this point of decision again. If you have read this far, then all the information that you need to make an informed decision about who Jesus is is still fresh in your mind. If you put this decision off, as I said, you may never be at this crossroad again. God bless you.
Epilogue
If you said a prayer anything like what I outlined in the conclusion of this study and meant it in your heart, then you are part of God’s family now, and you will live forever. You are now in a relationship with the God of the Bible. Congratulations! “ That if thou shalt confess with thy mouth the Lord Jesus, and shalt believe in thine heart that God hath raised him from the dead, thou shalt be saved. “ (Romans 10:9) There was a guy who asked Jesus to heal his son, and he said something that I find encouraging. He said, “Jesus, I believe. But help me to believe more.” (paraphrase Mark 9:24) He was just being honest, and I find that vulnerability refreshing. I think God appreciates honesty when we relate to him as well. Maybe you could pray that to God too. “Jesus, I believe. But help me to believe more.”
You don’t have to do this; but if you want to email me, I would encourage it. By declaring your trust in Jesus, you have started a journey. I would be honored to be a resource for you to try and answer any question that you might have. I would also commit to pray for you. My hope is that God would give you wisdom and insight. Any answer that I would provide would come directly from the Bible, so you can just begin reading and praying to God directly with all of your questions if you prefer. A good place to start reading would be one of the four Gospels. Then just read straight through to the end. After that maybe start at the very beginning in Genesis and read it again. But you can read it in any way you want. I have read through the Bible every year for the last twenty years, and I still find it endlessly fascinating.
If you don’t contact me, then it’s probably a good idea to find someone who you both trust personally and know is a believer in Jesus. They can help you get connected to a group of believers in Jesus with whom you feel comfortable. In that group you can be encouraged and loved, and you can also encourage and love other people. You will also begin to worship God with other likeminded people, and you will learn how to have fellowship with God.
As we talked about previously, the Bible began with a story about two people in the Garden of Eden who had a relationship with God, but they got kicked out when they disobeyed. By trusting in what Jesus did for you (atoning for your sin) you are now back in fellowship with God. He will hear you when you ask him a question. And amazingly, the God of the Bible will answer. I encourage you to always be honest and humble in your prayers. Don’t try to impress God with a lot of religious sounding words. Just tell him what’s on your heart in as normal a way as you can. We should be respectful when we talk to God, but we should also remember that he loves us and wants to have a relationship with us. That is why he sent his son to redeem us (so that we could come back to the garden and have fellowship with him). And remember to be patient to hear God’s reply to your question. (Sometimes I write down my questions so that I don’t forget what I have asked.) God might answer by having someone tell you something or he might answer by highlighting a verse in the Bible that you are reading or he might just answer your question by giving you a knowing sense in your heart. In any event, God is alive, and he wants to be in a relationship with you, and because of your trust in Jesus that is possible. God bless you on your journey.