Moses Wrote of Me (Jesus)

Motivation of the Study

Jesus when speaking to the Jews in John 5:39-47, told them that "For if you believed Moses, you would believe me; for he wrote of me." In this study series, I would like to go through a few instances (non exhaustively) where Jesus is potentially present in the first portion of the Bible written by Moses (Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, Deuteronomy).

John 5:39–47 (ESV) 39 You search the Scriptures because you think that in them you have eternal life; and it is they that bear witness about me, 40 yet you refuse to come to me that you may have life. 41 I do not receive glory from people. 42 But I know that you do not have the love of God within you. 43 I have come in my Father’s name, and you do not receive me. If another comes in his own name, you will receive him. 44 How can you believe, when you receive glory from one another and do not seek the glory that comes from the only God? 45 Do not think that I will accuse you to the Father. There is one who accuses you: Moses, on whom you have set your hope. 46 For if you believed Moses, you would believe me; for he wrote of me. 47 But if you do not believe his writings, how will you believe my words?”

There's the obvious low-hanging fruit of Moses telling Israel before he died:

Deuteronomy 18:15 (ESV)

15 “The LORD your God will raise up for you a prophet like me from among you, from your brothers—it is to him you shall listen—

Which the Apostles have quoted several times in their ministry, but there is more to be found here.

Scriptural Context

Exodus Chapters 19-24

The Scripture I would like to start with seems long, but bear with me as a large portion of it is covenant "terms and conditions" that God was speaking to the Israelites before they accepted God's leadership of them. God has just shown them several signs and wonders as he frees them from the hand of the Egyptians, and it is now time for them to enter into the covenant with God, and to enter the promised land. The Glory cloud that follows them in the wilderness, is going to give them commands on how they are to live as God's covenant people.

The Covenant at Sinai

Exodus 19:4–11 (ESV)

4 ‘You yourselves have seen what I did to the Egyptians, and how I bore you on eagles’ wings and brought you to myself. 5 Now therefore, if you will indeed obey my voice and keep my covenant, you shall be my treasured possession among all peoples, for all the earth is mine; 6 and you shall be to me a kingdom of priests and a holy nation.’ These are the words that you shall speak to the people of Israel.”

7 So Moses came and called the elders of the people and set before them all these words that the LORD had commanded him. 8 All the people answered together and said, “All that the LORD has spoken we will do.” And Moses reported the words of the people to the LORD. 9 And the LORD said to Moses, “Behold, I am coming to you in a thick cloud, that the people may hear when I speak with you, and may also believe you forever.”

When Moses told the words of the people to the LORD, 10 the LORD said to Moses, “Go to the people and consecrate them today and tomorrow, and let them wash their garments 11 and be ready for the third day. For on the third day the LORD will come down on Mount Sinai in the sight of all the people.

God comes to the Mountain as he promises, following the consecration of Israel, God from this thick cloud gives them the Ten Commandments, to which the people tremble in fear from the voice. They tell Moses in Exodus 20:19 "do not let God speak to us, lest we die". Moses then goes back up to God to receive the rest of the law and the commandments on their behalf.

The Promised Angel

Exodus 21-23 is mostly filled with these commandments, statutes that God set forth for the nation to follow in order to be his people.

What is important going forward is how Chapter 23 ends where God promises the conquest of Canaan, but he promises something peculiar right before it:

Exodus 23:20–22 (ESV)

20 “Behold, I send an angel before you to guard you on the way and to bring you to the place that I have prepared. 21 Pay careful attention to him and obey his voice; do not rebel against him, for he will not pardon your transgression, for my name is in him.

22 “But if you carefully obey his voice and do all that I say, then I will be an enemy to your enemies and an adversary to your adversaries.

This is a special Angel, it's the same one which called out to Moses from the burning bush (something I will talk about in a later session), that will now lead Israel in the conquest of Canaan. He also has authority saying "he will not pardon your transgression", why not, you ask: because God tells us "for my name is in him", this is the ONLY angel in scripture where this is said of Him. God also tells reiterates it for Moses in case he didn't get it, this Angel's voice may as well be his own: "carefully obey his voice and do all that I say".

Mind you, this is God's presence from the Glory Cloud telling Moses all of this, he has given authority to this Angel who will speak as God, and they were to obey him like we obey God. Hmm... Where have I heard that before?

John 12:44–50 (ESV)

Jesus Came to Save the World

44 And Jesus cried out and said, “Whoever believes in me, believes not in me but in him who sent me. 45 And whoever sees me sees him who sent me. 46 I have come into the world as light, so that whoever believes in me may not remain in darkness. 47 If anyone hears my words and does not keep them, I do not judge him; for I did not come to judge the world but to save the world. 48 The one who rejects me and does not receive my words has a judge; the word that I have spoken will judge him on the last day. 49 For I have not spoken on my own authority, but the Father who sent me has himself given me a commandment—what to say and what to speak. 50 And I know that his commandment is eternal life. What I say, therefore, I say as the Father has told me.”

John 14:1–4 (ESV)

14 “Let not your hearts be troubled. Believe in God; believe also in me. 2 In my Father’s house are many rooms. If it were not so, would I have told you that I go to prepare a place for you? 3 And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again and will take you to myself, that where I am you may be also. 4 And you know the way to where I am going.”

Jesus is going to prepare a place in His Father's house (Heaven) for us believers, and He will return to take us to himself! How exciting, how does this connect to the Angel above? Well, God said this Angel would also "guard you (Israel) on the way and to bring you to the place that I have prepared (Canaan)" Is this place just Canaan? Perhaps not, since none of the Adults who had grumbled in the wilderness were allowed into Canaan (Numbers 14:20-35).

Continuing on later in the Gospel of John, we have Jesus during the Last Supper praying what we call "The High Priestly Prayer", pay close attention to what he says here:

John 17:6–8 (ESV)

6 “I have manifested your name to the people whom you gave me out of the world. Yours they were, and you gave them to me, and they have kept your word. 7 Now they know that everything that you have given me is from you. 8 For I have given them the words that you gave me, and they have received them and have come to know in truth that I came from you; and they have believed that you sent me.

Now if you notice, this Angel can be said to have the same deeds that Jesus has in the New Testament, that's very interesting to think about considering the claim that Jesus made also that Moses wrote of him.

The Covenant Confirmed

Jumping back to Exodus Chapter 24, God has finished instructing Moses all the commandments and laws He wants to give to the Israelites, he has set in motion the event God had alluded to earlier, all of these events happened in succession and this is the final step. Moses returns to the people of Israel, and shares with them all the God has commanded of him.

An animal sacrifice is made for their atonement as prescribed through the Law, and Moses covers the altar he made to God (Symbolizing God's side of the Covenant) with half of the blood, and saves the other half for later. Moses reads out the Book of the Covenant to the people, to which they agree: "All that the LORD has spoken we will do, and we will be obedient." and with the other half of the blood, Moses sprinkles the people clean.

They Beheld God

Immediately after this, God fulfills his earlier promise, and he appears to the Elders of Israel and to Moses atop the mountain. God, having shown them the way through his Grace to make temporary atonement for themselves, now will make an appearance before them all. This is one of those passages in Exodus that might be easy to miss since it is rather short but pay careful attention to what happens here.

Exodus 24:9–12 (ESV)

9 Then Moses and Aaron, Nadab, and Abihu, and seventy of the elders of Israel went up, 10 and they saw the God of Israel. There was under his feet as it were a pavement of sapphire stone, like the very heaven for clearness. 11 And he did not lay his hand on the chief men of the people of Israel; they beheld God, and ate and drank.

12 The LORD said to Moses, “Come up to me on the mountain and wait there, that I may give you the tablets of stone, with the law and the commandment, which I have written for their instruction.”

They saw God? Did Jesus not say in John 6:46 (ESV) 46 not that anyone has seen the Father except he who is from God; he has seen the Father. So how then do we say that they saw God? Well, they were actually seeing a pre-incarnate appearance of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Son of God, but not in the flesh for it was not yet His time.

We also have plurality here to back this up, what does the God of Israel tell Moses to do after he ate and drank with them? He says "Come up to ME on the mountain and wait there", it was this second person of God who has just descended on the mountain as promised — that they would see God; This person of God who "did not lay his hand on the chief men", in his mercy he tells Moses to go up to himself which seems rather silly doesn't it? What it is, is this pre-incarnate appearance of the Son of God was allowing Moses to be in the presence of The Father. He tells Moses to go up and to wait there and what followed is shockingly similar to an event we see played out later in scripture in the life of Jesus Christ.

Parallel to the New Testament

Exodus 24:15–18 (ESV)

15 Then Moses went up on the mountain, and the cloud covered the mountain. 16 The glory of the LORD dwelt on Mount Sinai, and the cloud covered it six days. And on the seventh day he called to Moses out of the midst of the cloud. 17 Now the appearance of the glory of the LORD was like a devouring fire on the top of the mountain in the sight of the people of Israel. 18 Moses entered the cloud and went up on the mountain. And Moses was on the mountain forty days and forty nights.

Moses has gone up, but is forced to wait six days before he is allowed entrance into the cloud. Where does this sound familiar? Let us jump forward to an event referred to as "The Transfiguration" which is recorded in a few of the gospels, but specifically I would like to reference the account in Matthew

Matthew 17:1-8 (ESV)

The Transfiguration

1 And after six days Jesus took with him Peter and James, and John his brother, and led them up a high mountain by themselves. 2 And he was transfigured before them, and his face shone like the sun, and his clothes became white as light.

Jesus made them wait six days, and after the sixth day he takes them up the mountain.

And who is it that they meet at the top of this mountain?

3 And behold, there appeared to them Moses and Elijah, talking with him.

None other than Moses and Elijah, the two most influential/important prophets in the Old Testament. Now Moses had entered the cloud, what happens inside the cloud is unclear, but it appears that they were there spiritually, appearing to the disciples and Jesus on this mountain later in history as recorded in the Gospels. I won't begin to speculate how, but this likely in reference to this very event we speak of; I'd like to think it's like a telephone call across time, but I digress.

4 And Peter said to Jesus, “Lord, it is good that we are here. If you wish, I will make three tents here, one for you and one for Moses and one for Elijah.”

The Greek word translated as "tents" comes from the exact same word used in the Old Testament that means "Tabernacle", so it's very symbolic of the Old Testament events down to the language even.

5 He was still speaking when, behold, a bright cloud overshadowed them, and a voice from the cloud said, “This is my beloved Son, with whom I am well pleased; listen to him.” 6 When the disciples heard this, they fell on their faces and were terrified. 7 But Jesus came and touched them, saying, “Rise, and have no fear.” 8 And when they lifted up their eyes, they saw no one but Jesus only.

The Image of God

Now what else does the New Testament teach about the deity of Christ?

Colossians 1:15–23 (ESV)

The Preeminence of Christ

15 He is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn of all creation. 16 For by him all things were created, in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or dominions or rulers or authorities—all things were created through him and for him. 17 And he is before all things, and in him all things hold together. 18 And he is the head of the body, the church. He is the beginning, the firstborn from the dead, that in everything he might be preeminent. 19 For in him all the fullness of God was pleased to dwell, 20 and through him to reconcile to himself all things, whether on earth or in heaven, making peace by the blood of his cross.

21 And you, who once were alienated and hostile in mind, doing evil deeds, 22 he has now reconciled in his body of flesh by his death, in order to present you holy and blameless and above reproach before him, 23 if indeed you continue in the faith, stable and steadfast, not shifting from the hope of the gospel that you heard, which has been proclaimed in all creation under heaven, and of which I, Paul, became a minister.

As Paul said himself, Christ is the image of the invisible God, who contained the fullness of God, and reconciled us by His death, to present us spotless before God. Christ is also the one who mediates our fellowship with God.

1 Timothy 2:5 (ESV)

5 For there is one God, and there is one mediator between God and men, the man Christ Jesus

The Plurality Developed

Now having read these two events, and briefly read some of what else the New Testament teaches about Christ, do we see the huge parallel here? If not I wanted to take a second to re-iterate what we have here in my own words.

What we have in both instances is distinct personal relationships inside the Godhead. Two persons, but they are treated as equals in nature.

We have the Glory Cloud, which can be said to represent the Heavenly Father.

He gives his testimony several times about Jesus throughout scripture, but pay special attention to what he says to Peter, James and John when they meet him in the cloud:

"This is my beloved Son, with whom I am well pleased; listen to him."

This is eerily similar to what is said by God as the Glory Cloud in the Old Testament to Moses. He's speaking here of The Angel of the LORD as I shared above from Exodus 23

Pay careful attention to him and obey his voice; do not rebel against him, for he will not pardon your transgression, for my name is in him.

Now keep in mind, the second person of God might not be this "Angel" that God is referring to, but the fact that chronologically these events lead into each other lends some weight that it actually is. Later on in Deuteronomy 1:30, Moses reassures Israel that God himself goes before and fights for them

Exodus 14:19 (ESV)

19 Then the angel of God who was going before the host of Israel moved and went behind them, and the pillar of cloud moved from before them and stood behind them,

Deuteronomy 1:29–31 (ESV)

29 Then I said to you, ‘Do not be in dread or afraid of them. 30 The LORD your God who goes before you will himself fight for you, just as he did for you in Egypt before your eyes, 31 and in the wilderness, where you have seen how the LORD your God carried you, as a man carries his son, all the way that you went until you came to this place.’

Moses says that it was the Lord who carried them to this place, and they still rebelled against him and as such were not allowed entrance into Canaan, describing the deeds of the Angel as the deeds of God (which is still true even if you don't believe the Angel was a divine personal appearance)

Even if it's not the Angel Moses speaks about, and the other appearance recorded of God we read about him descending was not the Angel, that is unimportant. What is important, is that this second person does not vanquish them in anger, but pardons them and allows them fellowship despite Him also being Holy.

We now also see that God will allow us to commune with him, to be in his presence, to eat and drink with him. Yet earlier in this same event our God demanded that any unclean thing that even touched the mountain near his presence should be killed. God is so Holy that we could never stand in his presence on our own merit, but Jesus came and made a way for us, just like he did for Moses here.

This is straight from John 14 when Christ tells that He is the ONLY way to the Father:

John 14:5–7 (ESV)

5 Thomas said to him, “Lord, we do not know where you are going. How can we know the way?” 6 Jesus said to him, “I am the way, and the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me. 7 If you had known me, you would have known my Father also. From now on you do know him and have seen him.”

Matthew 11:27 (ESV)

27 All things have been handed over to me by my Father, and no one knows the Son except the Father, and no one knows the Father except the Son and anyone to whom the Son chooses to reveal him.

Jesus makes the Father known to us, like he made the Father known to Moses, that parallel even holds in that "the God of Israel" who descended on the mountain in Exodus 24 is the one who tells Moses to wait before going up the mountain. Even the end of the Transfiguration hints at this because it says when the Apostles lifted their faces, they only saw Jesus. This is symbolic that he is the image of the invisible God, and when he later says to his disciples "From now on you do know him and have seen him", he is not lying to them. He's the one who allows Moses to be in the presence of The Father, like Jesus is the one who takes Peter, James and John to the top of the mountain to meet with God who then bears witness about his Son. Jesus was always there in this Old Testament story if you have the eyes to see Him.

Hebrews 13:8 (ESV)

8 Jesus Christ is the same yesterday and today and forever.

We should expect to find Him here, because he is the same, and as Moses also said:

Numbers 23:19 (ESV)

19 God is not man, that he should lie, or a son of man, that he should change his mind. Has he said, and will he not do it? Or has he spoken, and will he not fulfill it?

Prophecy Explaining

If you have any more doubts about the connections here, we can look no further than the Prophets to see if what I am saying is theologically sound.

For starters, let's have a peek at Isaiah, speaking through the Holy Spirit, he recounts exactly what I outlined for the role of the Angel in the wilderness

Bear with me as the highlighting will be broken, but any instances of asterisks is added for emphasis

Isaiah 63:7–14 (ESV)

The LORD’s Mercy Remembered

       7       I will recount the steadfast love of the LORD, 
 the praises of the LORD, 
             according to all that the LORD has granted us, 
 and the great goodness to the house of Israel 
             that he has granted them according to his compassion, 
 according to the abundance of his steadfast love. 
       8       For he said, “Surely they are my people, 
 children who will not deal falsely.” 
 **And he became their Savior**. 
       9       In all their affliction he was afflicted, 
 and **the angel of his presence saved them**; 
             in his love and in his pity he redeemed them; 
 he lifted them up and carried them all the days of old.

       10       But they rebelled 
 and **grieved his Holy Spirit**; 
             therefore he turned to be their enemy, 
 and himself fought against them. 
       11       Then he remembered the days of old, 
 of Moses and his people. 
             Where is he who brought them up out of the sea 
 with the shepherds of his flock? 
             Where is he who put in the midst of them 
 his Holy Spirit, 
       12       **who caused his glorious arm 
 to go at the right hand of Moses**, 
             who divided the waters before them 
 to make for himself an everlasting name, 
       13       who led them through the depths? 
             Like a horse in the desert, 
 they did not stumble. 
       14       Like livestock that go down into the valley, 
 **the Spirit of the LORD gave them rest**. 
             So you led your people, 
 to make for yourself a glorious name.

God the Father (vs. 8), God the Son (vs. 9) and the Holy Spirit (vs. 10 & 14) are all said to have brought them rest? How can this be, but Trinity! lol sorry.

God speaking through Malachi in Malachi 3 told us that the Messenger of the covenant (The Mosaic Covenant dictated by The Angel we have been speaking about!), was coming

Malachi 3:1-3 (ESV)

“Behold, I send my messenger, and he will prepare the way before me. And the Lord whom you seek will suddenly come to his temple; and the messenger of the covenant in whom you delight, behold, he is coming, says the LORD of hosts. 2 But who can endure the day of his coming, and who can stand when he appears? For he is like a refiner’s fire and like fullers’ soap. 3 He will sit as a refiner and purifier of silver, and he will purify the sons of Levi and refine them like gold and silver, and they will bring offerings in righteousness to the LORD.

That same passage reminds us that God doesn't change

Malachi 3:6 (ESV)

6 “For I the LORD do not change; therefore you, O children of Jacob, are not consumed.

We are melted, but not consumed by his refining fire.

And David in the Psalms tells us that The Angel encamps around us who fear Him, and He delivers us:

Psalm 34:4–7 (ESV)

        4       I sought the LORD, and he answered me 
  and delivered me from all my fears. 
        5       Those who look to him are radiant, 
  and their faces shall never be ashamed. 
        6       This poor man cried, and the LORD heard him 
  and saved him out of all his troubles. 
        7       The angel of the LORD encamps 
  around those who fear him, and delivers them.