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December 6, 2015 |
| A Prophet Like Me | ||
The Bible and especially the Old Testament uses symbolism to teach many ideas. Sometimes people's names tell us something more. Sometimes words have more than one meaning and both are important. Sometimes events are described in symbolic ways, like beasts with heads. There are many ways this is done. The one we will look at today is called a "type".
A type is an event or person who is like another event or person. For example Abraham's offering up his son Isaac as a sacrifice is "like" God offering up his son as a sacrifice in many ways. Jesus prophesies an event where armies will encircle Jerusalem shortly before his return. That hasn't happened yet but there was a "type" fulfillment of that prophecy when the Roman Army surrounded Jerusalem in AD 70 and conquered it.
You might ask why the Bible is written like this. Why not just tell us all these things straight out? The answer seems to be that God wants to see if we care about his word enough to really study it. Those who do study it will be rewarded with greater understanding of God and what he has done and will do. Essentially, if you seek you will find.
In the book of Deuteronomy, Moses is speaking to the Israelites just before they go into the Promised Land. He summarizes the events of the previous 40 years of wandering in the desert. He also shows how turning away from God hurt them in the desert and warns them not to turn from God when they get in the Promised Land.
In the words Moses spoke lay many prophecies. One of these talked about a coming prophet.
"The Lord your God will raise up for you a prophet like me from among you, from your countrymen, you shall listen to him. 16 This is according to all that you asked of the Lord your God in Horeb on the day of the assembly, saying, 'Let me not hear again the voice of the Lord my God, let me not see this great fire anymore, or I will die.' 17 The Lord said to me, 'They have spoken well. 18 I will raise up a prophet from among their countrymen like you, and I will put My words in his mouth, and he shall speak to them all that I command him. 19 It shall come about that whoever will not listen to My words which he shall speak in My name, I Myself will require it of him.' (Deuteronomy 18:15-18)
Moses said there will be a prophet like Moses. This prophet will come from the Israelites. Moses commands them to listen to this prophet. Moses says this prophet will be sent to them because they refused to listen to God when he spoke to them from Mount Horeb when the Ten Commandments were given. At that time God had tried to speak to them in such a way that they thought they might die.
After having said that, Moses began to speak for God. He said this prophet will say everything that God wants him to say. He said if they do not listen to this prophet, God himself "will require it" from them. Though it isn't completely clear what is meant here, it certainly is a threat. The intent seems to be that God will require them to produce the words of this prophet, so they better be listening.
There were many prophets who would come after Moses. How do we know which one Moses is referring to here? The answer comes from an incident when Aaron and Miriam came to feel that they were as good as Moses - that God spoke through them just as he did through Moses.
Then the Lord came down in a pillar of cloud and stood at the doorway of the tent, and He called Aaron and Miriam. When they had both come forward, 6 He said, "Hear now My words: If there is a prophet among you, I, the Lord, shall make Myself known to him in a vision. I shall speak with him in a dream. 7 Not so, with My servant Moses, He is faithful in all My household; 8 With him I speak mouth to mouth, even openly, and not in dark sayings, and he beholds the form of the Lord. Why then were you not afraid to speak against My servant, against Moses?" (Numbers 12:5-8)
God made it clear here that Moses isn't just any prophet. God had put him in charge of everything that was God's and God spoke to him face to face, not through visions like he did with other prophets. The Bible also says this about the relationship between God and Moses.
Thus the Lord used to speak to Moses face to face, just as a man speaks to his friend. (Exodus 33:11)
So now we know that Moses was not like any other prophet. Therefore, when Moses said this prophet would be like him, we know that he wasn't talking about Isaiah or Elijah or any of the other prophets. He was talking about Jesus.
In the time of Jesus, the Jewish leaders knew that this prophet Moses spoke of had not been one of the prophets like Isaiah or Elijah. Therefore they knew he was still coming and were waiting for him and watching. We see this when the Pharisees ask John the Baptist about who he is.
And this is the testimony of John when the Judeans sent Levites and priests to him from Jerusalem in order to ask him: "Who are you?" 20 And he confessed and did not deny and confessed: "I am not The Messiah." 21 And they asked him again, "What, therefore? Are you Elijah?" And he said, "No." "Are you the prophet", and he said "No." 22 And they said to him, "And who are you? Tell us that we may give a statement to those who sent us. What do you say about yourself?" 23 He said: "I am the voice that cries in the wilderness: 'Prepare the way of the Lord Yahweh', just as that which Isaiah the prophet said." 24 And they that were sent were of the Pharisees. 25 And they asked him and said to him, "Why therefore are you baptizing, if you are not the Messiah, nor Elijah, nor the prophet?" (John 1:19-25)
There is something very important to see here. First they had asked John if he was the Messiah, then if he was Elijah, and then if he was the prophet. These were all people that prophecy said were coming. But notice that they hadn't understood that the Messiah would also be the prophet. If they had understood they wouldn't have asked about both the Messiah and the prophet.
We see this same misunderstanding that the Messiah and the prophet are different people in other places.
But many from the crowds who heard his words were saying, "This is truly the prophet." 41 Others were saying, "This one is the Messiah." Others were saying, "Can the Messiah come from Galilee?" (John 7:40-41)
The Jews probably missed this because they had wanted the Messiah to be a Warrior King. Their expectations of the Messiah were wrong and when he came they rejected him because of it.
The average Jewish person also was expecting this prophet Moses described. Jesus encountered this after he had fed the 5000.
But those people who saw the miracle that Yeshua did were saying, "Truly, this is the prophet who is coming to the world." 15 But Yeshua knew they were prepared to come seize him and make him King, and he withdrew to that mountain alone. (John 6:14-15)
The people recognize him as the prophet like Moses that Moses said was coming and therefore they want to make him King. That isn't Jesus mission though and he knows it. So he sneaks out on them.
When Jesus leaves them that doesn't solve the problem. Now the crowds are focused on the miracles he does and they see him as the prophet and not the Messiah. Wherever he goes they find him. Jesus must separate out those who are there for his message and not just to see the miracles. He separates them with these lines.
"But whoever eats of my body and drinks of my blood has eternal life, and I shall raise him in the last day. 55 For my body truly is food, and my blood truly is drink. 56 Whoever eats my body and drinks my blood abides in me and I in him." (John 6:54-56)
These words sound crazy to those people who have not been listening with their hearts and they go away.
The Pharisees were questioning a man who was blind from birth, whom Jesus had healed. Throughout the questioning, the man and his parents are avoiding saying Jesus is The Prophet or the Messiah as they knew they would be kicked out of the synagogue for that.
Again they were saying to him who had been blind, "What do you say about him who opened your eyes for you?" He said to them, "I say he is a Prophet."
But they were insulting him and were saying to him, "You are his disciple; we are the disciples of Moses. 29 And we know that God spoke with Moses, but we do not know from where this man is." (John 9:17,28-29)
The words of the Pharisees show their blindness. They say "God spoke with Moses" which refers to the face-to-face nature of that relationship. But they are unable to accept that God is speaking with Jesus. Instead they say "we do not know" and they do not pursue it.
The idea that Jesus was a prophet like Moses also shows up after Jesus' ascension. In these verses Stephen is explaining to the religious elite how they have killed their Messiah.
"Moses said, 'the Lord Yahweh shall raise up to you a prophet like me from your brothers. Hear him in everything that he will speak with you. 23 It shall be that every soul who will not hear that Prophet, that soul shall perish from among his people. 24 And all the prophets from Samuel and those who were after him have spoken and preached of these days.'" (Acts 3:22)
Steven speaks these words to the religious elite of the Jews. He quotes Moses' description of the "prophet like Moses" to show that Jesus was that prophet and that the religious elite did not listen to him as Moses instructed. They kill him for that.
The same idea of a "prophet like Moses" is presented later in Acts.
This is Moses who said to the children of Israel, "The Lord Yahweh God shall appoint you a prophet like me from your brethren. You shall listen to him." (Act 7:37)
From all these references to what Moses said we can see that this was an important prophecy.
In light of these passages of Scripture, here are thirty (30) ways in which Yeshua was like Moses:
How, then, was Jesus "a Prophet like Moses"? Well, like Moses, he was a Jew, a Leader, a Prophet, a Lawgiver, a Savior, a Teacher, a Priest, a Healer, an Anointed One, a Mediator between God and man -- speaking the words of God -- and like Moses, he offered himself to die for the sins of the people.1
We've also learned about types. Moses was a type of the coming Messiah.
We've also seen how people can misunderstand prophecy and how that can end in disaster. The common factor in the failure of prophecy interpretation is that people insert things into it that they want. These are either ideas from the world or their own personal desires.
1 http://www.hebrew4christians.com/Articles/Like_Moses/like_moses.html