“Beginning With Moses, Part 10” by Romans
Youtube Audio: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZUnDKD1NMH4
We are continuing our Series "Beginning With Moses." On the Road to Emmaus, Jesus caught up with and spoke with two disciples who were sad and perplexed about the arrest, crucifixion and resurrection reports about Jesus, the One Whom they "trusted that it had been he which should have redeemed Israel” (Luke 24:21). In response to their sadness and confusion, Jesus opened the Scriptures to them. We read, “And beginning at Moses and all the prophets, he expounded unto them in all the scriptures the things concerning himself” (Luke 24:27).
First, tonight, Jesus may well have included in His review of the things that concerned Himself this prophecy: Moses spoke of and wrote of Christ specifically and prophetically: “The LORD thy God will raise up unto thee a Prophet from the midst of thee, of thy brethren, like unto me; unto him ye shall hearken” (Deuteronomy 18:15).
Of this, Matthew Henry writes, “Whether a succession of prophets be included in this promise or not, we are sure that it is primarily intended as a promise of Christ, and it is the clearest promise of him that is in all the law of Moses. It is expressly applied to our Lord Jesus as the Messiah promised (Acts 3:22; Acts 7:37)...
and the people had an eye to this promise when they said concerning him, This is of a truth that prophet that should come into the world (John 6:14); and it was his Spirit that spoke in all the other prophets, 1 Peter 1:11. Observe, (1.) What it is that is here promised concerning Christ. What God promised Moses at Mount Sinai, he promised the people in God's name.
[1.] That there should come a prophet, great above all the prophets, by whom God would make known himself and his will to the children of men more fully and clearly than ever he had done before. He is the light of the world, as prophecy was of the Jewish church, John 8:12. He is the Word, by whom God speaks to us, John 1:1; Hebrews 1:2.
[2.] That God would raise him up from the midst of them. In his birth he should be one of that nation, should live among them and be sent to them. In his resurrection he should be raised up at Jerusalem, and thence his doctrine should go forth to all the world: thus God, having raised up his Son Christ Jesus, sent him to bless us.
[3.] That he should be like unto Moses, only as much above him as the other prophets came short of him. Moses was such a prophet as was a law-giver to Israel and their deliverer out of Egypt, and so was Christ: he not only teaches, but rules and saves. Moses was the founder of a new dispensation by signs and wonders and mighty deeds, and so was Christ, by which he proved himself a teacher come from God. Was Moses faithful? So was Christ; Moses as a servant, but Christ as a Son.
[4.] That God would put his words in his mouth, Deu_18:18. What messages God had to send to the children of men he would send them by him, and give him full instructions what to say and do as a prophet. Hence our Saviour says, My doctrine is not mine originally, but his that sent me, Joh_7:16. So that this great promise is performed; this Prophet has come, even Jesus; it is he that should come, and we are to look for no other.”
This prophecy is recognized to have been fulfilled by Jesus Christ. Jesus, Himself, made reference to it during His ministry and in His own defense in one of the confrontations with His many detractors: “Search the scriptures; for in them ye think ye have eternal life: and they are they which testify of me” (John 5:39).
The Preacher's Homiletical comments, “Why are we to search the Scriptures?—The Scriptures here spoken of are the Old Testament Scriptures; and as it is known how highly the Jews prized those writings as the oracles of God, the force of Christ’s appeal may be estimated.
And if these sacred Scriptures really did testify of Him, these unbelieving Jews were treasuring up wrath for themselves. How earnestly then should they have searched! But they were wilfully blind, and failed therefore to lay hold on that eternal life which their Scriptures revealed (Matthew 13:15). Consider the importance of the Scriptures.
I. They are the oracles of God.—1. The oracles were the responses by supposed divinities, heathen gods, to the inquiries of their worshippers. Some divine afflatus was supposed to be communicated to the priests or priestesses who served at the heathen shrine; or the image of the god was itself by sign or speech supposed to communicate the divine message; or the message was communicated by certain natural phenomena, etc.
2. The oracles of the Jews came to them by revelations through prophetic men during many centuries. They are contained in the books we now call the Old Testament; and the nature of their contents, and the striking unity shown in the progressive unfolding of the revelation, lift them high as heaven above the ambiguous and often foolish oracles of heathendom.
3. They contain what men never could have discovered for themselves concerning the nature of God, the way of access to Him, and the hope and promise of eternal life.”
Next Jesus said to His detractors, “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).
Matthew Henry writes of this: “The last witness here called is Moses, John 5:45, etc. The Jews had a great veneration for Moses, and valued themselves upon their being the disciples of Moses, and pretended to adhere to Moses, in their opposition to Christ; but Christ here shows them,
(1.) That Moses was a witness against the unbelieving Jews, and accused them to the Father: There is one that accuses you, even Moses. This may be understood either, [1.] As showing the difference between the law and the gospel. Moses, that is, the law, accuses you, for by the law is the knowledge of sin; it condemns you, it is to those that trust to it a ministration of death and condemnation.
But it is not the design of Christ's gospel to accuse us: Think not that I will accuse you. Christ did not come into the world as a Momus, to find fault and pick quarrels with every body, or as a spy upon the actions of men, or a promoter, to fish for crimes; no, he came to be an advocate, not an accuser; to reconcile God and man, and not to set them more at variance. What fools were they then that adhered to Moses against Christ, and desired to be under the law! Galatians 4:21.
Or, [2.] As showing the manifest unreasonableness of their infidelity: “Think not that I will appeal from your bar to God's and challenge you to answer there for what you do against me, as injured innocency usually does; no, I do not need; you are already accused, and cast, in the court of heaven; Moses himself says enough to convict you of, and condemn you for, your unbelief.”
Let them not mistake concerning Christ; though he was a prophet, he did not improve his interest in heaven against those that persecuted him, did not, as Elias, make intercession against Israel (Rom_6:2), nor as Jeremiah desire to see God's vengeance on them. Nor let them mistake concerning Moses, as if he would stand by them in rejecting Christ; no, There is one that accuses you, even Moses in whom you trust.
Note, First, External privileges and advantages are commonly the vain confidence of those who reject Christ and his grace. The Jews trusted in Moses, and thought their having his laws and ordinances would save them. Secondly, Those that confide in their privileges, and do not improve them, will find not only that their confidence is disappointed, but that those very privileges will be witnesses against them.
(2.) That Moses was a witness for Christ and to his doctrine (John 5:46-47): He wrote of me. Moses did particularly prophesy of Christ, as the Seed of the woman, the Seed of Abraham, the Shiloh, the great Prophet; the ceremonies of the law of Moses were figures of him that was to come. The Jews made Moses the patron of their opposition to Christ; but Christ here shows them their error, that Moses was so far from writing against Christ that he wrote for him, and of him.
But, [1.] Christ here charges it on the Jews that they did not believe Moses. He had said (John 5:45) that they trusted in Moses, and yet here he undertakes to make out that they did not believe Moses; they trusted to his name, but they did not receive his doctrine in its true sense and meaning; they did not rightly understand, nor give credit to, what there was in the writings of Moses concerning the Messiah.
[2.] He proves this charge from their disbelief of him: Had you believed Moses, you would have believed me. Note, First, The surest trial of faith is by the effects it produces. Many say that they believe whose actions give their words the lie; for had they believed the scriptures they would have done otherwise than they did. Secondly, Those who rightly believe one part of scripture will receive every part. The prophecies of the old Testament were so fully accomplished in Christ that those who rejected Christ did in effect deny those prophecies, and set them aside.
[3.] From their disbelief of Moses he infers that it was not strange that they rejected him: If you believe not his writings, how shall you believe my words? How can it be thought that you should? First, “If you do not believe sacred writings, those oracles which are in black and white, which is the most certain way of conveyance, how shall you believe my words, words being usually less regarded?”
Secondly, “If you do not believe Moses, for whom you have such a profound veneration, how is it likely that you should believe me, whom you look upon with so much contempt?” See Exodus 6:12.
Thirdly, “If you believe not what Moses spoke and wrote of me, which is a strong and cogent testimony for me, how shall you believe me and my mission?” If we admit not the premises, how shall we admit the conclusion? The truth of the Christian religion, it being a matter purely of divine revelation, depends upon the divine authority of the scripture; if therefore we believe not the divine inspiration of those writings, how shall we receive the doctrine of Christ?”
Jesus' fulfilling Moses prophecy about the coming of a prophet like unto him was recognized and preached in the earliest days of the Church. In one of his first sermons to the people immediately after being filled with the Holy Spirit, Peter boldly preached, “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” (Acts 3:22).
Albert Barnes writes of this: “For Moses truly said - The authority of Moses among the Jews was absolute and final. It was of great importance, therefore, to show not only that they were not departing from his Law, but that he had actually foretold these very things. The object of the passage is not to prove that the heavens must receive him, but that he was truly the Messiah.
Unto the fathers - To their ancestors, or the founders of the nation. See Deuteronomy 18:15-19.
A Prophet - Literally, one who foretells future events. But it is also used to denote a religious teacher in general. In the passage in Deuteronomy it is evidently used in a large sense, to denote one who would infallibly guide and direct the nation in its religious affairs; one who would be commissioned by God to do this, in opposition to the diviners Acts 3:14 on which other nations relied.
The meaning of this passage in Deuteronomy is apparent from the connection. Moses is stating to the Hebrews Acts 3:1-8 the duty and office of the priests and Levites. He then cautions them against conforming to the surrounding nations, particularly on the subject of religious instruction and guidance. They, said he, consult, in times of perplexity, with enchanters, and charmers, and necromancers, and wizards, etc. Acts 3:11-14, but it shall not be so with you.
You shall not be left to this false and uncertain guidance in times of perplexity and danger, for the Lord will raise up, from time to time, a prophet, a man directly commissioned in an extraordinary manner from heaven, like me, who shall direct and counsel you. The promise, therefore, pertains to the serges or, prophets which God would raise up; or it is a promise that God would send his prophets, as occasion might demand, to instruct and counsel the nation.
The design was to keep them from consulting with diviners, etc., and to preserve them from following the pretended and false religious teachers of surrounding idolatrous people. In this interpretation most commentators agree. Thus explained, the prophecy had no “exclusive” or even “direct” reference to the Messiah, and there is no evidence that the Jews understood it to have any such reference, except as one of the series of prophets that God would raise up and send to instruct the nation.
If, then, it be asked on what principle Peter appealed to this, we may reply: (1) That the Messiah was to sustain the character of a prophet, and the prophecy had reference to him as one of the teachers that God would raise up to instruct the nation.
(2) It would apply to him by way of eminence, as the greatest of the messengers that God would send to instruct the people. In this sense it is probable that the Jews would understand it.
(3) This was one of those emergencies in the history of the nation when they might expect such an intervention. The prophecy implied that in times of perplexity and danger God would raise up such a prophet. Such a time then existed. The nation was corrupt, distracted, subjected to a foreign power, and needed such a teacher and guide.
If it be asked why Peter appealed to this rather than to explicit prophecies of the Messiah, we may remark: (1) That his main object was to show their guilt in having rejected him and put him to death, Acts 3:14-15.
(2) That in order to do this, he sets before them clearly the obligation to obey him; and in doing this, appeals to the express command of Moses. He shows them that, according to Moses, whoever would not obey such a prophet should be cut off from among the people. In refusing, therefore, to hear this great prophet, and putting him to death, they had violated the express command of their own Lawgiver.
But it was possible still to obey him, for he still lived in heaven; and all the authority of Moses, therefore, made it a matter of obligation for them still to hear and obey him. The Jews were accustomed to apply the name prophet to the Messiah John 1:21; John 6:14; John 7:40; Matthew 21:11; Luke 4:24, and it has been shown from the writings of the Jewish rabbis that they believed the Messiah would be the greatest of the prophets, even greater than Moses. See the notes on Joh_1:21.
The Lord your God - In the Hebrew, “Yahweh, thy God. “Raise up unto you.” Appoint, or commission to come to you.
Of your brethren - Among yourselves; of your own countrymen; so that you shall not be dependent on foreigners, or on teachers of other nations. All the prophets were native-born Jews.
And it was particularly true of the Messiah that he was to be a Jew, descended from Abraham, and raised up from the midst of his brethren, Hebrews 2:11, Hebrews 2:16-17. On this account it was to be presumed that they would feel a deeper interest in him, and listen more attentively to his instructions.
Like unto me - Not in all things, but only in the point which was under discussion. He was to resemble him in being able to make known to them the will of God, and thus preventing the necessity of looking to other teachers. The idea of resemblance between Moses and the prophet is not very strictly expressed in the Greek, except in the mere circumstance of being raised up.
God shall raise up to you a prophet as he has raised up me - ὡς hōs ἐμέ eme. The resemblance between Moses and the Messiah should not be pressed too far. The Scriptures have not traced it further than to the fact that both were raised up by God to communicate his will to the Jewish people, and therefore one should be heard as well as the other.
Him shall ye hear - That is, him shall you obey, or you shall receive his instructions as a communication from God.
In all things, whatsoever ... - These words are not quoted literally from the Hebrew, but they express the sense of what is said in Deuteronomy 18:15 and 18.”
Moses also wrote of an event that took place during Israel's 40 years of wandering in the wilderness. Unlike the direct prophecy of Christ we just reviewed and examined, this was a profound symbolic prophecy that many I am sure would just read over and not realize its significance.
I will share the entire account to you: “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. 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...
And the LORD sent fiery serpents among the people, and they bit the people; and much people of Israel died. 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...
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. 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 21:1-9).
Alexander MacLaren says of this: “THE POISON AND THE ANTIDOTE: The mutinous discontent of the Israelites had some excuse when they had to wheel round once more and go southwards in consequence of the refusal of passage through Edom.
The valley which stretches from the Dead Sea to the head of the eastern arm of the Red Sea, down which they had to plod in order to turn the southern end of the mountains on its east side, and then resume their northern march outside the territory of Edom, is described as a ‘horrible desert.’
Certainly it yielded neither bread nor water. So the faithless pilgrims broke into their only too familiar murmurings, utterly ignoring their thirty-eight years of preservation. ‘There is no bread.’ No; but the manna had fallen day by day. ‘Our soul loatheth this light bread.’ Yes; but it was bread all the same.
Thus coarse tastes prefer garlic and onions to Heaven’s food, and complain of being starved while it is provided. ‘There is no water.’ No; but the ‘rock that followed them’ gushed out abundance, and there was no thirst.
Murmuring brought punishment, which was meant for amendment. ‘The Lord sent fiery serpents.’ That statement does not necessarily imply a miracle. Scripture traces natural phenomena directly to God’s will, and often overleaps intervening material links between the cause which is God and the effect which is a physical fact.
The neighbourhood of Elath at the head of the gulf is still infested with venomous serpents, ‘marked with fiery red spots,’ from which, or possibly from the inflammation caused by their poison, they are here called ‘fiery.’ God made the serpents, though they were hatched by eggs laid by mothers;
He brought Israel to the place; He willed the poisonous stings. If we would bring ordinary events into immediate connection with the Divine hand, and would see in all calamities fatherly chastisement ‘for our profit,’ we should understand life better than we often do.
Conscious guilt is conscious of unworthiness to approach God, though it dares to speak to offended men. The request for Moses’ intercession witnesses to the instinct of conscience, requiring a mediator,-an instinct which has led to much superstition and been terribly misguided, but which is deeply true, and is met once for all in Jesus Christ, our Advocate before the throne.
The request shows that the petitioners were sure of Moses’ forgiveness for their distrust of him, and thus it witnesses to his ‘meekness.’ His pardon was a kind of pledge of God’s. Was the servant likely to be more gracious than the Master? A good man’s readiness to forgive helps bad men to believe in a pardoning God. It reflects some beam of Heaven’s mercy.
Moses had often prayed for the people when they had sinned, and before they had repented. It was not likely that he would be slow to do so when they asked him, for the asking was accompanied with ample confession. The serpents had done their work, and the prayer that the chastisement should cease would be based on the fact that the sin had been forsaken. But the narrative seems to anticipate that, after the prayer had been offered and answered, Israelites would still be bitten.
If they were, that confirms the presumption that the sending of the serpents was not miraculous. It also brings the whole facts into line with the standing methods of Providence, for the outward consequences of sin remain to be reaped after the sin has been forsaken; but they change their character and are no longer destructive, but only disciplinary. ‘Serpents’ still ‘bite’ if we have ‘broken down hedges,’ but there is an antidote.
The command to make a brazen or copper serpent, and set it on some conspicuous place, that to look on it might stay the effect of the
poison, is remarkable, not only as sanctioning the forming of an image, but as associating healing power with a material object.
Two questions must be considered separately,-What did the method of cure say to the men who turned their bloodshot, languid eyes to it? and What does it mean for us, who see it by the light of our Lord’s great words about it? As to the former question, we have not to take into account the Old Testament symbolism which makes the serpent the emblem of Satan or of sin. Serpents had bitten the wounded. Here was one like them, but without poison, hanging harmless on the pole.
Surely that would declare that God had rendered innocuous the else fatal creatures. The elevation of the serpent was simply intended to make it visible from afar; but it could not have been set so high as to be seen from all parts of the camp, and we must suppose that the wounded were in many cases carried from the distant parts of the wide-spreading encampment to places whence they could catch a glimpse of it glittering in the sunshine.
We are not told that trust in God was an essential part of the look, but that is taken for granted. Why else should a half-dead man lift his heavy eyelids to look? Such a one knew that God had commanded the image to be made, and had promised healing for a look. His gaze was fixed on it, in obedience to the command involved in the promise, and was, in some measure, a manifestation of faith.
No doubt the faith was very imperfect, and the desire was only for physical healing; but none the less it had in it the essence of faith. It would have been too hard a requirement for men through whose veins the swift poison was burning its way, and who, at the best, were so little capable of rising above sense, to have asked from them, as the condition of their cure, a trust which had no external symbol to help it.
Our Lord has given us the deepest meaning of the brazen serpent. Taught by Him, we are to see in it a type of Himself, the significance of which could not be apprehended till Calvary had given the key. Three distinct points of parallel are suggested by His use of the incident in His conversation with Nicodemus. First, He takes the serpent as an emblem of Himself.
Now it is clear that it is so, not in regard to the saving power that dwells in Him, but in regard to His sinless manhood, which was made ‘in the likeness of sinful flesh,’ yet ‘without sin.’ The symbolism which takes the serpent as the material type of sin comes into view now, and is essential to the full comprehension of the typical significance of the incident.
Secondly, Jesus laid stress on the ‘lifting up’ of the serpent. That ‘lifting up’ has two meanings. It primarily refers to the Crucifixion, wherein, just as the death-dealing power was manifestly triumphed over in the elevation of the brazen serpent, the power of sin is exhibited as defeated, as Paul says, ‘triumphing over them in it’ (Colossians 2:14-15).
But that lifting up on the Cross draws after it the elevation to the throne, and to that, or, rather, to both considered as inseparably united, our Lord refers when He says,’ I, if I be lifted up from the earth, will draw all men unto Me.’
Thirdly, the condition of healing is paralleled. ‘When he looked unto the serpent of brass, he lived.’ ‘That whosoever believeth may in Him have eternal life.’ From the serpent no healing power flowed; but our eternal life is ‘in Him,’ and from Him it flows into our poisoned, dying nature.
The sole condition of receiving into ourselves that new life which is free from all taint of sin, and is mighty enough to arrest the venom that is diffused through every drop of blood, is faith in Jesus lifted on the Cross to slay the sin that is slaying mankind, and raised to the throne to bestow His own immortal and perfect life on all who look to Him. The bitten Israelite might be all but dead.
The poison wrought swiftly; but if he from afar lifted his glazing eyeballs to the serpent on the pole, a swifter healing overtook the death that was all but conqueror, and cast it out, and he who was borne half unconscious to the foot of the standard went away a sound man, ‘walking, and leaping, and praising God.’
So it may be with any man, however deeply tainted with sin, if he will trust himself to Jesus, and from ‘the ends of the earth’ ‘look unto’ Him ‘and be saved,’ His power knows no hopeless cases. He can cure all. He will cure our most ingrained sin, and calm the hottest fever of our poisoned blood, if we will let Him.
The only thing that we have to do is to gaze, with our hearts in our eyes and faith in our hearts, on Him, as He is lifted on the Cross and the throne. But we must so gaze, or we die, for none but He can cast out the coursing venom. None but He can arrest the swift-footed death that is intertwined with our very natures.”
Before we close, tonight, let's notice that Jesus, Himself, made reference to this to that bronze serpent in His conversation with Nicodemus, and He applied it to Himself: “And as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, even so must the Son of man be lifted up” (John 3:14).
Alexander MacLaren will have the last word, tonight: “Now, of course, the sole purpose of setting that brazen serpent on the pole was to render it conspicuous, and all that Nicodemus could then understand by the symbol was that, in some unknown way, this heaven-descended Son of Man should be set forth before Israel and the world as being the Healer of all their diseases.
But we are wiser, after the event, than the ruler of the Jews could be at the threshold of Christ’s ministry. We have also to remember that this is not the only occasion, though it is the first, on which our Lord used this very significant expression. For twice over in this Gospel we find it upon His lips-once when, addressing the unbelieving multitude, He says ‘When ye have lifted up the Son of Man, then shall ye know that I am He’.”
There are many more symbolic and direct prophecies for us to examine as we continue to review and examine “beginning at Moses and all the prophets,” those things which are contained in the Old Testament that mention and teach us of Christ. God willing, I plan to continue this Series at this same time and place. I invite you all to join me in this Study.
This concludes this evening's Discussion, “Beginning with Moses, Part 10.”
This Discussion was presented “live” on August September 27th, 2023
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