Diagram Position

We are chronologically working through the diagram pictured above, having started with the far left Earth icon, and are now in the second pillar titled covenantal. On the third line down we identify Exodus 20-24. We have now taken several posts to carefully meditate upon Exodus 20-24 and we are still not done. Before moving on we must dive into Deuteronomy as the Exodus is expounded upon with far greater detail.

Introduction

A couple years ago I began to reevaluate my theology regarding the first coming of Jesus. After all, I thought I had it down: Jesus, who was God, came as a man and lived and died as the sacrifice for the sins of all mankind. In His death humanity finds forgiveness before the Father when they repent, and in His resurrection we have hope of the reward that is in store for us if we stand firm in the faith until the end. Surely this is true and magnificent! However, as I began to ponder the details of the life of Jesus, particularly in the gospel of John, I began to realize some very important things of which I was previously unaware. One of these things namely was that Jesus’ rebuke of the Pharisees and Sadducees had a specific context. His words seemed very well thought out and pointed, as that of a sniper taking aim at targets. His acts, such as his cleansing the temple, healing on the sabbath, and many others seemed to point to a greater purpose. I had generally just swept everything under the rug of, “Jesus was displeased with the Jewish authorities and their view of the law and He was making that clear.” This again is true, but it is only scraping the surface of what He viewed as the purpose of His first coming.

I now believe that the large majority of the church including some Messianic Jewish brothers are missing a vital component of Jesus’ identity. This identity is revealed in Deuteronomy 18 as a person who would be The Prophet Like Moses. This person, as we will see, was to come to the nation of Israel in the prophetic fashion of Moses, speaking words to the nation with which they would be held accountable for.

I recently read a book by a messianic brother that was a biblical theology of Christ in the Old Testament Scriptures. Within none of its pages did I discover a single paragraph regarding what we are about to discuss. This concerned and saddened me, and although it is a topic I am fairly new to as well, I am hopeful as we look into this together. Therefore, it is the aim of this post to pointedly show how Jesus emphatically sees Himself as fulfilling the role of the Prophet from Deuteronomy 18 as well as to pinpoint the importance of teaching this part of His identity today. It is critical as the text will reveal to understand how primary the identity of the Prophet like Moses is to Jesus Himself as well as the apostles, the Jewish people of the first century, and even the Father in Heaven.

 

Here is a link to the notes for this subject, yet they end incomplete as the apocalyptic identity of Jesus will be handled later. The two other links are audio sessions of teaching I recently did regarding this subject.

PDF Notes           Audio Session 1          Audio Session 2

The Context of the Prophet from Exodus 20, Deuteronomy 5 and 18

One of the most significant messianic foreshadowings in the Old Testament is found in Deuteronomy 18 even though the exchange takes place at Mt. Sinai within the very chapters we have been looking at. Although a very short segment of Scripture, it is one of the most important things to see, behold, meditate upon, and let affect how we interpret the remainder of Scripture and our premier definition (as far as expectation is concerned) of the Messiah. In Deuteronomy 18 Moses gives a snippet of previously unheard information regarding what happened that day at the mountain in Exodus 20. To produce a thorough and cohesive picture of this event we need to look at many portions of Scripture.

In Exodus 20,

All the people perceived the thunder and the lightning flashes and the sound of the trumpet and the mountain smoking; and when the people saw it, they trembled and stood at a distance. 19Then they said to Moses, “Speak to us yourself and we will listen; but let not God speak to us, or we will die.” 20Moses said to the people, “Do not be afraid; for God has come in order to test you, and in order that the fear of Him may remain with you, so that you may not sin.” 21So the people stood at a distance, while Moses approached the thick cloud where God was.

Now, let’s read how Moses recaps this same event in Deut. 5.

These words the LORD spoke to all your assembly at the mountain from the midst of the fire, of the cloud and of the thick gloom, with a great voice, and He added no more. He wrote them on two tablets of stone and gave them to me. 23“And when you heard the voice from the midst of the darkness, while the mountain was burning with fire, you came near to me, all the heads of your tribes and your elders. 24“You said, ‘Behold, the LORD our God has shown us His glory and His greatness, and we have heard His voice from the midst of the fire; we have seen today that God speaks with man, yet he lives. 25‘Now then why should we die? For this great fire will consume us; if we hear the voice of the LORD our God any longer, then we will die. 26‘For who is there of all flesh who has heard the voice of the living God speaking from the midst of the fire, as we have, and lived? 27‘Go near and hear all that the LORD our God says; then speak to us all that the LORD our God speaks to you, and we will hear and do it.’ 

It is here that something very unique occurs. After the people say this to Moses, God responds to their statement with His own declaration:

 28“The LORD heard the voice of your words when you spoke to me, and the LORD said to me, ‘I have heard the voice of the words of this people which they have spoken to you. They have done well in all that they have spoken.29‘Oh that they had such a heart in them, that they would fear Me and keep all My commandments always, that it may be well with them and with their sons forever!

Wow. God is overflowing with the truth of His emotions here! He is longing for Israel to be able to keep what they’ve committed to although He already knows that they cannot. Still, in all of His foreknowledge He does not respond harshly but rather optimistically.

30‘Go, say to them, “Return to your tents.” 31‘But as for you, stand here by Me, that I may speak to you all the commandments and the statutes and the judgments which you shall teach them, that they may observe them in the land which I give them to possess.’ 32“So you shall observe to do just as the LORD your God has commanded you; you shall not turn aside to the right or to the left. 33“You shall walk in all the way which the LORD your God has commanded you, that you may live and that it may be well with you, and that you may prolong your days in the land which you will possess.

Deuteronomy 18 gives us an even clearer picture as Moses gives the last detail in this story that isn’t mentioned previously.

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.  

In my entire life I have never heard a teaching on Jesus being the prophet spoken of and prophesied by God in Deuteronomy 18. Does that not occur to you as odd?

Let me explain why this information is so vital. Firstly, it is one of the clearest pieces of information we have regarding the Messianic figure in the Old Testament. At this stage of our story we have been given some amazing foreshadowing concerning the Messiah. In Genesis 3:15 we have been told what He will inevitably do. In Genesis 15 we behold a priest/king who foreshadows Messiah. In Genesis 22 we see Abraham willing to sacrifice Isaac, for “He considered that God is able to raise people even from the dead, from which he also received him back as a type,” (Hb. 11:19). In Joseph we see a man thrown in a pit by His brothers, sold into slavery, wrongfully accused and imprisoned, and then vindicated and seated at the right hand of Pharaoh while his brothers come to Him in need. Yes, we have seen many pictures that are glorious and that instruct us in the nature of the Messiah that will come to fulfill Genesis 3:15. However in Deuteronomy 18, we have very concrete information which is in fact a direct pronouncement of the Messiah’s identity. Let’s break these few verses down to further discuss the scope of what is being revealed.

Deuteronomy 18:15-22

1. 15a “The Lord Your God will raise up for you a prophet like me…”
   1. God is the one choosing to raise up this prophet of His own wisdom and accord.
   2. Also, we note that the person will be a prophet. The person who was a true prophet in Scripture is someone who is actually hearing and declaring the true word of God. Also, the case is usually that this one is calling Israel to return to the covenant of God in order to, in effect, renew their vows and repent, by re–hearing God’s words. We see this with Elijah, Isaiah, Jeremiah and the remainder of the biblical prophets. So we know that this is the foundation of the Deuteronomy 18 person, He will actually speak the very words of God in calling the people to repentance–– to return to the Lord their God.
   3. A Prophet like Moses has many deep implications that we can only briefly discuss here:
      1. Moses was called out of Egypt before he was the deliverer.
         1. Jesus was called out of Egypt after Joseph and Mary had fled Bethlehem from Herod.
      2. God appeared to Moses in the Wilderness
         1. Jesus fasted 40 days in the wilderness in which He is specifically meditating on Deuteronomy 6-8. In Deuteronomy 8 we read that Moses says “You shall remember all the way which the Lord your God has led you in the wilderness these forty years, that He might humble you, testing you, to know what was in your heart, whether you would keep His commandments or not. He humbled you and let you be hungry, and fed you with manna which you did not know, nor did your fathers know, that Me might make you understand that man does not live by bread alone, but man lives by everything that proceeds out of the mouth of the LORD.”
         2. Likewise, Jesus was tempted in the desert for forty days, which is significant of Israel’s forty years in the desert. Jesus was also humbled and hungry in his human frame, being tested by God to know what’s in His heart and whether or not He would keep the commandments of God or not. He responds to the devil from this exact section of Scripture saying, “Man does not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceeds out of the mouth of God!”
      3. Moses stood in the direct counsel of God
         1. 33:11 “Thus the Lord used to speak to Moses face to face, just as a man speaks to his friend.”
            1. Jesus was in the presence of the Father His whole life speaking to Him face to face.
         2. The command to Moses is: But as for you, stand here by Me, that I may speak to you all the commandments and the statutes and the judgments which you shall teach them, that they may observe them in the land which I give them to possess (Deut. 5:31).
         3. In Proverbs 8:30 we see this same language applied to Jesus “Then I was beside Him, as a master workman, and I was daily His delight.”
      4. Most profoundly though is simply that the prophet spoken of will fulfill the same duty as Moses when the people requested: “Speak to us yourself and we will listen; but let not God speak to us, or we will die.”
         • This is brutally ironic in that the Prophet will come to speak the very words of God as the people requested, and yet the prophet will actually still be God the Son speaking. The mystery of God taking on a human frame and masking His glory so that He might draw near to the people and fulfill what they asked of Him on that day at Horeb, and to do it in this way, is very mysterious and awesome.
         • Whether they knew it or not the people of Israel were requesting what God had preordained before the ages in God the Son.
      5. The overarching themes to consider in Jesus being a Prophet like Moses are:
         • Moses led the Exodus
           • Jesus leads the Second Exodus at His Second Coming
         • Moses institutes the Passover
           • Jesus becomes the Passover Lamb
         • Moses was the Mediator of the Sinai Covenant
           • Jesus is the Mediator of the New Covenant in His blood
         • Moses read the law from Mt. Sinai
           • Jesus gives the Sermon on the Mount which is in effect the Law of the Spirit by grace through faith.
2. 18:15b “…from among you, from your countrymen.”
   1. This clearly tells us that the Prophet will have an ethnic identity––the lineage of Abraham, the stock of Israel––He will be Jewish. The simple announcement of this identity of the prophet irrefutably confirms God’s choice of Abraham and his lineage. This gives us proper context of why Jesus the Prophet is born to Mary and Joseph, ethnic Jews, in the town of Bethlehem, in the physical piece of land that was called Israel. Often times we overlook these details because they are profoundly simple. Yet, in their simplicity they are actually confirming the everlasting covenant.
      1. Jesus was Jewish and Jesus didn’t arbitrarily choose his ethnicity to be Jewish. There wasn’t a conversation in the Godhead with ten different ethnicities Jesus could pick from when He came in the flesh––There was only one story, and one people that possessed a covenant with that Godhead––the lineage of Abraham. It is the very people standing at Horeb asking for the Prophet.
3. 18:15c “…you shall listen to him.”
   1. The word hear here is exactly the same as Deuteronomy 6:4, the Shema, “Hear, O Israel! The LORD is our God, the LORD is one!” So YHWH is employing the same word in regards to this prophet, in that Israel should Shema the prophet.
      1. It is profound that the Lord gives the Shema twelve chapters earlier, and then links the Shema to the prophet. The Shema is that the LORD your God is ONE, and here the Lord is commanding Israel to Shema the Prophet, which foreshadows the divinity of the prophet. Since the command was initially Shema the word of the Lord, and now the command is Shema the prophet, it is completely ingenious of the Lord to frame it this way as He hides within the mystery.
      2. The command to listen to this Prophet again re-emphasizes that He will carry the direct Word of YHWH.
4. 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.’”
   1. The words of Israel on the day at Horeb played directly into God’s foreknowledge regarding His interactions within the covenant. It is actually quite profound that God Himself cries out, “Oh that they had such a heart in them, that they would fear Me and keep all My commandments always, that it may be well with them and with their sons forever!” Here we can see a picture of God desiring to have mercy on His people whilst knowing that He will have to bring judgment because of their unfaithfulness. And then Moses says here that with regard to all that you said at Horeb this Prophet is coming forth. So, just after God declares this to Moses, He immediately declares that the Prophet like Moses will come and speak His words. The Lord answers their request with this Prophet who will pronounthe very judgment God wishes them to avoid through obedience to His Words.
   2. It is as if God finishes what He was saying at Horeb through Jesus on the earth.
5. 17 The LORD said to me, ‘They have spoken well.
   1. They have spoken well is God’s agreement with their response. Moses said that the Lord was testing them to put His fear within them. This has seemingly been achieved as the people in fear speak these words.
   2. I have several times heard people say that it was a mistake for Israel to do this and that it was at this stage that they forsook the closeness that God wanted to have with them. It is normally portrayed as if this was their one opportunity to have nearness to God but because they were afraid they forfeited the one chance they had. This however is not in accord with God saying, “They have spoken well.” God’s desire was not for Israel to draw as near as we might think that day, but that His fear would remain within them (Ex. 20:20). His desire was actually fulfilled that day.
6. 18a “I will raise up a prophet from among their countrymen like you,
   1. Since this is repeated twice within these few verses we should note that the Prophet’s ethnicity is being emphasized.
7. 18b “…and I will put My words in his mouth…”
   1. The word used here for words in Hebrew is the same word used in Exodus 20:1 (dabar), “And God spoke all these words.” It would only be logical to assume that YHWH is saying that He will put these same words found in Exodus 20 in the mouth of the Prophet. That is not to say that He will not speak other things, but only to say that the Prophet will confirm those very words and indeed speak them from His own mouth.
8. 18c “…and he shall speak to them all that I command him.”
   1. Here we should note the simple yet terrifying nature of the spoken word. The promise from YHWH is that the Prophet will speak all that I command Him and that the Prophet’s words will warrant a divine accountability from all those who hear.
   2. We should rightly identify the them in this verse as pertaining to the future lineage of Abraham.
   3. This is a beautiful picture of Jesus and the mystery of God coming in the flesh. His choice was to come as a person and speak these very words, His testimony, as one of their own kinsmen. The beauty of YHWH’s faithfulness to Abraham is stunning.
      1. It is helpful to consider the juxtaposition here. In the first encounter, God comes down on the mountain trembling under His glory, with fire, lightning, thunder, and trumpets and causes His fear to be within them. He instructs them in the fear of the Lord, which Proverbs tells us is the beginning of wisdom. Yet, here is the other side of the coin! In Jesus, YHWH draws near to His people––save terrifying glory––humbly coming as a servant, a prophet in human skin, to declare to them the same words He had spoken from the mountain of Sinai. This is not a contradiction in His character but the very height of His wisdom in dealing with Israel covenantally.
9. 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.
   1. Again we have the reemphasis that this Prophet will be speaking the direct words (dabar) of YHWH––His testimony. We also have shema again, but this time in a negative sense. Whoever does not shema the dabar of the prophet will be held accountable.
      1. We will later look at how this functions throughout the Gospel of John with Jesus often saying, “You do not listen to Me, and you do not hear Me.”
   2. YHWH’s confidence in this person to be a faithful witness to His Words is astounding. YHWH shows such confidence in this Prophet revealing a great dichotomy between the Prophet and Israel. He has already shown that He knows He cannot trust Israel to fulfill His words because of their heart, which foreshadows that this Prophet will be more than a typical Israelite––He will be God Himself, since He is the only one able to fulfill His own word.
   3. YHWH also identifies His reciprocation of judgment upon those who do not listen to this Prophet. Again, we see His astounding confidence in this Prophet in that He is willing to judge every person  according to the words the Prophet speaks.
10. 1. The significance of spoken words in Deuteronomy.
       1. God speaks to Moses.
       2. God speaks to the people.
       3. God promises He will speak again through a Prophet.
       4. Moses speaks to God
       5. Moses speaks to the people.
       6. God will raise up a prophet like Moses who will speak to the people.
       7. The people speak to God (usually bad things)
       8. The people speak to Moses (usually bad things)
       9. The people are supposed to listen to what God spoke, what Moses speaks, and what the Prophet will speak.
       10. The origin of speaking is rarely discussed as something that finds its premier anchor in relationship to God, His Words, and that He has created words for His purposes.
           1. Gen 1:1 God speaks words to create everything.
           2. John 1 the Word was with God and was God and everything was made through Him.
           3. The Prophet, who is God in the flesh, speaks the final Words of God which every man is accountable to.
11. The Simple Formula of Deuteronomy 18:18-19 This Prophet will be like Moses
    1. This Prophet will be one of Israel’s countrymen
    2. This Prophet will be like Moses
    3. The Prophet will speak the words of God Himself
    4. The people should listen to this Prophet
    5. Whoever does not listen to what He speaks will be held accountable.

Now that we have established what the Prophet will be like, let us look at several Scriptures in the New Testament that confirm that Jesus truly was this Prophet like Moses.

The Expectation and Confirmation of the Prophet

There is a very clear expectation for the Prophet like Moses seen in the Gospels which gives us our first clues. We turn our attention to John chapter 1, where the Pharisees send men to speak with John the Baptist,

John 1:19-22 “This is the testimony of John, when the Jews sent to him priests and Levites from Jerusalem to ask him, “Who are you?” And He confessed and did not deny, but confessed, “I am not the Christ.” They asked him, “What then? Are you Elijah?” And he said, “I am not.” “Are you the Prophet?” And he answered, “No.”

The prophet in their minds finds its only context in Deuteronomy 18 as the one who would “speak all that God commanded him.” John the Baptist appeared to them to be that person but John explicitly tells them that he is not the prophet. Here we have a profound example showing that the leadership of Israel was expecting this prophet from Deuteronomy 18 to be a real person that would come to them.

The first disciples of Jesus profess their expectation as well:

John 1:45 “Philip found Nathanael and said to him, ‘We have found Him of whom Moses in the Law and also the Prophets wrote––Jesus of Nazareth, the son of Joseph.'” 

After Jesus rose from the dead it is very clear that the apostles firmly believed Him to have been the Prophet like Moses:

Acts 3:22 “Therefore repent and return, so that your sins may be wiped away, in order that times of refreshing may come from the presence of the Lord; and that He may send Jesus, the Christ appointed for you, whom heaven must receive until the period of restoration of all things about which God spoke by the mouth of His holy prophets from ancient time. Moses said, ‘THE LORD GOD WILL RAISE UP FOR YOU A PROPHET LIKE ME FROM YOUR BRETHREN; TO HIM YOU SHALL GIVE HEED to everything He says to you.”

Furthermore, we have in the Gospels the people of Israel confirming Jesus to be the prophet:

John 7:39 Now on the last day, the great day of the feast, Jesus stood and cried out, saying, “If anyone is thirsty, let him come to Me and drink. 38“He who believes in Me, as the Scripture said, ‘From his innermost being will flow rivers of living water.’” 39But this He spoke of the Spirit, whom those who believed in Him were to receive; for the Spirit was not yet given, because Jesus was not yet glorified. 40Some of the people therefore, when they heard these words, were saying, “This certainly is the Prophet.”

With these passages we can easily confirm that there was an expectation for the Prophet like Moses and that the apostles and many others believed that Jesus was that person. But how about the Heavenly Father’s voice coming from heaven?

Matt 17: 1-8 1Six days later Jesus took with Him Peter and James and John his brother, and led them up on a high mountain by themselves. 2And He was transfigured before them; and His face shone like the sun, and His garments became as white as light. 3And behold, Moses and Elijah appeared to them, talking with Him.4Peter said to Jesus, “Lord, it is good for us to be here; if You wish, I will make three tabernacles here, one for You, and one for Moses, and one for Elijah.” 5While he was still speaking, a bright cloud overshadowed them, and behold, a voice out of the cloud said, “This is My beloved Son, with whom I am well-pleased; listen to Him!”

We may have overlooked the simplicity of what the Father is saying here, since what He is saying is simply a verbatim of what He said in Deuteronomy 18: The LORD your God will raise up for you a prophet like me from among you, from your countrymen, you shall listen to him! If Moses standing on the mountain with Jesus is not ironic enough, the Father speaks to confirm from heaven that Jesus is the Prophet like Moses.

However, the nail in the coffin so to speak, is when Jesus Himself confirms by His own words that He is the Prophet like Moses. There are so many verses to quote here, but it serves us best to reveal the key to interpreting His words and then hope you continue study on your own. First we look at His direct mention of Moses speaking about Him:

John 5:39-47 “You search the Scriptures because you think that in them you have eternal life; it is these that testify about Me; and you are unwilling to come to Me so that you may have life…I have come in My Fathers name, and you don’t not receive Me… Do not think that I will accuse you before the Father; the one who accuses you is Moses, in whom you have set your hope. For if you believed Moses, you would believe Me, for He wrote about Me. But it you do not believe His writings how will you believe My words?”

John 5 is an incredible picture into our discussion where Jesus articulates that Moses wrote about Him. Many times in the gospel of John Jesus uses these references to point through the haze surrounding His identity. Those who were willing to hear His words would know that He was the Prophet like Moses sent by God. This direct line of thought by Jesus reveals how He viewed Himself and His ministry as the Prophet. Case and point is a passage like this:

“For I did not speak on My own initiative, but the Father Himself who sent Me has given Me a commandment as to what to say and what to speak,” (Jn. 12:49).

There is no denying that this is the quintessential fulfillment of Deuteronomy 18:18:

“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.”

It is almost like looking upon twins! In this passage, Jesus is very plainly revealing that He is the promised Prophet like Moses who has received words directly from YHWH, His Father, to speak to the people. This really is incredible. Let’s juxtapose another example with Deuteronomy 18:19,

John 5:24 “Truly, truly I say to you, he who hears My word, and believes Him who sent Me, has eternal life, and does not come into judgment, but has passed out of death into life.” 

and its sister:

Deut. 18: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.

In the gospel of John Jesus continually addresses and reinforces the fact that the man who hears His words and believes His Father sent Him has eternal life and does not come into judgment, while Deuteronomy makes clear that whoever does not receive the Prophet’s words will come under judgment. The same is true in John 8:26-28

“I have many things to speak and to judge concerning you, but He who sent Me is true; and the things which I heard from Him, these I speak to the world… “So Jesus said, “When you lift up the Son of Man, then you will know that I am He, and I do nothing on my own initiative, but I speak these things as the Father has taught Me.”

The final passage that punctuates this study is Matthew 5 (thanks Yazan!). 

“You have heard that the ancients were told, ‘YOU SHALL NOT COMMIT MURDER’ and ‘Whoever commits murder shall be liable to the court.’ 22“But I say to you that everyone who is angry with his brother shall be guilty before the court…”

In the passage above, Jesus basically says, “Moses told you this, and now I am telling you this.” There can be no question that this is again Jesus directly completing the prophecy of the Prophet like Moses. Moreover, the entire Sermon on the Mount is Jesus undoubtedly expounding upon the law of Moses, which obviously makes Him the Prophet like Moses. This premier identity of Jesus gives a pointed foundational, though often neglected, definition of how Jesus perceived His own identity, role, and purpose of His first coming.

Concluding Thoughts

All of the passages we’ve evaluated incontrovertibly reveal Jesus’ identity as the Prophet like Moses. The pertinence of how Jesus views Himself with regards to this identity is revealed in many proofs throughout the Gospels and is something that should be understood and considered by any serious student of the Bible. It is not an overstatement to say that every single word Jesus speaks while in His human frame is because of the framework of His identity stemming from Deuteronomy 18. With this understanding in place you can peer much deeper into the gospels, but also assert the covenantal context of Jesus’ life in its entirety.

Jesus very plainly saw His first coming as accomplishing this very unique purpose of being the Prophet like Moses that would speak words to His own Jewish countrymen––the very words of YHWH Himself! At Sinai, YHWH appeared in a terrifying measure of glory, splendor, and awe. His power was revealed in an awesome way that taught the people to fear Him. There in their fear they cry out, “Moses you go and speak to God so that we do not die!” God then cries out, “The people have spoken well. I will raise up a prophet from among their countrymen like you, and I will put my words in His mouth and hold them accountable to what He says.” Then in consistency with what was said, God the Son is born in the flesh in the small town of Bethlehem. In contrast to the power and glory of Sinai, He draws near to His own people in a humble human frame to speak the very words that YHWH began at Sinai. How drastically different than the top of the mountain of Sinai where He began His speech, yet equally terrifying! The words that He would say throughout His life would effectively seal prophecy for good and present the final standard regarding the judgment of Israel and mankind at large.

The prophetic acts of Jesus’ life are testifying to the truth that He was the final prophet given to Israel by God––He was the Prophet like Moses. He chose this identity and it is precious to Him. Jesus’ Jewishness possesses the most exemplary form of Jew, in that He not only speaks the divine words of YHWH as the Prophet like Moses but He also fulfills perfectly the Ten Words spoken at Sinai. The culmination of His life breathes the life of the covenant into our tired lungs and gives hope that He will yet fulfill His promises for Israel, Jerusalem, and gentiles too. We glory in this soon coming fulfillment and say Maranatha! Come Lord Jesus!