We Have Found the Messiah

...in Deuteronomy 18:18ff

I will raise them up a Prophet from among their brethren, like unto thee, and will put my words in his mouth; and shall speak unto them all that I shall command him.

We have already noted the similarity between Moses and Jesus. This passage in Deuteronomy cannot be bypassed in any study of the Messiah in the Old Testament. This is one of the most significant passages of Old Testament messianic revelation, in which a prophet prophesies the coming of a Prophet into the world. Moses says in verse 15 to God's people that the LORD would raise up a prophet from among them, like Moses himself.

Whatever Moses understands by his own words (and I think it is clear that the OT prophets often prophesied more than they understood), it is clear to us that they were words which predicted the coming of the Lord Jesus Christ. Indeed, Peter makes this explicit claim in Acts 3. While preaching to the Jews, he urges that they should listen to the Gospel because they hear in it the voice of Jesus, the Prophet whom Moses predicted, of whom Moses spoke at this very point.

For this reason, the AV puts a capital letter at 'Prophet' in verses 15 and 18 -- because the translators recognise the meaning of the word as focussing on the unique individual who was to come into the world.

It is important to note the structure of this passage, and to understand what is happening here. In verse 15, there is Moses making a direct prediction -- God will raise up a Prophet. That prediction is based on three things. First, when the people gathered at Horeb, when the law was given at Sinai, the people realised they could not stay there and live. They said with one voice "Let me not hear the voice of God". There is a recognition at Sinai that none of us can stand in the presence of the holy Lord God. If God utters his voice, we will be condemned and consumed.

The second strand of the background is that God approved this conviction. He was glad that the people recognised their sinfulness and unworthiness. So he promised to raise up a prophet. Deuteronomy 18:18 is simply recounting the words of God to Moses.

And thirdly, at the close of the chapter, Moses speaks of the prophetic ministry of the Old Testament which will be preparatory to the coming of the great messianic Prophet. So in view of these three things -- the awareness of God's transcendent holiness, the promise of a coming Prophet, and the importance of the ministry of the prophets throughout the Old Testament -- Moses can declare to God's people that the messiah will have a prophetic role. Moses himself is a prophet, and part of the prophetic ministry by which God revealed himself at this time (see Hebrews 1:1ff).

But a point was to come when the ministry of the prophets would be consummated in the ministry of the great Prophet. The same God who kept on speaking in the Old Testament, spoke finally, definitively and authoritatively in Jesus Christ. The prophets carried God's Word to his people. This was an accommodation of grace. Sinai showed that to hear God's voice was to be consumed. The prophetic ministry showed that it was possible to hear God and live. The same God who spoke in this way spoke finally in Jesus Christ. At the very least, that makes Jesus a prophet too.

Moses is showing us here that it was always God's design to send into the world, at the culmination of the long stream of Old Testament revelation, one who would deliver His final word, and seal the prophecy (Daniel 9:24). A time would come when God's final word would be spoken. We are living in the last days simply because we have heard the last word from God's promised Prophet. We can say what no saint in the Old Testament could say -- "God has spoken for the last time, in the last way." Nothing more is expected on God's calendar but that his Son should return from Heaven.

So here the greatest prophet of the Old Testament here predicts the coming of the final Prophet, the one greater than Moses, who would bring God's last word to men.

God explains here the importance of the prophetic ministry. God will give them words to speak. They are not to speak in their own strength or on their own authority. God will tell them what to speak. And once these words are spoken, they become authoritative and binding and determinative. The people are mandated to listen. If they obey, they will prosper. One of the reasons why God took his people into captivity in Babylon is that they did not listen to the prophets. Daily God sent them, but constantly they refused to listen. When they spoke in the name of God, their prophecies were fulfilled, and God's truth was vindicated.

There is an important light shed for us here on the nature of the Bible. Peter ties the ministry of the OT prophets to the nature of Scripture. "We have a sure word of prophecy" (2 Peter 1:19). The prophets were holy men of God who were carried by the Spirit, and they gave us the Scriptures. These men exercised a prophetic ministry. They were given God's words, and declared them to God's people. There was revelation, and inspiration as the prophets uttered what God had revealed, and inscripturation as the word and will of God was written down. We can look at the Bible and say "John says" or "Moses says". But we always say "God says".

God was carrying the prophets so that what was written accorded with his mind and will. For that reason, God says here in verse 19 "whosoever will not hearken unto my words which (the prophet) shall speak in my name, I will require it of him". If a prophet speaks the word of God, the people are mandated to listen. But according to Peter, this principle applies not just to Old Testament prophets but to the Bible itself. If we do not listen to the more sure prophetic word, the final, consummate prophetic word, then God will require this of us.

Similarly, a false prophet would die (verse 20). If our doctrine, and preaching do not accord with the Bible, then God will require this of us too.

Moses tells us about the Messiah is that he is to exercise A PROPHETIC MINISTRY. He is to come, bringing the word of God to us. The Catechism reminds us that Christ exercises and fulfills three offices as the Redeemer of his people: he is prophet, priest and king. In a sense, this mirrors Moses. But he is the prophet sent from God. The people said this in John 6, after Jesus fed the five thousand: "This is the prophet who should come into the world". They asked John the Baptist, "Are you the prophet who should come?" They knew the OT; they had every right to expect the appearance of a Prophet. We know who that one is.

Christ fulfills that prophetic ministry by "revealing to us by his word and Spirit the will of God for our salvation." What does this mean? It means that apart from the prophetic ministry of Christ we could never know God. Sin left man ignorant; it blighted his understanding and blackened his intellect, blinding him to the glory of all that God was and is. But God did not leave us to perish through ignorance. God sent a prophet to tell us the way; one who himself can say "I am the way, the TRUTH and the life". As Psalm 45:2 puts it, a fulness of grace is poured into his lips; so when he opens his mouth and exercises his prophetic role, grace comes to us.

No one has seen God at any time, but the only begotten son has declared him to us. And John can say that "we have seen his glory ... full of grace and truth". The grace that God poured in Christ's lips is ministered to us through the word being proclaimed. How often have we discovered this to be the case! Something we have heard or read has been blessed to us, tailored to our very need. Jesus knows our condition, and he is able to give grace according to that condition. He is the Prophet who scatters our ignorance, and enlightens us in the knowledge of Christ. He teaches us what we otherwise could never have known.

The glory of the Gospel is in the personal ministry of Christ to sinners. One of the elements which binds God's people together in this world is their common interest in and dependence on the Word of God. They strengthen one another by sharing these experiences along the way, and they marvel at how suited the word of God is at every stage. His word never returns to him without fulfilling its purpose.

Moses had a great insight here. What does he tell us about the messianic Prophet who was to come? He tells us that he would come from among the covenant people -- God had said to Moses that from among the tribes of Israel ('one of your brethren') he would raise his messianic Prophet. Christ, the Messiah, was to come from the line of the covenant people of God. It was within that line that the way was prepared, and it was within that patriarchal line that preparation was made for the coming of the Saviour. All that God ever did along the timeline of OT history he did so that Israel would be protected. Israel was a womb in which the Saviour was being prepared and nurtured. The OT is pregnant with the Messiah, and in Judah's line the promise is nurtured.

Hebrews takes up this theme from another angle. In all things, he became like his brothers. Hebrews extends the concept of the brotherhood of Christ from OT Israel to NT Israel. If it was true that the Messiah came from the line of Moses' brethren, then it was also true that he came to be like those whom God covenanted to him. It was fitting that the captain of our salvation should be made like his own. He came down from Heaven, and he is like us. He reveals God to us so that one day we would be like him.

God's purpose in raising the Prophet was that he would bring many sons to glory. Here is the solidarity of the covenant; all that Jesus did was not for himself, but for the covenant people.

The prophet was also going to be like Moses ('like unto me'). The Pentateuch comes to an end with the assertion that there was never a prophet in Israel after Moses who was like him, whom the Lord knew face to face, in all the signs and wonders which he did in Egypt and among Israel.

Moses' prophetic ministry was characterised in two way. First, God knew him face to face. Other prophets saw visions, dreamt dreams, heard voices; but only Moses saw God face to face. And only of Moses was it true that when he came down from the mountain, his face shone so that he had to cover it with a veil. There is intimacy, one-to-oneness which set Moses apart as a prophet.

How much more is this true of the one whom the NT calls the Word, who was with God, face to face with him? The uniqueness of Moses is eclipsed by the greater glory of Jesus. And on the Mount of Transfiguration, the prophet who spoke face to face with God stands side by side with the prophet who came from the bosom of God. A cloud overshadowed them and took Moses away, because the greater Moses was there -- "this is my Son, HEAR him". Jesus only was the prophet to come.

Secondly, there was the attestation of the signs and wonders. Other prophets performed other miracles. But none performed them like Moses, "in the sight of all Israel". In the OT prophetic narratives, other miracles are private or parochial. But Moses performed the miracles in the sight of all Israel. Similarly, Jesus performed miracles publicly, particularly in the sight of the covenant people (the twelve disciples, the new Israel of God).

It is still the fact that the word of the new prophet is authenticated by miraculous works of grace. In his work in the lives of men and women, he is changing natures, and changing lives. The last prophet would be like Moses, and the miracles would authenticate the truth.

Then Deuteronomy closes by saying that there arose not a prophet in Israel afterwards who was like Moses. And yet the Prophet Moses predicted would be like Moses. In other words, the prophet of whom Moses spoke was not found in the OT, but awaited the dawning of a new day when Jesus would come.

The prophet would speak God's words. That was self-evident. Jesus himself emphasises this fact time and again, particularly in John, which presents Jesus as the Word. In John 17:8 Jesus says "I have given to them the words which you gave to me". There it is -- what Moses predicts comes true. Jesus is saying that what he gave to us what nothing other than what was given to him as the Mediator of the covenant of grace. It's not that he needed instruction; it is that God made him the Mediator. God put the words in his mouth. As the one who discharges his ministry faithfully, he can say that he gave his people what God gave to him. Through Jesus there is channelled into our souls all that God had reserved for his people in the covenant of grace. God deposited the riches of grace in Christ, and from Christ it flows to sinners.

Then there is this -- "unto him you shall listen." Amid all the other voices that speak to us, we are to listen to the Prophet. How shall we listen to him? What is our access to Him? Nothing other than the Bible itself. The more we listen to what he says in the Bible, the more we will see of him in the glory of his salvation. We cannot get enough of what he says in the Bible. If we are believers and disciples, then we will never tire of what his word says.

© Iain D. Campbell 2003