Are You “The Prophet”?

Transfiguration. L2R: Moses, Jesus, Elijah

They asked him [John the Baptist], “Then who are you? Are you Elijah?” He said, “I am not.” “Are you the Prophet?” He answered, “No.” – John 1:21

Philip found Nathanael and told him, “We have found the one Moses wrote about in the Law, and about whom the prophets also wrote—Jesus of Nazareth, the son of Joseph.” – John 1:45

After the people saw the sign Jesus performed, they began to say, “Surely this is the Prophet who is to come into the world.” – John 6:14

On hearing his words, some of the people said, “Surely this man is the Prophet.” – John 7:40

The crowds answered, “This is Jesus, the prophet from Nazareth in Galilee.” – Matthew 21:11

For Moses said, ‘The Lord your God will raise up for you a prophet like me from among your own people; you must listen to everything he tells you. Anyone who does not listen to him will be completely cut off from their people.’ – Acts 3:22-23

The scripture and story that all the above verses refer to is found in Deuteronomy 18:15-18 where God is speaking to Moses:

“The LORD your God will raise up for you a prophet like me from among you, from your fellow Israelites. You must listen to him…I will raise up for them a prophet like you from among their fellow Israelites, and I will put my words in his mouth. He will tell them everything I command him.”

Evidently this passage from Deuteronomy (which Jesus quoted more than any other book) was widely understood as being a Messianic passage and the people were anxiously awaiting and anticipating the time when God would send that second prophet, that second Moses to their generation. Was Jesus that prophet like Moses, as stated in Deuteronomy?

Jesus knew that He was ”The prophet” that was spoken of in Deuteronomy because we read in John 5:46 where Jesus said, “If you believed Moses, you would believe me, for he wrote about me”. Jesus was well aware of the scripture that pointed to Him as the second Moses. What was the role of a prophet in the Hebrew Testament? Put simply, a prophet’s job was to speak boldly for the God that he represented (John 12:49-50). A prophet was the sole mediator between God and His people. Jesus fulfilled this role – as Hebrews 1:1-2 clearly states:

“In the past God spoke to our forefathers through the prophets at many times and in various ways, but in these last days he has spoken to us by his Son”

Not only did He speak for God, He spoke with authority as God. Jesus says in John 10:30, “I and the Father are One”, and later in John 10:38, ”The Father is in me and I in the Father”.

It is interesting to think about Jesus in terms of a second Moses; this new prophet who will fulfill what Moses began. What events in Jesus life and ministry do we find that lead us to believe that he was duplicating or fulfilling the role of Moses? The following is a list of several parallels between the ministries of Moses and Jesus:

• God spoke to the people in the wilderness and told them He was going to give them another prophet like Moses. Referring to the new prophet, God said to the people, ”Listen to Him”. Likewise, when Jesus was on the Mount of Transfiguration, God spoke these same words, saying, ”This is my Son, Listen to Him.”
• At God’s behest, Moses led his people out of Egypt. Jesus also came out of Egypt after being taken there by his parents to escape Herod. The book of Matthew said this fulfilled the prophecy of Hosea 11:1, ”Out of Egypt I called my son.”
• Moses was a shepherd; Jesus called himself the “Good Shepherd (John 10:11, 14).
• Both Moses and Jesus came to redeem their people from bondage.
• Moses, through God, brought manna from heaven and water from the rock. Jesus proclaimed that he was that living water and was the manna that came down from heaven (John 6:32-41).
• Moses explained to the Israelites the concept of the Passover Lamb and this Passover Lamb was killed to save the Israelites. Jesus became our Passover Lamb as he was sacrificed to save us.
• Moses plead to God for the lives of the people. Jesus bled for the lives of the people.
• Both Jesus and Moses were in the desert for forty days with out eating or drinking.
• Both Moses and Jesus went up on a high mountain (Sinai and the Mt. of Transfiguration) to meet with God.
• Moses lifted up a snake on a pole to keep the people from dying. Jesus said that he was would be lifted up on a pole just as Moses lifted up the snake in the wilderness (John 3:14, John 8:28).
• Moses explained the sacrificial system for the atonement of sins. Jesus was the final sacrifice for this system; he atoned for sins “once for all”(Hebrews 10).
• Moses established the system of the priesthood in the tabernacle, with his brother Aaron as the high priest. The resurrected Jesus became our high priest in the heavenly tabernacle (Hebrews 9, 10 and 4:14).

These are just some of the examples that you can draw from just a casual reading of the Scriptures and there are doubtless many more that can be found. Can you think of any other examples?

Was Jesus the ”prophet like Moses” that Deuteronomy spoke of? The answer is an emphatic,”Yes!” He certainly fulfilled the role and qualifications scripturally and his actions imitated Moses in many ways. The Hebrew Testament and it’s stories of the history of Moses and the Israelite nation dovetail remarkably with the stories of Jesus in the New Testament. Even a casual reader of the Scriptures would have to be fascinated by how precisely Jesus fulfilled the role of the prophet described in Deuteronomy and the Exodus story.

Our God is an awesome God!

Bob Dodson

About the author:

Bob is the creator of this site and a disciple of Ray Vander Laan. Along with his wife of 50 years, he teaches a Bible study at Christ’s Church in Roswell, NM. He is also an avid hunter and fisher.