Moses

We have made it to Moses, If you have been joining us in Sunday School, you will be familiar with what I am going to be speaking about today because it was a major theme of our Sunday School material this week. The idea that Jesus is a greater Moses. That Moses served a very important role in God’s grand narrative, and that his life pointed toward the life of Jesus.

In the NT, Stephen gives us a recap of the life of Moses

Acts 7:17–41 CSB

17 “As the time was approaching to fulfill the promise that God had made to Abraham, the people flourished and multiplied in Egypt 18 until a different king who did not know Joseph ruled over Egypt. 19 He dealt deceitfully with our race and oppressed our ancestors by making them abandon their infants outside so that they wouldn’t survive. 20 At this time Moses was born, and he was beautiful in God’s sight. He was cared for in his father’s home for three months. 21 When he was put outside, Pharaoh’s daughter adopted and raised him as her own son. 22 So Moses was educated in all the wisdom of the Egyptians and was powerful in his speech and actions. 23 “When he was forty years old, he decided to visit his own people, the Israelites. 24 When he saw one of them being mistreated, he came to his rescue and avenged the oppressed man by striking down the Egyptian. 25 He assumed his people would understand that God would give them deliverance through him, but they did not understand. 26 The next day he showed up while they were fighting and tried to reconcile them peacefully, saying, ‘Men, you are brothers. Why are you mistreating each other?’ 27 “But the one who was mistreating his neighbor pushed Moses aside, saying: Who appointed you a ruler and a judge over us? 28 Do you want to kill me, the same way you killed the Egyptian yesterday? 29 “When he heard this, Moses fled and became an exile in the land of Midian, where he became the father of two sons. 30 After forty years had passed, an angel appeared to him in the wilderness of Mount Sinai, in the flame of a burning bush. 31 When Moses saw it, he was amazed at the sight. As he was approaching to look at it, the voice of the Lord came: 32 I am the God of your ancestors—the God of Abraham, of Isaac, and of Jacob. Moses began to tremble and did not dare to look. 33 “The Lord said to him: Take off the sandals from your feet, because the place where you are standing is holy ground. 34 I have certainly seen the oppression of my people in Egypt; I have heard their groaning and have come down to set them free. And now, come, I will send you to Egypt. 35 “This Moses, whom they rejected when they said, Who appointed you a ruler and a judge?—this one God sent as a ruler and a deliverer through the angel who appeared to him in the bush. 36 This man led them out and performed wonders and signs in the land of Egypt, at the Red Sea, and in the wilderness for forty years. 37 “This is the Moses who said to the Israelites: God will raise up for you a prophet like me from among your brothers and sisters. 38 He is the one who was in the assembly in the wilderness, with the angel who spoke to him on Mount Sinai, and with our ancestors. He received living oracles to give to us. 39 Our ancestors were unwilling to obey him. Instead, they pushed him aside, and in their hearts turned back to Egypt. 40 They told Aaron: Make us gods who will go before us. As for this Moses who brought us out of the land of Egypt, we don’t know what’s happened to him. 41 They even made a calf in those days, offered sacrifice to the idol, and were celebrating what their hands had made.

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Jesus the Greater Moses

Moses - A leader of God’s people

Jesus - The ruler of the whole world

Philippians 2:10–11 CSB

10 so that at the name of Jesus every knee will bow— in heaven and on earth and under the earth— 11 and every tongue will confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father.

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Moses - A judge of God’s people

Jesus - The judge of the whole world

Acts 17:31 CSB

31 because he has set a day when he is going to judge the world in righteousness by the man he has appointed. He has provided proof of this to everyone by raising him from the dead.”

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Moses - An Intercessor for the people

Jesus - The Intercessor for God’s people

Romans 8:34 CSB

34 Who is the one who condemns? Christ Jesus is the one who died, but even more, has been raised; he also is at the right hand of God and intercedes for us.

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Moses - A Prophet of God

Jesus - The Prophet of God

Deuteronomy 18:15–19 CSB

15 “The Lord your God will raise up for you a prophet like me from among your own brothers. You must listen to him. 16 This is what you requested from the Lord your God at Horeb on the day of the assembly when you said, ‘Let us not continue to hear the voice of the Lord our God or see this great fire any longer, so that we will not die!’ 17 Then the Lord said to me, ‘They have spoken well. 18 I will raise up for them a prophet like you from among their brothers. I will put my words in his mouth, and he will tell them everything I command him. 19 I will hold accountable whoever does not listen to my words that he speaks in my name.

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Jesus said that Moses wrote about Him

John 5:46 CSB

46 For if you believed Moses, you would believe me, because he wrote about me.

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In Jesus day, the people were expecting “the prophet”, the messiah

John 7:40 CSB

40 When some from the crowd heard these words, they said, “This truly is the Prophet.”

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John 1:45 CSB

45 Philip found Nathanael and told him, “We have found the one Moses wrote about in the law (and so did the prophets): Jesus the son of Joseph, from Nazareth.”

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John 6:14 CSB

14 When the people saw the sign he had done, they said, “This truly is the Prophet who is to come into the world.”

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Moses - A Mediator

Jesus - The One Mediator

1 Timothy 2:5–6 CSB

5 For there is one God and one mediator between God and humanity, the man Christ Jesus, 6 who gave himself as a ransom for all, a testimony at the proper time.

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Moses - A deliverer from Slavery

Jesus - The deliverer from Slavery to Sin and Death

John 8:34 CSB

34 Jesus responded, “Truly I tell you, everyone who commits sin is a slave of sin.

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Romans 6:1–6 CSB

1 What should we say then? Should we continue in sin so that grace may multiply? 2 Absolutely not! How can we who died to sin still live in it? 3 Or are you unaware that all of us who were baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into his death? 4 Therefore we were buried with him by baptism into death, in order that, just as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, so we too may walk in newness of life. 5 For if we have been united with him in the likeness of his death, we will certainly also be in the likeness of his resurrection. 6 For we know that our old self was crucified with him so that the body ruled by sin might be rendered powerless so that we may no longer be enslaved to sin,

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Hebrews 2:14–15 CSB

14 Now since the children have flesh and blood in common, Jesus also shared in these, so that through his death he might destroy the one holding the power of death—that is, the devil—15 and free those who were held in slavery all their lives by the fear of death.

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Moses - Communicated God’s Law

Jesus - Brings Grace and Truth

John 1:17 CSB

17 for the law was given through Moses; grace and truth came through Jesus Christ.

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Parallels

The parallels between Moses and Jesus are too many to cover in this sermon, and the reason is because all of the Scriptures have been pointing toward Jesus. God has been allowing people to play roles in His grand story throughout history and they have all been pointing toward the main Character Jesus.