A shadow of the Christ to come

Moses, the Prophet Like Me

At the edge of the promised land, an old man who has led a stubborn people for forty years gathers them to speak his last words. Moses will not cross the Jordan. He knows he is dying, and he knows Israel will need more than laws carved in stone. So in the eighteenth chapter of Deuteronomy he makes a promise that reaches past his own grave: God will raise up a prophet like him, from among their own brothers, and to that One they must listen. Moses was singular. He had spoken with God as a man speaks with a friend, had brought down the law, had stood between a holy God and a faithless nation. To promise another like himself was to promise something rare, and to leave Israel watching the horizon for a voice they had not yet heard.

“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

“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

“For had ye believed Moses, ye would have believed me: for he wrote of me.”John 5:46

The shadow, in its own place

Moses was a real and towering figure in Israel's story, and his greatness was not invented by later readers. He led the people out of Egypt, mediated the covenant at Sinai, interceded when they sinned, and taught them the words of God. Deuteronomy remembers him as the prophet whom the Lord knew face to face, unequaled in his generation. His promise of a coming prophet met a real need: the people had begged not to hear God's terrifying voice directly again, and God agreed to speak through a mediator. In its own time the promise pointed forward through the whole line of prophets who followed, each carrying God's word to the nation. Yet none of them fully matched the measure of Moses himself.

The pattern it traces

The shape here is mediation. A holy God and a sinful people cannot meet without someone standing between, a chosen man who hears God and speaks to the nation, who intercedes for them when they fall. Moses set the pattern: deliverer, lawgiver, intercessor, shepherd of a wandering people. The promise of a prophet like Moses meant that this mediating office was not finished, that one day a greater voice would carry a greater word. The pattern also carries authority. To reject the prophet's word was to reject God Himself. Israel was taught to listen, to weigh a prophet's words against what God had spoken, and to wait for the One in whom the office would find its fullness.