The Lamb of God (A 10-week Bible Study) E-Book

Nancy Guthrie

• Herausgeber: Crossway
• Kategorie: Religion und Spiritualität
• Serie: Seeing Jesus in the Old Testament
• Sprache: Englisch

Seitenzahl: 385

Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2012

Beschreibung

"For if you believed Moses, you would believe me; for he wrote of me." (John 5:46) Jesus's declaration frames this study of four books of the Pentateuch—Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers and Deuteronomy—as we discover the many ways that Moses wrote about Christ. Seasoned Bible teacher Nancy Guthrie shows that the Bible's story from beginning to end is the story of the Lamb—the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world. Over ten weeks of guided personal bible study, relevant teaching, and group discussion, you will see the person and work of Christ: - in the person of Moses as a great deliverer, mediator, and prophet; - in the manna, the water from the rock, and the bronze serpent on the pole; - and in the priesthood, tabernacle, and sacrificial system. Gain a fresh perspective on the story of Israel's deliverance and journey, a broader understanding of Jesus as the fulfillment of Scripture, and much more, when you join with Nancy on this incredible journey to see Jesus in the Old Testament! * A leader's guide is available as a free download at SeeingJesusInTheOldTestament.com and a supplemental DVD of Nancy's teaching is also available for purchase.

Leseprobe

“Nancy Guthrie has made the Old Testament come alive again. She connects the gospel dots from the Old Testament to the New, showing us the shadow and then the reality of Jesus Christ, who was the Lamb slain from the foundation of the world. More than once I saw Jesus in a new and remarkably beautiful way. This study has grown my love for our Savior.”

Jessica Thompson, coauthor, Give Them Grace: Dazzling Your Kids with the Love of Jesus

“User-friendly, biblically reliable, theologically astute, enthusiastically sensible, encouragingly realistic, and deeply Christ-centered—all without losing sight of the fact that the Bible student is to be a disciplined ‘workman (or woman) who does not need to be ashamed.’ Once again we are deeply indebted to Nancy Guthrie for giving the church an outstanding Bible study resource to help us all grow in the grace, knowledge, and wisdom of God.”

Sinclair B. Ferguson, Senior Pastor, First Presbyterian Church, Columbia, South Carolina

“As the title says, this book—and the entire series—is about Jesus. Instead of simply telling the stories of the Old Testament and teaching us how to be a better, more successful person, The Lamb of God points us over and over to the one who did it all for us. How refreshing and inspiring to bask in my Savior’s love for me—to be loved and accepted because of what Christ has done and not because of what I have done. Nancy’s exhaustive research, her facility in writing, and her thought-provoking questions make these studies both challenging and enjoyable. I cannot wait to lead the women in my group through each of her studies!”

Maureen Kyle, Redeemer Presbyterian Church, New York City

“Nancy Guthrie masterfully draws out from the shadows the rich, Christ-centered content and themes inherent in Exodus to Deuteronomy. This book provides a needed stepping stone for those seeking a gradual introduction into biblical theology. It is a rare thing to see an author combine such rich redemptive history, natural readability, and vital applicability, but The Lamb of God achieves just that.”

Jared Oliphint, Regional Coordinator, Westminster Theological Seminary; contributor, Reformed Forum

“In a warm, personal style, Nancy Guthrie opens up Old Testament books to reveal truths of salvation woven into every page. I am always looking for wonderful Bible studies to offer the ladies in our church, and I can’t wait to recommend this book!”

Liz Emerson, pastor’s wife; mother; grandmother

“Nancy Guthrie has provided yet another solid, practical, and thoroughly biblical study guide navigating the rich literature of the Pentateuch. We’ve used earlier volumes in this series at Parkside and have been encouraged to see people begin to connect the rich prophecies and narratives of the Old Testament to their great fulfillment in Jesus Christ. The layout of the book, the well-written studies, and the substantial questions make for a robust study guide that will challenge your people to truly see Jesus!”

Jonathan Holmes, Counseling Pastor, Parkside Church, Chagrin Falls, Ohio

“As a children’s ministry director who teaches a young-women’s Bible study, I love the fact that Nancy teaches in adult language and application what we seek to teach our children—that even in the Old Testament stories we see how Jesus has been in the process of redeeming us. Nancy is a master storyteller and teacher who consistently helps us see the redemptive truth of Scripture and apply that truth where we live in the real moments of everyday life.”

Sherry Kendrick, Children’s Ministry Director, Covenant Church of Naples, Naples, Florida

~Praise for the Series~

“The Bible is a book about Jesus. The disciples walking to Emmaus after the resurrection discovered this as Christ himself walked along with them and explained how the Old Testament pointed to the Savior. I recommend the entire series to you.”

Alistair Begg, Senior Pastor, Parkside Church, Chagrin Falls, Ohio

“I am thankful to God to be able to offer Nancy Guthrie’s series Seeing Jesus in the Old Testament to the women of our church. For too long, studies have led us only to see what we are to do. Now we can see through the pages of this series what Jesus has done! With Nancy’s help, the story of redemption jumps off the pages of the Old Testament, and the truths of the gospel are solidified in women’s hearts and lives.”

Jo Coltrain, Director of Women’s Ministry, First Evangelical Free Church, Wichita, Kansas

“It’s not hyperbole to say, ‘It’s about time.’ While there are good books out there telling pastors how to preach Christ from all the Scriptures, there have been very few Bible studies for laypeople—especially for women—along these lines. Nancy Guthrie does an amazing job of helping us to fit the pieces of the biblical puzzle together, with Christ at the center.”

Michael S. Horton, J. Gresham Machen Professor of Systematic Theology and Apologetics, Westminster Seminary California

“Nancy takes us by the hand and the heart on an exegetical excursion to see Christ in the Old Testament. The beauty of Guthrie’s writing is that you are certain she has met him there first.”

Jean F. Larroux, Senior Pastor, Southwood Presbyterian Church, Huntsville, Alabama

“There are many great Christian books, but not many great Bible studies. Nancy is a master of getting the Word of God into the mouths, hearts, and lives of her students. I cannot wait to share this study with my people.”

Donna Dobbs, Christian Education Director, First Presbyterian Church, Jackson, Mississippi

Other Crossway Books in the Seeing Jesus in the Old Testament series:

The Promised One

The Wisdom of God

The Lamb of God: Seeing Jesus in Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, and Deuteronomy

Copyright © 2012 by Nancy Guthrie

Published by Crossway 1300 Crescent Street Wheaton, Illinois 60187

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopy, recording, or otherwise, without the prior permission of the publisher, except as provided for by USA copyright law.

First printing 2012

Printed in the United States of America

Unless otherwise indicated, Scripture quotations are from the ESV® Bible (The Holy Bible, English Standard Version®), copyright © 2001 by Crossway. Used by permission. All rights reserved.

Scripture quotations marked HCSB have been taken from The Holman Christian Standard Bible®. Copyright © 1999, 2000, 2002, 2003 by Holman Bible Publishers. Used by permission.

Scripture references marked NLT are from The Holy Bible, New Living Translation, copyright © 1996, 2004. Used by persmission of Tyndale House Publishers, Inc., Wheaton, IL, 60189. All rights reserved.

All emphases in Scripture quotations have been added by the author.

Trade paperback ISBN: 978-1-4335-3298-6 PDF ISBN: 978-1-4335-3299-3 Mobipocket ISBN: 978-1-4335-3300-6 ePub ISBN: 978-1-4335-3301-3

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Guthrie, Nancy.

The Lamb of God : seeing Jesus in Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers & Deuteronomy / Nancy Guthrie.

p. cm.—(Seeing Jesus in the Old Testament ; 2)

Includes bibliographical references.

ISBN 978-1-4335-3298-6 (tp)

1. Bible. O.T. Pentateuch—Textbooks. 2. Bible. O.T. Pentateuch—Criticism, interpretation, etc. 3. Jesus Christ—Biblical teaching. I. Title.

BS1225.55.G87          2012

2012003065

222'.10071—dc23

Crossway is a publishing ministry of Good News Publishers.

With gratitude to Pastor David Owen Filson for your sound teaching, enthusiastic encouragement, and gracious generosity in letting me borrow from your abundant bookshelves.

Contents

Before We Get Started: A Note from Nancy

Week 1: A Prophet like Me 

Teaching Chapter: He Wrote about Me

Looking Forward

Discussion Guide

Week 2: Slavery and a Savior  (Exodus 1–4)

Personal Bible Study

Teaching Chapter: What’s Your Story?

Looking Forward

Discussion Guide

Week 3: Plagues and Passover (Exodus 5–12)

Personal Bible Study

Teaching Chapter: If You Really Want to Know Me

Looking Forward

Discussion Guide

Week 4: Salvation and Provision (Exodus 13–17)

Personal Bible Study

Teaching Chapter: Safely to the Other Side

Looking Forward

Discussion Guide

Week 5: The Giving of the Law (Exodus 19–24)

Personal Bible Study

Teaching Chapter: Clouds on the Mountain

Looking Forward

Discussion Guide

Week 6: The Tabernacle (Exodus 25–40)

Personal Bible Study

Teaching Chapter: At Home, at Last Together

Looking Forward

Discussion Guide

Week 7: The Priesthood (Exodus 28–29)

Personal Bible Study

Teaching Chapter: Category and Context

Looking Forward

Discussion Guide

Week 8: Sacrifice and Sanctification (Leviticus)

Personal Bible Study

Teaching Chapter: When I Grow Up, I Want to Be . . .

Looking Forward

Discussion Guide

Week 9: In the Wilderness (Numbers)

Personal Bible Study

Teaching Chapter: Road Trip

Looking Forward

Discussion Guide

Week 10: Love and Obey (Deuteronomy)

Personal Bible Study

Teaching Chapter: Something Has to Happen in Your Heart

Looking Forward

Discussion Guide

Bibliography

Notes

Before We Get StartedA Note from Nancy

A number of years ago I got to travel to the beautiful country of New Zealand. I came back with images in my mind of the magnificent yachts in the harbor preparing for the America’s Cup race, the dancing of the indigenous Maori people, and the green hillsides spotted with grazing sheep. New Zealand has thirteen times more sheep than people, so there were plenty to see!

As we begin a book about the Lamb of God, I would really like to encourage you to picture fuzzy little lambs frolicking in a field and nuzzling their mothers. But I can’t, because there are no living lambs in the books of Moses that we are about to study. The lambs we read about in Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, and Deuteronomy do not lead us to peaceful thoughts of pastoral scenes but instead impress upon us what sin costs—the life of the lamb. All of the lambs in these books, as well as in the rest of the Old Testament, are there to point us toward one very special lamb, “the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world” (John 1:29). He too was slain. And, interestingly, when we come to the very end of the Bible, the focus is still on the Lamb, sitting on the throne of the universe. He lives, but not as one untouched by death. Into eternity the Lamb of God bears the marks of having been slain (Rev. 5:6).

I don’t think it would be an overstatement to say that if we do not understand the story of the Lamb, we cannot fully grasp the story of the Bible. Moses has much to teach us about the Lamb of God, so I hope you will engage with all three essential parts to this study over the weeks to come. The first is the personal time you will spend reading your Bible, seeking to strengthen your grip on its truths as you work your way through the questions provided in the Personal Bible Study section of each week’s lesson. This will be the easiest part to skip, but nothing is more important than reading and studying God’s Word, expecting that he will meet you as you do. Because we will cover large chunks of Scripture that I will not have time to read through and explain in the Teaching Chapters or videos, the foundational understanding you will gain through your time doing the Personal Bible Study will be essential.

As you work on the Personal Bible Study, try not to become frustrated if you can’t come up with an answer to every question or if you’re not sure what the question is getting at. The goal of the questions is to get you into the passage and thinking it through in a fresh way, not necessarily to record all of the “right” answers. Certainly some answers to your lingering questions will become clearer as you read the chapter or watch the video and as you discuss the passage with your group.

The second part of each lesson is the Teaching Chapter, in which I seek to explain and apply the passage we are studying. If your group is using the accompanying video series, the Teaching Chapter in the book is the same content I present on the videos. If you are using the videos, you can go ahead and read the chapter as a preview, if you’d like, or simply sit back and watch the video. Or you may prefer to come back and read the chapter after watching the video to seal in what you’ve heard. It’s up to you. You can also download an audio or video version of the Teaching Chapters at http://www.crossway.com.

At the end of each Teaching Chapter is a short piece called “Looking Forward,” which will turn your attention to how what we’ve just studied in Moses’s writings gives us insight into what is still to come when Christ returns. In these first few books of the Bible we find not only the history of what God has done in the past to redeem his people but also insight into what he is doing now and is yet to do in the future when the Lamb of God returns to take his throne.

The third part of each week’s lesson is the time you spend with your group sharing your lives together and discussing what you’ve learned and what you’re still trying to understand and apply. A discussion guide is included at the end of each week’s lesson. You may want to follow it exactly, working through each question as written. Or you may just want to use the guide as an idea starter for your discussion, choosing the questions that suit your group and discussing key insights you gained through the Personal Bible Study and Teaching Chapter.

Each aspect is important—laying the foundation, building on it, and sealing it in. We all have different learning styles, so one aspect of the study will likely have more impact on you than another, but all three together will help you to truly “own” the truths in this study so that they can become a part of you as you seek to know your covenant God in deeper ways.

I’ve put the sections of this study together in a way that offers flexibility for how you can use it and in how you can schedule your time working through it. If you are going to use it for a ten-week group study, you will want to read the Teaching Chapter in Week 1, “He Wrote about Me,” before the first meeting. (There is no Personal Bible Study section for the first week.) From then on, participants will need to come to the group time having completed the Personal Bible Study section of the next week’s lesson, as well as having read the Teaching Chapter. You may want to put a star beside questions in the Personal Bible Study and underline key passages in the chapter that you want to be sure to bring up in the discussion. During your time together each week you will use the Discussion Guide to talk through the big ideas of the week’s lesson.

There is a great deal of material here, and you may want to take your time with it, letting its foundational truths sink in. To work your way through the study over twenty weeks, break each week into two parts, spending one week on the Personal Bible Study section—either doing it on your own and discussing your answers when you meet, or actually working through the questions together as a group. Over the following week, group members can read the chapter on their own and then come together to discuss the big ideas of the lesson.

If you are leading a group study, we would like to provide you with a leader’s guide that has been developed specifically for this study. To download the free leader’s guide and to look over questions and answers submitted by fellow leaders about the study, go to http://www.SeeingJesusintheOldTestament.com.

Perhaps no book has been read and studied as long and by as many people in as many parts of the world as the Pentateuch, the books of Moses. But how many people who have read and studied it have never seen the one true Lamb of God? That will be our goal—to read and understand what Jesus meant when he said, “If you believed Moses, you would believe me; for he wrote of me” (John 5:46). And it is there that we begin.

Nancy Guthrie

Teaching ChapterHe Wrote about Me

I worked at a publishing company for a long time before my name ever appeared in a book. In their acknowledgments, authors often thanked people such as the acquisitions editor who contracted the book and the editors who worked on the manuscript—people they worked with prior to the book’s publication. As the publicist, I usually didn’t become active in the process until after the book was shipped off to the printer, so my name never seemed to make it into the published books. But, finally, after working there for about six years, an author put my name in his book. Max Lucado, one of the most gracious and authentic authors I’ve ever worked with, mentioned me in the acknowledgments in the front of his book The Applause of Heaven. I had a new claim to fame—proof that I not only knew Max Lucado, but, more importantly, he knew me. (Thanks, Max. I hope you’ll like it that now I’ve put your name in my book.)

When someone people know and respect writes about a person, it makes us more willing to read or listen to what that person has to say. This is why we like to read through the endorsements on the covers of book jackets looking for names we recognize in the list of endorsers. When someone we respect has taken the time to read what a writer has written and offers an endorsement that commends it as worthwhile, we’re usually more inclined to read the book.

Imagine if you could say that someone who lived hundreds of years before you, someone who wrote a book that everyone you know has read and reread and sought to live by, wrote about you. Imagine that you could say that the book he wrote not only mentioned you but was actually all about you—that you were the central character in all of his writings, the person whose identity had been kept hidden from all who had read his book throughout the centuries. That would be an astounding claim.

That’s exactly the claim Jesus made. In an interchange with the religious leaders of his day who were questioning his right to assume authority that had always been reserved for God alone, Jesus claimed that the book written by the one author whom his questioners respected more than any other was actually all about him. Jesus said:

You search the Scriptures because you think that in them you have eternal life; and it is they that bear witness about me, yet you refuse to come to me that you may have life. . . . For if you believed Moses, you would believe me; for he wrote of me. (John 5:39–40, 46)

We can almost see them shaking their heads with quizzical looks on their faces, thinking, What do you mean, that Moses wrote about you? Where exactly did Moses write about you? These were A+ students of the book of Moses: Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, and Deuteronomy. Most of them could quote long passages from Moses’s writings and did so on a daily basis. And here was Jesus telling them that what they had been reading and studying their whole lives was all about him, suggesting that there was a deep fault line, a huge blind spot, in their understanding.

This general lack of understanding about how to read the Old Testament was why, in the forty days between his resurrection and his ascension, Jesus sat down with his disciples—men who had grown up reading the Old Testament Scriptures—and taught them how to truly understand them, how to read them in light of their fulfillment. Luke tells us that, “beginning with Moses and all the Prophets, he interpreted to them in all the Scriptures the things concerning himself” (Luke 24:27). Jesus opened his disciples’ eyes to see all the ways Moses and all of the other Old Testament writers wrote about him.

And this is what we want him to open our eyes to see. We don’t want to be like the religious people of Jesus’s day who regularly went to Bible study yet were so stuck in their long-held assumptions about the Bible, so bogged down by the long to-do list they derived from the Bible, that they completely missed what it was all about—namely who it was all about.

If you’ve done the previous study in this series, The Promised One: Seeing Jesus in Genesis, then you could probably list many of the ways Moses wrote about Christ in the first book of the Bible. When Moses wrote in Genesis 3:15 about the offspring of the woman who would crush the head of the Serpent, he was writing about Jesus. In his account of the ark in which Noah and his family found safety in the storm of God’s judgment, he was writing about the nature of salvation found by those who hide themselves in Christ. When he wrote about God’s call and promise to Abraham that in him “all the families of the earth shall be blessed” (Gen. 12:3), he was writing about the blessing available to people of every tribe and tongue through Abraham’s future descendant, Jesus. When Moses took thirteen chapters to tell the story of Joseph, the beloved son of his father who was rejected by his brothers and became the one person all people in the world had to come to for salvation, he was writing in shadow form about the greater Joseph, Jesus.

We will see in this study, as we make our way through the rest of the writings of Moses, that he has much more to tell us about the Christ who would come fifteen hundred years after he wrote about him in his book.

In Moses’s account of his own life, as one who was born under the threat of death, left the royal palace to identify with his suffering brothers, and led his people out of slavery, we will see the shadow of Jesus, who left the halls of heaven to be born under Herod’s murderous edict and lead his people out of their captivity to sin.

In the unblemished lambs who died that first Passover night so that the firstborn son could live, we will see Jesus, God’s firstborn, “the Lamb who was slain” so that we can live (Rev. 5:12).

As we witness Moses leading his people through the waters of the Red Sea unscathed, we will see Jesus, who leads us through the waters of death into everlasting life.

In the pillar of cloud and fire that guided God’s people, the manna that fed them, and the rock that gushed with water for them to drink, we will see the light of the world, the bread of life, the living water—Jesus himself.

As we listen to the law given by God on the mountain, we will hear its echo in the words of Jesus, who climbed up a mountain and spoke with authority about what it means to obey God from the heart.

We will go over Moses’s record of the design for the tabernacle in which God descended to dwell among his people, details that have no meaning apart from Jesus, who descended to dwell among his people.

We will witness the establishment of the priesthood, those who were to be holy to the Lord and offer sacrifices for sin. In the priest’s clothing and ceremonies and sacrifices we’ll see that Moses was preparing his people to grasp the Great High Priest, the Holy One of God, who offered himself as a once-for-all sacrifice.

We’ll follow Israel’s forty years in the wilderness where they repeatedly disobeyed and rebelled, seeing the contrast between them and Jesus, the true Israel, who went out into the wilderness for forty days meeting every temptation with perfect obedience.

We’ll begin today by giving attention to something Moses wrote near the end of his last book, Deuteronomy, a prophetic promise and instruction for God’s people as they prepared to cross over the Jordan and enter into the Promised Land. Here is what he said:

The LORD your God will raise up for you a prophet like me from among you, from your brothers—it is to him you shall listen. . . . And the LORD said to me. . . . “I will put my words in his mouth, and he shall speak to them all that I command him.” (Deut. 18:15–18)

This is interesting. Moses was a prophet—not so much in the sense that he foretold the future but in that he spoke for God to the people. God installed Moses as his first official prophet to Israel when the Israelites arrived at Mount Sinai because the Israelites were too terrified to hear God speak directly to them. They asked Moses to go up the mountain in their place and hear what God had to say and then relay it to them so they wouldn’t have to hear God’s thunderous voice. So Moses listened to God for the people and spoke to the people for God.

Evidently, the same Spirit who imparted God’s word to Moses for the people also imparted understanding to Moses about himself—an understanding that God had woven into the fabric of his life a pattern that would also be seen in the Messiah’s life. God sovereignly orchestrated Moses’s life in such a way that it would one day become clear that his ministry had been a miniature version of the ministry of the coming prophet. Numerous aspects of Moses’s life provided God’s people with pictures of the Promised One, the Messiah whom God promised to send. If God’s people would remember who Moses was and what he had accomplished and experienced, it would help them to recognize the Messiah when he came. He would be the one they would need to listen to even more intently than they listened to Moses.

So as we begin our study of these four books of the Pentateuch written by Moses, let’s take a mini tour of Moses’s life in order that we might see more clearly and listen more intently to the greater prophet God raised up from among God’s people, who was like Moses.

Deliverer of an Enslaved People

When we read the story of the Israelites in Exodus through Deuteronomy, we cannot miss the fact that Moses was truly a great deliverer. He stood up to the greatest power in the world in his day and demanded that Pharaoh release his two-million-strong slave labor force. Moses delivered his people out of slavery in Egypt and through the Red Sea by the power of God and led them for forty years in the wilderness. But while he delivered them out of slavery, he could not deliver them into the Promised Land. He could only take them to its border. Moses could not go in. Oh, how this must have been an agony for Moses, who had invested his life and all of his hopes and dreams in delivering God’s people into the land God had promised to them.

Moses forfeited that privilege by dishonoring God near the end of the journey in the wilderness. We read about the incident in Numbers 20, an event that took place as the people of Israel stood poised to enter into the Promised Land. They had run out of water and had nothing to drink. Instead of going to God and asking him to provide, the people began to complain. But they did more than that. As they voiced their complaint about the lack of water, it was as if forty years of frustration rose to the surface so that all kinds of unresolved grievances against Moses and God came tumbling out.

And the people quarreled with Moses and said, “Would that we had perished when our brothers perished before the LORD! Why have you brought the assembly of the LORD into this wilderness, that we should die here, both we and our cattle? And why have you made us come up out of Egypt to bring us to this evil place? It is no place for grain or figs or vines or pomegranates, and there is no water to drink.” (Num. 20:3–5)

Here they were, just about to enter the Promised Land, saying that they wished they had died with those who had rebelled against God and perished in the desert. They were frustrated because the wilderness had no grain or vines or fig trees or pomegranates—the very fruit the scouts had brought back with them from Canaan (Num. 13:23). In other words, “the people were blaming Moses and Aaron because the wilderness was not like the Promised Land that they had refused to enter!”1

We might expect that God would have had enough by this point and that he would simply sink these grumbling Israelites into a pit in the desert never to be heard from again. But instead, he gave instructions to Moses and Aaron to provide water for them to drink:

Take the staff, and assemble the congregation, you and Aaron your brother, and tell the rock before their eyes to yield its water. So you shall bring water out of the rock for them and give drink to the congregation and their cattle. (Num. 20:8)

Moses and Aaron were to take the staff—the same staff that had summoned Egypt’s plagues and divided the Red Sea. Perhaps when the people saw the staff they would remember God’s past deliverances and provisions and put their trust in him. Moses and Aaron were to speak to the rock. Perhaps the stark contrast between the rock’s responsiveness and their own hard-hearted unresponsiveness would shame them into repentance and faith.2 Moses and Aaron followed the first two steps correctly. They took the staff and assembled the people. But they did not “tell the rock” to yield its water. Instead Moses spoke to the people:

“Hear now, you rebels: shall we bring water for you out of this rock?” And Moses lifted up his hand and struck the rock with his staff twice. (Num. 20:10–11)

Moses was supposed to speak to the rock; God had not told him to speak to the people. But Moses rebuked them, setting himself up as their judge, and himself and Aaron as their deliverers, by suggesting that they were the ones who would bring water out of the rock. And what was God’s response?

And the LORD said to Moses and Aaron, “Because you did not believe in me, to uphold me as holy in the eyes of the people of Israel, therefore you shall not bring this assembly into the land that I have given them.” (Num. 20:12)

Whoa, we want to say, that seems incredibly harsh. After all that Moses has been through in the desert, after all of his faithful obedience and the difficulties of leadership, God is going to deny him the privilege of leading his people into the Promised Land? This hits us initially as an overreaction, a great unfairness to Moses. Yet we know God is just. So what is it that we may not be seeing on the surface of things?

Once before, long ago, Moses had set himself up as judge and deliverer of his people, when he saw an Egyptian beating an Israelite. Moses killed the Egyptian without being instructed to do so by the Lord. Now, here he was, years later, once again trying to deliver God’s people in his own way through his own strength. Because the rock represented God himself3—the source of water and refreshment to his people—when Moses struck the rock two times in anger, it was “nothing less than a direct assault on God.”4 The sad irony was that in judging the people and seeking to deliver them in their own way, Moses and Aaron became exactly what they accused the people of being: rebels against the Lord. Therefore, their consequences were the same as those experienced by the entire generation that rebelled against God: they would not enter the land God had promised.

Clearly Moses was a great deliverer. But what was needed was a greater deliverer—one who would not rebel against God but submit to him, one who would deliver God’s people, not just out of their slavery but safely into the land God has promised, one who was not just a servant, but a Son—who, when he sets people free, they are free indeed (John 8:36).

Mediator for a Sinful People

In addition to being a great deliverer, Moses was a great mediator. For over forty years he listened to the complaining of the people and pleaded their case before a God who felt and heard their complaints as a personal rejection. Moses entered into the cloud of God’s presence on the mountain and brought down God’s law to the people, gently explaining all of its provisions and applications. More than once Moses went to God with petitions for needed provision, and God heard and provided. And more than once God told Moses to take up his rod of judgment and mediate judgment on those who rebelled against him.

Perhaps Moses’s finest moment as a mediator was on that day when he came down from Mount Sinai with two tablets on which God himself had written his law. Joshua, who was with him, thought he heard singing. And when they got down the mountain, they saw the golden calf and the people dancing around it. It was clear that though the people were no longer in Egypt, Egypt’s idolatry was still very much in the people.

The next day Moses said to the people, “You have sinned a great sin. And now I will go up to the LORD; perhaps I can make atonement for your sin.” (Ex. 32:30)

Perhaps Moses thought it through overnight and “remembered the sacrifices of the Hebrew patriarchs and the newly instituted sacrifice of the Passover. Certainly God had shown by such sacrifices that he was prepared to accept an innocent substitute in place of the just death of the sinner. His wrath could sometimes fall on the substitute.”5

So Moses returned to the LORD and said, “Alas, this people has sinned a great sin. They have made for themselves gods of gold. But now, if you will forgive their sin—but if not, please blot me out of your book that you have written.” (Ex. 32:31–32)

Moses was asking God to forgive the Israelites, but he knew he had no solid basis on which to ask for that pardon, so he suggested an alternative. As a faithful mediator, Moses presented himself as a sacrifice of atonement, offering himself to God as a substitute, that he might take upon himself the punishment Israel deserved because of her great sin. Moses was willing to be damned so that Israel could be saved. But God was not willing to accept the life of Moses to atone for Israel’s sin. Exodus 32 doesn’t tell us why God didn’t accept the sacrifice of Moses as Israel’s mediator, but we know why from the rest of Scripture. Moses could not die for his people’s sin because he himself was a sinner. As great as Moses was as a mediator, a better mediator was needed—a sinless substitute who would not only be willing to lay down his life for his friends (John 15:13) but would also be worthy to atone for the sins of God’s people.

Prophet to a Stiff-Necked People

So Moses was a great deliverer and mediator, and he was also a prophet among prophets. In the years after Moses had said that God would raise up “a prophet like me,” God raised up many prophets who spoke for God to his people. As God moved his eternal purposes forward, history was punctuated with new words from God that were spoken through his many prophets. But the people of Israel revered Moses the most because he surpassed all of the other prophets God sent over the years. God himself described Moses’s distinction this way:

Hear my words: If there is a prophet among you, I the LORD make myself known to him in a vision; I speak with him in a dream. Not so with my servant Moses. He is faithful in all my house. With him I speak mouth to mouth, clearly, and not in riddles, and he beholds the form of the LORD. (Num. 12:6–8)

At the very end of Deuteronomy we read an addendum to Moses’s writings, likely added after his death, which also emphasizes Moses’s distinction:

And there has not arisen a prophet since in Israel like Moses, whom the LORD knew face to face, none like him for all the signs and the wonders that the LORD sent him to do in the land of Egypt, to Pharaoh and to all his servants and to all his land, and for all the mighty power and all the great deeds of terror that Moses did in the sight of all Israel. (Deut. 34:10–12)

Other prophets performed miracles, such as Elijah, who brought down fire, and Elisha, who brought a dead boy back to life. But no prophet’s miracles compared with Moses’s miracles of plagues striking and Red Sea parting and manna falling and water gushing from a rock. God spoke to other prophets through visions and dreams, but Moses met personally with God in the tent of meeting.

Now Moses used to take the tent and pitch it outside the camp, far off from the camp, and he called it the tent of meeting. . . . When Moses entered the tent, the pillar of cloud would descend and stand at the entrance of the tent, and the LORD would speak with Moses. . . . Thus the LORD used to speak to Moses face to face, as a man speaks to his friend. (Ex. 33:7, 9, 11)

When we read that they spoke “face to face,” it doesn’t mean that God had a human face or that Moses could fully see God. Just a few verses later we read that God said, “Man shall not see me and live” (v. 20). “Face to face” is a figure of speech that reveals the personal nature of Moses’s communication with God, which was unlike any man had ever experienced since Adam and Eve had walked with God in the garden of Eden.

But this incredible communication was not enough for Moses. He wanted to see and experience everything of God that there was to see and experience. So he pleaded with God, “Please show me your glory” (Ex. 33:18). Though he had seen God’s glory blazing in the bush and burning in the pillar of fire and had been engulfed in the cloud when he went up on the mountain, somehow Moses knew there was still more to see of God’s glory. In kindness God responded to Moses’s request, saying:

“I will make all my goodness pass before you and will proclaim before you my name ‘The LORD.’ And I will be gracious to whom I will be gracious, and will show mercy on whom I will show mercy. But,” he said, “you cannot see my face, for man shall not see me and live.” And the LORD said, “Behold, there is a place by me where you shall stand on the rock, and while my glory passes by I will put you in a cleft of the rock, and I will cover you with my hand until I have passed by. Then I will take away my hand, and you shall see my back, but my face shall not be seen.” (Ex. 33:19–23)

God’s answer to Moses’s request was a yes and a no. His goodness would pass by for a moment, but Moses would not be able to gaze upon the fullness of God’s glory. “If Moses were to see a complete revelation of God in his eternal being, it would be so overwhelming that it would destroy him.”6 When Moses emerged from the presence of God, his face glowed with the glory of God. The skin of his face was shining so that the people were afraid of him, and he had to put a veil over his face. But with time the glory faded. It was imparted glory, a glory that he only reflected for a time. What was needed was a prophet who was no mere reflector of God’s glory, but one who radiated God’s glory from his own being, one who was in himself the “radiance of the glory of God” (Heb. 1:3).

A Prophet like Me

When God promised to raise up a prophet like Moses, he was promising to send one who communed with God face-to-face as Moses had done, which is what makes the first words of John’s Gospel so significant: “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God” (John 1:1). Here was more than a word from God but the very Word who was God, the Word who had related to God face-to-face since before the beginning of time. Here was a prophet who had not only seen God’s form but was “in the form of God,” yet “did not count equality with God a thing to be grasped, but emptied himself, by taking the form of a servant, being born in the likeness of men” (Phil. 2:6–7).

The glory of God was emptied into a human body so that it was veiled by flesh day to day. But there was one point in his ministry when Jesus gave his inner circle a glimpse of this intrinsic, luminescent glory. It was a few days after Peter had boldly proclaimed Jesus to be “the Christ, the Son of the living God” but then foolishly rebuked Jesus for saying he would be going to Jerusalem and would suffer many things and be killed and on the third day rise again (Matthew 16). Jesus knew the disciples needed to have their confidence grounded so firmly in Christ that they would be able to take up their own cross and follow him. What they needed was a glimpse of his glory.

And after six days Jesus took with him Peter and James, and John his brother, and led them up a high mountain by themselves. And he was transfigured before them, and his face shone like the sun, and his clothes became white as light. (Matt. 17:1–2)

For a brief moment, the veil of humanity was peeled back and Jesus’s true essence was allowed to shine through. The glory that was always his became visible. Luke tells us:

Behold, two men were talking with him, Moses and Elijah, who appeared in glory and spoke of his departure, which he was about to accomplish at Jerusalem. (Luke 9:30–31)

Moses and Elijah, two Old Testament prophets, were there on the mountain talking with the glorified Jesus. Both of these prophets had previously stood on a mountain and experienced God’s glory. Moses caught a glimpse of it from inside the cleft of a rock, Elijah from the entrance of a cave. But they were not there to talk with Jesus about their previous experiences. Luke tells us they were talking with Jesus about “his departure” or literally “his exodus.”

Imagine it: Moses, who had led the great exodus of God’s people from Egypt was talking to Jesus about the far greater exodus he was about to accomplish through his death. Moses must have realized that the exodus he had led was really only a preview of the main event to come. The death of Jesus would offer exodus not just to one oppressed people group at one point in history but to people from every nation of the earth for all time. This would be not merely a political or economic liberation but a pervasive liberation from the power of sin and death.

Imagine it: Moses, who had led the great exodus of God’s people from Egypt was talking to Jesus about the far greater exodus he was about to accomplish through his death.

It makes perfect sense that Moses would want to talk to Jesus about his exodus. If Jesus did not die, the exodus Moses had led would have no lasting meaning. The Passover he instituted and the entire sacrificial system he set up would have been pointless. If Jesus did not die, there would be no way for Moses or anyone else to enter into the true Promised Land that Canaan always pointed to. Everything Moses lived for and wrote about depended on the coming of this prophet like him, the sacrifice of this perfect Lamb, his passing through the waters of death and emerging alive to lead his people through the wilderness of life in this world into the land God has promised and prepared. No other topic of conversation was worthy of this mountaintop meeting. As they spoke, another voice entered into the conversation:

A cloud came and overshadowed them, and they were afraid as they entered the cloud. And a voice came out of the cloud, saying, “This is my Son, my Chosen One; listen to him!” (Luke 9:34–35)

Since we’ve just read God’s promise in Deuteronomy about the prophet he would raise up, we realize that here on the mountain God was quoting himself. He had instructed his people through Moses that they should listen to the prophet he would raise up. Surely Peter, James, and John, having grown up hearing the promise of the prophet to come, would have made this connection when they heard the words about Jesus, “Listen to him.”

But more important than making the connection was following the instruction. It is more important for us too. Throughout this study, if we find the connections between Christ and the book of Moses interesting but do not truly listen—do not truly take to heart their implications—we will miss what God intends for us. These words, “listen to him,” bring us to a crossroads at the center of our souls, forcing us to answer the questions: Will I listen to Jesus? Will I listen to what he has to say about what brings true freedom? Will I take him up on his offer of himself as true bread and living water that will satisfy my soul forever? Will I allow what he says about himself to shape my view of God and what pleases him, even if it contradicts my long-held understandings? Will I respond to his invitation to come to him and take his yoke upon me and find rest for my soul?