Moses and Predicting Jesus

June 9, 2021              John 5: 46

  ⁴³I have come in my Father’s name, and you do not accept me; if another comes in his own name, you will accept him. ⁴⁴How can you believe when you accept glory from one another and do not seek the glory that comes from the one who alone is God? ⁴⁵Do not think that I will accuse you before the Father; your accuser is Moses, on whom you have set your hope. ⁴⁶If you believed Moses, you would believe me, for he wrote about me. ⁴⁷But if you do not believe what he wrote, how will you believe what I say?’

6After this Jesus went to the other side of the Sea of Galilee, also called the Sea of Tiberias.  ²A large crowd kept following him, because they saw the signs that he was doing for the sick. ³Jesus went up the mountain and sat down there with his disciples. ⁴Now the Passover, the festival of the Jews, was near.  ⁵When he looked up and saw a large crowd coming towards him, Jesus said to Philip, ‘Where are we to buy bread for these people to eat?’ ⁶He said this to test him, for he himself knew what he was going to do. ⁷Philip answered him, ‘Six months’ wages would not buy enough bread for each of them to get a little.’

            So there is an interesting challenge.  Moses wrote about Jesus.  We have fairly clear prophetic passages in Isaiah that refer to the birth of Jesus as well as other Gospel references back to the Old Testament.  How clearly does Moses refer to Jesus?  That becomes a huge undertaking.  In Genesis 3, it speaks of him crushing the serpent’s head.  In Exodus, it speaks of the blood of the lamb leading to the angel of death passing over those where the blood is displayed.  Throughout the books are the commandments for animal sacrifice fulfilled in Jesus.  So there is a lot written there.  The book of Hebrews picks up on some of those connections very powerfully.

            If the Leadership truly believed Moses, they would believe in Jesus, that is the accusation.  They claim to believe in Moses, but, according to Jesus, it is Moses who accuses them, because they do not truly-or they would believe in Jesus. 

            In the grand scheme of God’s Plan, the Coming of Jesus was established before the creation of the world.  So this moment of revelation, this moment of Jesus being there, this was the time and the place for Jesus’ coming.  This challenge to the Leadership is a double edged sword.  On the one hand, it picks up on the prophetic predictions of the coming of Jesus found in the Old Testament.  On the other, it begins to fuel the resentment of the Leadership that will lead to Jesus’ death and resurrection. 

More later

Peace, Pastor Peter