A Prophet Like Moses

            Commentators (well, evangelical commentators, anyway) widely understand Deuteronomy 18:15 as a messianic prophecy.  The expectation of the ‘second coming of Moses’ was current in Jesus’ day.  Someone even asked John the Baptizer if he was ‘the Prophet.’  It’s understandable that John was thought of like that:  after all, he summoned the people back to the Jordan, in a way enacting a new Exodus through the practice of baptism.  (John was a prophet of renewal, calling Israel to be faithful again to her history and to her identity as God’s treasured possession.)

            I find the progression of Matthew’s Gospel most interesting:  it begins with John’s call to repentance (Exodus), brings Jesus into the wilderness for trial and testing, specifically about whether He will trust the Lord’s purposes for Him (Israel in the wilderness), and the next thing we know, He’s on a mountain, teaching about identity in the Lord and the way that identity is lived out (Sermon on the Mount/Deuteronomy).  In other words, it sure seems that Matthew wants us to see Jesus as the ‘prophet like Moses.’

            Now, some care is called for.  Jesus is not a new lawgiver.  He’s the Savior, who fulfills Israel’s vocation on behalf of mankind.  (On the other hand, it’d be a disservice, if we saw Moses only as a lawgiver!)  I think it’s important that we keep this in mind:  Israel is not some law-driven, legalistic thing.  If there has been one theme we have uncovered throughout our reading of the Torah, it’s that Israel’s vocation, her calling—from Abraham onward—is to carry God’s promise of blessing for the nations to its completion.  The story of Israel is not primarily about laws and obscure regulation; it is primarily about the Lord setting aside a peculiar people to fulfill His promises to the world.