Below is what God said to Moses about a coming prophet who would be like him. 1
"And the LORD said to me, 'They have spoken well.
I will raise up a prophet from among their countrymen like you,
and I will put My words in his mouth, and He shall speak to them all that I
command him.
'And it shall come about that whoever will not listen to My words which he shall speak
in My name, I Myself will require it of him.'"
Deut. 18:17-19
One thing we note from this passage is that this future
prophet would be from one of the twelve tribes of Israel: or from their own "countrymen"
or "brethren" as the King James Bible states. In other words he would not be a foreigner. This rules out Abraham's other descendants such as Ishmael,
Sheba, and Dedan. This is made
clear from a preceding passage with regard to Israel's future kings, who would
also come from their own "countrymen" (Deut. 17:15).
And, in this regard, as far as we know, Israel's kings did, in fact,
come from one of the twelve tribes. This
was especially true of Saul, David, and Solomon.
Most of the others were sons of their fathers.
This, in and of itself, rules out Muhammad, Joseph Smith,
Hare Krishna, and many others who claimed to be "the prophet," Moses
spoke of who would come after him, or who claimed to be the Messiah, or who
founded new belief systems about God and how to know and be known by Him --
other than the church that Jesus, Himself, established and said would prevail
against all evil forces and lies: Matt. 16:16-20; 2 Cor. 10:4-5; Dan. 7:13-14;
Rev. 22:12-21.
But let's consider something
Jesus said in regard to whether or not He claimed to be that
"prophet."
"If you believed
Moses, you would believe Me, for He wrote of Me." John 5:46
So if Moses did, in fact,
write about Jesus, then what did he say? That is an answer to which some
might disagree, but it is also a fact that no other prophet from the Old
Testament had made such a claim: i.e. that Moses wrote about Him. This
in itself tells us that Jesus claimed to be "the prophet" to whom we
must all pay attention to.
But lets also consider a few
other things that He said in regard to who is was. For example, what He
saide to the woman at the well when she brought up the Messiah. His
answer was straightforward: "I who speak to you am He."
(John 4:26) ... the One who "takes away the sins of the
world." John 1:29. The One who said that "Unless you
believe that I Am (He), you will die in your sins." John
8:24
Jesus
also warned His followers that many would
come after Him and mislead many and also make the claim to be Messiah, or
Christ.
"See to it that no one
misleads you. For many will
come in My name, saying, 'I am the Christ, and will mislead many.'
... "And many false prophets will arise, and will mislead
many."
Matthew 24:4-5, 11
Hebrews
1:1-10 makes it quite clear that Jesus was and is
the Son of God, and the Co-Creator with God and by whom both the heavens and
the earth came into being. This
is also confirmed in Colossians 1:15-18 and John 1:1-3, 14.
The
writer of Hebrews makes this even more clear in chapter three, where we are
told that:
"Therefore,
holy brethren, partakers of a heavenly calling, consider Jesus, the Apostle
and High Priest of our confession. He was faithful to Him who
appointed Him, as Moses also was in all His house. For He has been
counted worthy of more glory than Moses, by just so much as the builder of
the house has more honor than the house. For every house is built by
someone, but the builder of all things is God.
Now
Moses was faithful in all His house as a servant, for a testimony of those
things which were to be spoken later; but Christ was faithful as a Son over
His house whose house we are, if we hold fast our confidence and the boast
of our hope firm until the end." Hebrews 3:1-6
In 2 Cor. 11:26, the apostle Paul used the word "countrymen,"
in contrast to "Gentiles."
The context is clear that he was referring to "the Jews," who
were trying to imprison, or kill him. For
example, see Acts 9:23; 13:45, 50, 14:5; 17:5, 13; 18:12; 20:3, 19; 21:27;
23:10-12; 25:3.
Another clue about who the coming prophet was that would
be like Moses, came from Jacob himself, the father of the twelve tribes when
he prophesied about his son Judah in his old age.
"The scepter shall not depart from Judah, nor
the ruler's staff from between his feet, until Shiloh comes, and to
him shall be the obedience of the peoples.
He ties his foal to the vine, and his donkey's colt to the choice vine.
He washes his garments in wine, and his robes in the blood of
grapes." Gen. 49:10-11
The word 'Shiloh' is a reference to "the peacable
one," or "the one who brings peace," and is a reference to the
coming Messiah. We say this
because of the word "scepter," speaks of kingship and rule.
Therefore this future prophet and ruler would come from the tribe of
Judah. Again this rules out
foreigners: and those from any tribe other than Judah.
Jesus would not be ruled out since both his mother (Mary) and
step-father (Joseph) were descendants of Judah (2),
and since One of His titles is the
Prince of Peace. 3
We are futher told that He would come from the root of
Jesse and the Tribe of David: 2 Sam. 7:12; Ps. 89:3; Acts 2:22-36.
David also told us that this man's body would not see decay (Ps.
16:11), because God would raise Him from the Dead.
See also Isa. 53:10
The New Testament writers made it quite plain that Jesus
Christ was the prophet whom Moses spoke of.
For example, when John the Baptist saw that Jesus was not
trying to bring in the God's Kingdom on earth at that time,
he sent disciples to Jesus to ask Him if he was "the Expected
One" or should we look for someone else: Matt. 11:3-6.
And Jesus answered as follows:
"Go and report to John what you hear and see: the
blind receive sight ... the lame walk, the lepers are cleansed ... the deaf
hear, ... the dead are raised up, and the poor have the gospel preached to
them. And blessed is he who keeps
from stumbling over Me." Matt.
11:4-6
Jesus was here telling John, and all those listening,
that He was in fact, "the Expected One" or the prophet who
Moses spoke of, who was to come.
This was also made clear when Moses and Elijah appeared
to Jesus on the mountaintop, just before He allowed Himself to be handed over
to men to be mistreated and killed for our sake: Luke 9:28-35.
Also of prime significance that just after this occurred a cloud
appeared and surrounded them all and God spoke audibly to all those present:
including Peter, James, and John (the apostle), and said:
"This is My Son, My Chosen One, listen to Him."
Luke 9:35
In other words, God, Himself, made it quite clear that
Jesus was the "Expected One" who was to come, and confirmed it not
only with His own voice, but by resurrecting Moses from the dead and having
him appear to Jesus and his closest disciples.
In various other places, Jesus affirmed that He was the
Messiah or Christ (Matt. 16:13-17) and the Son of God (Luke 22:70), to whom
was given all judgment of mankind, and before whom all men would one day
appear to give an account of their lives.
For example, see John 3:14-15, 36, 5:22-24, John 8:24; 12:26, 32; 14:1,
6; Acts 3:17-26; 4:10-12.
Related Scriptures are: Ps. 2:1-12; 110:1-7; Prov. 30:4;
Isa. 11:1, 10; 32:17-18; 40:1-2; 49:1-18; 50:4-11; 52:13-53:12; ; 61:7; Dan.
9:23-27; Amos 9:13-15; Mic. 4:2-4; Joel 2:28-29; Rom. 15:12; Eph. 2:14; John
17:3;
1.
Numbers 12:4-8
2. In this regard, Joseph's lineage is given to us in Matthew (1:1-17), while
Mary's is in Luke (3:23-38).
This explains why the lineages of Jesus are different from
David to Christ in these two passages and
resulted from the fact that Jesus did not have a
human father.
3. Isaiah 9:6; John 14:1, 6, 27; 12:32; Eph. 2:14
See
also:
Is Jesus God?
Who is a True Jew?
Merry Go
Round verse from the Koran
The
verse that lead one man to leave Islam