Jesus is the True & Better Moses
Open Your Bible
Exodus 17:1-7, Exodus 33:7-23, Exodus 34:1-9, 1 Timothy 2:5-6, Hebrews 12:18-24, 1 Corinthians 10:1-4, 1 Peter 2:4-7
My wife and I recently went to the theatre to see Bridge of Spies. While you might expect an espionage story to be action packed, the majority of the film is actually focused on Tom Hanks in the role of a master negotiator. No spoilers here. You can gather from the trailer that Hanks, a mild mannered insurance lawyer, is up for the challenge of a lifetime. He must mediate an unofficial prisoner trade between the U.S. and the Soviet Union during the peak of the Cold War.
As we walked out of the theatre, I thought, Being a professional mediator would be an insanely stressful job.
A little later on, though, it made me think of Moses.
Moses was a mediator for Israel. Part of his role as leader was to stand between Yahweh and the people of God. Instead of merely serving political interests, Moses was responsible for mediating the Law of God to an entire nation. Initially, he was also responsible for mediating the sins of the people before God. Though we serve a loving and gracious God, I cannot imagine a more demanding role.
At the outset of His public ministry, Jesus proclaimed clearly that He had not come to abolish the Law, but rather to fulfill it (Matthew 5: 17). In fact, the entire Sermon on the Mount is reflective of Moses standing before the people, presenting the Law. Every time we hear Jesus proclaim, “You have heard it said…but I say unto you,” we witness Him reissuing, reaffirming, and remediating the Law.
Where Moses had to continually offer sacrifice and ask for pardon, Jesus laid down His life, becoming not only the sacrifice, but also the Great High Priest. For truly, only someone who was (and is) fully God and fully man can accurately mediate the relationship between God and humanity.
God, in His mercy, appointed Moses to temporarily stand in the gap between Him and His people. Knowing Moses could not sustain the type of mediation needed for a relationship with a perfectly holy God, the Lord entered into our dying world in the form a child. This child was and is the world’s only hope. As the writer of Hebrews clearly established, Jesus is the true fulfillment of Moses’ mission.
Whether you’ve lost hope of meaningful contact with God, or you’ve overestimated your own ability to mediate, there is great news! The coming of Jesus at Christmas represents an opportunity for relationship with the perfect advocate; one who has known our suffering and heartbreak, but also knows the perfect love of the Father.
“For there is one God, and one mediator between God and humanity, Christ Jesus, Himself human, who gave Himself—a ransom for all, a testimony at the proper time” (1 Timothy 2:5-6).
He is Emmanuel, God with us and in the gap for us.
Written by Andrew Stoddard
3,168 thoughts on "Jesus is the True & Better Moses"
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Howard K says:
By trying to be more like Jesus and less like the week man that I am. Jesus Christ is the way to eternal happiness and until I completely commit my life to Jesus Christ I will never be fully happy and continue to struggle. My goal is to completely commit to our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ
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Without the Gospel we would be lost and by the Gospel we can learn the ways to a righteous life with God. We are not perfect but at least we can try to be more like Jesus by reading the Word.
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God wants only good for us even though we continue do not respect God’s laws. God loves us so much that He wiped out our eternal damnation by offering His Son Jesus Christ as the last sacrifice to save us from sin and deliver us into heaven when we die as long as we believe in the Gospel of Jesus Christ.
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Man is weak and could never have been saved unless we had appointed people by God to help us understand life. Also we are so week that we needed to have Jesus Christ to die for our sins to save us from sin. Thank you God for looking out for us.
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God grant me the strength and courage and determination to fully commit to you by giving everything up to you that I am afraid of because I know you will protect me from all that I am afraid of. I just need to let go for you to do protect me so please give me the strength to let go of everything for you God.
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Jeffrey Messenger says:
Thanksgiving and awe of who Jesus is.
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God is so glorious and is so great and so righteous that we cannot even gaze upon His face for it will kill us. How GREAT a God do we serve! Praise be to God!
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Jesus came as the only mediator that allows us to be in a full and thriving relationship with God almighty.
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Man is futile and cannot relate with God fully because we cannot truly communicate with Him the way Jesus can because Jesus is just as holy, blameless, perfect, righteous, and glorious.
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Father, teach me to treasure You and to thirst for You greater each day as I strive to be like Jesus.
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Jonathan Newman says:
God is holy and perfect and cannot allow the presence of sin and evil. He requires a mediator between sinful, rebellious people and himself.
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God in his love and grace took it upon himself to become the God-man who could mediate for his people. In him, we have the present access to relationship with God as through a mirror, but we have the hope of seeing God face to face and being totally embraced and enjoying full intimacy with him forever.
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Not putting stock in human relationships, whether friendship or romance, to fulfill me or bring me my greatest security and satisfaction. I will look to God for my ultimate rest and intimacy, knowing that unlike human relationships it will be forever and never disappointing.
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We humans are unable to mediate between ourselves or other people and God. Moses had to continually ask for pardon, and even that was only a shadow of what was needed.
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Chris C says:
Lord, your love is deeper than I thought possible and I still can’t see the bottom. You’ve taken on both sides of the covenant and have sacrificed your only Son for me, when you owed nothing. Thank you for your grace and forgiveness. Help me to live in the light of your truth today and glorify you in all that I say, think, and do.
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The Gospel is really good news. Jesus is our perfect mediator and is advocating for us always at the right hand of the father. My sins are wiped clean by His blood.
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We have continually failed to live as God calls us to, yet He is a gracious and merciful God who forgives us and loves us despite our shortcomings.
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I’m getting a better sense of the depth of God’s love for me, it’s bigger than I thought. He’s done everything for us, even though we rejected Him so many times.
He doesn’t love us for what we do because there’d be almost no reason to do that, but He loves us simply because we are His chosen children.
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Josh Burns says:
That I cannot reach God on my own. It’s not through any of my own effort or ability it’s only through Jesus and his saving work that I can have a relationship with God.
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Jesus is the mediator between me and God. He had to come to this earth and die in order for me to have a relationship with God.
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God, make me aware daily of your presence in my life through your Son Jesus. You are not someone that can’t empathize with me. You are not someone who doesn’t care about me. You care about and love me deeply. May I live my life in response to that today.
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That he loved me enough to send His Son to this earth to be the mediator for me to God.
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I will strengthen my relationship with God through prayer and reading of Scripture and allowing that relationship to permeate every area of my life.
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