Bible Commentaries
Deuteronomy 18

Verse 15

Deuteronomy 18:15

The history of Moses is valuable to Christians, not only as giving us a pattern of fidelity towards God, of great firmness, and great meekness, but also as affording us a type or figure of our Saviour Christ. Let us consider in what respects Moses resembled Christ.

I. If we survey the general history of the Israelites, we shall find that it is a picture of man's history as the Gospel displays it to us, and that in it Moses takes the place of Christ. We are born in a spiritual Egypt, a land of strangers. Satan is a tyrant over us, and it seems useless to rebel. Christ is a second Moses, and greater than he, inasmuch as Christ leads from hell to heaven, as Moses led the Israelites from Egypt to Canaan.

II. Christ reveals to us the will of God, as Moses did to the Israelites. He is our Prophet as well as our Redeemer. Favoured as he was, Moses saw not the true presence of God. Flesh and blood cannot see it. But Christ really saw, and ever saw, the face of God, for He was no creature of God, but the only-begotten Son, who is in the bosom of the Father. Christ has brought from His Father for all of us the full and perfect way of life.

III. Moses was the great intercessor when the Israelites sinned. In this he shadows out the true Mediator between God and man, who is ever at the right hand of God making intercession for us. Moses was excluded from the Promised Land, dying in sight, not in enjoyment, of Canaan, while the people went in under Joshua. This was a figure of Him that was to come. Our Saviour Christ died that we might live; He consented to lose the light of God's countenance that we might gain it. Moses suffered for his own sin; Christ was the spotless Lamb of God. His death is meritorious; it has really gained our pardon.

J. H. Newman, Parochial and Plain Sermons, vol. vii., p. 118.

References: Deuteronomy 18:15 . Clergyman's Magazine, vol. ix., p. 27; E. H. Gifford, Twelve Lectures, p. 151.Deuteronomy 18:15-19 . Spurgeon, Sermons, vol. xxv., No. 1487; J. G. Murphy, The Book of Daniel, p. 20. Deuteronomy 18:15-22 . Parker, vol. iv., p. 273.Deuteronomy 18:18 . J. Hamilton, Works, vol. v., p. 99.