Deuteronomy 18:15

Turning back to Deuteronomy 18, we hear Moses say to Israel: "these nations, which you are about to dispossess, listen to fortune-tellers and to diviners." These were what the nations turned to when they wanted light on the world beyond. But what about God's people? "The LORD your God will raise up for you a prophet like me from among you, from your brothers — it is to him you shall listen."

Here we plainly have the true prophet put forward, Christ Himself. Against all the unbelief of men, the Holy Spirit applies it to Him again and again — Peter in Acts 3, Stephen in Acts 7. In fact we do not even need these quotations. The whole New Testament is itself the unanswerable proof that Christ is the prophet meant here, and that listening to another is folly and sin.

The theory of Aben Ezra and others, that Joshua is meant, cannot be held. Joshua only added to Moses' work, and in little more than one direction. He in no way stands out as the prophet raised up from his brothers like Moses. What set Moses apart was his place as mediator, whose words people must hear on pain of death. That is true in the highest degree of none but the Messiah.

The description of the Coming One was clear and exact. The likeness would lie in this: the Lord would know that Prophet face to face, as He had known Moses. So the Coming One would be a man, and God would deal with Him in person, as He had with Moses. Prophet after prophet arose over the years. But between the days of Moses and those of John the Baptist, not one of them matched that description.

God remembered Sinai. The thought of hearing God Himself speak to them had terrified Israel, and they had asked for a go-between with God. So the Prophet spoken of in verse 18 is the "one mediator between God and men, the man Christ Jesus."

If Moses had been enough, there would have been no need for another. But the Law was bound to fail to bring people near to God. God had told the lawgiver himself, "Man shall not see me and live." The veil in front of the Most Holy Place bore witness to that all through those years.

God will establish a new covenant under the Messiah, and that is no dishonour to the law of Moses. Moses himself predicted it. He foretold that the Lord God would raise up a prophet like himself — like him, yet greater than him. This prophet would not be greater if He did not bring in a new state of things, that is, the new covenant. Moses brought in the old covenant. Christ will bring in the new covenant.

How precious the privilege of hearing the voice of such a Prophet! It is the voice of God speaking through the lips of the Man Christ Jesus. He does not speak in thunder, in flaming fire, or in the flash of lightning. He speaks in that still small voice of love and mercy, which falls with soothing power on the broken heart and the crushed spirit. This voice we have in the Holy Scriptures. We must never forget this. The voice of Scripture is the voice of Christ, and the voice of Christ is the voice of God.