A Prophet Like Moses

Old Testament prophecy fulfilled by Jesus

That He would be a prophet like Moses, to speak the words of God.

Moses was a prophet (a prophet is one who receives a message from God, then proclaims that message as God instructed. The proof of a true prophet of God was that what they said really happened.)

God spoke to His prophet Moses-who then told the people God’s message to them. Moses relayed this message from God:

“The Lord your God will raise up for you a prophet like me from among you. From your countrymen, you shall listen to him.” Deuteronomy 18:15.

Then God told Moses what He was going to do:

“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.” Deuteronomy 18:18-19.

By the time of Jesus, the people were looking for the prophet God told them would come.

After Jesus fed the 5000, the people who witnessed it said:

“When therefore the people saw the sign which He had performed, they said, ‘This is of a truth the Prophet who is to come into the world.’” John 6:14.

At the Feast of Booths, Jesus called the thirsty to come to Him and drink. The reaction was that:

“Some of the multitude therefore when they heard these words, were saying, ‘This certainly in the Prophet.’” John 7:40.

Jesus and His disciples were in the city of Nain and saw a funeral procession. Jesus had compassion on the grieving mother whose son had died. He halted the sad group and raised the man from the dead. This was the reaction of the mourners:

“And fear gripped them all, and they began glorifying God, saying, ‘A great prophet has arisen among us!’ and, ‘God has visited His people!’” Luke 7:16.

During Jesus’s triumphal entry into Jerusalem the crowd cried out to Jesus. Many in the multitude believed Jesus was the prophet promised to them more than a thousand years before:

“And the multitudes were saying, ‘This is the prophet Jesus, from Nazareth in Galilee.’” Matthew 21:11.

After Jesus was resurrected, He joined two travelers on the road to Emmaus. He asked them what they discussing:

“And He said to them, ‘What things?’ And they said to Him, ‘The things about Jesus the Nazarene, who was a prophet mighty in deed and word in the sight of God and all the people.’” Luke 24:19.

After Jesus ascended back to heaven, Peter was preaching at the temple. In his sermon, Peter links Jesus to the words of Moses from Deuteronomy-and to the words of every other Old Testament prophet:

“And likewise, all the prophets who have spoken, from Samuel and his successors onward, also announced these days.’” Acts 3:24.

Jesus was the fulfillment of God’s messages to His prophets through the years. Jesus was THE prophet that was to come.

Carla Killough McClafferty