“And there has not arisen a prophet since in Israel like Moses, whom the Lord knew face to face” (Deuteronomy 34:10 ESV).
Moses was unique among Israel’s prophets. Who else can compare to the way God used him to accomplish signs and wonders to free his people from Pharoah and to lead his people for forty years in the wilderness? What other prophet gave Israel God’s law and God’s Tabernacle and sacrificial system?
Yet his greatness came from his relationship to the Lord that he knew “face to face.” It was this intimate relationship with God that marked Moses’ ministry. He was a mediator, a go-between for God and Israel. He represented God to the people. And it was to Moses that God revealed a future Mediator that was to come that would be even greater than Moses.
For God told Moses, “I will raise up for them a prophet like you from among their brothers. I will put My words in his mouth, and he will tell them everything I command him” (Deut. 18:18).
This word from the Lord was fulfilled in Christ Jesus. Moses was a Christological type, one whose life pointed to a future fulfillment in Christ. Unlike Moses, who could never really “see” God in all His glory (Read Exodus 33-34), Jesus came from God Himself as God’s only begotten Son. As the apostle John wrote, “For the law was given through Moses; grace and truth came through Jesus Christ. No one has seen God at any time. The only begotten Son, who is in the bosom of the Father, He has declared Him” (John 1:17-18).
Moses gave us God’s law, but even this law was fulfilled in Christ. For what the law couldn’t do, Christ did. As the apostle Paul wrote, “What the law could not do since it was limited by the flesh, God did. He condemned sin in the flesh by sending His own Son in flesh like ours under sin’s domain, and as a sin offering, in order that the law’s requirement would be accomplished in us who do not walk according to the flesh but according to the Spirit” (Rom. 8:3-4).
Jesus is our Great Mediator. There never has been, nor will there ever be another like Him! Because of Jesus, those who have believed in Him shall one day truly know God face to face (See Rev. 22:3-4).
PRAYER: Dear Father, we thank You for Jesus. Because of Him we can be made right with You and know You. Because of Jesus we can one day know You face to face. This is wonderful. For You are our God and we worship You. Thank you for Your marvelous grace. In Jesus’ name, amen.