As the author of the Law he is contrasted with Christ, the Author of the Gospel: "The law was given by Moses" (#Joh i:17). The ambiguity and transitory nature of his glory is set against the permanence and clearness of Christianity (#2Co iii:13-18), and his mediatorial character ("the law in the hand of a mediator") against the unbroken communication of God in Christ (#Ga iii:19). His "service" of God is contrasted with Christs sonship (#Heb iii:5, 6). But he is also spoken of as a likeness of Christ; and, as this is a point of view which has been almost lost in the Church, compared with the more familiar comparisons of Christ to Adam, David, Joshua, and yet has as firm a basis in fact as any of them, it may be well to draw about in detail.
1. Moses is, as it would seem, the only character of the O. T. to whom Christ expressly likens Himself, "Moses wrote of me" (#Joh v:46). It is uncertain to what passage our Lord alludes, but the general opinion seems to be the true onethat it is the remarkable prediction in (#De xviii:15, 18, 19)"The Lord thy God will raise up unto thee a prophet from the midst of thee, from thy brethren, like unto me: unto him ye shall hearken. ... I will raise them up a prophet from among their brethren, like unto thee, and will put my words in his mouth; and he shall speak unto them all that I shall command him. And it shall come to pass, that whosoever will not hearken unto my words which he shall speak in my name, I will require it of him." This passage is also expressly quoted by Stephen (#Ac vii:37), [and by Peter, (#Ac iii:22)], and it is probably in allusion to it, that at the Transfiguration, in the presence of Moses and Elijah, the words were uttered, "Hear ye Him."
It suggests three main points of likeness:
(a.) Christ was, like Moses, the great Prophet of the peoplethe last, as Moses was the first. In greatness of position, none came between them. Only Samuel and Elijah could by any possibility be thought to fill the place of Moses, and they only in a very secondary degree. Christ alone appears, like Moses, as the Revealer of a new name of Godof a new religious society on earth. The Israelites "were baptized unto Moses" (#1Co x:2). The Christians were baptized unto Christ. There is no other name in the Bible that could be used in like manner.
(b.) Christ, like Moses, is a Lawgiver: "Him shall ye hear." His whole appearance as a Teacher, differing in much beside, has this in common with Moses, unlike the other prophets, that He lays down a code, a law, for his followers. The Sermon on the Mount almost inevitably suggests the parallel of Moses on Mount Sinai.
(c.) Christ, like Moses, was a Prophet out of the midst of the nation"from their brethren." As Moses was the entire representative of his people, feeling for them more than for himself, absorbed in their interests, hopes, and fears, so, with reverence be it said, was Christ. The last and greatest of the Jewish prophets, He was not only a Jew by descent, but that Jewish descent is insisted upon as an integral part of his appearance. Two of the Gospels open with his genealogy. "Of the Israelites came Christ after the flesh" (#Ro ix:5). He wept and lamented over his country. He confined himself during his life to their needs. He was not sent "but unto the lost sheep of the house of Israel" (#Mt xv:24). It is true that his absorption into the Jewish nationality was but the symbol of his absorption into the far wider and deeper interests of all humanity. But it is only by understanding the one that we are able to understand the other; and the life of Moses is the best means of enabling us to understand them both.
2. In (#Heb iii:1-19, xii:24-29, Ac vii:37), Christ is described, though more obscurely, as the Moses of the new dispensationas the Apostle, or Messenger, or Mediator, of God to the peopleas the Controller and Leader of the flock or household of God. No other person in the O. T. could have furnished this parallel. In both, the revelation was communicated partly through the life, partly through the teaching; but in both the Prophet was incessantly united with the Guide, the Ruler, the Shepherd.
3. The details of their lives are sometimes, though not often, compared. Stephen (#Ac vii:24-28, 35) dwells, evidently with this view, on the likeness of Moses in striving to act as a peacemaker, and misunderstood and rejected on that very account. The death of Moses, especially as related by Josephus (ut supra), immediately suggests the Ascension of Christ; and the retardation of the rise of the Christian Church, till after its Founder was withdrawn, gives a moral as well as a material resemblance. But this, though dwelt upon in the services of the Church, has not been expressly laid down in the Bible.
