Jesus in Scripture 02 • Pentateuch
51:24 Teaching begins
Notes
Jesus taught two of His disciples that Moses and all the prophets spoke of Him, especially that the Messiah had to suffer and rise from the dead. I thought I would see if I could re-create the high points of Jesus’ teaching.
The purpose is that you can see God’s plan is Jesus. You can see His sovereignty in fulfilling His plan. And you can see Jesus, as you look at and consider the Scriptures.
Moses wrote of Jesus in his first book, Genesis. Now we’re going to follow up with the rest of Moses.
1. Exodus is full of Jesus.
A. It’s about the nation of Israel becoming enslaved to the Egyptians and freed by God through a substitutionary sacrifice that saves from death.
B. God saves Israel by raising up a saviour, Moses. They don’t recognise that he’s trying to save them the first time, so the second time Moses comes they believe him and God saves them through the word He speaks through Moses. This is what happened to Jesus. The first time He came the Jews didn’t recognise Him. When He comes again He will save Israel from their sins and all their enemies.
C. The culmination of ten plagues is the death of every firstborn in the land of Egypt.
1. The only way to be saved is through the Passover meal. They are to select a perfect lamb, sacrifice it, paint its blood on the lintel and doorposts, and stay inside all night, while the destroyer goes out over all Egypt. They are to roast the lamb whole, eat it, and not break a single bone. They are to remove all leaven in their houses and eat unleavened bread for a week. Leaven puffs up bread dough by waste products from corruption, which we call fermentation. Sin puffs up through corruption. So all leaven has to go.
2. When the lamb dies as a substitute, it protects from judgment and purifies from sin.
3. The Lamb that God provides is Jesus. John the Baptist pointed to Jesus and said, “Behold, the lamb of God that takes away the sin of the world.” Jesus was crucified on Passover, fulfilling the feast, protecting from judgment and purifying from sin. The soldiers broke the legs of the two criminals on either side of Jesus to make them die faster, but they didn’t break Jesus’ bones because His bones were not supposed to be broken, just like the Passover lamb.
D. Not only does the death of the firstborn propel Israel out of Egypt, God prevents any possibility of returning to Egypt by dividing the Red Sea, making Israel go through on dry land, and drowning the Egyptian army in the sea. This is the gospel: when you’re born again you receive a complete break with your past. In Christ we share in His crucifixion, bringing His death to our old life. And we share in Jesus’ risen life.
E. God commands to make Him a tabernacle, a tent, for Him to live among His people. Every part of that tabernacle is a symbol for Jesus. Outwardly there is purity, judgment, redemption, and it looks just like any other tent in Israel. Inwardly there is nourishment, light, prayer, and the inmost part is the presence of God and the law of God written on His heart.
F. God also commands that there be a high priest to offer sacrifices to keep the people purified and in fellowship with God. He wears a crown of gold inscribed with “Holiness to the Lord”. He wears a robe of heavenly blue, he bears the weight of the twelve tribes upon his shoulders and wears the twelve tribes over his heart. Jesus is the great high priest of a greater order than that of Aaron, because He’s all that’s necessary. He offered the perfect sacrifice of Himself, He lives forever, therefore He can save God’s people to the uttermost.
G. The classic illustration of this is in Exodus 32 after God gives Israel His law. They immediately break it through gross idolatry. Moses intercedes for the people for forty days and nights, and God forgives. Like Moses, Jesus keeps His people in fellowship with God, but Jesus is greater than Moses because He lives forever.
2. Leviticus is full of Jesus.
A. All the different sacrifices illustrate the various applications of Jesus’ one sacrifice. You need each one to understand that His sacrifice pays for sins, removes guilt, consecrates all your work, nourishes you by fellowship with God, giving you peace.
B. Most remarkable is the sacrifice for cleansing of leprosy, a symbol of sin because it was incurable by man. But God gives provision to come back into fellowship with Him when you are cleansed of leprosy. Those sacrifices were never offered because no Israelite was ever healed. Jesus healed a leper and said, “Show yourself to the priest and have him perform the cleansing according to what Moses commanded.” God put that law there to point to Jesus, to confirm that He is the Messiah from God, who fulfils the word of God. It was never used, He cleansed a leper, and says, “Okay, let’s fulfil that command.”
C. In Leviticus are written laws of purity. This is how you stay in fellowship with the holy God, because it’s God’s nation for His own possession, out of all the nations on the earth. They are not to be like everybody else. In chapter 19 you have the great commandment, you shall love your neighbour as yourself. That’s Jesus, doing good especially sinners who don’t deserve it.
3. Numbers is full of Jesus.
A. Numbers takes place over forty years. The people refuse to enter the Promised Land and God tells them they will wander in the desert for forty years until that entire generation dies, and their children will enter the Promised Land.
1. Don’t think you have to spend time in the wilderness, rebelling and wasting your life until you learn and enter into fellowship with the Lord. That is ridiculous. You don’t have to live in futility.
2. This reveals Jesus in that it shows death to the old life and resurrection to new life. Israel was a nation of slaves that could not enter the Promised Land because of unbelief. The only solution to unbelief is to die to sin with Christ and be born again with Him into new life that believes God. That new life enters into all that God has for the believer.
B. Numbers 20 repeats something God did in Exodus 17:6. There God said:
1. Behold, I will stand before you there on the rock at Horeb; and you shall strike the rock, and water will come out of it, that the people may drink.” And Moses did so in the sight of the elders of Israel. Moses strikes the rock with the rod of God, and water comes out. When God says, I will stand before the rock, in effect God is being struck, and life-giving water flows when God is struck. That’s the crucifixion of Jesus, being struck by the rod of God for our sins.
2. Numbers 20 is forty years later and God does something similar, and it’s not a mistake or repeat. The second time Moses is supposed to speak to the rock and water will flow out of it. Moses is so angry with the people that he hits the rock twice with his rod. God says you didn’t represent My holiness. He wasn’t angry with the people. He wanted to have this perfect picture: because God our rock was struck once, now all you have to do is speak to the Lord, and life comes out. That’s the gospel.
C. You also have chapter 23, where the people complain against God and He sends poisonous snakes to kill them. They say they’re sorry, please take away the snakes. God tells Moses to make a bronze serpent and place it on a pole in the middle of the camp. When you’re bit by a snake, look at the bronze serpent and you will be saved. Jesus said in John 3, I am that bronze serpent. You can’t save yourself from your sins. You are helpless. Come to Me, look at Me and you will be saved. You must come and look at Jesus, and keep looking at Him.
5. Deuteronomy is full of Jesus.
A. Deuteronomy is Moses teaching Israel the law forty years after he gave the law in Exodus and Leviticus. What a difference walking with the Lord forty years made in Moses. Deuteronomy is about obeying the Lord because of love. It is the obedience of faith.
1. Remember, the second greatest commandment is in Leviticus 19. Only in Deuteronomy do you find the greatest commandment: hear O Israel, the Lord our God, the Lord is one God, and you shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, mind, soul, strength.
2. That’s the heart of Jesus, with that law written on His heart, that’s why He lays down existing in the form of God, humbles Himself, and obeys the Father perfectly to the point of death on a cross. Because He perfectly loves the Father with all His soul, we are saved.
B. When Jesus was fasting in the wilderness for forty days being tempted by Satan, all His replies to temptation was from Deuteronomy. Satan said, “As long as You are the Son of God, command that these stones become bread.” Jesus responds with Deuteronomy 8:3 “Man does not live by bread alone, but man lives by everything that proceeds out of the mouth of the LORD.” The context there is that God was disciplining Israel just as a man disciplines his son. Jesus received that discipline of His Father. If the Father said, “Do not eat until I tell You,” that is enough. If the Father wants Me to die fasting, He can raise Me from the dead, but I won’t disobey Him to save My life.
C. Satan said, “Jump off the Temple and the angels will catch You, because it is written, ‘He shall give His angels charge over you’, and ‘lest You hit Your foot against a stone.’ Deuteronomy 6:16 You shall not put the LORD your God to the test, as you tested Him at Massah.
D. Satan said, “Fall down and worship me, and I will give You all the kingdoms of the world.” Deuteronomy 6:13 You shall fear only the LORD your God; and you shall worship Him and swear by His name.
E. Knowing and believing the Word of God enabled Jesus to discern and refuse all the temptations of Satan.
F. Deuteronomy 18:15-20 The LORD your God will raise up for you a prophet like me from among you, from your countrymen, you shall listen to him.
1. Deuteronomy 34:10-12 Since that time no prophet has risen in Israel like Moses, whom the LORD knew face to face, for all the signs and wonders which the LORD sent him to perform in the land of Egypt against Pharaoh, all his servants, and all his land, and for all the mighty power and for all the great terror which Moses performed in the sight of all Israel. None of the prophets of the Old Testament are that Prophet.
2. Only Jesus is that prophet spoken of by Moses. He came from God with God’s words, He interceded for the sin of God’s people, He turned away the wrath of God in the face of gross idolatry, He keeps His people in fellowship with God.
3. The Apostles quoted this: “And now, brethren, I know that you acted in ignorance, just as your rulers did also. But the things which God announced beforehand by the mouth of all the prophets, that His Christ would suffer, He has thus fulfilled. Therefore repent and return, so that your sins may be wiped away, in order that times of refreshing may come from the presence of the Lord; and that He may send Jesus, the Christ appointed for you, whom heaven must receive until the period of restoration of all things about which God spoke by the mouth of His holy prophets from ancient time. Moses said, ‘THE LORD GOD WILL RAISE UP FOR YOU A PROPHET LIKE ME FROM YOUR BRETHREN; TO HIM YOU SHALL GIVE HEED to everything He says to you. And it will be that every soul that does not heed that prophet shall be utterly destroyed from among the people.’ And likewise, all the prophets who have spoken, from Samuel and his successors onward, also announced these days. It is you who are the sons of the prophets and of the covenant which God made with your fathers, saying to Abraham, ‘AND IN YOUR SEED ALL THE FAMILIES OF THE EARTH SHALL BE BLESSED.’ For you first, God raised up His Servant and sent Him to bless you by turning every one of you from your wicked ways.”
6. So what?
A. The Father sent Jesus to turn you from your wicked ways and to Himself. He’s calling you to Himself. Today you must respond to Him.
B. In Moses you have the people who saw the Ten Plagues, they ate the Passover, they went through the Red Sea. They saw the cloud over them by day and the fire by night. They heard the voice of God at Mount Sinai. They are the same people who hardened their hearts and refused to trust God. Those accounts are written for our instruction, that we would learn from them and not be like them.
C. Instead, you want to submit to God as your Father who is in heaven, and turn to Jesus, and look at Him, just like the bronze serpent, to save you from your sins. He is the rock you don’t have to hit with a stick, you speak to Him, and life flows from Him. Jesus is the prophet spoken of by Moses, listen to Him. Otherwise you will be destroyed. You’ve heard enough today to know that He really is the one pointed out by Scripture. Moses wrote of Him. This is the One! Come now to Him.
Let’s pray.