In John 5:46 Jesus said, “For if you believed Moses, you would believe Me; for he wrote about Me” (NKJV). Before we consider “what Moses wrote about Jesus” let’s consider who Jesus was speaking to. We read no less than four times of “the Jews” who opposed Jesus and His teachings to the point that they “persecuted Jesus, and sought to kill Him” for healing a man on the Sabbath (verse 16) and they “sought all the more to kill Him” for declaring that God was His Father (verse 18). In the beginning of this gospel we read that Jesus “came to His own, and His own did not receive Him,” which means that “His own people, the Jews” rejected Him as their Messiah. Throughout this gospel their hatred of Him grew to the point where they conspired to kill Him, as we see in our chapter under consideration.

In His defense Jesus told the Jews of FOUR WITNESSES to His rightful claim that He was the Son of God: 1) John the Baptist (verses 31-35); 2) the miracles He performed (verse 36); 3) the Father Himself (verse 37); and finally, Moses (verses 39, 45-47). Let’s read all of those verses that speak of Moses: “You search the Scriptures, for in them you think you have eternal life; and these are they which testify of Me….Do not think that I shall accuse you to the Father; there is one who accuses you—Moses, IN WHOM YOU TRUST. For if you believed Moses, you would believe Me; for he wrote about Me. But if you do not believe his writings, how will you believe My words.” The Jews were proud of the fact that Moses, the one who received the Ten Commandments directly from God, came down from Mount Sinai and gave them the very words of God. They also boasted in all of his writings (the first FIVE BOOKS of the Bible, which we call the Pentateuch) that he was inspired to write. They went on to claim they believed every word Moses said, and that’s why Jesus said, “there is one who accuses you—Moses, IN WHOM YOU TRUST.” But did they really believe in the writing of Moses? No, for if they had, they would have believed that Jesus was their Messiah, for Moses foretold the coming of Christ and Jesus was the obvious fulfillment of Moses’ prophecy.

Here is a clear prophetic statement by Moses about the coming of Christ: “The LORD your God will raise up for you a Prophet like me from your midst, from your brethren. Him you shall hear” (Deuteronomy 18:15). In verse 18 God told Moses, “I will raise up for them a Prophet like you from among their brethren, and will put My words in His mouth, and He shall speak to them all that I command Him.” As Jesus ministered the Word to the Jews He emphasized that they words He spoke were not His words, but the words that the Father gave Him to speak. For example, in John 5:30 Jesus said, “I can do nothing. AS I HER, I judge; and My judgment is righteous, because I do not seek My own will but the will of the Father who sent Me.” In John 7:16 Jesus declared, “My doctrine is not Mine, but His who sent Me.” And in John 12:48-49 Jesus said, “He who rejects Me, and does not receive My words, has that which judges him—the word that I have spoken will judge him in the last day. For I HAVE NOT SPOKEN ON MY OWN AUTHORITY; BUT THE FATHER WHO SENT ME GAVE ME A COMMAND, WHAT I SHOULD SAY AND WHAT I SHOULD SPEAK.”

Most of the Jews did indeed reject Jesus’ words which He was given by the Father, yet there were some who received them. In John 6:14 and 7:40 we read, “Then those men, when they had seen the sign Jesus did, said, ‘This is truly the Prophet who is to come into the world’….Therefore many from the crowd, when they heard this day, said, ‘Truly this is the Prophet.’” But the religious leaders and the majority of the people, who claimed to trust in Moses and his writings, DID NOT BELIEVE and thus they DID NOT BELIEVE in the words of Jesus, the Prophet that Moses wrote about.

In closing, Moses also wrote about Jesus in MANY other scriptures. Some were DIRECT PROPHECIES; others were TYPES (i.e. PICTURES of Christ) of the coming Christ. I would encourage you to read Genesis 3:15; 22:18 (along with Galatians 3:16); Exodus 12:1-13 (along with 1st Corinthians 5:7; John 1:29 and 1st Peter 1:19); and Numbers 21:4-9 (along with John 3:14-15). These are just a few of the MANY scriptures which Moses wrote which SPEAK OF CHRIST. I think it would be fitting to quote one more passage related to our subject today. I’m thinking of Luke 24:25 which says, “Then He (Jesus) said to them, ‘O foolish ones, and slow of heart to believe in all that the prophets have spoken! Ought not Christ to have suffered these things and to enter into His glory?’ And BEGINNING AT MOSES and all the Prophets, He expounded to them in all the Scriptures the things concerning Himself.”  (400.1)  (DO)