“God is not trying to drive us to despair by his demands, in order to take us from the 'Law' to the 'Gospel,' as if they were two different messages.” The God of Promise and the Life of Faith: Understanding the Heart of the Gospel, Scott Hafemann, p.216
Moses is inextricably linked to the New Testament, and to our experience of Jesus. We think of his miraculous rescue from persecution as an infant, the result of Pharaoh's daughter and Miriam cooperating. We learn from Stephen about how Moses was rejected by his true people, the Hebrews, as their leader, way before the burning bush. Moses' ministry was a miraculous epic of contrasts between God and the ancient Hebrews, mediated by the life-giving law and intervention of Moses. Yet Moses didn't enter the land of Promise, but was buried by God outside of its bounds.
So how are we linked to this ministry? Why is it important that Moses is mentioned about 85 times in the NT? We are his spiritual descendants, in that Moses said there would be a prophet like him raised up from the descendants of Israel. Jesus was that great prophet, that second Moses, who fulfilled the life-giving law of Sinai. Jesus is the great redeemer to which Moses pointed.
We are like babies in baskets, set in the weeds at the edge of the river. But we don't have to stay that way. God can draw us out of the waters, can get us out of the weeds.
We are like those who see the smoke on the mountain but want the Golden Calf. But we don't need to be. The true and living God is speaking in the hearts of people today, echoing the Song of Moses through the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus of Nazareth. The mission is the same: to make it plain that God rules, and so salvation has come to the people.
John 1:16-17 "And of his fullness we have all recieved, and grace upon grace. For the Law was given through Moses; grace and truth were realized through Jesus Christ."
