ANNOUNCER: We continue our conversation about the Old Testament preincarnate appearances of Christ in bodily form. Today, Moses is one to whom Christ appears many times, one of the most remarkable at the burning bush. We are glad to have you with us today, friend. This is Grace in Focus Radio, a ministry of the Grace Evangelical Society. Our website is faithalone.org. You can learn a lot about us there. And we want you to subscribe for our subscription-free magazine. It is called Grace in Focus. Comes out six times per year with some very fine articles from our Free Grace perspective. Full-length, full-color. We want you to have it. It is free all except you do have to pay postage if you live outside of the 48 contiguous United States. Otherwise free, thank you for signing up for it, find out about it at our website, faithalone.org. 

Now with today’s discussion, here is Bob Wilkin, along with David Renfro. 

DAVID: We are continuing for the third session our discussion about does the Lord appear physically, sometimes any way, does he appear to people in the Old Testament? 

BOB: Particularly, the Lord Jesus Christ. 

DAVID: And we’re talking the second person of the Trinity, the Lord Jesus Christ. And does Jesus Christ appear to people in the Old Testament? The answer is overwhelmingly, yes. 

BOB: And we’ve looked at several examples thus far, Adam and Eve in the garden. And we know that he met with Abraham on multiple occasions. And we’ve looked at several of those occasions before he destroyed Sodom and Gomorrah. And when Abraham was offering up his only son Isaac, he met with him there. And now we’re going to look at another key person in the Old Testament, Moses. 

In fact, some people call the Lord Jesus Christ the new Moses, right? He’s, just as Moses led the people of Israel out of Egypt in the Exodus, so the Lord Jesus Christ is going to redeem the people of Israel from bondage in Israel at the end of the Tribulation. He’s going to come and He’s going to set them free from their Gentile domination. When all the countries of the world will have armies surrounding Jerusalem, He’s going to set them free physically. They already, at that point, will be believers in Him. They already will have eternal life. But then another kind of salvation, the kind of salvation that’s spoken of in Zechariah 9:9 in the triumphal entry. Here comes your Savior. He’s coming into the city. Well, that salvation there is not the salvation from eternal condemnation, although that’s included, but it’s salvation that was ultimately promised all the way in the Old Testament.

And so when the Lord meets with Moses, he does so on many different occasions. One of them would be the burning bush. What happened at the burning bush? 

DAVID: Well, the Lord actually talked to him and the episode of the burning bush happens in Exodus chapter 3. 

BOB: Right. And so when he appears, Moses sees this bush burning, but not being consumed. 

DAVID: And it’s very curious, you know, he’s wondering, how in the world could that happen? 

BOB: And the Lord tells him to take off his sandals, right? 

DAVID: In Exodus 3 verse 2, it says, the angel of the Lord, capital A, appeared to him in a flame of fire in the midst of the bush. So he looked and behold, the bush was burning, but the bush was not consumed. I think that’s a miracle. I think Moses at that point was overwhelmed by what was going on. And so in verse 4, God calls to him and says, Moses, Moses, there’s that repetition again. And Moses says, here I am. And that’s when he says, you know, take your shoes off, this is holy ground. 

DAVID: And it’s holy ground because he’s standing before Yahweh. 

BOB: Before the Lord. And by the way, what does Moshe mean? Moses. 

DAVID: The word Moses, or the name Moses, comes from a Hebrew verb that means to draw out. And it comes from when Moses was a baby. 

BOB: Oh, he was drawn out of the Nile. 

DAVID: Out of the Nile, because his mother wanted to protect, because remember the Pharaoh was killing all the Hebrew men or babies. 

BOB: And by the way, that’s another miracle and that’s mentioned in Hebrews 11 that his parents by faith put him in this little ark and he was brought to the daughter of Pharaoh. 

DAVID: He was saved. 

BOB: Yes. He was. 

DAVID: Meaning he was rescued. 

BOB: Right. He was rescued. So here, Moses, the one drawn out is now meeting the preincarnate Lord Jesus Christ. And what’s the purpose of this meaning? 

DAVID: It’s really the calling of Moses to do what the Lord wants him to do. And that is to be his shepherd of the people of Israel to leave slavery in Egypt to the Promised Land. He’s going to be the Lord’s shepherd amongst his covenant people Israel. 

BOB: And he’s sort of a type of Christ. 

DAVID: He grew into a sort of type of, but first it wasn’t that way. I mean, if you read some of the examples of Moses, it’s like, 

BOB: I can’t speak. I mean, how am I going to do this? 

DAVID: I’m totally incompetent. 

BOB: And then he says, okay, I’ll use your brother Aaron to speak for you. And he’s like, well, okay. And then he’s got to have some sort of, who shall I say sent me? And His answer is “I am that I am.” 

DAVID: And that’s the where we get the word Yahweh. 

ANNOUNCER: We will return to our program content shortly, but we’re taking this break to let you know that Grace in Focus is shortly going to be transitioning to digital delivery only. We’ve appreciated this fine radio station and being part of its lineup has been a privilege indeed. But we’re going to say goodbye to this time slot and make room for another ministry right here. You can continue to listen to Grace in Focus, just pick the time of day, anytime 24/7, and find us on Spotify, Apple, and many other podcast outlets.

BOB: So the Lord meets with him at the burning bush, with Moses at the burning bush. But then the Lord meets with him on many occasions. For example, after the ten plagues, which you’ve written about in our magazine, after the deliverance when they leave Egypt and they’re given gold and silver and they’re given clothing and all kinds of things from the people of Egypt. And after they come up to the Red Sea and God opens the Red Sea and saves them through the Red Sea and then destroys the Egyptian army in the Red Sea. After all of that, Moses goes to Mount Sinai where God gives him the Ten Commandments. Who’s the one that gives him the Ten Commandments? 

DAVID: The Lord. Yahweh. 

BOB: How do we, the Ten Commandments weren’t written on pieces of paper were they? 

DAVID: No. They didn’t have an office store that you buy tablets of paper. 

BOB: So what were the Ten Commandments written on? 

DAVID: They were etched in stone. 

BOB: How many stones? 

DAVID: Two stones. 

BOB: Two stones. And the Lord wrote these commandments with what, did he have a stylus or something? He had a chisel. 

DAVID: It says his finger. 

BOB: His finger. So Moses has these tablets and when he sees that the people have actually made golden calves and were worshiping the golden calves and saying these brought us out of Egypt, what does Moses do with these tablets? 

DAVID: He throws them onto that golden calf. 

BOB: He breaks them, right? 

DAVID: He breaks them on the golden calf and the golden calf pretty much gets destroyed. Which should be. 

BOB: Well, he ends up and burns the golden calf. 

DAVID: Why would you worship a god that’s inferior to the God of the Bible? 

BOB: Which is not a god at all. This golden calf was a nothing. And instead you’ve got the God of creation. But then Moses ends up with the Ten Commandments because those Ten Commandments end up in the ark of the covenant. And so how does the new Ten Commandments be written out? 

DAVID: Same thing. Two more tablets were etched on. 

BOB: By the finger of the Lord. Well guess what happens in John 7:53–8:11? The woman caught in adultery. Guess what happens when they say that we should kill or what do you say? Jesus stoops down and writes in the dirt with what? He writes with his finger. And then He stands up and then He gets down and a second time he writes in the dirt with his finger. 

Why would John tell us that He wrote with his finger? And why tell us He wrote twice, seemingly insignificant, unimportant details? Well they’re important If what John is saying is this is the one who wrote the Ten Commandments with his finger. And he’s saying, I’m the author of the commandment, you shall not commit adultery. When you’re asking me what we’re supposed to do with this woman, I’m the commander. I’m the one who wrote these Commandments with my own finger. And so then he says, well let the one who’s without sin cast the first stone. And they all leave from the oldest to the youngest. And they realize he got them. 

And so Jesus met with Moses at Mount Sinai and He gave them the commandment. That’s why when Jesus appears to the people in the first century, they should have been worshiping him. They should have been saying, you’re the Messiah, you’re the chosen one, you’re the one that is the king of Israel. And if you tell us that whoever believes in you has everlasting life, then we believe that. It’s not a matter of keeping the commandments. Yes, you did give us the commandments to keep us a separate people, right, that the Jewish people would not intermarry, et cetera, but those commandments were never designed to give us life. Life was always by faith in Messiah, Abraham knew that, Moses knew that, all of the Old Testament believers knew that. And so they should have believed in Him and worshiped Him. And if they had and they’d come to faith in Him and followed Him, the kingdom would have come in the first century. 

But instead, as a result of their rejection of Jesus, ultimately 66 to 70 AD, there’s the Jewish war. Jerusalem is destroyed as Jesus had prophesied. The temple is destroyed as Jesus had prophesied. And ultimately the kingdom is still awaiting Jesus’ Second Coming. 

DAVID: It just shows that there’s a huge pattern there because Jesus did so many miracles and so many things that were patterned after what’s in the Old Testament, like you’re saying, the finger writing the law, the Ten Commandments and all that, it’s amazing that that pattern is used by the Lord. And also the obstinance of the Jewish people, I mean, they literally saw the miracles. They were eyewitnesses to miracle after miracle in the Old Testament during the Exodus, through crossing the Red Sea, just one of them. 

And then Jesus, doing miracle after miracle, they, the Jews in Jesus, they saw his miracles after miracle after miracle and still did not believe. Any time they came up to some kind of conflict, they’d go, oh, thanks for putting us in this situation. But that’s, you know what do we call that?  We call that sinful human nature. 

BOB: Yeah. You’re exactly right. Well, we haven’t even scratched the surface with just Jesus’ appearances to Moses. So next time, we’ll finish up talking about Jesus’ appearances to Moses. And in the meantime, we’re going to keep grace in focus. 

ANNOUNCER: Be sure to check out our daily blogs at faithalone.org. They are short and full of great teaching, just like what you’ve heard today. Find them at faithalone.org/resources/blog. We would like to thank all of our financial partners who help us keep this show going. All gifts are tax deductible and very much appreciated. If you’d like to find out how you can be a financial partner, visit us at faithalone.org.

In our next episode: more of Jesus’ preincarnate appearances to Moses. Please join us and until then, let’s keep grace in focus.