Acts 3:22–23

God has fulfilled His word through Moses the prophet. Moses in no way took the place of being Israel's deliverer. He was only a witness to it, a partial display of God's power at the time, but looking on to the great Prophet and Deliverer who was coming. Now He had come.

The prophets of idolatry were deluded. In contrast, the Lord would raise up a prophet like Moses — but infinitely greater than Moses — from among Israel. Israel must listen to Him. Moses was about to die. But God remembered Israel's fear at Sinai. They were terrified at the thought of hearing God Himself speak, and had asked for someone to stand between them and God. So the Prophet spoken of is the "one mediator between God and men, the man Christ Jesus."

Peter's use of these words in Acts 3 makes it clear that the One in mind is Christ Himself. In Deuteronomy 18 the stress seems to fall on the precious fact of Christ's humanity — "a prophet like me from your brothers." Perhaps the outstanding feature in Moses was the closeness he enjoyed with God, and his freedom in going into the Lord's presence. The words "like me" remind us of the perfect communion between the Lord Jesus as Man and the Father.

Peter quotes Moses: God would raise up a prophet from the Jewish nation, similar to Moses. But He would speak with such authority that no one could ignore His words... This could apply to no one but Christ. Leaders in Israel knew that Scripture. They had asked John the Baptist whether he was that prophet. But John testified that the Lord Jesus was far greater than he, and the evidence of Christ's own life and ministry was clear for all to see... In fact, Israel knows that neither before nor since has there been such a prophet.

The theory of Aben Ezra and others, that Joshua is meant, cannot stand. Joshua only added to Moses' work, and in little more than one direction. He does not stand out in any adequate way as the prophet raised up from his brothers like Moses. So some of the most distinguished Jewish teachers tried to read this one unique prophet as a whole line of prophets! That reading fits neither the language nor the facts of their history... The place of mediator, whose words must be heard on pain of death, points to what marked Moses out. In the highest degree it is true of no one but the Messiah.

Moses had predicted the coming of a prophet — a man like himself, to whom the nation must listen or be destroyed. Jesus fulfilled this prophecy. Though He is the Eternal Son, He stooped to become Man among us — as truly human as Moses or anyone else. He was no mere explainer of Moses' law. He announced a new and more glorious order of things altogether. The words themselves show it: "You shall listen to him in whatever he tells you."

The Prophet is Christ. He has come. Men have heard His voice with their own ears, and we may still hear His voice in Holy Scripture. Here is one of His sayings: "For God so loved the world, that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life." What words are these! How divinely suited they are to meet every need of the human heart!

God has fulfilled His word through Moses the prophet. Moses never took the place of Israel's deliverer. He was only a witness to it — a partial picture of God's power at that time, pointing on to the great Prophet and Deliverer who was coming. Now He had come. So Peter set before them the arrival of the One who came to bless, His rejection among them, and how terrible a thing it is to treat that lightly. Whoever would not bow to Him was to be cut off — by the declaration of their own Moses.

So by refusing to listen to Christ, they were guilty of direct disobedience to Moses. The lawgiver would be their accuser. The people who claimed to be Moses' disciples, so eager (as they imagined) for his honour, would find themselves accused before God by him!

Moses had declared that Jehovah would raise up for them a Prophet like himself. He firmly affirms this Prophet's authority. He is not a mere explainer of what had been spoken before. He is the Originator of a new order of things, as Moses was, and so must go beyond what Moses had begun... Had Moses been enough, there would have been no need for another. But the law was bound to fail to bring people near to God. There must be, then, another Prophet and a different message. If people hear Him, the way to God that is otherwise closed opens for the one who receives His message. If they do not hear Him, there is indeed no remedy: "every soul who does not listen to that prophet shall be destroyed from the people."

Israel boasted in their great "Shema," where the prophet Moses called them back to the privilege and responsibility of what the law revealed... But Israel was the "deaf servant" of Jehovah. Now God had raised up another Prophet, and of Him it was written, "You shall listen to Him in everything He says to you"... Moses had charged the people, "Hear, O Israel." Now One greater than Moses cried, "Who has ears to hear, let him hear." What if they did not hear? For those who refused to listen, that old prophecy held a warning just as serious: "whoever will not listen to my words that he shall speak in my name, I myself will require it of him."

The first of these words occurs only once (Acts 3:23). The second appears four times — three of them about the destruction of the ungodly. Liddell and Scott give exolothreuo as "to destroy utterly," and olethros as "ruin, destruction, death."

See how serious the issues are that hang on hearing the voice of this Prophet... Everything depends, he says, on how you hear Him. To hear Jesus is to secure salvation. To deafen the ear and harden the heart against Him is to seal the soul's eternal doom.

There was, however, a word for them in the present. The One who had been among them was truly the Prophet like Moses, to whom all were to listen. So a present responsibility rested on them while they waited for the future. For if that Prophet had come — and Jesus Christ was that Prophet — then all people were bound to listen to Him, or judgment would overtake the rebellious.