Who is the Prophet in Deuteronomy 18:15-19?

Here is the divine resource of the Lord's people, at all times and in all places; and to this it is that Moses refers the congregation in the splendid paragraph which closes our chapter. He shows them, very distinctly, that they had no need to apply to familiar spirits, enchanters, wizards, or witches, which all were an abomination to the Lord. "The Lord thy God," he says, "will raise up to thee a prophet from the midst of thee, of thy brethren, like to me to him ye shall hearken; according to all that thou desiredst of the Lord thy God in Horeb, in day of the assembly, saying, Let me not hear the voice of the Lord my God, neither let me see this great fire any more, that I die not. And the Lord said to me, They have well spoken that which they have spoken. I will raise them up a Prophet from among their brethren, like to thee, and will put my words in his mouth; and he shall speak to them all that I shall command him. And it shall come to pass, that whosoever will not hearken to my words which he shall speak in my name, I will require it of him. But the prophet which shall presume to speak a word in my name, which I have not commanded him to speak, or that shall speak in the name of other gods, even that prophet shall die. And if thou say in thine heart, How shall we know the word which the Lord has not spoken? When a prophet speaks in the name of the Lord, if the thing follow not, nor come to pass, that is the thing which the Lord has not spoken, but the prophet has spoken it presumptuously: thou shalt not be afraid of him." (Vers. 15-22.)

We can be at no loss to know who this Prophet is, namely, our adorable Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ. In the third chapter of Acts, Peter so applies the words of Moses. "He shall send Jesus Christ, which before was preached to you; whom the heaven must receive until the times of restitution of all things, which God has spoken by the mouth of all his holy prophets since the world began. For Moses truly said to the fathers, A prophet shall the Lord your God raise up to you of your brethren, like to me; him shall ye hear in all things, whatsoever he shall say to you. And it shall come to pass, that every soul, which will not hear that prophet, shall be destroyed from among the people." (Vers. 20-23.)

In verse 22 Peter quotes Moses (Deut.18:15-19) as telling that God would raise up a prophet of the Jewish nation, similar to Moses, but having such authority that His words would allow no ignoring of them. Anyone who would not hear that prophet would be destroyed from among the people. This could apply to no-one but Christ. Leaders in Israel knew of that scripture, and had John the Baptist questioned if he were that prophet (John 1:21); but John bore witness to the fact that the Lord Jesus was far greater than he (John 3:38-31), and the evidence of Christ's own life and ministry was transparently clear. John did no miracle, but the miracles of the Lord Jesus were tremendous in number. In fact, Israel knows that neither before nor since has there been such a prophet.

In contrast to the deluded prophets of idolatry, the Lord would raise up a prophet like Moses (but infinitely greater than Moses) from the midst of Israel (v.1). Israel is commanded to listen to Him. Moses was at the point of being taken away in death. But God remembered how Israel had been terrified at the thought of hearing God Himself speaking to them at Sinai (Ex.20:18-20), and had asked for an intermediary between themselves and God. Therefore the Prophet spoken of in verse 18 is the "one Mediator between God and men, the Man Christ Jesus" (1 Tim.2:5). He would speak faithfully the words He received from God (v.18).

Thus, though the sun of Moses, obscured by failure, set while yet it was high day, as far as his natural strength was concerned, there arose upon the world this fresh star of promise concerning another PROPHET who should be the perfect exponent of the mind of God, and through whose lips there should flow nothing but the clear waters of the truth. And that Prophet was CHRIST.

In how pre-eminently greater measure do we see this exemplified in the coming into the world of One incomparably greater than Moses, and of whom Moses has said: "Jehovah thy God will raise up unto thee a Prophet from the midst of thee, of thy brethren, like unto me, unto Him shall ye hearken" (Deut. 18:15). That this refers exclusively to Christ is placed beyond all dispute, by Peter in Acts 3:18-22, and Stephen in Acts 7, who are both moved by the Spirit to quote this Scripture. Moses stands out very distinctly as a type of the Lord Jesus, particularly in his mediatorial character and as one who occupied a place of remark-able and unprecedented nearness to God, for "The Lord spake unto Moses face to face, as a man speaketh to his friend." Jehovah alludes to this when vindicating Moses against the aspersions of Miriam and Aaron, saying: "My servant Moses; he is faithful in all my house. Mouth to mouth do I speak to him openly, and not in riddles; and the form of Jehovah doth he behold" (Num. 12:7-8).

No wonder therefore it is added by Stephen, 'This is the Moses that said to the sons of Israel, A prophet will God raise up to you out of your brethren, like me.' The difficulties and differences of the most celebrated Rabbis prove what a stone of stumbling is the true Christ, the Lord Jesus, to unbelieving Israel. How otherwise could we account for such a man as Abarbanel perverting the words of Deut. 18:18 here cited, to Jeremiah? If there be among the prophets, yea, in all the people, a marked contrast with the honoured deliverer from Egypt and the law-giver in the wilderness, it is the mourning man of Anathoth, whose testimony and life show a continuous struggle of grief and shame between his burning sense of God's ignored rights and his love for the people of God who most of all ignored them, as well as himself. Utterly untenable is the theory of Aben Ezra and others, that Joshua is meant, who but supplemented, and in little more than one direction, Moses' work, but in no adequate way stands out as the prophet raised up from his brethren like Moses. Hence the effort of some most distinguished among the Jewish teachers to interpret as a succession this singular prophet! which is as contrary to usage in the language as to the fact in their history. Compare Num. 12:6-8 and Deut. 34:10-12. The position of mediator, whose words must be heard on pain of death, points to Moses' peculiarity, only in the highest degree true of none but Messiah. And if the Jews did not then realize the consequence of refusing to hearken to Him, soon did the threat begin to fall on their guilty heads. 'The wrath', says the apostle Paul, 'is come upon them to the uttermost' (1 Thess. 2:16). And not yet have they paid the last farthing. The unequalled tribulation is still before them, though a believing remnant will be delivered out of it, hearkening to Him Whom the nation opposed to their own ruin.

The apostle goes on to show the emphatic witness of Moses himself to Christ. A Prophet like to himself he had declared that Jehovah would raise up to them: One whose authority he strongly affirms; not a mere expounder of what had been spoken before, but the Originator of a new dispensation, as was Moses, and necessarily, therefore, in advance of that which he had inaugurated. In the passage in Deuteronomy from which Peter quotes, it is after the inability of the people to draw nigh to God has been demonstrated, and the Lord has acquiesced in their own statement of it, — "They have well said that which they have spoken," — that He declares that He will raise up to them a new Prophet. Had Moses sufficed, there would not have needed to be another; but the Law must necessarily fail to bring nigh to God. "There shall no man see Me and live" had been His word to the lawgiver himself; and the veil before the holiest bore witness to it throughout the dispensation. But in this failure all fails for man's blessing; and on this account, as the apostle tells us. God finds fault with the law. There must be, then, another Prophet and a different message. If He be heard, then there opens for the recipient of it that otherwise inaccessible way to God; while, if He be not heard, there is indeed no remedy: "every soul that shall not hear that Prophet shall be destroyed from among the people." Thus has Moses spoken of One greater than himself. Thank God, though Israel as a nation rejected Him, as we know, in the days to which we are now looking back, yet "Him shall ye hear" is declared in her favor with regard to days to come. The blessing has been long delayed; but in the meanwhile the gospel has risen up above these human barriers to only a more wondrous height, to overflow to the nations with a fuller blessing.

There is a reason also to be found for what is said of the prophet being more strictly predictive. For while the continuance of the priesthood and of the judgeship was provided for, and the king also when the time should come, the prophetic office was neither elective nor successional, but depended upon the mere good pleasure of God. Hence the promise, "God will raise up." A distinction of the prophet it is that even in Israel he existed only by the direct call and qualification of God only. Each one was therefore very distinctly the "man of God" in his day; and the "testimony of Jesus," which the "spirit of prophecy" was, was preserved from the corruption by which priest and king were overcome.

Thus the prophet marked the activity of the living God in behalf of His people, and throughout reign after reign of the later kings of Israel, the existence of the prophet is the one ray of light — the link still existing between God and the people who drew not near to God: in this way like Moses, although not of the full stature of Moses, no doubt, a fulfillment of what is here, though not the fulfillment; which easily reconciles the last saving of this book with such minor accomplishments, while it justifies the faith which even in Israel looked forward to "that Prophet" in whom, blessed be God, He has drawn nigh to us.

If the professing people of God turn to such things, it is not because God has refused them the joy and blessing of direct communication of His mind: it is because they have turned their back on Him. He would not even wait for the people to call on Him, but would come near to them Himself in the Prophet that He would raise up like unto Moses, and whom they were to hear; and of him who did not hear the Prophet it would be required.

It should be as certain that Christ is the only complete fulfillment of this as, on the other hand, that every prophet raised up was a partial anticipatory fulfillment. The threefold form of headship in Israel — King, Priest, and Prophet — we have here complete, and of each we must say exactly the same thing. Christ it is alone to whom they all looked forward, and without him, any fulfillment would be trivial and unworthy. Yet the terms of what is said show plainly that others are contemplated, as steps not unneeded by which we reach Him — certainly to Israel gracious helps by which in the meanwhile faith might be sustained and need ministered to.

To the argument drawn from the setting aside of Levitical rites, and the passing away of typical ceremonies, we have already replied; showing, at the same time, how seriously our author's reasoning arrays Scripture against Scripture, and exalts one part of it at the expense of another. Nor do the particulars now enumerated require much remark. It may well be questioned whether the fulfilment of the Jewish lawgiver's prediction in our blessed Lord, as declared by Peter in the third of Acts, constitutes the highest feature of the distinctive character possessed by the New Testament. Questions might be raised as to the meaning of the word "prophet" in the text on which Mr. W.'s discourse is founded. Is the foretelling of future events that which is chiefly indicated by that term as applied by Moses to himself, and to that blessed One whose advent he predicts? Is it not rather as the founder, by divine appointment, of the legal economy or dispensation that he speaks of himself, while he foretells the coming of another, by whom a better dispensation should be established? Moses and the law were to be heard, till Christ should come, and the gospel be introduced; or, as the evangelist has it, "The law was given by Moses, but grace and truth came by Jesus Christ" (John 1:17). In either case, it would seem rather to be the divine authority of the lawgiver than the supernatural foresight of the seer, that is indicated by the word prophet, as used in the text under consideration.

Nor do the words — "him shall ye hear in all things" — imply that his revelations are more strictly true than were those made by means of Moses. The One of whom the passage treats was to be "a prophet," says Moses, "like unto me." The authority of Moses, as their divinely appointed legislator and the founder of their system, was acknowledged by the Jews; but he himself foretold the coming of another of equal (he does not say higher) authority; and him they were to hear in all things. Moses himself thus sets his seal to the mission of Christ, by which his own temporary economy was to be superseded and replaced; but until thus superseded and replaced, Moses was to be heard, and his injunctions to be obeyed as implicitly as Christ and his words are now to be submitted to by all. In fact, we have Christ's own declaration to assure us, that such as truly heard the one, reverently and obediently listened to the other also. "For had ye believed Moses, ye would have believed me: for he wrote of me." (John 5:46.)