Who was Moses in the Bible?

Moses was a very faithful and highly favoured servant of God, of whom the Lord said, "My servant Moses… who is faithful in all my house" (Num. 12:7). We are privileged to see God's faithful servant in many aspects of life, from the time when he was born, adopted by Pharaoh's daughter, prominent in Egypt, refusing all that Egypt offered to be identified with God's people, spending forty years in the backside of the desert, then returning to Egypt to lead out the people of God after God had poured out His judgments upon Pharaoh and his land.

As soon as faith became active in Moses' heart, he refuses the most wonderful position that a man ever had… "He refused to be called the son of Pharaoh's daughter." … What does he do afterwards? He chooses suffering. He gives up ease, and chooses hardship. He gives up luxury, and chooses degradation. He gives up the very thing that the heart would delight in, and chooses the very thing that flesh and nature shrink from.

Having brought Israel to Jehovah at Sinai, Moses was the mediator, who represented God before the people, and the apostle of the divine system set up in relation to the tabernacle, and in this he pointed forward to the Mediator of the new covenant… In Deuteronomy, Jehovah said to Moses, "I will raise them up a Prophet from among their brothers, like you, and will put my words in His mouth" (18:18). Moses was therefore also a type of the Lord Jesus as Jehovah's Prophet to Israel.

It is very striking in connection with my subject — "who is faithful in all my house," says the Lord, words which told Aaron and Miriam that Moses was a person of special dignity, having access to all parts of the Lord's house. It was not only that he was faithful, but faithful in all parts of the house, having title to be in the holiest, or heavenly place, as well as in the tent of meeting or the courts.

The intercession of Moses had saved them, the very man whom they had accused of taking too much on himself… the very man whom they had accused of self-seeking and of wanting to make himself a prince over them, had actually refused a God-given opportunity of becoming the head of a greater and mightier nation than they! Yes, and this same man had earnestly asked that if they were not to be forgiven and brought into the land, his name might be blotted out of the book.

In a later day Moses forgot both meekness and faithfulness, when he and Aaron together failed (Num. 20)… This was a great public failure, yet in a still later day the Holy Spirit again records that Moses was faithful in all His house (Heb. 3:5)… But is it not wonderful, that though Moses failed so that he was not permitted to enter Canaan, yet centuries later the testimony of the Spirit concerning the man is "faithful in all his house"? Such is the reckoning of grace.

And the Lord buried Moses. How and where is not revealed… What honour Jehovah put after all on His servant! He is the only one who was buried by the Lord, and he appeared on the Mount of Transfiguration with the Lord. And the beautiful testimony concerning him by the Spirit of God at the end of this book! "And there arose not a prophet since in Israel whom the LORD knew face to face."

Undeniably a son is greater than a servant. We have, however, not yet exhausted the contrasts. For Moses was a servant in God's house. The Son is over God's house… And He is over such a house as Moses never knew. Moses was faithful for a testimony of those things which were to be spoken later (Heb. 3:5). He foretold the coming of the Prophet who was to come, directing all to expect Him, whom we know as the Son.