Moses, A Faithful Servant In God’s House” (Hebrews 3:5)

 What is God Like? – How Can We Know for Sure? – Part 9

By Richard Allen – November 10, 2025

This Blog series may seem like it has taken a “circuitous” route, so let me assure you that there is a “method to my madness!”  At the start, I painted a bleak picture of mankind’s depraved state of “total ignorance and blindness” toward God. We looked at a succession of Godly men whom God used to deal with His wayward children, building toward the first major revelation: “The Calling of Abraham.” In ways we may not fully comprehend, God gave “an Effectual Call” by His Spirit to a Mesopotamian, steeped in darkness and idolatry. He patiently worked with him to bring him to a “Land of Promise.” Then, taking what may have seemed like a strange path, I talked about the demonic influences that ruled all these Gentile lands, the actual lands from where Abraham and his father, Terah, had come. Then I explained, in order for us to fully know “What God is Like,” these demonic forces of Satan needed to be restrained. Now we’ll get back on track, looking at the “next steps” God took in revealing Himself to fallen man: The calling of the Patriarchs!

Without doing a “deep dive” into the rest of the “Israelite Patriarchs,” specifically Isaac, Jacob and Joseph, I will mention that each of these men were a type of the “One to Come,” that is Jesus, the God-Man Redeemer! It was originally Isaac who was the “promised son,” whom Abraham and Sarah miraculously received in their old age. And then God, in a testing of Abraham’s faith, asked him to sacrifice his “only begotten son.”  What’s amazing is that Abraham did so without flinching, “considering that God was able even to raise him from the dead, from which, figuratively speaking, he did receive him back" (Hebrews 11:19). And while Isaac’s life is not exactly a beacon of faithful service to God, Isaac was part of the patriarchal succession, giving birth to “twin nations,” nations that would continue to interact for centuries to come. Of course I’m talking about Edom – the descendants of Esau and the Sons of Jacob, whom God renamed Israel. The promise of God to Abraham continued moving forward with Isaac and Jacob. 

Each of these men were also called – as was Abraham – to sojourn in a “land of promise” waiting for the Messiah to Come, Restore the relationship between God and Man, and Redeem both Israel and all the Gentiles who had “Faith in the coming Redeemer-Messiah!”  Taking my lead from the New Testament, the next major development with God revealing Himself to fallen man, was the birth of Moses, the Law-giver!  Here is a narrative of Old Testament History given in Acts 7:17-44.  Due to its length, I’m providing an abbreviated version of Stephen’s testimony to the Sanhedrin:

“But as the time of the promise drew near. . . .  the people increased and multiplied in Egypt until there arose over Egypt another king who did not know Joseph. . . . . He dealt shrewdly with our race and forced our fathers to expose their infants . . . . The infant Moses was brought up for three months in his father's house, and when he was exposed, Pharaoh's daughter adopted him and brought him up as her own son. . . . .  When he was forty years old, it came into his heart to visit his brothers, the children of Israel. And seeing one of them being wronged, he defended the oppressed man and avenged him by striking down the Egyptian. He supposed that his brothers would understand that God was giving them salvation by his hand, but they did not understand. And on the following day he appeared to them as they were quarreling and tried to reconcile them. . . . . But the man who was wronging his neighbor thrust him aside, saying, ‘Who made you a ruler and a judge over us? Do you want to kill me as you killed the Egyptian yesterday?’ At this retort Moses fled. . . . . After forty years had passed, an angel appeared to him in the wilderness of Mount Sinai, in a flame of fire in a bush. When Moses saw it, he was amazed, and as he drew near to look, there came the voice of the Lord:  ‘I am the God of your fathers, the God of Abraham and of Isaac and of Jacob. . . I have surely seen the affliction of my people who are in Egypt, and have heard their groaning, and I have come down to deliver them. And now come, I will send you to Egypt.’  This Moses, whom they rejected, saying, ‘Who made you a ruler and a judge?’ – this man God sent as both ruler and redeemer by the hand of the angel who appeared to him in the bush. Moses led them out performing wonders and signs in Egypt and at the Red Sea . . . . This Moses said to the Israelites, ‘God will raise up for you a prophet like me from your brothers.’ . . . . . He received living oracles to give to us. Our fathers refused to obey him, but thrust him aside, and in their hearts, they turned to Egypt, saying to Aaron, ‘Make for us gods who will go before us. As for this Moses who led us out from the land of Egypt, we do not know what has become of him.’ And they made a calf in those days, and offered a sacrifice to the idol and were rejoicing in the works of their hands. But God turned away and gave them over to worship the host of heaven . . .  ‘You took up the tent of Moloch and the star of your god Rephan, the images that you made to worship; and I will send you into exile beyond Babylon.’  Our fathers had the tent of witness in the wilderness, just as he who spoke to Moses directed him to ‘make it, according to the pattern that he had seen’ ” (Acts 7:17-44).

It’s obvious that Stephen, one of the original Deacons of the Church in Jerusalem – had a very negative theme to his long narrative to the Jewish Elders: They were “stiff-necked and rebellious,” revering the Temple and Prophets – whom they profaned and did not obey. Their final act was rejecting “The Righteous One,” even Jesus Christ. They received the Law and the props of a “divine religion,” but Did Not Obey It!  Something more had to be done!

^“Yet the Most High does not dwell in houses made by hands, as the prophet says: ‘Heaven is my throne, and the earth is my footstool. What kind of house will you build for me, says the Lord, or what is the place of my rest? Did not my hand make all these things? You stiff-necked people, uncircumcised in heart and ears, you always resist the Holy Spirit. As your fathers did, so do you. Which of the prophets did your fathers not persecute? And they killed those who announced beforehand the coming of the Righteous One, whom you have now betrayed and murdered, you who received the law as delivered by angels and did not keep it’ ” (Acts 7:48-53).

It’s obvious that God had worked for years to “redeem His people.”  And Moses, whom they “revered and honored” as the Mediator of the Covenant of Law – they angered him repeatedly as they rejected God, His Law and His Prophets. When given the chance, they readily “carved a golden calf,” committing gross Idolatry, proclaiming that the “Golden Calf” was “the gods that had brought them out of Egypt!” Moses’ ministry as the Mediator of the Old Covenant exposed every sin and sinful human weakness, revealing just how deep our depravity and corruption really was. They rejected Moses – their deliverer at every turn. Stephen reminds us of the story where Moses had intervened to rescue his Jewish brothers, but their response was: “Who made you a ruler or judge over us?” Ironic, but it was God who had done exactly that! Yet for all their grumbling and rebellion, Moses displayed God’s mighty hand in delivering them!

So, what exactly did God need to do to deliver His fallen children from their “bondage to sin and death?” How could He change the outcome of their “stiff-necked and rebellious ways?” Believe it or not, Moses himself knew that the deliverance God would effect through him and other kings and prophets, was not enough. It’s clear that Moses also understood that God would have to do something more drastic.  In fact, He would send someone else – in many ways like Moses – to finally change the outcome from disobedience, defeat, betrayal and judgment. God Himself would come in the person of Jesus the Messiah, and “regenerate” His chosen ones among both Israel and the fallen Gentiles by His Spirit! In other words, God would stop trying to alter their unbelief and rebellion from without – He would completely change men and women from the “inside out,” through the New Birth!

Moses was both a “type” of the One to Come, and yet very different from our Savior. As a type of Christ, Moses was threatened with death as a babe – as had been Jesus – because of Pharaoh’s edict. He was the Covenant bearer for the First Covenant, based on God’s Law, delivered on Tables of Stone. Whereas Jesus was the Covenant bearer for a New and better Covenant, based on God’s Law written on the “fleshy tables of the heart,” by His Spirit. Moses led the people of God out of bondage to Pharaoh with a mighty hand of power, bringing them to the “land of promise,” to an earthly Jerusalem. Jesus also led the people of God out of bondage to sin and Satan to “a better country,” that is, “the Heavenly Jerusalem.” The Apostle John tells us at the beginning of his Gospel: “ For the law was given by Moses, but grace and truth came by Jesus Christ” (John 1:17). The differences don’t stop with Law vs. Grace. The New Covenant of Jesus Christ goes where no other Covenant ever went before – in order to save “spiritually dead” fallen men and women. No amount of physical help, earthly props – like a physical land where God’s people could be kept separate, the Temple, Priesthood, the Law or even bloody sacrifices – would ever restore the knowledge of God to “spiritually dead people!”  To be blunt, nothing short of “resurrecting” men and women from the dead would make them love and serve God once again.

In order for the “knowledge of God” to be fully conveyed, and fallen men and women restored to favor, God Himself had to accomplish our “so great Salvation” (Hebrews 2:3). Man’s fall into sin and darkness required nothing short of “divine intervention” to bring us back into the light. Abraham had received the Promise in Genesis, and “he believed God and it was reckoned unto him as righteousness” (Genesis 15:6).  Moses, the Law-giver, makes it clear that the Law was not enough. It could only reveal and expose our sin for what it was. God would have to send another Prophet – who could bear and atone for our sin, allowing God the Holy Spirit to dwell within us!  Paul the Apostle explains what was needed to bring about our restoration to a “knowledge of God” in Galatians:

“Christ hath redeemed us from the curse of the law, being made a curse for us: for it is written, Cursed is every one that hangs on a tree: That the blessing of Abraham might come on the Gentiles through Jesus Christ; that we might receive the promise of the Spirit through faith” (Galatians 3:13-14).

These verses in Galatians explain to us what Moses was promising by “That Prophet” from Deuteronomy 18:15.  This coming One would 1.) Redeem us from the curse of the Law by being made a curse for us, so that 2.) The blessing of Abraham might come to both Jews and Gentiles – Receiving the promise of God, the Holy Spirit, through Faith!  We now live in the Age of the Spirit whereby God “writes His Law on our Hearts” (Hebrews 10:16), and inclines us from within to know Him and serve Him in holiness!

Soli Deo Gloria!