Christ is “that Prophet” who fulfills the prophecy concerning the new lawgiver who would replace Moses. The Old Testament prophecy is recorded in Deuteronomy 18:15-19, and the object lesson demonstrating that the prophecy has been fulfilled is the Mount of Transfiguration (Matt. 17:1-6; Mark 9:2-8; Luke 9:28-36). Scripture makes it clear that the Jews not only knew about the promise that God made to Moses concerning a new prophet; they were looking forward to its fulfillment. They asked John the Baptist,

They asked him, “Then who are you? Are you Elijah?”

He said, “I am not.”

“Are you the Prophet?”

He answered, “No.” (John 1:21). 

Their point of reference was Deuteronomy 18.

A bit later, John again mentions the expectation of the promised prophet. After Jesus had fed five thousand people with two small fish and five small barley loaves, he told them to gather up the leftovers. 

So they gathered them and filled twelve baskets with the pieces of the five barley loaves left over by those who had eaten. 

After the people saw the miraculous sign that Jesus did, they began to say, “Surely this is the Prophet who is to come into the world” (John 6:13-14).

Again, their expectation came from Deuteronomy 18. This is a very important section of Scripture. Let us examine it carefully and see exactly what God was promising. Notice that the new Prophet will speak with the full authority of God himself. I have added bold numbers within the passage to mark four significant points.

(1) I will raise up for them a prophet like you from among their brothers; (2) I will put my words in his mouth, and (3) he will tell them everything I command him. If anyone does not listen to (4) my words that the prophet speaks in my name, I myself will call him to account (Deut. 18:18-19).

Point One: Exactly how is Jesus “like Moses”? The two primary likenesses of Moses and Jesus are that (1) they are both mediators of a specific covenant, and (2) they are both lawgivers. They both mediated covenants that established nations. Moses meditated the covenant that established God’s earthly people, the nation of Israel, and Jesus is the Mediator of the new covenant that established the church, the true Israel of God. Both Moses and Christ gave the specific laws under which the covenant people of God to whom they minister are to live and by which they will be judged. Moses is the mediator and lawgiver of the old covenant and Christ is the Mediator and Lawgiver of the new covenant. Moses is the lawgiver for Israel; the chosen earthly nation of God living under the old covenant. Christ is the Lawgiver for the true people of God living under the new covenant. Additionally, God promises that the new prophet will be “from among their brethren.” The author of the letter to the Hebrews stresses the humanity of Jesus Christ (Heb. 2:11-18; 10:5-10). Jesus Christ fulfills this part of the prophecy on both details; he is “like Moses” as a lawgiver. He is also “like Moses” in that he is both a human being and a seed of Abraham. 

Point Two: All true prophets speak the words of God when they prophesy, but at other times, they speak their own words. There is no question that Moses was the greatest of all prophets until the advent of our Lord. Moses is the only prophet that ever spoke face-to-face with God, but not every word that Moses spoke during his ministry was directly from God. The words of Moses spoken merely as a man were no more inspired than the words you and I speak today. Jesus did not have a one-time face-to-face encounter with God; he came from an eternal existence with the Father. John records Jesus’ explanation of which he spoke: 

…I am [the one I claim to be] and that I do nothing on my own but speak just what the Father has taught me (John 8:28).

For I did not speak of my own accord, but the Father who sent me commanded me what to say and how to say it. I know that his command leads to eternal life. So whatever I say is just what the Father has told me to say” (John 12:49-50).

… These words you hear are not my own; they belong to the Father who sent me” (John 14:24).

It is exegetically impossible to attempt to make these words mean that Jesus came, not to give any new revelation or laws about morality and holiness, but he came only to give us the true meaning and interpretation of the highest laws that were already given through Moses at Mount Sinai. Moses, despite his greatness above all the prophets, must still speak only as a prophet. Our Lord not only speaks as a prophet, he speaks as the Creator; he speaks as God himself. 

Point Three: According to Hebrews 1:1-3, our Lord is the full and final revelation of God. In his Son, God has said all that he has to say. Not only does Christ bring God’s full and final message, Christ himself actually is the Message as well as the Messenger. Moses spoke as a faithful servant in God’s house; Jesus spoke as the Son who built God’s house and who is in charge of that house. 

Therefore, holy brothers, who share in the heavenly calling, fix your thoughts on Jesus, the apostle and high priest whom we confess. He was faithful to the one who appointed him, just as Moses was faithful in all God’s house. Jesus has been found worthy of greater honor than Moses, just as the builder of a house has greater honor than the house itself. For every house is built by someone, but God is the builder of everything. Moses was faithful as a servant in all God’s house, testifying to what would be said in the future. But Christ is faithful as a son over God’s house. And we are his house, if we hold on to our courage and the hope of which we boast (Heb. 3:1-6). 

Point Four: The new Lawgiver gives some new and higher house rules that are more appropriate for the new spiritual house. As mentioned above, Moses alone of all the prophets spoke face-to-face with God, but even he, like all other prophets, had to preface his speech with, “Thus saith the Lord” when he repeated a specific message that God had given to him. Only our Lord could say, “But I say unto you” and speak with the authority of God himself. Moses, like all true prophets, could claim that “God told me to say this,” but only Jesus could say, “I am speaking as God. I am speaking with the full authority of God himself. I am telling you that you must believe what I say just because I said it!” In Deuteronomy 18, God promises that he will judge men based on an individual’s attitude to the words of the new prophet, and Jesus repeats that idea. 

“There is a judge for the one who rejects me and does not accept my words; that very word which I spoke will condemn him at the last day” (John 12:48). 

These words cannot be tortured to mean, “There is a judge for the one who refuses to accept my true interpretation of Moses.”

Ironically, this unique authority of Jesus Christ as the new Lawgiver is at the heart of a great controversy in Reformed, especially Reformed Baptist, circles today. I have been the subject of several books and quite a few articles that claim I am an “antinomian” simply because I believe that Christ is a new lawgiver who replaces Moses. My great sin is believing that the Ten Commandments were indeed the highest law and revelation of the character of God ever given up to that point in time, but our Lord gives his church an even higher standard. I believe Jesus not only gives his church a much fuller revelation of God’s holy character, he also gives the new covenant people of God a higher moral standard. The holiness demanded of a new covenant believer indwelt by the Holy Spirit is greater than that required under the law. One preacher who disagreed with me on this point insisted, “Christ is a Law-keeper not a Law-giver.” I replied, “I believe he is both.” I believe that Christ, in the “But I say unto you” contrasts in the Sermon on the Mount, is clearly establishing himself as a new Lawgiver in contrast to Moses as the old lawgiver. In the Sermon on the Mount, Christ gives us higher and more spiritual laws than Moses gave, or could have given, to Israel under a covenant of law.^[1]

We insist as loudly as we can that Christ never once contradicts Moses. Contrasting two things to emphasize their difference and show why one is better than the other one is not at all the same as saying they contradict each other. If anyone ever teaches that Christ contradicted Moses or says Moses said something that was wrong, they are clearly destroying the unity of the Scriptures. Our Lord never says, or in any way implies, that Moses was wrong. He does contrast his teaching with that of Moses and clearly claims the law of his kingdom of grace is a higher law than that given to Moses for Israel. 

When Hebrews insists that there is a new and better covenant, the writer is not saying the old covenant was either bad or wrong. He is merely insisting that the new covenant is much better than the old covenant. If that were not true, there never would have been a need for a new covenant as a replacement. Christ is contrasting a theocratic earthly kingdom based on “good, holy, and just” law with a spiritual kingdom based on pure grace and higher laws. Both kingdoms, though different, are righteous and good and both come from God. However, one is better than the other one. Actually, one prepares the way for the second one. Christ is contrasting the essence of the very nature of law and grace, but he in no way is denying that both law and grace are holy, righteous and good. Our Lord is contrasting the theocratic kingdom established under Moses based on pure law with his newly founded kingdom based on pure grace. The latter is far superior to the former, but in no sense was the former wrong or bad.

Living under the covenant of law given through Moses and living under the gracious covenant of grace established by Christ are two different things. No one questions that the laws God gave to Moses to govern the nation of Israel are “holy, righteous and good” (Rom. 7:12). Those laws fulfill God’s primary intention to convict a rebellious nation of its guilt and push them to believe the gospel promised to Abraham. Those same laws are not high enough to govern saints of God indwelt by the Holy Spirit. This is what our Lord is stating in Matthew 19:8, 9. He specifically insists that the true nature of most Israelites, even though they were “redeemed by (animal) blood” was that of hard-hearted sinners. Jesus told the Pharisees, “Moses, because of the hardness of your hearts, permitted you to divorce your wives, but from the beginning it was not so” (NKJV). Hard-hearted sinners need a covenant of law to convict them of sin. God’s true church, living under the new covenant, does not have any hard hearted-sinners. They have been given new hearts that love righteousness. They have hearts upon which God’s law has been written. They are all regenerated. They all “know the Lord” in saving faith (Heb. 8:11).

God provided Israel with the Mosaic laws concerning easy divorce and polygamy only because Israel’s “hearts were hard” (Matt. 19:1-9). I repeat: none of God’s new covenant people have a hard heart. They all have new hearts that yearn to please God. The laws that God gave to hard-hearted sinners under the old covenant in order to convict those sinners of their need of grace are not of the same nature as the laws given to regenerate saints with new hearts under the new covenant. The laws, or rules, that govern a child of God living under grace will always make higher demands than the law or rules that govern hard-hearted sinners living under a covenant of law.^[2] I have a real problem trying to understand why this is so difficult for some people to grasp when Scripture is so clear. 

A “catch question” that enables a certain brand of theologian to immediately label you as either orthodox or antinomian is this: “Do you believe the Ten Commandments are the rule of life for a Christian today?” Anything but an unqualified yes earns you the label of antinomian. My response to that question is: “I believe the Ten Commandments, not as they were written on stone and given to Israel as covenant terms,^[3] but as they are clearly interpreted and applied by our Lord and his apostles in the new covenant Scriptures, are a very real part of a Christian’s rule of life today.”^[4] The Ten Commandments contain moral law, but the Ten Commandments are not THE moral law. Strangely enough some of the people who get the most upset when we make those statements will say the very same thing using different words. 

Dr. Richard Barcellos has written extensively against what I believe concerning New Covenant Theology. He wrote a book titled In Defense of the Decalogue.^[5] The major thesis of his book is exactly what the title states. He is defending his belief that the Ten Commandments, as written on the tablets of the covenant (Ex. 34:27, 28), are the unchanging moral law of God. He rejects our contention that Jesus is the new Lawgiver who replaces Moses in exactly the same manner that Jesus replaces Aaron. After Barcellos sets forth what he thinks we believe, he gives us his version of what he believes Matthew 5:17-20 really means.

What Jesus is saying is that the Old Testament is still binding upon His people, but not in the same way it used to be.^[6] (Italics in the original).

But that is precisely what we believe and teach! When we say the identical same thing but use some different words, Barcellos calls us “antinomians.” When Barcellos makes that statement it is good theology, but when we state the same truth using different words, we are heretics. Barcellos then quotes New Testament scholar Vern Poythress. 

All the commandments of the law are binding on Christians …, but the way in which they are binding is determined by the authority of Christ and the fulfillment that takes place in His work.”^[7]

Again, we could not state what we believe any better or any more clearly than Poythress has done. 

The entire Bible, all sixty-six books, interpreted through the lens of the new covenant, is the Christian’s rule of life today. Is that not what both Barcellos and Poythress are saying? I am fully aware that nearly everyone says they believe we must interpret the Old Testament in the light of the New, but in reality both Covenant Theology and dispensationalism have their entire systems of theology in place before they get out of the book of Genesis. Some theologians say, “If you cannot find the seed and root of a doctrine in the first eleven chapters of Genesis it is not a biblical doctrine.”

I could also respond to the earlier stated catch question by saying, “The Ten Commandments are far too low a standard for a child of God indwelt by the Holy Spirit and living under grace.” We are not in any sense whatever anti-law. One of our major premises is that the clear objective laws that Christ has given to Christians are higher laws than God gave to Moses. I keep asking the people who accuse me of being an antinomian how it is possible for us to be “against law,” which is the essence of antinomianism, when we vehemently insist that Christ gives us higher laws than Moses gave Israel. How can belief in higher law be twisted to mean against law? I have yet to receive an answer to this valid question. To label what we have stated as antinomian is ludicrous. We insist that Christ is a new lawgiver who replaces Moses exactly as it was prophesized in Deuteronomy 18. That is labeled as “heresy” only because it contradicts the third maxim of Covenant Theology, the “one unchanging moral code for all men in all ages.” Covenant Theology will not allow even our Lord himself to change, or add anything to, one single law of Moses. Moses is king of the campus in the conscience of a believer in the system of Covenant Theology. In that system, Christ, in no sense, can replace Moses as a new Lawgiver. Christ merely gives us the true meaning of the law of Moses.^[8] 

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