Deuteronomy

The Coming of the Great Prophet

Professor: Dr. R.J. Rushdoony

Subject: Pentateuch

Lesson: 30-110

Genre: Talk

Track: 030

Dictation Name: RR187Q30

Location/Venue:

Year: 1993

Let us worship God. Let us go even unto Bethlehem and see this thing that has come to pass, which the Lord have made known unto us. For unto us a child is born, unto us a son is give and the government shall be upon his shoulders and his name shall be wonderful counselor, almighty God, the everlasting Father, the prince of peace. Glory unto God in the highest and on world peace, goodwill unto men. Let us pray.

Almighty God our Heavenly Father we come in this joyful season to give thanks unto Thee that Thou art mindful of us. That long before we were born Thou didst send the Christ child to be our redeemer. That long before we were born the very hairs of our head were all numbered and known to Thee. And Thy purposes are altogether righteous, holy and joyful. We thank Thee that the joy of this blessed season is but a foretaste of our eternal joy. Our God we praise Thee, in Christ’s name, Amen.

Our scripture is Deuteronomy 18:15-19. Our subject: The Coming of the Great Prophet.

“ The Lord thy God will raise up unto thee a Prophet from the midst of thee, of thy brethren, like unto me; unto him ye shall hearken;

16 According to all that thou desiredst of the Lord thy God in Horeb in the day of the assembly, saying, Let me not hear again the voice of the Lord my God, neither let me see this great fire any more, that I die not.

17 And the Lord said unto me, They have well spoken that which they have spoken.

18 I will raise them up a Prophet from among their brethren, like unto thee, and will put my words in his mouth; and he shall speak unto them all that I shall command him.

19 And it shall come to pass, that whosoever will not hearken unto my words which he shall speak in my name, I will require it of him.”

We have here in Deuteronomy a prophecy of the incarnation. It is one that is not much referred to in our time but was through the centuries in the early church, the medieval church, the reformation and beyond that, very commonly used. They saw it as very clearly and obviously a reference to the coming of Christ. A prophet from the midst of thee or from among you, one of you. Like unto me, like God. So it speaks both of Christ’s humanity and His deity. There are many passages throughout the scriptures that speak of the coming of our Lord that are neglected in our time. Partly because with each generation we minimalize the faith and reduce it more and more. But God here declares through Moses that He will send His great prophet in due time. Certain characteristics will mark this prophet and separate him from all other prophets of God. First, says God, this prophet will be like unto me and like unto you, like yourself. This statement tells us that the prophet will indeed be like other men but the fact is enough to tell us that he is unlike other men also. Israel’s problem at Mount Sinai, it’s terror there, at the various manifestations of God’s presence, the fire and the earthquake and above all the voice of God made them too much afraid to be able to hear God so God was going to send to His people in the generations to come the great prophet who would outwardly be a man like themselves. Moses simply relayed God’s word, the coming prophet would speak it. He would be raised up from among their brethren but God would put His word into the mouth and being in the prophet. Then second, Israel had a duty to hear this prophet. Unto him, shall ye hearken. All the prophets spoke for God but this the great prophet would represent God in a particular way. Israel expected this prophet and of the feeding of the five thousand by our Lord, the people said, this of the truth is that prophet that shall come into the world? They recognized Him immediately.

When miraculous feeding also occurred in the wilderness again a parallel to the wilderness journey, it clearly of course recalled Moses, the wilderness, the manna and God’s promise of the greater prophet. In this instance our Lord’s very words created the miraculous feeding so that He appeared the people as the God who gave manna, as the great prophet foretold by Moses. Because this great prophet was present in the flesh the people tried immediately to capture him by force and make Him their king. They wanted to control and use God’s power. The incarnation for them was the opportunity to seize God instead of hearing Him; they wanted to control Him and to compel God to hear and to obey them. Their faith was radically humanistic. Confronted with God in the flesh they tried to capture and control God in the flesh as false theologies have done ever since. This is why at the time of the reformation this text was so important, because they saw it as clarifying the meaning of our Lord’s birth, of His coming. Third, Isaiah in chapters 42, 49, 50 and 61 gives us Isaiah’s reflections on this text in Deuteronomy. This great prophet is the Messiah, who shall come to save and to rule the world. Isaiah tells us his coming will mean the ingathering of the gentiles. He shall be a standard for the nations. Isaiah 61 in particular gives us the great task of regeneration which this prophet, Messiah, will inaugurate. Fourth, this prophet Messiah was expected by Jews and Samaritans alike. In John 4:25-26 the Samaritan woman at the wall declares: I know that Messiah cometh which is called a Christ. When he is come he will tell us all things. Jesus said unto her: I that speak unto you is He. John the Baptist had previously been asked if he were the prophet foretold in Deuteronomy 18:15-19 and he answered no.

We are told in John 7:40 that the reaction of many people to our Lord was the truth, this is the prophet. Our Lord referred His critics, the religious leaders, to Moses’s prophecy saying that Moses spoke of Him and they refused to believe what Moses had predicted. They who claimed to be the true followers of Moses had no regard for Moses’ words. Fifth, the prophecy of the great prophet in Deuteronomy 18 is preceded in verses 9-11 by a prohibition of all occult and non-biblical attempts to gain access to God or power over men, power over nature and occult knowledge which God bars to men. God was dispossessing the Canaanites because of their dedication to these things, Isaiah declares. The goal of these esoteric efforts at knowledge is with us still in education practices, as well as modern occultism. The motto is knowledge is power and this is the old occultist theme. And of course what is meant by our educators is not godly knowledge but any and every form of gaining power over men and nature. Not surprisingly it’s leading to the worship of the Earth Goddess, Gaia. Occultist efforts separate knowledge from morality and this is also the perspective of modern education and science. They want knowledge but not the Great Prophet. The summons is to obey the voice of God as it comes to us through His great prophet. This obedience is a moral fact. Whereas the occultist practices described by Isaiah bypass morality in favor of power, the power to control others. The revival of occultism follows the decline of true Christianity. We cannot understand our times without knowing this. And the prophecy in Deuteronomy, of the coming of Christ, the great prophet, who will be God and man, is preceded by a condemnation of all occultist efforts at power. Sixth, there are many references to this text throughout the Bible. In the New Testament, for example, John 1:20 and 45 identify Jesus as the one of whom Moses spoke.

John 6:14 and 7:40, Acts 3:20, 22 and 23, Acts 7:37 and so on all refer to this. In Hebrews 3:1-6 we have an exposition of the implications of Moses predictions and its meaning for Christ’s calling. Then seventh while orthodox theologians have agreed as a rule that this prophecy refers clearly to the advent of Jesus Christ they have also seen it as a continuing promise in the second half of verse eighteen, to Christ’s faithful followers. The Geneva Bible declares of that verse that is and I quote: “Not only made to Christ but to all that teach in His name.” Unquote. In Isaiah 59:21 which says of all who are faithful and are the redeemers people, as for me, this is my covenant with the Lord, my spirit that is upon men and my words which I have put in Thy mouth shall not depart out of thy mouth or out of the mouths of thy seed’s seeds hence forth and forever. As he had blessed Isaiah so God promises to bless His true church. E.J. Young stated this beautifully and I quote.

“The Lord is declaring that His eternal truth revealed to man in words is the peculiar possession of His people. In the times of the Old Testament this consisted of revelations, made unto the fathers and the prophets. Together the treasure of the church is the Holy Scripture, the word that cannot be broken, inerrant and infallible, the very truth of the eternal God. This word and the spirit will never depart from the church for the church has the body and the head is to declare the truth to all nations that the saving health of God may be seen by all.” Unquote.

The power and the glory are not in the church but in the incarnate and in the inscriptured word. Then eighth, this text ends with a grim warning: and it shall come to pass that whosoever will not hearken unto my words which he shall speak in my name, I will require it of him. These are blunt words for a text that promises the coming of God’s great prophet the Messiah. They do not suit modern man, they do not suit the modern version of Christ’s birth. What men want of Jesus Christ is sweetness and light. Whereas this statement warns of the certainty of judgment, today Jesus Christ is left out of Christmas. Carols are sung in schools and on television omitting all references to Him. And men calmly assume that God will continue to favor and indulge them.

A prophet in the biblical sense is one who speaks for God. IT can also mean one who predicts the future in God’s name. This prophecy involves both meanings because the great prophet speaks for God as none other can and he predicts judgments on His enemies and blessings for those faithful to Him. There can be no valid belief in a Santa Claus believer, one who offers us only good things and never any chastening or judgment. It’s not surprising therefore that this prediction of Christ and His coming gets so little attention. At the feeding of the multitude the crowd sought to take our Lord when they recognized Him to be the great prophet by force to make Him their king. To compel God to serve man. Today as we serve modern man’s version of the Christmas miracle we see the same effort at exploitation for humanistic goals. The result for Judea of this blasphemy was judgment. Without repentance the world of our time will see the same judgment. Christ is the king, not man’s errand boy. Let us pray.

Our Father we rejoice in Thy word and that the great prophet is come. We pray that we may indeed be instrumental now in bringing men and nations to repentance, to a saving knowledge of Thee. That the church may cease from using Christ and see Him as one who is King and must be obeyed. Grant that the joy of this season may be with us always, that we may know that Christ is King and that He reigns. In His name we pray, Amen.

Yes?

[Question] you talk about the people try to capture God and to use God for their own purposes? Also are you…[unintelligible]…I was wondering how this related to the concept of continuity of being that was affecting the Jews at that time?

[Rushdoony]The continuity of being concept of course is a means of saying that because it is one continuous being man can control God. But even apart from that it’s very common that in Arminian circles the belief is that God can be controlled. I had a problem recently with someone because he was totally uncomprending about the doctrine of the trinity. A fact known over the generations that we can speak of the ontological trinity and the economical trinity. Now those are two terms that are technical, theological language, but they deal with the simple fact. Ontological trinity is God in Himself, God as He is. The economical trinity is the trinity as we experience Him, as we know the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit in our lives. Now what has happened in the church today is the Trinity is limited to the economical trinity. God in Himself is not regarded, it’s what can I get out of God, how can I use God, how can He serve me? So that God in His own being is no longer the subject of any preaching. The hymns from generations back that celebrated the Trinity have virtually disappeared from hymnals. There are a few that are seldom used because modern man’s attitude is how can I use God, he doesn’t put it that baldly but this is how he thinks. And this is why of course a vast area of text such as this one in Deuteronomy are bypassed. Because we want to see only the attractive side of His coming, where it will be of help to man, not where God speaks to us to command us through His son. Does that help clarify that?

[Same man] Yes, I was wondering if their attempt to capture God was at all related to that concept of continuity of being they have…?

[Rushdoony]Well Greek thought had infiltrated Israel. We know that it had, to what extent it was present in this we don’t know. But we know that Rome in order to keep peace in Israel since Judea was so central, Judea and Galilee, to their imperial purposes, it was the highway of trade, that they made it a city of marble palaces, magnificently paved streets, in order to make the people happy. There were also roman baths galore and a great many efforts to convert them to a Roman perspective. In fact, because so many of the young Judeans of the time felt that things Greek and Roman were desirable they would at times undergo surgery to try and restore a foreskin, to undo their circumcision. So they could pass as a good Greek or Roman. So it’s entirely possible that there was a belief in the continuity of being among some of them. Yes?

[Question] To what extent did the teaching of the seed of the woman and the prophet here in Deuteronomy 18, to what extent were those associated with the ideas of sacrifice and atonement? John seemed to understand when he said behold, the Lamb of God which taketh away the sin of the world, the disciples seemed to not really understand till after Christ’s resurrection.

[Rushdoony]Very good question because it points out exactly what we’ve been talking about. Now, the prophecies of the suffering servant, the necessity of atonement, the whole sacrificial system, and so much in the prophets witnessed to it. But it had been rejected. They wanted only a plus, so their belief was in a Messiah which would come, would put down the Romans, create a world empire, and in which all kinds of miracles would take place in which there would be such an unprecedented fertility in the earth that one grape would yield something like seventeen gallons of wine.

They were off in never-never land with their fantasies, this is why they were so unrealistic that when the time came and they revolted they were sure that God was duty bound since they were the chosen people to come miraculously to their rescue and destroy the Romans. They believed that it was God’s duty to do that. And that’s why it was such a bloody war because they kept fighting fanatically believing at some point this was going to happen. This is why our Lord describes it as the greatest disaster in all of history when he predicted it. So, everything our Lord was teaching did two things. His person indicated this is He. His teachings rubbed them the wrong way. That’s why when they had the secret meeting they said it was better for this one man to die than for the nation to perish. And they had just seen the evidence of the resurrection of Lazarus; they knew what they were dealing with. Yes?

[Question unintelligible]

[Rushdoony]Very good question. It is our duty to exercise dominion and to subdue the earth. This is stated in the first chapter of Genesis. But man has fallen and therefore his exercise is one of attempted domination, an ungodly one. So that he does sometimes good things with an evil motive and very often evil things with this evil motive. He wants absolute power. He wants power over other men and over the world around us. So that what we’re seeing now is the stepping up of the effort at total control in every sphere. And the great prophet, the messiah is the witness to the fact that this will never be, it is He who shall reign. Yes?

[Question] Well where there is no judgment there is no values.

[Rushdoony] Very good, excellent, where there is no judgment there are no values. Because judgment is saying there’s a difference between things. Any other questions or comments?

Well one last comment: You can understand when you encounter texts like this and see that at one time they were strongly stressed, why the church in those eras had a virility that is lacking today. It had a strength because it did not want sweetness and light. It was Matthew Arnold in the mid-nineteenth century whose idea of Christianity was that it should be a religion of sweetness and light. And his influence has been very powerful and so this is what must be set aside, this false religion of sweetness and light to get back to the wholeness of God’s word, of His revelation. Let us conclude now with prayer.

Our Father, we give thanks unto Thee that Thou art on the throne. That Christ has come and He is king of kings and lord of lords. That what we shall have in the generations to come through Him is not a domination but a dominion. Whereby Thy will is done and Thy kingdom made a reality in this world. We thank Thee for all these things and no go in peace, God the Father, God the Son and God the Holy Ghost, bless you and keep you, guide and protect you, this day and always, Amen.