If you believed Moses, you would believe me.

 

If you believed Moses, you would believe me.

 

John 5:43-47 “I have come in my Father’s name, and you do not receive me; if another comes in his own name, you will receive him. How can you believe me, who receive glory from one another and do not seek the glory that comes from the only God? I have one accuser against you, Moses, in whom you hope. If you believed Moses, you would believe me, for he wrote about Me. But if you do not believe his writings, how will you believe my words?”

The Jews have been waiting for the Messiah for a long time. Jesus said that He came to the world in the name of His Father. However, the people do not accept Jesus, who came as the Messiah. The reason is related to His origins. How could the Messiah come from a place called Nazareth? Jesus performed many miracles, such as driving out demons, healing the sick, and multiplying the five loaves and two fish. They hoped that through these miracles Jesus would realize that He was sent by God, but the Jews only wanted more miracles from Jesus. Jesus said that He was the bread of life that came down from heaven, but the Jews were muttering and looking at Jesus with their fleshly eyes.

After the incident of feeding five thousand people with five barley loaves and two fish, the people wanted to make Jesus their king. However, Jesus avoided the crowd. Jesus said that he was the bread of God, the bread of life, and that only faith can lead to eternal life, but the people did not understand the meaning of his words.

The Jews who heard Jesus' words began to murmur, saying that they knew whose son Jesus was and where he grew up. "Why, we know his father Joseph, and the son of Joseph whom we know is the bread that came down from heaven? That makes sense." To the murmuring Jewish crowd, Jesus emphasized that no one can come to him unless God draws him.

Many of the disciples believed after seeing Jesus' miracles. However, when Jesus said that there were those who did not believe, many left. This is because they did not understand what Jesus said about the bread coming down from heaven. They believed with religious beliefs and were not interested in spiritual things. Jesus said this to the twelve disciples. In other words, are you also looking at Jesus with religious beliefs?

The Feast of Tabernacles was a very meaningful holiday for the Jews. It was a day to commemorate the 40 years of tent living in the wilderness after the Exodus. The last day of the Feast of Tabernacles was observed as the Day of Salvation. They believed that this day was the last day of forgiveness for the sins of the previous year, so they poured water on the altar on the last day and gave thanks for the grace of forgiveness. In this way, the Jews eagerly waited for the Messiah who would give them living water that would quench their thirst forever and open the way to salvation. And finally, Jesus, the true protagonist of the Feast of Tabernacles and the Messiah they had been waiting for, came, but they did not recognize the Messiah. Not only that, but they hated Jesus, who spoke of justice and righteousness, and tried to kill him.

About halfway through the Feast of Tabernacles, we see Jesus speaking to the Jews who were mocking and distrusting his authority and identity. Through his teachings, Jesus revealed the God who sent him. Jesus speaks from God the Father, but the Jewish leaders mix in their own thoughts, so they say they are speaking on their own. They say, “Why can’t you rejoice when the Son of God heals a man who had been sick for 38 years at the Pool of Bethesda and walks with his bed?” Instead, they rebuke him, saying, “Why are you trying to kill him as a lawbreaker just because he was healed on the Sabbath?” They say that it was okay for Moses to act on the Sabbath, but why can’t it be okay for him, the Son of God?

John 7:40-43 When they heard this, some of the crowd said, “This man is truly the prophet.” Others said, “The Christ.” But others said, “Can the Christ come from Galilee? Does not the Scripture say that the Christ comes from the offspring of David, and from Bethlehem, the town where David was?” And a dispute arose among the crowd because of him. In reality, after seeing the signs that Jesus performed, the Pharisees had to arrest Jesus according to their orders, but they could not. In their eyes, only someone who came down from heaven could perform such signs. Even though they acknowledged Him, their hearts wanted to catch Him, but they simply could not.

Jesus said that the prophets spoke a lot about the Messiah, and that those who heard and learned his teachings would know that the Messiah was Jesus himself, but the Jews did not believe his words. Jesus wanted the Jews to understand through the words of the prophets and Moses in the Old Testament.

Jesus said of Moses, "If you believed Moses, you would believe Me, for he wrote about Me." In Deuteronomy 18:18-20, it says, "I will raise up for them a prophet like you from among their brothers; I will put My words in His mouth, and He will speak to them all that I command Him. Everyone who does not listen to My words that He speaks in My name, I will call that on them. If a prophet presumes to speak a word in My name that I have not commanded him to speak, or if he speaks in the name of other gods, that prophet shall die."

Moses prophesied that God would raise up a prophet who would reveal the future. Jesus quoted Moses’ words and spoke to the Jews, but they did not understand. If we examine Moses’ words, we can see that in the Old Testament, Moses led the Israelites out of Egypt and saved them, and received the Ten Commandments from God and told the people to keep them. Through this, Jesus saved people from slavery to sin and gave them a new commandment to love God and love your neighbor. Jesus hoped that the Jews would realize that he was the Son of God, as Moses had said, but he lamented that they did not. He is telling us not to look at God with our physical eyes, but with our spiritual eyes.

The same applies today. The beginning of the gospel is the story of Jesus’ death on the cross and Christ’s resurrection. The end of the gospel is that the saints are united with this. They died with Jesus and were resurrected with Christ. Therefore, since they died with Jesus, in Romans 8:1-2, it is said that sin will never be questioned again. And regarding the resurrected spirit and spiritual body, it is declared that they have been seated in heaven. We must not look with the eyes of the flesh, but with the eyes of the spirit. The old man and the new man coexist in the saints. The old man is in the flesh, and the new man is in God, and the identity of the saved is in the spirit that is in God through the Holy Spirit.

Hebrews 4:12 "For the word of God is living and active and sharper than any double-edged sword, piercing even to the division of soul and spirit, of joints and marrow, and discerning the thoughts and intentions of the heart." In order to establish a spiritual identity, we must distinguish between the spiritual and the physical through the word of God. And we must divide them. We must remember that we die to the flesh daily, and we must remember that we are with God daily in regard to the spirit.