In a recent reading of Acts 7, I noticed a type of Christ found in the life of the prophet Moses. I’m not sure if I’ve noticed it before, and it may be obvious to many, but it stood out to me this time around.
In this chapter, Stephen, one of the seven men ordained by the apostles to tend to administrative duties in the early Church, gave a sermon to the Jewish leaders during his trial. He summarized their history from Abraham to Moses and beyond as he set the stage to testify of the divine identity and mission of Jesus Christ.
He related how Moses slew an Egyptian who oppressed one of his fellow Hebrews, fled into the wilderness, and after forty years received a heavenly visitation. Of course, the Lord told Moses that he was the person through whom He would deliver the Israelites out of Egypt.
Stephen said, “This Moses whom they refused, saying, Who made thee a ruler and a judge? the same did God send to be a ruler and a deliverer by the hand of the angel which appeared to him in the bush” (Acts 7:35).
The Lord had sent Moses to act as ruler, judge, lawgiver, and deliverer for Israel, and when he first came on the scene, they rejected him. Similarly, when Jesus began His ministry in mortality, He was all of these things—indeed, the “prophet … the Lord your God [would] raise up” who would be like Moses (Acts 7:37). As a whole, Israel rejected Him who was their King, who gives the law that is His gospel, who will Judge them at the last day, who and who brings deliverance from death and hell.
Stephen cemented the comparison in these words: “Which of the prophets have not your fathers persecuted? and they have slain them which shewed before of the coming of the Just One; of whom ye have been now the betrayers and murderers” (Acts 7:52).
Of course, this refusal had been prophesied long before. “Jesus saith unto them, Did ye never read in the scriptures, The stone which the builders rejected, the same is become the head of the corner: this is the Lord’s doing, and it is marvellous in our eyes? Therefore I say unto you, The kingdom of God shall be taken from you, and given to a nation bringing forth the fruits thereof” (Matthew 21:42–43).
How ironic and sad to reject the very thing that will keep you from plunging over the cliff in part because it didn’t come in the exact form you expected or wanted.
Instead, it’s infinitely better to follow the prophet Moroni’s counsel: “I would commend you to seek this Jesus of whom the prophets and apostles have written, that the grace of God the Father, and also the Lord Jesus Christ, and the Holy Ghost, which beareth record of them, be and abide in you forever” (Ether 12:41). When we find Him, He will wield in our lives His majestic rule, righteous judgment, refining laws, and sanctifying deliverance.
Image by Jeff Jacobs from Pixabay
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