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The meat of the word, part 14

Moses was a type of Christ in the Old Testament, for we read in Deuteronomy 18:17-19,

¹⁷ The Lord said to me, “They have spoken well. ¹⁸ I will raise up a prophet from among their countrymen like you, and I will put My words in His mouth, and he shall speak to them all that I command him. ¹⁹ It shall come about that whoever will not listen to My words which he shall speak in My name, I Myself will require it of him.

This is referenced again in Acts 3:22, 23, where Peter applied the prophecy to Jesus Christ:

²² Moses said, “The Lord God will raise up for you a prophet like me from your brethren; to Him you shall give heed to everything He says to you. ²³ And it will be that every soul that does not heed that prophet shall be utterly destroyed from among the people.”

Moses was the man that God raised up to lead Israel out of Egypt on that first Passover day. More than 1,400 years later, on the same day of the year, Jesus died on the cross to lead us out of the house of bondage—the bondage of sin. Whereas Moses only led the people out of bondage to Egypt, Jesus led us out of bondage on a deeper level. Further, God required everyone to “give heed to everything He says to you.”

Joshua, Another Type of Christ

Moses was unable to lead the Israelites into the Kingdom, so he had to have a successor to complete the calling so that Israel’s journey could be completed as well. For this reason, God also raised up Joshua to lead Israel across the Jordan into the Promised Land. This means that Joshua too was a type of Christ but in a different capacity.

Likewise, this suggested two comings of Christ, the first as a Moses type and the second as a Joshua type. Because of the limitations of the flesh, it took two men to describe the two comings of Christ, but it took just one Christ to fulfill both roles. Today we look back at Christ’s calling as “Moses” and look forward to Christ’s calling as “Joshua.”

Often missed by Bible teachers is the fact that Joshua was not a Judahite (or “Jew”) but was instead of the tribe of Ephraim (Numbers 13:8). Yeshua-Jesus, who was named after Joshua, came the first time of the tribe of Judah of the family of David. He came of the tribe of Judah in order to fulfill the promise that Jacob had given to Judah in Genesis 49:10,

¹⁰ The scepter shall not depart from Judah, nor the ruler’s staff from between his feet, until Shiloh comes, and to him shall be the obedience of the peoples.

Jesus was born of Judah in order to claim the scepter “until Shiloh comes.” In other words, Jesus the Judahite was a phase of ministry that would end when “Shiloh” came. More accurately, Judah’s calling was to be subsumed by the greater calling of “Shiloh.” Later, after Israel was in the Promised Land, the tabernacle was set up at a place called Shiloh. Joshua 18:1 says,

¹ Then the whole congregation of the sons of Israel assembled themselves at Shiloh and set up the tent of meeting there; and the land was subdued before them.

Shiloh was a priestly town in the territory of Ephraim, the tribe of Joshua.

Ephraim’s Calling

Ephraim was the son of Joseph to whom Jacob had given the birthright (Genesis 48:14-19). Jacob crossed his arms in order to confer the major portion of the birthright upon Joseph’s younger son, Ephraim. This is explained more clearly in 1 Chronicles 5:1, 2,

¹ Now the sons of Reuben (for he was the firstborn, but because he defiled his father’s bed, his birthright was given to the sons of Joseph the son of Israel, so that he is not enrolled in the genealogy according to the birthright. ² Though Judah prevailed over his brothers, and from him came the leader, yet the birthright belonged to Joseph).

The birthright originally included both the scepter and the priesthood, but when Jacob blessed his sons, he distributed portions of it to his other sons—the scepter to Judah and the priesthood to Levi. Both of these were temporary, of course, because ultimately the entire birthright would be given to one Man, Jesus Christ. In other words, whereas Jacob divided up the birthright into various parts, this was a temporary allocation.

In Christ’s first coming, the scepter and the priesthood would be reunited in the Person of Christ, for He was the King-Priest of the Melchizedek Order. But it would require a second coming to reunited these with the Sonship portion of the birthright. Ephraim’s name means “a double portion of fruit,” and this is the allusion in Genesis 49:22,

²² Joseph is a fruitful bough [ben, “son, branch on a family tree”], a fruitful bough by a spring; its branches run over a wall.

This in turn points back to Genesis 1:28, “Be fruitful and multiply,” which is one of two mandates that formed the main portions of the birthright, along with “Let them rule” (Genesis 1:26). As I have shown, the right to rule was given to Judah; the right to be fruitful and manifest the sons of God was given to Joseph and specifically to Ephraim.

For this reason, we now await the second coming of Christ, where we will see the manifestation of the sons of God. Paul describes this event in Romans 8:19,

¹⁹ For the anxious longing of the creation waits eagerly for the revealing [apokalupsis, “unveiling, manifestation, revealing”] of the sons of God.

Most Christians today await the second coming of Jesus the Judahite, when, in fact they ought to be awaiting the coming of Jesus the Ephraimite. Perhaps their misunderstanding explains why relatively few of them have a good understanding of the Sonship message. The Sonship message is present truth and ought to be the dominant teaching today.

From Moses to Joshua

Moses and Joshua represent two halves of the complete calling of the Messiah. Both are important, for it is self-evident that Joshua could not complete the calling until Moses had completed his part. Neither did Joshua overrule Moses by negating the laws that he gave by divine inspiration. Unfortunately, the Israelites themselves lacked the understanding and the will to respect the law of Moses after entering the land of Canaan. Judges 21:25 tells us,

²⁵ In those days there was no king in Israel; everyone did what was right in his own eyes.

They violated the word of Moses in Deuteronomy 12:8, 9,

⁸ You shall not do at all what we are doing here today, every man doing whatever is right in his own eyes; ⁹ for you have not as yet come to the resting place and the inheritance which the Lord your God is giving you.

One cannot do what is right in one’s own eyes until the law has been written in one’s heart. Once that provision of the New Covenant has been fully ingrained into our nature, then and only then can we do this without violating the law and contradicting the nature of God. Yet during the time of the judges, men did this with disastrous results.

This serves as a warning to the church as well, which has often fallen into the same trap. In the guise of following one’s (man-made) conscience, they have done what was right in their own eyes, not realizing that they were deceived by their own fallen nature. The Holy Spirit does not lead anyone to sin. Sin is lawlessness (1 John 3:4). Our conscience needs instruction in righteousness to conform to the image of Christ.

We must honor Moses while focusing on Joshua. In other words, we should honor the role that Jesus played as the one like Moses, while at the same time pursuing the call of Joshua the Ephraimite and the manifestation of the sons of God. We cannot forsake either Moses or Joshua, and, in fact, it is not possible to understand either Moses or Joshua without studying both of them and seeing how they relate to each other.

Let us then take heed that we do not fall into the deception of the Israelites who failed to enter the Promised Land on account of their lack of justifying faith and faith-obedience. Let us instead follow the example of Caleb and Joshua, the overcomers, who believed the words of Moses and who respected the law of God as well as His promises. This too is part of the meat of the word that we learn by studying the types and antitypes.