Vicarious Redemption

Final-Vicarious Redemption through Moses

In the Old Testament of the Bible, also known as the Hebrew Scriptures it is easily seen that Moses is a source of inspiration and at the same time awe, from his own people and the peoples of later biblical generations. Even today we understand Moses to be the writer of the Pentitude or first five books of the bible, also called the books of Moses, which comprise what is called the Law. The Law starting with the original Ten Commandments which were hand written by God and given to Moses in person is the backbone of all the Pentitude is, after of course Creation and the accounts of people up until the exodus out of Egypt. (Exodus 20, Deuteronomy 9:10). What is so interesting is that Moses at times throughout the scriptures seems to assume the role of mediator or one who is able to keep the Lord from destroying the evil Israelites by atoning for their sins. From the Christian perspective that I come from it is hard to understand how a man who is not God incarnate can take on the sins of many people and offer in their place a sacrifice that is good enough for God to take that at the same time requires no blood, which is contrary to the Law that Moses is given by God. As I looked harder into the scriptures I found that in a way it is possible and that not only Moses partook in these types of practices.
First we see Moses assume his mediator role in Deuteronomy 5:1-5 where Moses stands between the children of Israel and the Lord because “you were afraid of the fire and did not go up the mountain,” as Moses states is. Here we see Moses representing the people before God with no fear. Moses has a long tradition of speaking with God, first at the burning bush (Exodus 3), then in speaking what the Lord commanded of Pharaoh (Exodus 7). So to Moses speaking to God is nothing new, but the people of Israel see something powerful in him, maybe the fact that he is not afraid and they send him up the mountain in Deuteronomy 5:25-27 to have God deliver the message to Moses so that the people may know.
Next Moses is to give the command and decrees of the Lord in Deuteronomy 6 that up to this point only he knows. Moses as a mortal man now knows all the laws and commands of the Lord and he delivers them to his people.
Getting past this point we can now look at how Moses is not only special enough to speak with God and receive the messages he has for his people but how he has suffered for his people when they angered the Lord. Moses reminds them in Deuteronomy 9:7-29 of how he fasted from food and water for forty days because of their actions in the desert and then how he again had to fast for another forty days because they had crafted the golden calf and worshipped it. Not only is it only by the penitents of Moses that the people were saved from the anger of the Lord, but his prayers that he offered up as he lay prostrate for both sets of those forty days.
Moses then sets out to announce all the commands the Lord has created for the people to follow, and the list goes on and on but fascinatingly in Deuteronomy 13:1-4 Moses speaks of when another prophet type comes into the midst of the people telling them to follower other gods that they must not listen to him because it is a test from God, and in a way it seems like all of the things of God must and have to go through Moses before they get to the people. He always has the middle man role, and without him it is futile. After it is all said and done Moses announces in Deuteronomy 30:1-6 that in order to remain in the good graces of the Lord that the people must follow all the laws that Moses has put before them, and that’s it! Now it seems that Moses has taken himself out of the picture and that people only need to follow the law of God to be prosperous and live in the Promised Land.
Now everything can come together and we can make sense of why there needed to be a Moses in the first place. One he had to deliver the people of God out of Egypt and into a place where they had to be totally reliant on God and no one else. Next because of their fear of God on part of their seeing their own uncleanliness, God needed Moses to receive the Law for which his people were to live by, because without them they would still be in the desert worshipping a golden calf that would not speak, heal, or love them. God also needed Moses to mediate for him because without him they would have had no direction into their promised land and God cannot lie, (Titus 1:2) because he had already promised them entry into a land he had set apart for them.
Here is where everything gets a little tricky. Moses not only is undoubtedly the leader of his people and mediator before them and God, he can make atonements for their sins. In the previous stated verses we see how the prayer and petition of Moses makes atonements but sometimes God cannot just sit back and allow his people to act in this manner no matter how much Moses pleads for them. Exodus 32:30-35 is the account of how Moses is trying to make atonement for his people, but it is only halfway good enough for God who then sends a plague down on the people, and even the brother of Moses and chief of the priests Aaron is afflicted. At least he didn’t kill all of them, so Moses did save them in some way. The interesting factor here is that Moses leaves himself out of the sin, and why not, who wants a plague cast down on them from God, but this is not always the case. In Exodus 34:9 we see Moses say “forgive our wickedness and our sin” thus adding himself into the lot of sinful people that he is always trying to save, something unseen until now.
How is that Moses thinks that he can do this, and what gives him the power? I believe it is a twofold gift. The first part is that God must call the person into servant hood in order to become a leader, endowing them with the Holy Spirit to do the miraculous and to stand in his presence without consequences. The other is that these people now only need to ask of God and he delivers, it’s that simple.
Moses is not the fist or last to do this. Abraham in order to save Sodom pleaded with God not to destroy it not once but five times, and the Lord was good on his word but Abraham could not find 10 righteous men in the city and the city was brought down. (Genesis 18) Jonah is another example of having people ask to be saved and they were. (Jonah 3) A New Testament example is John the Baptist who in Mark 1:4-5 has no power to set people free from their sins but instead calls them to repentance, thus it is by their own asking of forgiveness by their personal repentance that they are able to understand the things of Jesus who would come later. (Luke 7:29-30)
So it is possible for Moses, or in fact any man who in Jewish terms who comes before the messiah to vicariously redeem the people of God by simply asking. All it takes is a calling of some sort and the assumption of God given leadership position to do this. In fact, since Jews still have no messiah, I could atone for the sins of their people if I called them to repentance and to following the law set up by God just as Moses did.
Jews of today and of the biblical era’s saw this also in the Isaiah scriptures of the suffering servant. Now as a Christian I see this as prophecy concerning Jesus, and if you think about it, Jesus does fit the bill, but this is not fair to Jews and I will try to keep the Christian insight I have on this topic to a minimal. From my understanding most Jews will tell you that the person described in the 4 passages in Isaiah about the suffering servant is either the nation of Israel or the coming messiah. Isaiah 42:1-9 definitely looks like a Christ like figure but I could see how it could be seen as the nation or people or Israel who as a rejected and small people can take their light into the world for the gentiles to see and be saved by, even though Judaism is not a religion that tries to win converts, it would be plausible that just by them being them that the world is saved. This can also be said about Isaiah 49:1-7, but Isaiah 50:4-11 and Isaiah 52:13-15, 53:1-12 paints a very different picture. This by far shows a messiah figure who not only redeems his people, but takes the beating they deserve for them, and it is some beating, it is one due to all the sins of the nation of Israel and some may even say the whole world.
Back to Moses, he is the mediator, the bringer of the law, the messenger of God to his people, atoner of their sins, yet he cannot atone for his own sin and he must face all the consequences. Without trying to sound too Christian this looks a little like Jesus, who was without sin yet had to take on the sins of the entire world and to even become sin itself and die so that others may live. Now Moses does not die for his people, but on account of his own sin, the similarities are there and cannot be overlooked. This all goes down in Number 20:2-12 where the people in the desert are calling for water and Moses strikes the rock three times out of anger and water is brought forth. The sin comes because God command Moses to do this out of faith and not out of anger, and to only strike the rock once not three times. Because of this Moses cannot enter the Promised Land. The man who freed the slaves of Egypt, who called down plagues, who atoned for the sins of Israel, who lead them through the desert for forty years of wining and complaining cannot enter the Promised Land because of one sin. What irony, but this is the sacrifice of the called ones of God.
Moses even after all of this continues on as the leader of the people of Israel until his death and even raises up Joshua to become the next mediator and leader of the people he sacrificed his life for. If anything, the character in Isaiah is not the suffering servant of the Old Testament but Moses is, in constant dilemma between his people and God, he is the one who always has to settle the score.
As a Christian I cannot resist looking at all of this through the perspective of one saved by grace and covered in the blood of Christ. First of all Moses is a representation of the law, which Christ came to fulfill and not abolition, making it perfect and in fact harder to follow. This makes us so much more reliant of God then even in Moses day when we needed the mediator because even the mediator couldn’t stand up to the new law. In Jesus’ Sermon on the Mount he takes the laws and expands on them so much that no one, not even Moses could have lasted on their own accord. (Matthew 6) This is the reason why Christ is needed, to become the sin and abolish it forever, so that when we believe in him that we may share in the same abolishment of sins. Christ as the mediator sets the perfect world to live in for us because he in turn creates a situation which lets us go directly to the source, God, by his power. He has made us a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people for God's own possession. (1Peter 2:9)
The suffering servant in Isaiah in Christian perspectives is Jesus and when you sit back and think about it, it makes perfect sense because all of what was spoke of took place through Jesus and by Jesus. Jesus Christ is the one who bore are shame, and who made it so the people could be returned to the promise land or heaven, for good, even after all their sins, even Moses couldn’t do that, and no other man could either. Even if you don’t believe that, Jesus was the only one that claimed that and this makes the possibility that he fulfilled the Old Testament scriptures all the more realistic.
I believe that the law was set up so that we would fail. Only by failing do we need God, and at the same time God needs us, it’s a two way street. God wants our worship, and we want God to be not only be in completion of everything we were originally meant to be but for the forgiveness of our sins that separated us from him since Adam in the garden fell.
At the end we can see that Moses could make atonement for his people and that he had the authority to this only by asking. This goes the same for Jesus who asked the father to forgive us and it was done. (Luke 23:34) We can see that the suffering servant is a few things, metaphorically Moses dealing with his people, a messiah figure atoning for the sins of his people through punishment a.k.a. Jesus in the New Testament, and the Nation of Israel being the atonement for the sins of the world before Christ came to make it final through his sacrifice. As a Christian I see that vicarious redemption is still in play today, as we submit ourselves under the authority of Christ who takes our sin away, all we did was ask and it is made so. We stepped into the ring of Judgment only to have Christ replace us in that very same ring, so vicarious redemption didn’t die with Moses but it lives on through the resurrection of Jesus Christ.