This week we’ll be making a comparison between Moses and Jesus. Our passage is Mark 1:9-13 and I hope we’ll be able to see they have many things in common. While I can’t say for certain that this comparison is what Mark was intending in these verses or in his Gospel account, I can say for certain that Jesus is supposed to be compared to Moses (Deut 18).
First of all we see in those days, meaning that in the days in which John the Baptist was preaching and baptizing people from all over Judea, Jesus came down from Nazareth in Galilee to be baptized. Now Galilee is in the northern portions of what we know as Israel. Galilee would not be under the same jurisdiction as Pilate, but rather under the jurisdiction of Herod the tetrarch. Jesus is leaving that region to come visit His cousin, John. Jesus was there baptized in the Jordan River.
Immediately the Holy Spirit descended like a dove and came upon Jesus. This shows a parallel between the first baptism, by water, and the second baptism of the Holy Spirit. This should ring some bells as to what we covered last week (v. 8 John baptizes with water, Jesus with the Holy Spirit). This shows the two-fold baptism of Jesus, the first being into death, the second into life (Romans 6). Now a voice came out of Heaven and told Jesus that He was God’s beloved Son, in Whom God is well pleased. First off, this should be a key passage promoting the Tri-Unity of God, what with the Father speaking, the Holy Spirit descending, and Jesus receiving. Next it shows that God is pleased in Jesus. We don’t know that Jesus did anything in Mark’s Gospel other than being baptized at this point so it can only allude to things Jesus has done previously, things not recorded, things in Jesus’ character, or things to come. Either way God is well-pleased!
Immediately the Spirit impels (from the root to throw) Him into the wilderness where He is tested for forty days by Satan and being ministered to by angels. Wow! What a turnaround! This is the first act we see Jesus doing after His baptism and it is something the Spirit impels Him to do. Forty is often times a prescribed time of testing for God. This is especially true for Moses. Moses was on Mount Sinai for forty days receiving the commands of God. He spent forty years wandering in the wilderness with the lost sheep of Israel so the new generation could be ready to enter the Promised Land. Well here too, Jesus is being tested for forty days, and His testing is so severe that Satan himself was doing the tempting. Now we know from other Gospel accounts (Matthew and Luke) that Jesus resisted Satan’s misuse of scripture. Jesus passes His test, just as Moses passed his test.
There are many other parallels between Moses and Jesus, they both cut a covenant between God and men, they both intercede on Israel’s behalf, they both are aptly named, they both lead their people out of Egypt (literal and figurative), they both speak face-to-face with God, they both are lead by the Holy Spirit, they both are prophets, and they both are chosen by God to lead His people.
Jesus is a prophet like Moses. This is an amazing thing to realize, because it is our goal to be more like Jesus every day and become sanctified by His Word and Spirit. However, Moses isn’t compared to Jesus in the sense we don’t say ‘Moses was a prophet like Jesus’, nay, but rather ‘Jesus was a prophet like Moses’! That’s amazing! What a compliment to have the very Son of God compared to you! Dear brothers and sisters let us strive every day to be more like Jesus, not in the hopes that He would be compared to us, no, that is not something we should hope for, but as believers and followers of Him, let us strive through our testing to be compared to Him. That is the highest compliment we could ever hope to receive.
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