The supremacy of Jesus in the fourth Gospel.
by R. Herbert
While all four Gospels weave rich verbal tapestries depicting the life and ministry of Jesus, each with its own details, John has the most material not found in other Gospels and gives us many unique insights.
A particularly interesting example is found in John’s portrayal of Jesus as the prophet who would arise like Moses, of whom God said, “I will raise up for them a prophet like you from among their fellow Israelites, and I will put my words in his mouth. He will tell them everything I command him” (Deuteronomy 18:18).
John specifically refers to Jesus as a prophet more often than any other Gospel writer. And just as John includes a number of groups of sevens in his account (the seven signs of Jesus’ messiahship, His seven “I AM” sayings, etc.), he directly mentions Moses (who plays an important role in the fourth Gospel) in seven passages (1:17, 45; 3:14; 5:45, 46; 6:32; 7:19-23; 9:28-33). These seven “Moses” statements relate, compare, and contrast Jesus and Moses in some way. While they all elevate Moses, they also show that Jesus was superior to Israel’s greatest prophet.
Subtle connections
Many other less direct connections between Jesus and Moses are in John that we might not notice, but Jewish readers of the first century would.
For example, the prologue (first two chapters) of John is carefully structured to show events occurring over seven days — just like Genesis 1. We may not notice this because Genesis spells out the seven days numerically (“the first day,” etc.), while John, who begins his account with a clear “In the beginning” reference, is more subtle (“the next day,” etc.). Still, his pattern of seven days is just as clear.
In addition to seven days of formative events in the opening section of each account, there are also specific parallels. For instance, in Genesis 1, we find light appearing on the first day of creation (vv. 3-5), while in John 1, Jesus is said to be the light of the world (vv. 4-9). On the second day of creation in Genesis, we find God’s relationship with the heavens (1:6-8), while in John’s first chapter, Jesus is confirmed by the heavens (vv. 32-34), and so on.
Miracles
After this introduction, John builds most of his Gospel around the figure of Moses, the Exodus, and the Passover. Even in the prologue, John the Baptist identifies Jesus as the Lamb of God, emphasizing the central role of Jesus in a new and greater exodus.
Most importantly, the seven miracles John selects as signs of Jesus’ messiahship mirror, in effect, the plagues of Exodus. But Jesus is shown as having a superior ministry to that of Moses. While the seven Exodus plagues represented miraculous but negative displays of God’s power, the miracles of Jesus in John are not destructive but positive.
When we compare the Exodus plagues to the seven miracles John chooses to describe, the parallels are inescapable. For example, in Exodus, the water of the Nile is turned to blood. In John, water is turned to wine (2:1-11). The killing of Pharaoh’s firstborn son in Exodus parallels the healing of the Jewish nobleman’s son (4:46-54). The plague of blinding darkness that struck the Egyptians in Exodus likens the healing of the blind man in John (9:1-7), and so on. This understanding helps us see why, of all Jesus’ many miracles, John selects certain ones as proof of Jesus’ role as the prophet like Moses.
Echoes and affirmations
There are many other echoes of the Exodus in John, as well as parallels with Moses’ ministry. When John tells us that “No one has ever seen God, but the one and only Son” (1:18), the allusion to Moses not being able to behold God directly (Exodus 33:20) would have been clear to his original readers.
Most first century readers of John’s Gospel would have known that Moses famously bemoaned the fact that Israel would need a shepherd: “May the Lord . . . appoint someone over this community to go out and come in before them, one who will lead them out and bring them in, so the Lord’s people will not be like sheep without a shepherd” (Numbers 27:16, 17). John shows Jesus was the answer to that prayer — the Good Shepherd (John 10:11) whose sheep would “come in and go out” before Him (v. 9).
In the same way, consider John’s account of the paralyzed man who had waited by the pool of Bethesda thirty-eight years (5:5), apparently because of some ongoing sin (v. 14). Why does John include these details? Although Scripture often rounds up Israel’s time in the wilderness to forty years, the actual time involved was thirty-eight years (Deuteronomy 2:14). John’s Bethesda story reminds us that while Moses’ leadership could not save the Israelites from the results of their ongoing sin, Jesus could.
The failure of Moses to provide salvation for Israel is, in fact, a continuing theme in John. Moses himself told the Israelites, “You have committed a great sin. But now I will go up to the Lord; perhaps I can make atonement for your sin” (Exodus 32:30, et al.). But on every occasion, Moses could only delay the punishment for the people’s sin. The whole generation of the Exodus under his care sinned and was driven back into the wilderness where the people died. John is contrasting this situation in recording Jesus’ words “All those the Father gives me will come to me, and whoever comes to me I will never drive away” (John 6:37).
Exact equivalents
The connections between the story of Moses and that of Jesus in John are not just coincidental; often they are direct verbal correspondences.
John is the only Gospel that tells us the Jews murmured, or grumbled, against Jesus (v. 41) just as the Israelites had murmured against Moses. And John alone records Jesus’ words that the Son does (Greek: poieo) what He sees the Father doing and that the Father shows (deiknumi) Him all (panta) that He does (5:19, 20). This is a direct reference to Exodus 25:9 in the Septuagint version of the Old Testament used by many first century Jews and by John. It states that Moses makes (poieo) the tabernacle according to all (panta) that God showed (deiknuo) him.
Such allusions to Moses are continuous in John’s account, to the extent that when his Gospel contains a story found in the other Gospels, it is usually because John uses it in reference to Moses. Matthew, Mark, and Luke all report the miracle feeding of the five thousand. But when we read John’s account carefully, we find that John reports this miracle in the specific setting of the wilderness and Passover (6:10-13). And, of course, John shows that Jesus emphasizes the similarity of His feeding of the five thousand with the God-given manna associated with Moses’ care for the Israelites (vv. 31-35).
Even Jesus’ miracle of walking on the water (vv. 16-21) may have been selected by John as an allusion to Moses and the parting of the Red Sea. While Moses and later men of God may have parted bodies of water with God’s miraculous help, John reminds us that only Jesus walked on water.
Finding Christ
So there is no question that John builds his Gospel around the Exodus narratives featuring Moses but also shows that Jesus is far greater than Moses. The examples are numerous, but if we are to learn from them, we must see these correspondences as we read John and must be aware of his motivation in making them. When we do this, we see a clearer picture not only of Moses but also of the One Moses foreshadowed.
We should realize that long before the Christian church was troubled by pagan doctrines from without and heresies from within, the greatest theological problem of the first century was that many Jews could not, or would not, see the supremacy of Jesus Christ compared to Moses. This underpinned much of Judaism’s rejection of Christianity. It was this situation that John addressed in writing his Gospel. Through careful use of both direct statement and indirect allusion, John powerfully shows that Jesus was indeed the prophet promised by Moses. John also shows that He was greater than Moses in coming not to deliver His people from Egyptian (or Roman) slavery, but from the greater slavery to sin and death. John shows us that Jesus was infinitely greater than Moses and that the ministry of salvation He brought was infinitely greater too.
