Moses Wrote of Me

"For had ye believed Moses, ye would have believed me: for he wrote of me."; John 5:46 (KJV)

A Question Worth Asking

Jesus does not say where Moses wrote of him. He names no chapter and quotes no verse. He simply claims that the writings of Moses, read rightly, lead to him, and that refusing him reveals a failure to believe Moses.

That leaves us with a question every careful reader should ask: what did Jesus mean? The New Testament does not leave us guessing entirely. Across the Gospels, Acts, and Paul's letters, the apostles and Jesus himself point back to specific passages in the books of Moses. Some of those connections are stated plainly. Others are drawn as patterns or pictures. A few are possible but less certain. This study walks through the strongest of them using Scripture as our primary evidence and labels each connection honestly.

The Setting: John 5:39–47

Jesus' words about Moses close a long speech that follows his healing of a man at the pool of Bethesda on the Sabbath (John 5:1–18). The controversy that follows concerns Jesus' authority and his relationship to the Father. Jesus answers by naming witnesses to himself: John the Baptist (5:33), his own works (5:36), the Father (5:37), and the Scriptures (5:39).

"Search the scriptures; for in them ye think ye have eternal life: and they are they which testify of me."; John 5:39

The point holds regardless of whether the verb is read as a command ("Search") or an indicative statement ("Ye search"): diligent study of Scripture is not the problem. The problem is reading the Scriptures without coming to the one they testify about (5:40).

Jesus then makes a striking turn. He will not be their accuser before the Father; Moses will be: "Moses, in whom ye trust" (5:45). The one whose writings they trusted becomes the witness who accuses them. "But if ye believe not his writings, how shall ye believe my words?" (5:47).

Two things should be kept in view. First, this is a dispute with particular opponents in a particular setting, not a verdict on the covenant people as a whole. Jesus, his disciples, and the earliest believers were themselves Israelites who honored Moses. Second, Jesus speaks of Moses' writings broadly. No single passage exhausts his claim. Deuteronomy 18 is an important example, but it is not the only one, and John 5:46 should not be narrowed to it.

1. The Prophet Like Moses

Deuteronomy 18:15–19; Acts 3:22–23; Acts 7:37

"The LORD thy God will raise up unto thee a Prophet from the midst of thee, of thy brethren, like unto me; unto him ye shall hearken."; Deuteronomy 18:15

In its own setting, Deuteronomy 18 answers a practical question: when Moses is gone, how will God speak to his people? Not through diviners or sorcerers (18:9–14), but through a prophet God raises up, in whose mouth God puts his words (18:18). Whoever will not hearken to that prophet, God will require it of him (18:19).

Within the Old Testament itself, the promise looks beyond ordinary prophets. Deuteronomy concludes with the observation, "And there arose not a prophet since in Israel like unto Moses, whom the LORD knew face to face" (Deuteronomy 34:10). By the first century, the expectation of "that prophet" was alive in Israel, as seen when John the Baptist is asked if he is "that prophet" (John 1:21), and when crowds declare of Jesus, "This is of a truth that prophet" (John 6:14; 7:40).

The book of Acts records distinct uses of Deuteronomy 18. Peter explicitly applies the passage to Jesus in the temple, identifying him as the promised prophet whom all must hear (Acts 3:22–23). Stephen also quotes Deuteronomy 18:15 in his defense before the council (Acts 7:37). While verse 37 itself does not name Jesus explicitly within its immediate text, Stephen incorporates it into a wider speech reviewing Israel's history to point toward the righteous one.

• Evidence Labels: Direct Statement (for Peter's application in Acts 3); Study Observation (for Stephen's quotation within the contextual speech of Acts 7)

2. The Serpent Lifted Up

Numbers 21:4–9; John 3:14–15

When Israel spoke against God and Moses in the wilderness, fiery serpents came among the people. At the LORD's command, Moses made a serpent of brass and set it on a pole, "and it came to pass, that if a serpent had bitten any man, when he beheld the serpent of brass, he lived" (Numbers 21:9).

Numbers presents this as a historical act of judgment and mercy. It does not describe it as a predictive prophecy in its original context. Yet Jesus himself draws the comparison:

"And as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, even so must the Son of man be lifted up: that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have eternal life."; John 3:14–15

The "as… even so" structure is a comparison of pattern. Just as the serpent was lifted up and those who looked lived, so the Son of man must be lifted up, and those who believe have eternal life. In John's Gospel, "lifted up" points forward to the cross (John 8:28; 12:32–33) and the glory that follows.

The comparison has limits worth respecting. Jesus does not say the serpent was him, nor that Numbers 21 predicted the crucifixion in every detail. He says the event and his own lifting up share a God-given shape: a sign raised before the dying, and life granted through looking in faith.

• Evidence Label: Typology

3. The True Bread from Heaven

Exodus 16; John 6:30–35

In Exodus 16, the LORD tells Moses, "Behold, I will rain bread from heaven for you" (16:4). Each morning the manna appeared, and Moses explained, "This is the bread which the LORD hath given you to eat" (16:15).

After Jesus feeds the five thousand, the crowd asks for a sign and cites the manna: "Our fathers did eat manna in the desert; as it is written, He gave them bread from heaven to eat" (John 6:31). Jesus' reply is precise:

"Verily, verily, I say unto you, Moses gave you not that bread from heaven; but my Father giveth you the true bread from heaven. For the bread of God is he which cometh down from heaven, and giveth life unto the world."; John 6:32–33

Three distinctions matter here. First, Moses was not the giver; God was, which is exactly what Moses himself recorded in Exodus 16:15. Second, Jesus shifts from past to present: the Father giveth the true bread now. Third, the giver and the gift are distinguished. It is the Father who gives; Jesus identifies himself as the bread of life (6:35) who comes down from heaven to do the will of him that sent him (6:38).

Unlike manna, which sustained Israel but did not prevent death, the bread Jesus gives brings life beyond death (John 6:49–51).

• Evidence Label: Typology (with Jesus' own explicit correction regarding the giver)

4. Not a Bone Broken

Exodus 12:46; Numbers 9:12; Psalm 34:20; John 19:31–36

The Passover instructions specify that the lamb is to be eaten in one house, "neither shall ye break a bone thereof" (Exodus 12:46; repeated in Numbers 9:12).

At the crucifixion, the soldiers break the legs of the two men crucified with Jesus, but finding him already dead, they do not break his. John comments:

"For these things were done, that the scripture should be fulfilled, A bone of him shall not be broken."; John 19:36

John states plainly that Scripture was fulfilled. What he does not explicitly name is the exact verse. His wording aligns closely with the Passover regulations, but it also matches Psalm 34:20: "He keepeth all his bones: not one of them is broken," spoken of the righteous sufferer whom the LORD delivers.

Because John's Gospel repeatedly links Jesus to the Passover lamb (John 1:29; 19:14), the Passover legislation in Exodus and Numbers is a primary biblical parallel. At the same time, Psalm 34 speaks directly to the protection of the righteous sufferer's bones. The text of Scripture supports seeing thematic harmony, while John does not identify a single source for the unbroken-bone statement.

• Evidence Labels: Direct Statement (that Scripture was fulfilled); Possible Echo (that the specific text in view is Exodus 12:46, Numbers 9:12, or Psalm 34:20)

5. A Supporting Connection: The Rock

Exodus 17:1–7; Numbers 20:1–13; 1 Corinthians 10:1–4

Twice in the wilderness, water came from a rock for a thirsting people. The Apostle Paul later writes that Israel "did all drink the same spiritual drink: for they drank of that spiritual Rock that followed them: and that Rock was Christ" (1 Corinthians 10:4).

Paul then frames Israel’s wilderness experience as instruction and a pattern for the church (1 Corinthians 10:6). He is not claiming the historical narrative of Exodus or Numbers explicitly announced the Messiah to ancient Israel in those exact terms. What Paul affirms by apostolic authority is that Christ was present with Israel to sustain his people in the wilderness: a theological and typological reading of redemptive history.

For a fuller study of Paul’s identification of Christ as the spiritual Rock, see The Spiritual Rock: Christology in 1 Corinthians 10:4. That study expands on the wilderness setting, Deuteronomy’s Rock imagery, and Paul’s argument.

• Evidence Labels: Direct Statement (Paul's explicit identification); Typology (retrospective reading as a pattern for the church)

Synthesis Table

Conclusion: Keep Reading Moses

"He wrote of me." When we gather the New Testament's own readings, Jesus' claim comes into focus. Moses wrote of him in promise: a prophet God would raise up, whose words must be heard. Moses wrote of him in pattern: a serpent lifted up so the dying might live. Moses wrote of him in provision: bread from heaven given by the Father, pointing to the true bread the Father gives now. And Moses wrote of him where the broader Gospel's Passover imagery frames the cross, while the unbroken-bone detail may echo the Passover instructions.

None of this requires forcing every line of the Pentateuch into a direct prediction. It requires reading Moses as the apostles did: attentively, honestly, and with an eye to where the whole scriptural story leads. Jesus' warning in John 5 is solemn: it is possible to search the Scriptures diligently and still miss the one they testify of.

So keep reading Moses. Read him alongside the Gospels, Acts, and the Epistles. Notice what is stated, what is pictured, and what is revealed. And let the witness of Moses do what Jesus said it would: bring you to him.

This study has followed several ways Moses bears witness to Christ. No Other Beside Me: The Disclosure of the Single Subject follows that witness through the wider scriptural story.

Source Note

• Primary Source: The King James Version (KJV) of the Bible is used throughout as the primary evidence for both Old Testament and New Testament texts.
• Suggested Reading & Consulted Scholarship:
• For first-century Jewish expectations regarding "that prophet" reflected in John 1:21, 6:14, and 7:40, see D. A. Carson, The Gospel According to John (Eerdmans, 1991), pp. 144–45, 277–78; and Craig S. Keener, The Gospel of John: A Commentary (Hendrickson, 2003), vol. 1, pp. 433–34, vol. 2, pp. 675–76.
• For the textual relationship and interpretive options concerning Exodus 12, Numbers 9, Psalm 34, and John 19:36, see Andreas J. Köstenberger, John, Baker Exegetical Commentary on the New Testament (Baker Academic, 2004), pp. 553–54, and Köstenberger's chapter "John" in G. K. Beale and D. A. Carson, eds., Commentary on the New Testament Use of the Old Testament (Baker Academic, 2007), pp. 503–05.
• For Paul's typological and retrospective reading of the wilderness rock in 1 Corinthians 10:4, see Gordon D. Fee, The First Epistle to the Corinthians, New International Commentary on the New Testament (Eerdmans, 1987), pp. 445–49.