Peter, Are You Serious? Moses?

Peter made a bold assertion: “All the prophets, from Samuel and those who follow, as many as have spoken, have also foretold these days” (Acts 3:24). By “these days,” he means the days in which he lived, his generation. 

This series of posts tests this claim by searching through the prophets to see if they all spoke of Peter’s time.

I’m making two suggestions as we conduct this search. You can see them in the footnotes.¹

So far in this series, we’ve seen (here and here) that the prophets provided the context, content, and consequences for the apostles’ ministry. Now we want to look at the individual prophets. The Lord Jesus gives us direction regarding this matter. After His resurrection, He rebuked the two disciples on the road to Emmaus: 

Then He said to them, “O foolish ones, and slow of heart to believe in all that the prophets have spoken! Ought not the Christ to have suffered these things and to enter into His glory?” And beginning at Moses and all the Prophets, He expounded to them in all the Scriptures the things concerning Himself. (Luke 24:25–27)

So, let’s begin with Moses and discuss three ways he foretold the events of Peter’s generation.² He did so by writing of a son that would come, a scepter that would depart, and a song that would be sung. I will cover the first two here and reserve the third for next week.

The Son That Would Come

Moses lived around 1500 BC but wrote about God creating the world. His account includes Adam and Eve’s rebellion and God’s gracious promise to them as He cursed the serpent: 

So the LORD God said to the serpent: “Because you have done this, you are cursed more than all cattle, and more than every beast of the field; on your belly you shall go, and you shall eat dust all the days of your life. And I will put enmity between you and the woman, and between your seed and her Seed; He shall bruise your head, and you shall bruise His heel.” (Gen 3:14–15)

Satan (the serpent) deceived Eve, and Adam followed her in disobeying God. With great grace, the Lord said a son of Eve would one day defeat the foe who had caused this catastrophe; he would come to make things right again.

Here, God did not give a timeframe for the coming of this son, so we cannot link it directly to Peter’s “these days.” However, the New Testament shows that Jesus Christ was the person to whom God was referring and that His coming was in the “last days” of the Mosaic age. Peter himself says,

You were not redeemed with corruptible things, like silver or gold, from your aimless conduct received by tradition from your fathers, but with the precious blood of Christ, as of a lamb without blemish and without spot. He indeed was foreordained before the foundation of the world, but was manifest in these last times for you. (1 Pet 1:18–20)

Peter’s “these days” in Acts 3:24 are his “last times” here. The Son came in this generation, as the Hebrews letter shows:

God, who at various times and in various ways spoke in time past to the fathers by the prophets, has in these last days spoken to us by His Son, whom He has appointed heir of all things, through whom also He made the worlds. (Heb 1:1–2)

Further, this letter sets the time of the Son’s coming: “Once at the end of the ages, He has appeared to put away sin by the sacrifice of Himself” (Heb 9:26).

These writers do not mean the promised Son came at the end of planet Earth, the church age, or history. They have in mind the days in which Jesus and the apostles lived—the “last days” of the Mosaic age, the generation in which the temple fell (cf. Matt 24:1–3, 34).

The Scepter That Would Depart

Moses also wrote about a scepter that would depart, and he gives a particular time statement regarding this event. 

After Jacob learned God had sent Joseph to Egypt to preserve his family, the time came for him to die. He called his sons—the fathers of the twelve tribes—together to bless them. Moses says, “Jacob called his sons and said, ‘Gather together, that I may tell you what shall befall you in the last days’” (Gen 49:1). 

Again, not the last days of Earth’s history but the final period of Israel’s history. Here is Jacob’s blessing for Judah regarding that period:

Judah, you are he whom your brothers shall praise; your hand shall be on the neck of your enemies; your father’s children shall bow down before you. Judah is a lion’s whelp; from the prey, my son, you have gone up. He bows down, he lies down as a lion; and as a lion, who shall rouse him? The scepter shall not depart from Judah, nor a lawgiver from between his feet, until Shiloh comes; and to Him shall be the obedience of the people. (Gen 49:8–10)

In Israel’s “last days,” the sign of kingdom power and authority would pass from Judah’s descendants to Shiloh—the Messiah.

Moses amplifies the significance of this transfer—the Messiah would be the Scepter! His account of Balaam, whom Balak hired to curse Israel, shows how God turned proposed curses into blessings. Here is part of Balaam’s fourth prophecy:

The utterance of Balaam … who falls down, with eyes wide open: “I see Him, but not now; I behold Him, but not near; a Star shall come out of Jacob; a Scepter shall rise out of Israel, and batter the brow of Moab, and destroy all the sons of tumult.… Out of Jacob One shall have dominion. (Num 24:15–19)

Jesus confirms the timing of this scepter transfer. On Tuesday of Passion Week, He spoke to Israel’s corrupt leaders:

Jesus said to them, “Have you never read in the Scriptures: ‘The stone which the builders rejected Has become the chief cornerstone. This was the LORD’s doing, And it is marvelous in our eyes’? “Therefore I say to you, the kingdom of God will be taken from you and given to a nation bearing the fruits of it. And whoever falls on this stone will be broken; but on whomever it falls, it will grind him to powder.” Now when the chief priests and Pharisees heard His parables, they perceived that He was speaking of them.” (Matt 21:42–45)

Later that day, Jesus gave the timeframe: the temple would fall, ending the Mosaic age in their generation (Matt 24:1–3, 34). Moses had called this generation Israel’s “last days” (Gen 49:1).

The Authorized Version provides additional help in locating this transfer: “The sceptre shall not depart from Judah, nor a lawgiver from between his feet, until Shiloh come; and unto him shall the gathering of the people be” (Gen 49:10).

Until the coming of Christ into the world, the people had gathered around the tabernacle and temple to worship God according to the law of Moses. In the messianic age, we gather around the Lord Jesus Christ, as Hebrews shows: 

Having therefore, brethren, boldness to enter into the holiest by the blood of Jesus … let us consider one another to provoke unto love and to good works: not forsaking the assembling of ourselves together.… (Heb 10:19, 24–25)

In the “last days” of the Mosaic age (Gen 49:1; Heb 1:1–2), the scepter departed from Judah, and the true Scepter reigned over the people of God. The people of God now gather around Him.

Conclusion

Moses wrote about the period Peter called “these days”—when the promised Son would come, and the scepter would depart from Israel. 

So far, Peter seems to be right on track. 

These observations also validate Jesus’s approach to teaching his disappointed disciples on the road to Emmaus.

Do they not cause our hearts to burn within us, too?

 

1. First, consider becoming familiar with the inmillennial view of prophecy. You can read a summary version here or tackle the full book-length version here. The title of the book—Inmillennialism: Redefining the Last Days—hints at the reason for my suggestion. This model says the “last days” are identical to Peter’s “these days”; both terms refer to the “last days” of the Mosaic age. This perspective will shed light on the prophets as we work through them. My second suggestion is that you consider watching the sermons related to this subject. I preached the material in this post at Hopewell Primitive Baptist Church in Opelika, AL, on May 7, 2023. You can watch it here.
2. The image in this post is Moses, a sculpture by Jean de Marco in the chamber of the U.S. House of Representatives in the United States Capitol. This image (here) is in the public domain.