In Deut. 18:18, Moses told God’s people Israel that their Lord was going to raise up a Prophet like Moses in some future time, and anyone who wouldn’t listen to that prophet was to be cut off from God’s people. This is such an important prophecy! Think of who Moses was and what his function was. God revealed Himself to him from a burning bush and commissioned him to go to Egypt and deliver God’s people from slavery there and bring them to Mt. Sinai, where they would worship Adonai and become His people. Then God would use Moses to lead the people into the Promised Land, which represents all God had promised and prepared for His people.
(Of course, Moses couldn’t ultimately lead them in, because he represented the Law, which can never get us into the promises of God. That was left for Joshua, Yeshua in Hebrew, which means it was all what’s known as a “typological prophecy,” a lived-out picture meant to teach us many lessons.)
Nevertheless, think how important Moses was! He was the Lawgiver and Liberator. If an Israelite was ever to escape Egyptian bondage and inherit what God intended, he/she would have to follow Moses, because he was the appointed prophet and leader. No one got out of Egypt or into the Promised Land without him, and the Bible itself says there’s never been another prophet equal to him. (Deut. 34:10) Yet through him, God said there would one day be another like him, who would lead God’s people, and anyone not listening to that Prophet would never make it into what God had for His people.
In the Book of John, we read how a man named Philip told his friend Nathaniel, “We have found Him, the one spoken of by Moses.” (Jn. 1:45). Philip was from Bethsaida, the same town as Andrew and his brother Peter, also called Kefa. They’d all been caught up in the excitement of those years, when, after over 400 years of silence from heaven, all of a sudden there was a flurry of supernatural occurrences, an angel had appeared to an older couple to tell them they were going to have a son (John the Baptist or Yohanan), and this son would be the forerunner of Messiah. A young virgin had also been told she was going to give birth to the Son of God. There had been signs in the heavens and a huge caravan of people had come to Jerusalem from a neighboring nation which had been at war with Israel, saying they’d seen a star in the East announcing the birth of Messiah and had come to worship Him. A very unique and holy man, John the Baptist or Yohanan the Immerser, had been drawing large crowds to hear his words and had been baptizing people in the river Jordan to prepare the way, he said, for Messiah. One day, out of the crowd, there appeared a Man John had not formerly known, but when he baptized this Man, heaven was opened, and the Spirit of God descended in a bodily form like a dove and settled upon Him.
John declared, “Behold the Lamb of God, who takes away the sins of the world.” He told people how God had revealed that this sign would indicate who His Chosen One was. Andrew had been a disciple of Yohanan, and had heard him say these things about Yeshua (Jesus). He began following Yeshua, and became convinced that indeed, this was the Messiah. He then brought his brother Peter (Kefa) to Jesus.
Philip, from the same town as Andrew and Peter, was called to follow Jesus and become a disciple around this time. He went and told his friend Nathaniel that they’d found “the One spoken of by Moses.” But Nathaniel was dubious when told Philip’s Messiah was from Nazareth. He asked, “Can anything good come from that neck of the woods?” Philip pressed him to “come and see.” As they approached Him, Yeshua called Philip “an Israelite without guile” (a sincere and honest person.) Yeshua could see right into people! Nathaniel was shocked and asked, “How do you know me?” Yeshua answered, “I saw you before Philip called you, when you were under the fig tree.”
When Jesus said this to him, it had a tremendous impact, because Nathaniel immediately went from skeptic to full-blown believer. He said, “Rabbi, you’re the Son of God, you’re the King of Israel!” He was instantly convinced that Yeshua was rabbi (teacher), Son of God (a term for Messiah, see 2 Sam. 7:12-14), and King of Israel, (again, a reference to the promise God gave David in 2 Sam. 7, and an acknowledgement that Messiah was to reign over God’s people.)
Philip could never have been so impacted if the fig tree under which Jesus said He’d seen him had been right there, close at hand. That wouldn’t have been so life-transforming! No, this fig tree must’ve been some distance away, and it may be that Philip was even sitting under it a day or several days before. I suspect that while sitting under it, Philip may have been pondering and praying along the lines of “God, when will you send you Chosen One to liberate Israel and fulfill your promises?” This is just conjecture of course, but whatever happened, it had to have been something dramatic, something obviously supernatural, or Philip would never have been so amazed that he immediately became convinced of Jesus’ true identity. As a person who has experienced such words of supernatural knowledge, I can tell you, they change you forever!
Yeshua answered by saying, “Because I said I saw you under the fig tree you believe? You will see greater things… you will see the angels of God ascending and descending upon the Son of man.” (Jn. 1:50, 51) Again, many miss the significance of this statement, but Philip and Nathaniel had been raised going to the synagogue every Shabbat, and they knew what this referred to. When Jacob had deceived his brother Esau and his father Isaac, he’d had to run away to escape his brother’s fury and desire to kill him. When he stopped for the night, God had given him a dream in which he saw a ladder reaching up to heaven, with angels descending and ascending upon it. Upon waking up, he said, “How dreadful is this place… this is the House of God!” and he anointed the stone he’d used as a pillow and called the place Bethel, House of God. (Gen. 28:17) Jacob saw that place as a sort of portal, a point of contact between heaven and earth. God revealed Himself to Jacob there in a supernatural way.
So Yeshua’s words to Philip and all who’ve read this story since, are meant to convey the reality that He is now that point of contact between heaven and earth. He is the Portal! He opens heaven to us, opens the way to God, and in fact, is the Way. (Jn. 14:6) The angels would minister to Him, and He would do miracles more plentiful and powerful than anyone had ever done before, miracles and signs that made it clear that He was the “Teacher sent from God.” (Jn. 3:1) He is the very House of God, because all God’s fullness dwelt in Him (Col. 2:9), and John 1:14 tells us that “the Word became flesh and dwelt (the Greek word here is “tabernacled”) among us. Heb. 1:3 says He is the radiance of God’s glory and the exact representation of His being.” He is the Chief Cornerstone and Foundation of that House, and the One who also makes us into living stones with which to build a dwelling for God by His Spirit. (1 Pet. 2:5; Eph. 2:20, 21) The Bible also says that Moses was faithful in all God’s House (Heb. 3:1-6), Originally, that “house” was Israel, but now we (all believers in Yeshua as Messiah) are God’s house, and Jesus is building us together into that dwelling place for God.
Moses told the Israelites that one day, God would send them another Prophet like him. Moses therefore was a foreshadowing, a type of the Messiah. But the antitype, the fulfillment of that type, is Yeshua the Messiah Himself. Hebrews 1:1-5 makes it clear to us that in these last days (yes, folks, we’re in the Last Days!) God has spoken to us by His Son. Yeshua, the Messiah or Anointed One, is God in human flesh, who makes God known to us (Jn. 1:18). He has brought us the words of life. He is the way in which we can connect, be restored to fellowship with God, and enter into all He has prepared for us. There is no other way.
How powerful was that testimony Philip gave to his friend Nathaniel, so long ago! “We have found the One Moses spoke about, Jesus, or more properly, Yeshua of Nazareth.” He brought us the message of reconciliation that leads to eternal life. No one can really know God or be reconciled to God or walk with God apart from Him!