Moses×Jesus

full transcript

1. 00:00
   Verashare moment

   From the studio at Reborn Radio — next on TITANS, Moses and Jesus of Nazareth. They take up on how they thought their religions would spread and how they would play out in time.
2. 00:11
   Mosesshare moment

   I gave them law. Statutes. Ordinances written in stone, that they might be a peculiar people, set apart. A kingdom of priests. When I came down from Sinai, my face shone so brightly they could not look upon me. I thought… I thought that would be enough.
3. 00:36
   Jesusshare moment

   And yet you broke the first tablets before you even reached the camp.
4. 00:40
   Mosesshare moment

   Because they had already broken faith. The calf. The golden calf, while I was on the mountain receiving the very words that forbade such abomination.
5. 00:53
   Jesusshare moment

   Yes. So you knew from the beginning, didn't you? That stone and command would not be enough.
6. 01:00
   Mosesshare moment

   I knew they were stiff-necked. I pleaded with the Holy One not to destroy them utterly. Forty years I led them through wilderness. Forty years of manna, of water from rock, of the pillar of cloud and fire. Still they grumbled. Still they tested the Lord.
7. 01:27
   Jesusshare moment

   And you? Did you believe that once they crossed Jordan, once they possessed the land, they would keep covenant?
8. 01:34
   Mosesshare moment

   I… I hoped. The law was to be their life, their wisdom in the sight of the nations. I told them—these are not idle words for you; they are your very life. By them you shall prolong your days in the land.
9. 01:56
   Jesusshare moment

   But you never entered that land yourself.
10. 01:59
    Mosesshare moment

    No. I struck the rock in anger when I should have spoken to it. Even I… even I failed the test.
11. 02:09
    Jesusshare moment

    So if the lawgiver himself could not perfectly keep the terms, what did you imagine for those who followed? Generation after generation?
12. 02:19
    Mosesshare moment

    I imagined they would remember. That fathers would teach sons, that the Shema would be upon their doorposts and bound upon their foreheads. I set before them life and death, blessing and curse. Choose life, I said. Choose life, that you and your descendants may live.
13. 02:41
    Jesusshare moment

    A choice is not the same as a capacity.
14. 02:45
    Mosesshare moment

    You speak as though the law were a burden too heavy to bear.
15. 02:50
    Jesusshare moment

    I speak as one who watched men pile burden upon burden, tithing mint and dill and cumin while neglecting justice and mercy and faithfulness. These you ought to have done, without neglecting the others. But the weightier matters—those they could not see.
16. 03:13
    Mosesshare moment

    Then you are saying my law was insufficient.
17. 03:17
    Jesusshare moment

    I am saying the law is holy and just and good, but it cannot give life. It shows the wound; it does not heal. You yourself said in the hearing of all Israel: The Lord will raise up a prophet like me from among you. Did you know what sort of prophet that would be?
18. 03:35
    Mosesshare moment

    I knew only that the people feared to hear the voice of God directly. They begged me to stand between them and the fire. So the Holy One promised another mediator would come.
19. 03:49
    Jesusshare moment

    Yes. Another who would stand between.
20. 03:53
    Mosesshare moment

    And you believe you are that one.
21. 03:55
    Jesusshare moment

    I did not come to abolish the law or the prophets, but to fulfill. Every jot, every tittle. The law was a tutor, leading to something beyond itself.
22. 04:07
    Mosesshare moment

    To what? To your death? I have heard what they say—that you were executed as a criminal, hung upon a tree. The law itself pronounces a curse upon such.
23. 04:22
    Jesusshare moment

    Yes. Cursed is everyone who hangs on a tree. The curse I bore, that the blessing might come to all nations. Not through conquest, as Joshua brought them into Canaan with the sword. But through a different kind of victory.
24. 04:42
    Mosesshare moment

    Victory? Rome still stood when you died. Your disciples scattered. Where was the kingdom you proclaimed?
25. 04:51
    Jesusshare moment

    My kingdom is not of this world. If it were, my servants would have fought. But I told Pilate the truth: I came to bear witness to the truth. Everyone on the side of truth listens to my voice.
26. 05:04
    Mosesshare moment

    Truth without power is the cry of the defeated.
27. 05:08
    Jesusshare moment

    And power without love is the march of the destroyer. Moses, you brought plagues upon Egypt. You drowned Pharaoh's chariots in the sea. Did you think that when the Holy One acted again in history, it would always be through such signs?
28. 05:26
    Mosesshare moment

    Those were necessary. Pharaoh's heart was hard. Only through judgment could the people be freed.
29. 05:35
    Jesusshare moment

    And what if the harder slavery was not in Egypt, but in the human heart itself? Can that be broken by plagues?
30. 05:43
    Mosesshare moment

    So you would have us do… what? Love our enemies? Turn the other cheek while the wicked devour the righteous?
31. 05:53
    Jesusshare moment

    I would have you do what I taught, yes. Blessed are the meek, for they shall inherit the earth. Blessed are the peacemakers, for they shall be called sons of God. You gave a law that restrained violence—eye for eye, tooth for tooth, no more than equal measure. I came to uproot violence altogether.
32. 06:17
    Mosesshare moment

    Impossible. Men are not angels. They require boundaries, judgments, the fear of punishment.
33. 06:26
    Jesusshare moment

    Perfect love casts out fear. But you are right—men are not angels. That is why I spoke of being born again, born from above. A new heart, not of stone but of flesh. The prophet Ezekiel saw it: I will put my Spirit within you and cause you to walk in my statutes.
34. 06:47
    Mosesshare moment

    Ezekiel came seven centuries after me. He stood in the wreckage of the temple, the people in exile, the covenant shattered. What he promised was restoration to the land, the return of glory.
35. 07:04
    Jesusshare moment

    And did the glory return when they rebuilt the temple? Or was something still missing?
36. 07:10
    Mosesshare moment

    I cannot answer for the centuries I did not see. I only know what I was given to do.
37. 07:17
    Jesusshare moment

    And what were you given to do?
38. 07:19
    Mosesshare moment

    To bring them out. To give them law. To prepare a people for the Holy One to dwell among.
39. 07:27
    Jesusshare moment

    Then we are not so different. I, too, came to prepare a dwelling—not a tent of goatskins or a temple of stone, but the human person. That the Father and I might make our home there.
40. 07:41
    Mosesshare moment

    You speak of making the Holy One… domesticated. Accessible. Familiar.
41. 07:49
    Jesusshare moment

    I speak of what was always intended. Did not the prophet say, They shall all know me, from the least to the greatest? No longer shall each one teach his neighbor, saying, 'Know the Lord.' The law written not on tablets, but on hearts.
42. 08:08
    Mosesshare moment

    Jeremiah. Yes. He, too, prophesied in a time of collapse.
43. 08:14
    Jesusshare moment

    And you think collapse invalidates the promise?
44. 08:17
    Mosesshare moment

    I think that men hear what they wish to hear. You speak of love and new birth. But in your name—I have heard—wars have been waged, inquisitions held, heretics burned. How is that different from Joshua taking Jericho?
45. 08:37
    Jesusshare moment

    It is entirely different, because I never commanded it. I said, Put away your sword; all who take the sword will perish by the sword. I washed feet. I ate with sinners. I said, Father, forgive them.
46. 08:53
    Mosesshare moment

    And yet they did not listen.
47. 08:55
    Jesusshare moment

    No. Not all. But some did. A remnant, as it has always been. Weren't there only two—Caleb and Joshua—from that first generation who entered the land?
48. 09:10
    Mosesshare moment

    Yes. The rest perished in the wilderness because of unbelief.
49. 09:15
    Jesusshare moment

    Then you know: faithfulness has never been a matter of majorities.
50. 09:19
    Mosesshare moment

    But you hoped for more than a remnant, surely. You sent out disciples, you spoke to crowds on hillsides. You did not preach only to twelve.
51. 09:31
    Jesusshare moment

    I preached to thousands. And many walked away when the teaching grew difficult. I turned to the twelve and asked, Will you leave, too? Peter said, Lord, to whom shall we go? You have the words of eternal life. That was enough.
52. 09:48
    Mosesshare moment

    Enough for what? To birth a movement that would divide the world, Jew and Gentile, East and West, Catholic and Protestant, Orthodox and reformer, sect upon sect upon sect?
53. 10:07
    Jesusshare moment

    Did you imagine Israel would remain undivided? Ten tribes torn from the house of David, the kingdom split, the northern tribes carried into Assyria, Judah into Babylon. Wherever two or three gather in truth, there is division between them and those who reject it.
54. 10:27
    Mosesshare moment

    So this is the kingdom you brought? Controversy and schism?
55. 10:32
    Jesusshare moment

    I brought a sword, yes. Not peace as the world gives. But also: I have other sheep not of this fold. Them also I must bring, and they will listen to my voice. One flock, one shepherd. Not uniformity, but unity. Do you see the difference?
56. 10:53
    Mosesshare moment

    I see that your sheep have wandered very far afield.
57. 10:57
    Jesusshare moment

    And yours did not? Did the covenant keep them from the Baals and the Asherah poles? Did the prophets not cry out century after century that the people had forsaken the Holy One?
58. 11:10
    Mosesshare moment

    Yes. They did forsake. Again and again.
59. 11:15
    Jesusshare moment

    Then what were you expecting? That a better law would produce better people?
60. 11:20
    Mosesshare moment

    I was expecting… obedience. Reverence. The fear of the Lord, which is the beginning of wisdom.
61. 11:30
    Jesusshare moment

    And I came to complete what fear begins. Perfect love casts out fear. The law is fulfilled not by dread of punishment, but by love of the one who gave it.
62. 11:44
    Mosesshare moment

    Love is not enough when men are bent toward evil from their youth.
63. 11:48
    Jesusshare moment

    No. That is why I spoke of rebirth. That is why I went to the cross. That the bent might be straightened, the dead raised, the prisoner freed. Not by legislation, but by transformation.
64. 12:03
    Mosesshare moment

    And has this transformation occurred? Are men less violent, less proud, less idolatrous than they were in my day?
65. 12:14
    Jesusshare moment

    Some are. In hidden places, in quiet hearts, in those who take up their cross daily. The kingdom grows like a mustard seed, like yeast in dough—invisibly, until the whole is leavened. You will not see it on thrones or in temples built by hands.
66. 12:34
    Mosesshare moment

    Then how do you measure success?
67. 12:37
    Jesusshare moment

    By whether one person learns to forgive. By whether one enemy is loved. By whether one cup of cold water is given to the least. These are the metrics of the kingdom. You numbered Israel—six hundred thousand on foot, besides women and children. I do not number. I know each by name.
68. 13:00
    Mosesshare moment

    That sounds… exhausting.
69. 13:03
    Jesusshare moment

    It is why I needed the Spirit. No man alone can carry it.
70. 13:08
    Mosesshare moment

    No man alone can carry any of it. You are correct in that. I learned it on Sinai, and in the wilderness, and on Nebo when I looked across into the land I would not enter.
71. 13:23
    Jesusshare moment

    Yet you are remembered. The law endures. And when I came, I did not erase your name but built upon what you laid. The foundation remains.
72. 13:35
    Mosesshare moment

    And what will those who come after you build?
73. 13:38
    Jesusshare moment

    Some will build with gold, silver, precious stones. Others with wood, hay, stubble. The fire will test each one's work. But the foundation is laid, and no one can lay another.
74. 13:53
    Mosesshare moment

    I suppose neither of us can control what is built upon what we began.
75. 13:59
    Jesusshare moment

    No. We can only be faithful to what we were sent to do. You brought them out of Egypt. I came to bring them out of death. The rest… the rest is between them and the one who sent us both.
76. 14:13
    Mosesshare moment

    Perhaps that is the only honest answer either of us can give.
77. 14:19
    Jesusshare moment

    Perhaps it is.