Moses As a Type of Christ
In the life of Moses there are four beautiful characteristics that foreshadow the Lord Jesus Christ.
1. His birth under hostile conditions. Moses was born under the threat of death from Pharaoh; likewise our Lord had his own Pharaoh -Herod - who tried to kill him. Pharaoh's slaughter of innocent children is similar to that which Herod carried out (Mat. 2:16-18).
2. His gracious identification with the sufferings of his people. He rejected Pharaoh's palace with all its wealth and opted for the reproach of Christ among his people. He could have simply interceded for them from the palace to make his life easier, but he didn't. He lowered and humbled himself, and that brought sufferings and sacrifice. He didn't seek fleeting relief for their problems, but rather a permanent solution, the objectives of God.
Is this not anticipating what our Lord did? It was an even greater sacrifice by leaving the Father's bosom, to leave His glory, to descend from heaven, to take the place of his people, to take upon himself the sin of us all and to take them away on the cross.
3. His rejection by Israel: The Jews rejected Moses in a very similar to which they rejected to the Lord. The words of the parable, applied to the Lord, are also applicable to Moses: "We will not that this man should reign over us" (Luke 19:14), the same as John's words: "He came to his own, and his own received him not" (Jn. 1:11). The eyes of the Jews were too blind; their understanding was too slow so as to see an instrument of God sent for their freedom behind that man.
4. His union with a foreign woman from the country of Midian. In the foreknowledge of God, Moses takes Zipporah, a gentile wife, to represent the Church as taken from among the gentiles. And the type is even more precise, because Zipporah shows the Church in a very defined time, when she unites herself to her Lord in intimacy, hidden from the world, which is its situation in the present time. This is different to Asnath, Joseph's wife -as a type of the Church - because she shows the church in the time of its exaltation; our eventual future.
The marriage between Moses and Zipporah shows us the perfect union that exists today between Christ and His Church, although the world knows nothing of it. "For this reason the world knows us not, because it knew him not" (1 Jn. 3:1). Very soon this situation will change: "When the Christ is manifested who is our life, then shall ye also be manifested with him in glory" (Col. 3:4).