The Spirit of the Messiah in Moses

BibleProject - BibleProject Podcast

This episode explores the Spirit of God (Ruach) through the lens of Moses, examining how he embodies the ideal human representative of God's

Key takeaways

• The Spirit (Ruach) is not just a force but God's personal presence that animates life and enables true representation of God's wisdom and rule.
• Moses exemplifies an ideal human filled with God's Ruach, uniquely combining leadership, mediation, and prophetic authority.

Main topics

• The nature of Ruach (Spirit) in Hebrew thought
• Moses as a prototype of the ideal human leader

Notable quotes

I wish that all of Yahweh's people were prophets. I wish Yahweh would put his Ruach on them.

Conclusion

Moses stands as a pivotal figure in Scripture whose life and leadership reveal what it means for a

Transcript preview

Speaker 2 (0:05) Welcome to Bible Project Podcast. We are in a series on the Spirit of God. The Spirit, or Ruach in Hebrew, is God's invisible personal presence that gives life and breath to everything. The story of the Bible begins with God breathing His Ruach into humanity and appointing them as His representatives to rule the world with His wisdom. Speaker 3 (0:26) God appointing humans as partners, representatives, and rulers on the land to mirror His heavenly rule is key. foundation plot setting and humans foul it up because they reject God's wisdom. Speaker 2 (0:40) So from the earliest pages of the Bible, we begin to hope that there can be an ideal human image of God filled with God's ruach, truly representing God's wisdom and rule on the land. As we continue reading, we meet a handful of characters in the Hebrew Bible who get close to this ideal. These Speaker 3 (0:58) are leader figures Speaker 2 (0:59) who... Speaker 3 (1:00) bring all of the roles of a king, bringing order and responsible leadership, play a priestly role mediating between God and people, and a prophetic role representing God's words to people. When all those are bound together in one character, the Ruach is right there in the thick of the stories about these characters. Speaker 2 (1:20) The first character we encounter in the Bible like this is Moses. God uniquely fills Moses with his Ruach. to play a vital role in the story of Israel. He Speaker 3 (1:30) does signs and wonders. He confronts unjust leaders. He can lead people and do signs and wonders that provide miraculous life for people in the desert. He brokers a covenant relationship between God and a whole people group. And then he uniquely ascends to the very presence of God and then speaks God's purpose and word and brings it back down to the people. He's the package Speaker 2 (1:54) deal, man. But even filled with the Ruach of God, Moses is still just one guy with a lot of people depending on him. Moses needs help. Speaker 3 (2:04) Moses goes and he gets these 70 elders and he brings them out to the tent. And Yahweh came down in a cloud and he spoke to him and he sided off some of the spirit and place that Ruach on the 70. And they prophesied. Speaker 2 (2:17) They spoke God's word. The Ruach of Yahweh has gone from the one to the many. In fact, It's so powerful, it spills out to two more guys who are just hanging back at camp. And this unexpected outpouring of the spirit worries Moses' protege, a guy named Joshua. The spirit is too much, he thinks. But for Moses, this is the ideal. Speaker 3 (2:39) Moses says, Joshua, are you jealous on my behalf? Listen, I wish that all of Yahweh's people were prophets. I wish Yahweh would put his Speaker 2 (2:49) ruach on all of them. These words of Moses stick with us as we continue to look for the next Spirit-empowered Messianic leader. We need an anointed leader who's filled up with God's Spirit, and we need an anointed Speaker 3 (3:03) people who are filled with the same Spirit. Speaker 2 (3:06) Today, Tim Mackey and I talk about the Spirit of the Messiah, and we begin with the story of Moses. Thanks for joining us. Here we go. Speaker 2 (3:18) Hey, Tim. Hi, John. Speaker 3 (3:19) Hey. Speaker 2 (3:20) Hey, Speaker 3 (3:20) talking Speaker 2 (3:20) to Ruach. Speaker 3 (3:21) Yeah, we're many conversations in now. Yeah. We're in it. We're in the Ruach. Well, actually, the Ruach is in Speaker 2 (3:28) us. Yeah, both are true. Yes. Yeah. So the Ruach is the Hebrew word that we have many words to try to. Yeah, we do. That's part of our problem with understanding it. Yeah. The wind, our breath, our mind. It's all around us. It's within us. animates everything, this then becomes a really wonderful way to think about the nature of God. Yeah. Speaker 3 (3:54) God Speaker 2 (3:54) is Ruach. God is in Speaker 3 (3:56) some Speaker 2 (3:57) way Ruach. Yeah. We can't see God, Speaker 3 (4:00) but he's Speaker 2 (4:01) the animating force behind everything. In fact, it's the Ruach Elohim that hovers over the nothing chaoticness and brings life in order. Yeah. Speaker 3 (4:13) Life itself is all. the product of God's animating Ruach, Speaker 2 (4:17) then Speaker 3 (4:18) humans, if they're filled with the Ruach of God, then they too will have the opportunity to use their Ruach to bring order, which means making calls between good Speaker 2 (4:32) and bad. And that's what wisdom is Speaker 3 (4:34) in its essence. So God appointing humans as partners, representatives, and rulers on the land. To mirror his heavenly rule is key, like foundation plot setting, and humans foul it up because they lack wisdom or they reject God's wisdom. Just sad because God had given them life all through the Ruach. And so now you've got mediocre human rulers. How'd you put it in our image of God video? You had a great way of putting it that's in that video. Like, well, you got a bunch of mediocre rulers making a mess of things. Something like that. Speaker 2 (5:12) Very mid-rulers. And so the Speaker 3 (5:14) rise of an ideal human partner with God. who can truly represent God's wisdom and word and rule on the land. That's a need that's created by the plot conflict from the earliest pages of the Bible. God sets up humans to do this. They don't do it, and it goes terrible. So then that's just open-ended plot conflict. I guess we need a human who can be that image of God, bring God's rule and wisdom and word to the land. And that's what we've called the messianic. Speaker 2 (5:49) Yeah. Speaker 3 (5:49) Thrust of the storyline of the Bible. Right. Keeps pushing you forward, looking for the idea of human. Can we find at least one Speaker 2 (5:56) human who can do it so that all humanity can do it? Yes. Speaker 3 (6:00) So part of how the Hebrew Bible works is by putting generation after generation in front of you. And you are thinking, well, maybe this generation that'll work out. Speaker 2 (6:10) And then Speaker 3 (6:11) the ideal human partner will come. And then usually there's one or two moments of something going awesome. And then a whole bunch of moments of really going terrible. And then they die. And then the next generation comes. But you hold on to those bright moments. And those begin to collect in your mind. And what you'll find is that in the handful of character stories who get closest to being like the ideal image of God, not all the time, but at least some of the time. On their best days. On their best days. You will find that these are leader figures. who bring all of the roles of a king, bringing order and responsible leadership. They are characters that play a priestly role, mediating between God and people, and characters that play a prophetic role of representing God's words to people. And when all those are bound together in one character, the Ruach is right there in the thick. of the stories about these characters. And really, there's not that many. Speaker 2 (7:18) Not many characters Speaker 3 (7:19) achieve all of this. Two get the most page count in the Hebrew Bible. One of them is Moses, and then the other one is King David. And their stories are super hyperlinked and modeled and connected to each other. There's lots of other spirit-filled characters who play a prophet or priest or king role, like a Joseph. We've looked at his story here. Like a Gideon, for certain moments, the Spirit comes on him. There's many other characters we could look at. I Speaker 2 (7:46) want to look at Moses and David and Speaker 3 (7:48) how the Spirit is depicted as playing a role in their stories because, as we're going to see at the very end of this conversation, I hope the prophet Isaiah was a student of these stories about Moses and David. And the prophets who produced the Isaiah scroll are portraying a future anointed, ideal, messianic king. using all the language of the Moses and David stories to do it. And they particularly draw attention and draw language from stories where the Spirit played a role in Moses Speaker 2 (8:20) and David's story. Speaker 3 (8:21) Does that make sense? Speaker 2 (8:22) Yes. The grand story is, can humanity live as image bearers of God, ruling on God's behalf? To do that, of course, we're going to need the Ruach of God. Yeah. Speaker 3 (8:35) On level one, Ruach, just we need to breathe. Yeah, Speaker 2 (8:37) level one, just breathe. But then to do it well, to have God's wisdom, to do it in line with the character of God, you need God's Ruach. But what we see is a portrait of humanity failing. And so we're going to look at two portraits of humanity just getting so close. Moses and David. They're not perfect. Winner moments. Winner moments where all the things about ruling on God's behalf. leading and prophesying. And mediating between God and people. Being priestly. Yeah. We're all coming together. And you're saying what we're going to see is the Ruach of God, just very present in these stories. Yeah. Okay. That's Speaker 3 (9:17) it. Speaker 2 (9:17) And then the Isaiah scroll. Yeah. Speaker 3 (9:20) Brings it together. Bring it Speaker 2 (9:21) together. Yeah. And you're saying we're going to see a lot of Ruach. Yep. Speaker 3 (9:25) There you go. Great. That's great. You understood. Your Ruach? My Ruach. Yeah, which is... Our Ruhocks are connecting. Yeah, which is kind of wild, if you think about it. Our minds. Because we walked into this room and you didn't know what I was going to talk about. No. And now you do. Yeah. And it just happened through me blowing Ruhocks Speaker 2 (9:44) out Speaker 3 (9:44) of my vocal cords. Whoa. And you understood what I meant in my mind. Yeah. And now you have it in your mind. Speaker 2 (9:52) Okay. No, it's Speaker 3 (9:53) like, dude, reality is a miracle. Speaker 2 (9:57) Yeah. Consciousness is a miracle. Speaker 3 (9:59) Yes, it's incredible. Speaker 2 (10:01) Sorry, I'm having Speaker 3 (10:02) that moment right now. Good, sit in that moment. I'm finishing a strong cup of coffee. But those things go together. Clarity and coffee. God's gift to the human race. Let's think about Moses. Speaker 3 (10:42) Okay, so Moses, I'm just really truncated overview of Moses' story. Speaker 2 (10:49) People Speaker 3 (10:49) are enslaved in Egypt. Israelites are enslaved in Egypt. And there's an Israelite woman who gets pregnant. She's supposed to throw her son into the river. And she does, but in a little ark. Oh, yeah. Plot twist. In an ark. In an ark. And that baby... floats into Pharaoh's household who's ordering, you know, destruction of all of the Israelite boys. And that boy thrown in the river floats into his house and becomes Pharaoh's downfall. So confrontation, 10 plagues, all that kind of stuff. But God met with Moses on Mount Sinai right before that happened. And the burning bush is a key moment. And what God tells Moses is go confront Pharaoh. Liberate my people. I'll empower you to do it. But when you leave, come with all the people and meet me on this mountain. And I'm going to enter into a covenant partnership with them. So all of that happens. Fast forward. Fast forward. And Passover, journeying through the wilderness, and the people arrive, just like God asked, at the foot of Mount Sinai. And it's been a tough road trip. It's a lot of people to feed, and they're hungry and thirsty. And God's super generous and patient, gives them the sky bread and water from these oases. But when Moses finally makes it to the mountain, there's this really important story in Exodus 18, where he meets up with his father-in-law, because he had married the daughter of a Midianite priest whose flock Moses was shepherding when he met God in the burning bush. Speaker 2 (12:27) a long time ago. Speaker 3 (12:28) And so his father-in-law meets him at the foot of Mount Sinai with all the people. And what his father-in-law, his name's Jethro, notices is that there's a line of people standing to talk to Moses all day long. Speaker 2 (12:43) Yeah, he's a popular guy. Speaker 3 (12:44) Totally. And so Moses' father-in-law saw this and he asks Exodus 18 verse 14, Moses, what are you doing? Why are you the only person sitting here? sitting as a judge for the people. So basically people would bring their disputes or disagreements to Moses. Yeah. And they thought he was just the