Moses Had to Die First

“Moses my servant is dead. Now therefore arise, go over this Jordan, you and all this people, into the land that I am giving to them, to the people of Israel. 3 Every place that the sole of your foot will tread upon I have given to you, just as I promised to Moses. (Joshua 1:2-3 2)

It just makes perfect sense that Moses had to die before God's people could enter the promised land. Moses was the vessel through whom God gave His Law. The purpose of that Law was neither to bring saving righteousness nor to bring the blessings of that righteousness.

Rather, it was to do quite the opposite. It was to show man the absolute holiness of the Triune God. It was always God's intention that, in seeing the Law, man would be forced to see his own nature. Confronted with his nature, and his own inability to fulfill the law and thus be acceptable to God, man will then turn to God's mercy offered by grace for another solution.

Further God knew and told Moses, and through Moses, the people of God that they would never live up to his wall. The apostle John, in the introduction to his Gospel, told us that this was true. In verse 16 and 17 of chapter 1, he said that

"... of his fullness we have all received and grace for grace. For the Law was given through Moses, but grace and truth came through Jesus Christ."

There is a contrast there. Moses gave the Law, but grace and truth, the only means by which anyone can actually GET INTO God's presence and emerge, comes by another means.

That means, John says specifically, and the Old Testament tells us in type, was the person and actions of Jesus Christ, God's Only Begotten Son. What the Law could not do, what the Law, in fact, was not ever designed to do, and what men had no desire to do because of their fallen nature, Christ came and did for them. He walked perfectly and acceptably before His Father, and then He laid down His life a sacrifice for sins.

Both His active and passive obedience qualified Him as the perfect Lamb of God which then served to satisfy God's wrath against the sins of a depraved people. It is that gift that we celebrated Christmas. That just would not have been possible if Moses had not died. No one would have been able to enter the promised land if Moses had not died (and I speak metaphorically here) because the Law could not get anyone there. At least not the law with Joshua at the helm. Only the Law as fulfilled by the Lord Jesus Christ.