specific reference to the book which Moses had written (Josh. 23: 6), and it is

impossible to read the record of Joshua's division of the land of Canaan without being

convinced that Scripture intends the reader to believe that Moses was an actual, historic,

figure. Equally emphatic are the books of Judges, Samuel and Kings. We read that

King Hoshea broke in pieces "the brazen serpent that Moses had made"

(II Kings 18: 4), a testimony to the belief in the historic reality of the man Moses. The

revival under Ezra and Nehemiah, the references in the Psalms, the testimony of such

prophets as Isaiah, Jeremiah, Daniel, Micah and Malachi, complete the chain that

commits the whole of the Old Testament to the teaching that Moses actually lived and did

the things recorded of him.

The new Testament is no less emphatic on the subject. The integrity of the

four Gospels are intimately connected with the real, historic, personality of Moses. "Had

ye believed Moses, ye would have believed Me, for he wrote of Me. But if ye believed

not his writings, how shall ye believe My words?" (John 5: 46, 47). This one statement

of the Saviour refutes the validity of the claim to a right to believe a part of the

Scriptures, while at the same time rejecting the Scriptural statements showing that Moses

was an actual person, living and acting as the records say he lived and acted. We can add

to these testimonies the further references to Moses by the risen Christ in Luke 24: 27,

and the references by the Apostle Paul in his epistles, which latter but add confirmation to

the explicit testimony of our Lord.

The very gospel of salvation is inextricably bound up with the historic reality of

Moses, for John 3: 16 arises out of John 3: 14, which reads: "As Moses lifted up the

serpent in the wilderness, even so must the Son of Man be lifted up." Not only does

John 3: 16 hang upon the historic reality of Moses, but all the great types of redemption

and atonement, which constitute the saving and sanctifying elements of the gospel,

originate in the ceremonial law given by Moses to Israel.

Again, not only did Christ keep the Passover, but He himself fulfilled its glorious,

typical, teaching, so that it could be written: "Christ our Passover is sacrificed for us." In

the original the very "exodus" from Egypt provides a name for that "decease" which He

accomplished at Jerusalem (Luke 9: 31), and the offerings enumerated in Leviticus are

wonderful foreshadowings of that One Sacrifice for sins for ever, which becomes the

propitiation by which our guilt is removed, our reconciliation is accomplished, access is

enjoyed, and peace entered (Lev. 1:-5:).

It is therefore practically impossible to say that one admits the high moral code of the

Bible, yet rejects the historic statements concerning the men and women that live and act

on that code. The moral code that demands inflexible, unswerving, truth, can hardly be

furthered by fabrications of fact so colossal as they must be if Moses be not a real

historical character. Similarly, for such a one, it would be impossible to believe "the

simple gospel", for John 3: 16 stands or falls with the veracity of the Book of Numbers.

The same is true of another attitude adopted by some who explain away the prophetic

element; yet if Christ could say of Moses, "He wrote of Me", or "All things must be