John 6:45: Do not think that I shall accuse you to the Father; there is one who accuses you—Moses, in whom you trust.
As glorious and wonderful as God’s Word is, there can be moments when what you read causes you to step back and say to yourself, ‘I don’t understand’. That is perfectly normal. God’s Word is from the Kingdom of God, and Jesus told us this Kingdom to which He is the King is not of this world. Since this is true, needing some help to understand this Kingdom’s language is a reasonable request. If you’re in a foreign country that speaks a different language, you need an interpreter. So it goes with the Bible – we need the Interpreter – the Holy Spirit – to help us understand the language of the Kingdom of God.
Today’s verse may be one of those head scratchers for some of us. Jesus is speaking to the Jews who are very upset with Him because He healed a lame man on the Sabbath (this was against the man-made rules of the Sabbath). As He is speaking to the Jews, Jesus is revealing some of the interactions that He – God the Son – is having with God the Father. He is telling the Jews that He is not there to accuse them of wrongdoing. If He had stopped there, they probably would have received that happily.
But that is not Jesus’ concern – to make them, or us, temporarily happy. His greater concern is that they, and us, know the truth. He then hits them hard with the truth that they are being accused – by there beloved Moses! For the Jews, Moses is the greatest man in their history. It was Moses who led them through the wilderness and parted the Red Sea in their deliverance from the threatening Egyptian army. For Jesus to say Moses was accusing the Jews was about as big a slap in the face He could have done.
Here’s where we need the Interpreter. Jesus’ point was the 10 Commandments – or the Law – was what was accusing them – not Moses. Yes, Moses brought down the 10 Commandments from Mt. Sinai, but He received them from God. Notably it was God Who led them through the wilderness and parted the Red Sea – not Moses. The Jews identified these acts of God as only being made possible because of Moses. So why would Jesus make it sound like it was Moses accusing them instead of saying it was the Law? Even Jesus is not above saying things in a way to maximize the impact of His message.
The 10 Commandments were given by a perfect and holy God Who demands perfection from His children to commune with Him, which is His desire. These Commandments are how God defines that perfection. There’s a problem, though, with this demand. Our sinful nature makes it impossible for us to adhere to this perfection 100% of the time. That leaves us falling short of pleasing God. Why would God set a standard of conduct that is impossible to meet? Does He want us to fail and condemn us for our failure? Absolutely not – the purpose of the Law was to make people aware of their inability to be perfect on their own. For us to be perfect and be put back into our original design of communing moment by moment with God with no barriers, we are going to need help. If we can’t do this on our own, then collectively we can’t do on our own – that just makes a bigger group of people who need help!
From Revelation 12:10, we learn that the real accuser in our lives is Satan. He relentlessly points out to each of us that we’re not perfect, so we might as well give up our efforts to live righteously and walk down his path to destruction of partying and immoral living. In other words, Satan uses the Law as the basis to accuse us. With accusations comes condemnation. The purpose of the Law was to make us aware of our need for a Savior. Jesus identifies Himself as exactly Who we need in John 3:17, “For God did not send His Son into the world to condemn the world, but that the world through Him might be saved.” By faith in Jesus, we are forever spiritually covered by His holy and righteous blood He shed on the Cross. God the Father then looks upon us through the filter of God the Son’s blood, so He looks upon us as holy and righteous. How do we know this? – Because God the Holy Spirit – our Interpreter – applies this glorious truth. With this truth, we are permanently forgiven of our sins and free to love God and others!