Moses said, ‘The Lord your God will raise up for you from your own people a prophet like me. You must listen to whatever he tells you.
Christ means “the anointed one.” This is no honorary title for Jesus, but shows the offices the Lord fulfills. In the Hebrew Scriptures people were anointed to the offices of Prophet, Priest and King. (I Kings 19:16, Exodus 29:7, II Samuel 2:4) Jesus is the Messiah that fulfills each of these offices; His anointing was to the full ministry of our redemption through the exercise of these offices. In looking at the events surrounding the cross we see most clearly Jesus’ work of Prophet, Priest and King although He did (and continues) the work of each throughout His life.
On the night He was betrayed our Lord gave us a new commandment and established His new Covenant with us. Jesus as prophet speaks God’s Word perfectly: “Very truly, I tell you, the Son can do nothing on his own, but only what he sees the Father doing.” (John 5:19) Moreover, Jesus is Himself the Word of God. (John 1:1) Jesus showed in Himself who God is.
Jesus is shown to be like Moses, giving God’s New Covenant and interpreting God’s commandments. (Matthew arguably is arranged to be parallel to the Torah and Jesus continually says, “You have heard…but I say unto you.”) But Christ not only makes the New Covenant with us, He seals it in His own precious blood. Where the Old Covenant was entered into through circumcision and commemorated in Passover, the New is marked with Baptism and remembered in the Eucharist.