To better understand the Teachings of Jesus we cannot forget that Jesus was born into the Jewish religion. The Jews believed in Moses, the prophet who appeared one thousand five hundred years before Jesus. The Jews were waiting for the Promised One or the Messiah because Moses had promised in Deuteronomy 18:15: "The Lord thy God will raise up unto thee a Prophet from the midst of thee, of thy brethren, like unto me; unto him ye shall hearken"
With these words Moses promised that God would send another Prophet, another Moses. He prophesied that this New Messenger would be a Jew and He asked all Jews to follow this Promised One. This new Messenger was called the Messiah. In Deuteronomy 18: 18 God's promise to Moses about the Messiah was: "I will put my words in his mouth."
Therefore, all Jews were expecting the coming of the Messiah, praying and asking God, day and night, that the Promised One would appear. Jesus testified to being the One Moses spoke of, thus claiming the title of 'the Messiah'. The beginning of John's Gospel records the testimony of the Apostles when they spoke of Jesus to the Jews: "We have found him of whom Moses in the law did write"(John 1:45) and "We have found the Messiah which is being interpreted, the Christ (John 1:41) [note: The Greek translation of Messiah is 'Christos.' John's gospel was written around 100 A.D. a time when the title Messiah was already replaced by the word ‘Christos’]
But most of the Jews rejected Jesus. There was no end to their abuse and persecution of Him. They cursed Him, placed a crown of thorns upon His head, led Him through the streets and finally crucified Him. Why did they do this? They did all this because they considered Jesus to be a false prophet. [note: The Old Testament specifies the death penalty for a false prophet and his followers. In Deuteronomy 18:20, God tells Moses that the false prophets should die.]
Jesus confirmed that He was the One promised by Moses when He accused the Jews: "But I know ... that ye have not the love of God in you ... there is one that accuseth you, even Moses in whom ye trust. For had ye believed Moses, ye would have believed me: for he wrote of me." (John 5:46)
But the Jews were busy with their rituals and were blindly following the Rabbis, the Jewish priests. Had they thought at all of the greatness of Moses they would have recognized the same greatness in Jesus. This same mistake made by the Jews has been repeated by the Christians with the coming of Baha'u’llah. (Marc Vloeberghs, Christianity Renewed, volume 1)
