---
title: John 5:46
url: https://jw-apologetics.app/verses/john-5-46/
markdown: https://jw-apologetics.app/verses/john-5-46.md
type: verse
perspective: Protestant (historic Nicene) response to Jehovah's Witness teaching
reference: John 5:46
testament: NT
section: Gospels
index: https://jw-apologetics.app/llms.txt
---

# John 5:46

## Text (Berean Standard Bible)

> If you had believed Moses, you would believe Me, because he wrote about Me.

## NWT Wording of the Key Phrase

- NWT (1984 edition): "In fact, if you believed Moses you would believe me, for that one wrote about me."
- NWT (2013 revision): "In fact, if you believed Moses, you would believe me, for he wrote about me."

## JW Usage

JWs read John 5:46 as Jesus pointing to the broad messianic witness of the Mosaic writings — Genesis 3:15, the Passover lamb of Exodus 12, the bronze serpent of Numbers 21, and so on. The verse is taken to confirm that Moses anticipated the Messiah, but is not typically pressed back to a single passage where Moses "wrote about" Jesus. The Watchtower's exegetical instinct is to spread the messianic weight across Mosaic types and shadows rather than to pin it to Deuteronomy 18:15-19.

## Protestant Usage

John 5:46 is Jesus' own claim that Moses wrote about him — and the most natural single referent is Deuteronomy 18:15-19, where Moses himself predicts a singular prophet "like me" whom Israel must hear on pain of divine reckoning. Pair this verse with John 1:21 (the delegation asking John the Baptist if he is "the Prophet"), John 6:14 and 7:40 (the crowds applying that title to Jesus), and Peter's sermon in Acts 3:22-26, where Deuteronomy 18 is explicitly cited as fulfilled in Jesus. The chain is unanimous across the New Testament: Moses predicted, the crowds recognised, the apostles confirmed, and Jesus himself says Moses "wrote about me." On the doorstep, this verse closes the loop on the Deuteronomy 18 reading — Jesus did not treat Moses' prophet-like-me prediction as a future evaluative test; he treated it as a prediction of himself.

## Arguments Using This Verse

- [Deuteronomy 18 — A Prophet Like Moses, Singular and Eschatological](https://jw-apologetics.app/arguments/deuteronomy-18-prophet-like-moses.md) — Acts 3:22 — Moses said, the Lord God will raise up for you a prophet [Eschatology]