Bulletin Articles
“My Redeemer”
Categories: Iron sharpens iron“Oh that my words were written!
Oh that they were inscribed in a book!
Oh that with an iron pen and lead
they were engraved in the rock forever!
For I know that my Redeemer lives,
and at the last he will stand upon the earth.
And after my skin has been thus destroyed,
yet in my flesh I shall see God…” (Job 19.23-26)
When Job spoke these words, he was in the middle of complaining—understandably—that his friends and family had forgotten him in his distress, and that “even young children despise me; when I rise they talk against me” (v18). However, he maintained that there was one who remembered him and would not allow him to be cast away and lost to the sands of time. It’s a moving, uplifting claim, providing us a great example of how to to react during times when the whole world seems to hate us. But there’s more to this passage than just that.
If all we had were these few verses, we’d still be able to mine quite a bit more out of it, but let’s not ignore the context of the speech Job was making! After losing everything—his children, wealth, reputation, and health—he was visited by the handful of friends who hadn’t forsaken him. After seven days of wisely keeping their mouths shut, they began to accuse Job of bringing all this disaster on himself, through some unknown sin. Their central thesis, that the righteous prosper and the wicked come to ruin, includes an assumption shared by Job: that God directly initiates all that occurs on earth. In an abstract sense, this is of course true. God designed and created the universe in every detail. Even if he’s not inserting his hand in real time to subvert the physical laws he created and bring about a different result than could be called “natural,” we can still trace back the long line of cause and effect to his design and manufacture of the system we inhabit. When we combine the fact of God’s creation with his comprehensive knowledge—his omniscience—we end up with the understanding that, even when he hasn’t miraculously intervened, God’s will, through his providence, is still carried out.
One way or another, Job believes that God himself is responsible for his humiliation, loss, and misery:
He breaks me down on every side, and I am gone,
and my hope has he pulled up like a tree.
He has kindled his wrath against me
and counts me as his adversary. (Job 19.10-11)
Of course, we know from having read the first two chapters of the book that in fact Satan is the one directly responsible for hurting Job, and this is a valuable lesson for us, when we face hardships: when we’re tempted to blame God for something that goes wrong in our lives through no fault of our own, we should, after carefully weighing our own actions, consider the possibility that the trial is Satan’s attempt to derail our relationship with God! But even so, in Job’s case, you may remember that not only did God grant permission for Satan to do all of this, but he’s the one who put that bug in Satan’s ear in the first place, asking him out of the blue, “‘Have you considered my servant Job, that there is none like him on the earth, a blameless and upright man, who fears God and turns away from evil?’” (1.8)
Job is a little off in his assumption about how it transpired, but he is basically correct in his conclusion that God is deeply involved in the disaster that has befallen him. That makes it all the more surprising that he maintains not just a hope, but an expectation, a firm faith of eventual vindication, and that he will enter God’s presence.
“I know that my Redeemer lives, and at the last he will stand upon the earth. And after my skin has been thus destroyed, yet in my flesh I shall see God…” (Job 19.25-26)
Job didn’t know how this would take place; God hadn’t directly revealed it to him, or to anyone else at that time—even the angels were left in the dark, according to 1 Peter 1.12. But through the unconscious guidance of the Holy Spirit his words were more true than he could know. While he hadn’t committed some grievous sin to directly precipitate this particular bout of suffering, Job was an imperfect man like all of us, and he, too, needed a Redeemer to bridge the gulf between him in his brokenness, and God in his perfect holiness. Not only that, but the Redeemer, God’s own Son, would indeed stand upon the earth at the end of one age and the beginning of the next—and “at the last” he will do so, again. Further, Job’s kernel of faith in life after death is confirmed for us, by the words of the Holy Spirit and the firstfruits of the resurrection, Christ himself.
Job envisioned his eventual salvation as a time when the Lord who had done all this to him (12.9) would grant him some kind of audience, such as the courtroom scenario he imagined in chapter 9. There he lamented, “I must appeal for mercy to my accuser” (v15b), asked, “who can summon him?” (v19b), and concluded that there was no way for Job and God to “come to trial together” (v32b). The trouble, he said, is that “There is no arbiter between us” (v33a). At the time, he was correct; but the Redeemer he so strongly believed would one day rescue him and prove his righteousness…he is just the arbiter Job needed. We need him, too. He stands between us and his Father, having paid the penalty for our transgressions and brought the accusations against us to nothing, if only we’re willing to follow his instructions and become his disciples. Do you know that your Redeemer lives?
Jeremy Nettles
