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Job’s Hope
Far too often we may think that if we live a good enough life, if we're righteous, then God will reward us.
Job 29:25-27
There have to have been few people who have suffered in life as much as the Bible describes Job. Job had it all. He was massively wealthy. He had all sorts of livestock. He had an army of servants, and God had even blessed him with a massive family. Yet in one day, Job lost it all. Raiders had come, murdered his servants and stole away his livestock. And a great wind overtook his children’s house, killing them all. Satan had even caused painful sores to come all over Job’s body, all with the intent purpose of making him curse God.
Now, the majority of the Book of Job is the conversation between him and his friends, who are trying to get him to confess to some great sin. You see, in their mind, they expect righteous people to be rewarded by God and wicked people to suffer. And so if Job was suffering so much, it must have been that he had done something truly awful and needed to repent of it. The problem was, Job didn’t fit the bill. Job acknowledged he was a sinner, as other men are, but he had never done so great a sin as to cause all of this. He had no great sin to confess. So what was going on?
A lot of times the Book of Job is used as a discussion platform for the issue of theodicy. How does a righteous God deal with evil in the world? And while it certainly does touch on that subject, ultimately the book concludes that we can’t really know. Job never knew about the conversation between God and Satan in chapter one. And us limited creatures cannot fully understand our limitless creator. But another important theme in the book is dealing with how we are righteous before God. And this is where one of my all time favorite Bible passages comes in. When Job speaks in chapter 19, verses 25 through 27.
For I know that my Redeemer lives,
And He shall stand at last on the earth;
And after my skin is destroyed, this I know,
That in my flesh I shall see God,
Whom I shall see for myself,
And my eyes shall behold, and not another.
How my heart faints within me! (Job 29:25-27)
This passage is important for us today. Far too often we may think that if we live a good enough life, if we’re righteous, then God will reward us. And this may be the theology of Job’s friends, but that’s not what Job is looking at here. Instead, he points to his Redeemer, the one who frees him from the bonds of sin, the one who makes him righteous. And that Redeemer for Job is the same one for us, Jesus Christ, the Son of God. Jesus came into this world to free us from sin. He did this by leading a perfect life, far more righteous than Job could ever hope of achieving. What’s more, he went to the cross to die for us. There he placed all our sin upon himself. He even faced the abandonment of God, suffering far more than Job ever did. And yet it was for Job’s sake that Jesus died. And it’s for your sake, too, that Jesus died.
Because of what Christ has done on the cross we are justified from our sin. Jesus not only died for us. But on Easter Sunday he rose again from the dead. Showing us that those who have faith in him will also rise from the dead and follow after their Savior. This is the hope that Job was looking for. This is what caused his heart to faint. The great reveal of his Redeemer. And that’s the hope that we can have, too. In the midst of the hardships we face in this life, we know that God is still with us because we don’t look in ourselves to be justified. But rather it is God who makes us righteous. We look for it in Christ so that on the last day, when we are raised up from the dead, we can have the joy of Job, knowing that our Redeemer lives.
