Redeemer


Job 19:23-27

23“Oh that my words were written! Oh that they were inscribed in a book!
24Oh that with an iron pen and lead they were engraved in the rock forever!
25For I know that my Redeemer lives, and at the last he will stand upon the earth.
26And after my skin has been thus destroyed,
yet in my flesh I shall see God,
27whom I shall see for myself, and my eyes shall behold, and not another. My heart faints within me!

The word for the week is Redeemer. It’s an auspicious place to start because Christianity is unique among the world’s religions in that we alone have a Redeemer in the Person of Jesus. Every other religion sets up standards which must be attained to pass into a better place after this life. It’s hard work and it appears that one is constantly unsure about the future because there’s no way to know if you’ve done enough. As believers we don’t face that tragedy. Instead we live in constant hope.

Aside from the innocent suffering and death of Jesus Christ’s on a cross, the story of Job is easily the most tragic of tales. Through no fault of his own, Job is stripped of his great wealth, his 10 children, and finally his own health. And that all happens in the first 2 chapters of the book! The other 40 chapters tell us how Job feels about his plight and recounts the generally bad advice of his 4 friends. Finally, in the very end of the book, God speaks and brings the story to a close. I won’t say that God brings resolution for He never puts Himself in the place of giving Job a reason for the suffering other than He is God and Job is not. Instead He restores to Job his fortune, his family, and his respect.

In the middle of Job’s complaint about his unfair treatment we read these five verses that stand as a testimony to Job’s unshakable faith. When taken in the context of his indescribable suffering these words scream across the millennia of what it means to have faith in Almighty God. “For I know my Redeemer lives” leaves the reader shaken, for just reading Job’s story can make the foundations of our faith shake, just a little. It is believed by many that Job spoke these words perhaps even before the flood. That makes him a contemporary of Noah! And yet he prophetically speaks of an eternal Messiah who acts as his Redeemer. Job knows that even should he die, he will get to see the Redeemer, face to face. The very thought of such an event causes Job’s heart to faint within his breast. These are remarkable words. The Hebrew word here is גָּאַל (gaal) which means “kinsman redeemer” which we deal with in depth next time. But for today see the ties of family in the usage of this word. God will send His own Son – our Brother – to redeem us from the slavery to sin in which we find ourselves.

Very few of us can claim to have suffered to the same extent as Job. But we can all harken back to times when we did indeed suffer. Life is never easy. There may be constant turmoil and sorrow can be around the corner; perhaps you are involved in an accident, the lose your job, experience the dissolution of an important relationship, or a bad diagnosis from the doctor. But in the midst of every pain, can we say along with Job, “I know my Redeemer lives”?

As mentioned earlier, we live in constant hope. Hope is not a wish or a desire. Hope, but biblical definition, means confident expectation. We don’t wish God would rescue us. We know that He has done so through Jesus Christ. We are confident that He will keep every promise and so we live without fear about tomorrow no matter what happens because our Redeemer lives.

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