Job 19:13-27, Job and the Savior (2)

We are continuing to ask, what did Job know about his need of a Savior and how did he know this?  We mentioned two passages at the end of the previous post that tell us Job knew he was seriously separated from God.  There was a problem, an enmity, between him and God.

·       13:23-24: He understands the issue of “sin and guilt.”  (Rom. 6:23; Heb. 9:14)

·       14:7-14: He sees hope for a tree, but no hope for himself.  He knows he will die, and death will end his opportunity to make things right with God.  (Heb. 9:27-28) In v13 Job knows that God rightfully has wrath in this situation of “enmity.”  Job longs for the day when God’s wrath will be satisfied (which is the definition of “propitiation” or “sacrifice of atonement”).  (Rom. 3:21-26; 1 John 2:2)

·       16:21: Not only does Job need a Mediator, someone to come between; he needs an Intercessor, one to righteously plead his case before God. (Heb. 7:25)

·       19:13-27: In vs. 13-22 Job expresses his hopelessness, in that none of the people of earth that he should be able to call “loved ones” love him after all.  No one else can or will do what is needed to get him right with God.  (Ps. 49:7-9) Yet, he is going to die!  He wishes his words could be written in some way that would last longer that he is going to last (v23-24).  If they can, then in some future days when all things are fulfilled, there will be a solution for his enmity with God (in the “last” a Redeemer will stand; up until this time godly men have come and gone and there is still no Savior). After he has died Job will see God; the question is, will God remember His faith, his trust in God?  Will God know that Job knew that he needed a Savior. (2 Tim. 1:12)

Surely you have noted the New Testament scriptures we placed throughout our journey through Job’s sufferings.  These passages show that in Jesus Christ all that Job longed for is found.  Job did not know Jesus in that Jesus had not yet entered this world to be the provision for salvation, the satisfaction for God’s wrath, the Savior and Mediator and Intercessor and Redeemer.  But Job understood his need. 

Much of what Job knew came from General Revelation.  Any person can know there is a Creator, can know he is accountable to that Creator, and can know that he is estranged from the Creator (i.e. at enmity.)  Then, from the very beginning, Job could know that the Creator promised a Savior to deal with the sin that caused the enmity.  The fact that Job was known to engage in blood sacrifices for sin tell us he knew the lesson of Cain and Abel, that the Savior would have righteous blood to shed for the sinners.  Every person in the world could know this because this is the essence of every religion: how to make it possible for people to be reconciled to their Creator.  They could know that, except that they continue to suppress the truth in unrighteousness and rebel against the Creator.  It is not that hard, as Job has shown us!  Put your trust in God’s Savior!