Job 16:11-22, A Letter to Edna (6)

Read Job 16:19-21

Here is comfort while we struggle.  It is the assurance that in Heaven there is a witness (One to speak on my behalf), one to plead for me.  To Job this was comforting even though he spoke before Christ.  For us on this side of the cross and resurrection this is real help!  Christ is our witness, our Advocate.

{       1 Timothy 2:5: He is the Mediator between God and man.

{       1 John 2:1,2: He is the Advocate (Defense Lawyer) for believers.

Think about it!  As this One Christ intercedes for us, He represents us.  And He does it perfectly.  He truly knows us better than we know ourselves, and thus asks what is infinitely best and relays to the Father what is infinitely correct.  Praise God for this One, for Christ Jesus, our Advocate.

Read Job 16:22

This comfort is followed immediately by a sobering fact: "I shall go the way of no return."  Our dealing with death now is only preparation for dealing with our own death.  And what comfort it will be then to know that we have this Advocate.  How hopeless to face God when we die and not have One Who has prepared for that meeting.  Yet this is Christ.  He himself has conquered death -- he experienced it, descended into hell, and then powerfully defeated death by his resurrection.  As Paul says (1 Cor 15:19-20) "If in this life only we have hope we are to be pitied.  But no, Christ is risen and is the first to precede in resurrection all other believers who died."

Read Job 17:14-16

These may be difficult words but they are important.  Job seems to say that if death is the end -- if death is all there is -- then where is my hope.  2 things strike me about this.

  1.  First, there are many people today who believe this.  They deny an afterlife.  Thus, they try to make death a beautiful thing (as Job says, "make corruption my father and the worm my mother and my sister).  But this is silliness.  Death is not something beautiful.  Death is tragic -- all death.  It is the result of a good creation gone to sin.  It is horrible, not what God intended in the beginning.  Resurrection is great, but death is horrible.

  2.  But that leads to a second thought about your daughter.  Her death is horrible but there is One Who in fact went down to the gates of Sheol (verse 16) and that is Christ.  The death of a saint/believer/Christian is filled with hope because it is the necessary prelude to resurrection.  She is at rest, not in the dust, but in the presence of Christ (2 Cor. 5:6).