This text is a prophecy and prediction of our Saviour Christ’s glorious resurrection. A sacred truth, requiring not only the assent, but the devotion and adoration of our faith. Here Job foresees and foretells the resurrection of Christ. He tells us that Christ, who by His death redeemed him, hath again obtained an endless life. That after His fall by death, He is recovered and got up again; stands, and shall stand, at last upon the earth. And Job prophesies of his own resurrection, that, though he were now in a dying condition, death had already seized upon him; yet he knew there was hope in his death, that he should be raised from the grave of corruption to an ever-living and blessed state and condition.
I. Job’s belief concerning Christ. Here is--
1. The saving object of his faith; that is, Christ, his Redeemer; his Redeemer dead and alive again; and to appear again at the last day to judge the quick and the dead. Here is a personal interest he claims in Christ. “My Redeemer.”
2. Job’s assurance. “I know.” It fully expresses the nature of faith; it is strongly persuaded of what it believes; it puts it beyond “ifs,” and “ands,” and hopeful supposals. Faith is an evidence, not a conjecture; not a supposition, but a subsistence. This knowledge of Job will appear the greater and more admirable, as his belief was beset with three great impediments.
(1) There is the resurrection of the dead. That is a matter beyond all reach of reason.
(2) Things at a distance are not discernible.
(3) Distance hinders sight; but darkness and indisposition of the air, much more. Yet Job, in the thickest mists of contrariety and contradiction, sees clearly and believes assuredly.
3. Job’s close and personal application. The word “mine” makes Christ his own.
II. Job’s belief concerning his own resurrection. Although death had already seized upon him, yet he was assured he should rise again, and be made partaker of a joyful resurrection.
1. The several truths included in this faith of Job concerning his own resurrection. He apprehends the truth of the resurrection. It is easier to conceive of Christ’s resurrection than of ours. He lays the ground and foundation of his faith. Why is he sure he shall rise again? Because he is sure that Christ is risen. We may strongly argue, from Christ’s resurrection to the possibility of ours. Job expects a true, real, substantial, bodily resurrection. Nay, here is not only a reality, but an identity; he shall have a body, and the very same body.
2. The motions and evidences of piety his faith expresses. Here appears the great strength of his faith; the alacrity and cheerfulness of his faith, against present discouragements. It is a point of his piety, that he longs for the seeing of his Saviour, the beholding of God.
3. Notice the benefit Job makes to himself of this meditation. It supports his spirits under present afflictions. It settles and composes him. It is his defence and apology against the accusations of the friends. (Bishop Brownrig.)
“I know that my Redeemer liveth”
When was Job’s greatest conquest won? At what part in the malign struggle does he march forth in the greatness of his strength? The crown of the crisis is passed and the real victory won when there bursts forth, with all-enlightening ray from the dark-rolling clouds of Job’s sorrows, the sublimely strong convictions, chronicled in the familiar, immortal, and exhaustless words of the text. That is “the hour and power” of Job. There in his Gethsemane he triumphs.
I. Job’s supporting convictions.
1. At the outset we must take care lest we misjudge our facts, and fail to get at the precise power of Job’s convictions, through crediting him with more light than he beheld, and reading into his great sayings the ideas of a new and largely different world. Men have read into these verses such doctrines as eternal redemption; the humanity of the Redeemer; the resurrection of the flesh; and the so-called Second Advent. It is not perhaps surprising that a saying of such superlative wealth in itself, so impressive in its setting, stirring in its influence on the hearts of the sons and daughters of suffering, should have been enlarged by the gifts of loving hearts, and invested with the ideas of eager and admiring readers. It is, in fact, a bold challenge made by a suffering mart to the ages, an appeal from the accusations of clever but mistaken and unsympathetic friends, to the tribunal of the God of eternity. You cannot miss the ring of conviction in the man’s speech. He says what he knows. He believes, and therefore speaks. It is not desire or caprice, wish or will, faith or hope, but unwavering, absolute knowledge, whose voice arrests our listening ear, and directs our expectant thought. Three distinct assertions follow the quickening preface.
I. He declares that God is the vindicator of right-seeking and right-doing men. The language is indicative of a state of thought and of social life wholly alien to our own, in which the administration of justice proceeds on lines with which we are no longer familiar. The sacred duty of kinsmen to avenge the damage done to their kin, is the one social form in which faith in the power that makes for righteousness finds expression, and kinship is the principal instrument for the execution of the decrees of justice, embracing and discharging the functions of police and witnesses, judge and jury, gaoler and executioner. God is Job’s Goel. He will act for him. Redemption from loss, and pain, and wrong, and calumny is in Him! Of the fact he is sure; of the how, and when, and where he says nothing, but an invincible faith that, before “the last” moment in his history comes, God will be his Redeemer from all the ills of which he is then the unfortunate victim, animates and sustains his suffering spirit. Nor is that all. Job is sure that he himself, in his own conscious person, will be the rejoicing witness of that Divine vindication. He sees beforehand the glorious reassertion of his integrity. He does not expect that clearing here. He is beyond that hope. It is personal and conscious witnessing of his vindicated character that neutralises the poison of the bitter cup he is drinking, and leaves him in full-toned spiritual health. But even that is not the most precious treasure in this chaplet of pearls. The chief, conquering, and most meritorious quality in Job’s mood of mind, is his clear and steadfast recognition of the real but dimly revealed law that the suspension of the accepted and outward manifestations of the Divine care and regard is not the suspension of the Divine sympathy, nor the withdrawal of the Divine love and help. Our difficulty, and Job’s, is to believe in the living God, in His unbroken love. The suspension of the ordinary signs of the Divine favour is no proof whatever of changed purpose, or exhausted love to God! Is not that the trial of our faith? Because happiness is not our portion, and power not to our hand, do we not conclude that God does not “delight” in us? We have no misgivings as to His existence, but if He is, why does He hide Himself? Resist the diabolical sophistry which identifies a cloudless sky with an existing sun, affirms the unseen to be the non-existent, and the unhappy to be the unholy. God is love. That is His nature, the essence of His being; not an accident, an occasional emotion, or a passing mood; and therefore He is, as Job saw and felt, the Redeemer and Vindicator of all souls that sincerely seek Him, and diligently serve Him; the guarantee that defeated, and humiliated, and oppressed man will be set free, and exalted to behold the triumph of eternal righteousness; and the witness that man is at present, and here in this world, scarred and defaced with evil though it be, the object of God’s pitiful sympathy, redeeming care, and constant protection.
II. The fruitful origin of these strength-giving convictions in the mind of Job. For it is often more important to know why a man says what he has to say, than it is to know what it is that he does say. It goes without saying that Job’s most far-reaching and comprehensive declaration falls unspeakably short of that abolition of death, and bringing of life and immortality to light, accomplished by the Gospel of Christ; but what it lacks in fulness and breadth, it gains in the burning intensity and glow out of which it springs, and the sublime motives which urge and impel him, not only to speak, but also to covet a monumental and immortal pulpit for his words. His sayings form a window through which we look into his soul; a lit lamp by whose clear ray we see the workings of his mind, and enter into partnership, not only with his ideas, but with himself, as those ideas are born in his soul, and take their place in his life. The impulse, the goad to Job’s heavenward ascent is suffering itself; the very sharpness of his tribulation causes the rebound, pushes his thought far afield to the things unseen and eternal, carries him over the dark river, and supplies the background for his vision of final triumph. But though the impulse to speak comes from the very sufferings which his friends cite as witnesses to his hypocrisy and insincerity, the power of wing, the motive force is obviously inward, and of the mind and spirit.
1. First in the genealogy of Job’s convictions comes his passion to set the great controlling and cleansed faith of his life in the spotless excellence and living sympathy of God with men, directly over against all the seeming contradictions, chaotic perplexities, and bewildering entanglements of his experience; and so to prove that the view of the three friends would receive its doom as essentially a lie and a libel, later, if not sooner.
2. We may fairly credit Job with the desire to guide the friends to the perception of the one true principle in the criticism of life. They are the victims of sense. They judge by appearances. And still men fasten on the trivial and accidental, and neglect the weightier matters of principle and aim and spirit.
3. The deepest reason and strongest motive of all with Job must have been an insatiable yearning that the truth he had lived and felt and suffered might secure an immortal career of enlightenment and benediction. God is better to us than our best desires, and gives a larger blessing than our fullest prayers. (J. Clifford, M. A.)
The Christian’s assurance of a glorious resurrection
I.The illustrious person spoken of. The “Redeemer.” The words “redeem” and “Redeemer” frequently occur in the sacred Book. To redeem is to buy or purchase, and the person thus buying is justly styled the “Redeemer.” As our Redeemer He was--
1. Divinely appointed. “God sent forth His Son--made under the law, to redeem them that were under the law.” Here the benevolent act of sending the Redeemer is attributed to God.
2. He is our Redeemer by price; He “gave Himself for us.”
3. He is our Redeemer by power; that is, He delivered us from the captivity and misery of sin, and, consequently, from the wrath of God and the punishment of hell.
4. He is the living Redeemer. The knowledge of a living Redeemer afforded unspeakable consolation to the mind of Job. “My Redeemer liveth.” Yes, He was alive in Job’s day, and, in some way, was engaged in promoting his temporal and eternal welfare; consequently, such a consideration dispelled his fears, enabled him to wipe away his tears in transports of joy, and furnished him with a bright prospect of a happy immortality. Since then, the Redeemer has made a visit to our world, to effect the work of redemption. After which, He ascended to the celestial mansion whence He came. He lives, and because He lives, we shall live also.
II. An important event anticipated. “He shall stand at the latter day upon the earth,” etc. The latter day is sometimes called “the last day,” and “the great day.” It is the day to which all other days are pointing; the day in which all other days will end.
1. He will stand to redeem us from death; He will ransom us from the power of the grave. No matter where that grave may be. But Job anticipated not a resurrection only, but a glorious one, “In my flesh shall I see God.”
2. He shall stand at the latter day; stand to direct, or rather to invite His people to their everlasting habitation. “Where I am,” says He, “there ye may be also.” See the Redeemer standing at the last day, at the head of His people,--a number which no man can number--arrayed in spotless white, with imperishable crowns upon their heads. “In my flesh shall I see God.” “In my flesh.” Flesh no more liable to toil, sorrow, sickness, suffering, and death; the former things shall have passed away.
III. The Christian’s assurance. We do not profess to have any extraordinary revelation, or personal inspiration; yet we know that we have a living Redeemer, and that He will raise us up at the last day.
1. We know from the testimony of Sacred Writ. The prophets in the Old Testament, and the apostles in the New, have clearly and fearlessly furnished us with a treasury of sterling information on this subject. And, above all, our Lord Jesus, in whom are hid all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge, brought life and immortality to light.
2. But we have additional evidence of our resurrection in the resurrection of the Lord Jesus.
We shall conclude by remarking--
1. This knowledge of the Redeemer is interesting and capable of supporting the mind.
2. This knowledge is of the utmost worth, as it cheers the mind amidst the sorrows, tolls, sufferings, and trials of this unfriendly region, and whispers to the fainting spirit.
3. This knowledge calms the troubled breast in the hour of bereavement.
4. This knowledge supports the Christian, smooths his pillow, and brightens his prospect in the extremity of life.
5. This knowledge furnishes the good man with an assurance of mingling with the pious of his family and with Christian friends in the better land forever.
6. Is not this, therefore, the most interesting knowledge? (A. Worsnop.)
Faith triumphing over circumstance
I.The circumstances of Job when he delivered this prophecy. We have all heard of the patience of Job, and know well the series of trials which called it forth. We have sympathised with him in his adversity, and rejoiced with him in his first and latter state of prosperity. The injudicious conduct on the part of his friends greatly embittered the sufferings. It is such injudicious conduct as this which causes much mischief as well as misery in the world at large. If our misery is attributable to ourselves, we know whence is the disorder, and, in general, by the same knowledge, we know how to provide a remedy, if the case is not altogether hopeless. If God is afflicting us, when He speaks, He speaks to be understood. If He is pleased to put our faith and obedience to a severe but wholesome test, by a single blow, or a long series of trials, the matter is entirely between God and a man’s own soul.
II. Observe the faith of Job. “I know that my Redeemer liveth,” etc. The hardest lesson that man has to learn in this school of his probation is submission to the will of God. The permission of evil in the world, as it is one of the hidden mysteries of God’s righteous government, so is it, as might naturally have been expected, a stone of stumbling and a rock of offence, with which unbelief is wont to impede the progress even of a Christian. Faith supported the holy Job, not only under his unparalleled privations, but under a far more galling load, the accusations and suspicions of friends. In this painful dilemma, unable to vindicate his innocence to them, who, notwithstanding, suspected him guilty, he is borne on the wings of faith, over the head as it were of many intervening ages, to that glorious time when he should stand before God in the imputed righteousness of his Saviour. “I know that my Redeemer liveth.” Would you then realise the glories and know the mysteries of the kingdom of heaven,--imitate the faith and patience of Job in his various states and complicated trials. (John Stedman, D. D.)
Job’s faith in the Redeemer
I.The character of Job’s Redeemer. There is only one Redeemer of guilty men.
1. His person. A Divine Person, possessing the true and proper nature, titles, and perfections of the Godhead. Possessed of perfect humanity. In all things made like unto us, except being sinless. Thus He became the “kinsman” of every child of man. He was therefore both human and Divine.
2. His work. How did He redeem us? From natural depravity, by the purity of His nature. From the demands of the law, by His perfect obedience to all its commands. From the infliction of the curse, by His death upon the Cross. “Being made a curse for us.” From the power of Satan and death, by His resurrection from the dead. He redeems from the power of sin, and into the image of God, by the influence of the Spirit which He sends down into the hearts of His people. He redeems into heaven by entering it for us with His precious blood, and by receiving the souls of His people to His right hand in glory. He will redeem by His almighty power, all the bodies of His saints, from corruption and the grave, at the last day.
II. Job’s profession of him. “My Redeemer.”
1. Appropriation. Angels, devils, and those in unbelief cannot say this. The humble, devout believer both realises it and says it.
2. Assurance. “I know.” In religion there is consciousness and certainty. He is ours because we are sinners, and He was given to save sinners. He is ours because we believe in Him. We know because we love Him.
3. Confidence. In Christ’s unchanging existence. He liveth now. Therefore His promises shall be fulfilled, His cause maintained, His Church glorified; and His saints shall live with Him forever and ever. Application--
(1) This subject should be the support and joy of the Christian in temptations, afflictions, and death.
(2) It will be the song of the redeemed forever.
(3) Urge all to come and experience the saving power of this living Redeemer. (J. Burns, D. D.)
I know that my Redeemer liveth
I.First of all, then, with the patriarch of Uz, let us descend into the sepulchre. The body has just been divorced from the soul. The body is borne upon the bier and consigned to the silent earth; it is surrounded by the earthworks of death. Death has a host of troops. If the locusts and the caterpillars be God’s army, the worms are the army of death. These hungry warriors begin to attack the city of man. The skin, the city wall of manhood, is utterly broken down, and the towers of its glory covered with confusion. How speedily the cruel invaders deface all beauty. The face gathers blackness; the countenance is defiled with corruption. Where is beauty now? The most lovely cannot be known from the most deformed. The vessel so daintily wrought upon the potter’s wheel is cast away upon the dunghill with the vilest potsherds. The skin is gone. The troops have entered into the town of Mansoul. And now they pursue their work of devastation; the pitiless marauders fall upon the body itself. There are those noble aqueducts, the veins through which the streams of life were wont to flow, these, instead of being rivers of life, have become blocked up with the soil and wastes of death, and now they must be pulled to pieces; not a single relic of them shall be spared. Mark the muscles and sinews, like great highways that, penetrating the metropolis, carry the strength and wealth of manhood along--their curious pavement must be pulled up, and they that do traffic thereon must be consumed; each tunnelled bone, and curious arch, and knotted bond must be snapped and broken. But these invaders stop not here. Job says that next they consume his reins. We are wont to speak of the heart as the great citadel of life, the inner keep and donjon, where the captain of the guard holdeth out to the last. The Hebrews do not regard the heart, but the lower viscera, the reins, as the seat of the passions and of mental power. The worms spare not; they enter the secret places of the tabernacle of life, and the standard is plucked from the tower. Having died, the heart cannot preserve itself, and falls like the rest of the frame--a prey to worms. It is gone, it is all gone! Mother Earth has devoured her own offspring. Why should we wish to have it otherwise? Why should we desire to preserve the body when the soul has gone? The embalming of the Egyptians, those master robbers of the worm, what has it done? It has served to keep some poor shrivelled lumps of mortality above ground to be sold for curiosities, to be dragged away to foreign climes, and stared upon by thoughtless eyes. No, let the dust go; the sooner it dissolves the better. And what matters it how it goes! What if plants with their roots suck up the particles! What if the winds blow it along the highway! What if the rivers carry it to the waves of ocean!
II. Now, having thus descended into the grave, and seen nothing there but what is loathsome, let us look up with the patriarch and behold a sun shining with present comport. “I know,” said he, “that my Redeemer liveth.” The word “Redeemer” here used is in the original Goel--kinsman. The duty of the kinsman, or Goel, was this: suppose an Israelite had alienated his estate, as in the case of Naomi and Ruth; suppose a patrimony which had belonged to a family had passed away through poverty, it was the Goal’s business, the redeemer’s business, to pay the price as the next-of-kin, and to buy back the heritage. Boaz stood in that relation to Ruth. Now, the body may be looked upon as the heritage of the soul--the soul’s small farm, that little plot of earth in which the soul has been wont to walk and delight, as a man walketh in his garden or dwelleth in his house. Now, that becomes alienated. Death, like Ahab, takes away the vineyard from us who are as Naboth; we lose our patrimonial estate. But we turn round to Death and say, “I know that my Goal liveth, and He will redeem this heritage; I have lost it; thou takest it from me lawfully, O Death, because my sin hath forfeited my right; I have lost my heritage through my own offence, and through that of my first parent Adam; but there lives One who will buy this back.” Remember, too, that it was always considered to be the duty of the Goel, not merely to redeem by price, but where that failed, to redeem by power. Hence, when Lot was carried away captive by the four kings, Abraham summoned his own hired servants, and the servants of all his friends, and went out against the kings of the East, and brought back Lot and the captives of Sodom. Now, our Lord Jesus Christ, who once has played the kinsman’s part by paying the price for us, liveth, and He will redeem us by power. O Death, thou tremblest at this name! Thou knowest the might of our Kinsman! Against His arm thou canst not stand! Oh, how glorious the victory! No battle shall there be. He comes, He sees, He conquers. The sound of the trumpet shall be enough; Death shall fly affrighted; and at once from beds of dust and silent clay to realms of everlasting day the righteous shall arise. There was yet a third duty of the Goel, which was to avenge the death of his friend. If a person had been slain, the Goel was the avenger of blood; snatching up his sword, he at once pursued the person who had been guilty of bloodshed. So now, let us picture ourselves as being smitten by Death. His arrow has just pierced us to the heart, but in the act of expiring, our lips are able to boast of vengeance, and in the face of the monster we cry, “I know that my Goal liveth.” Thou mayst fly, O Death, as rapidly as thou wilt, but no city of refuge can hide thee from Him; He will overtake thee; He will lay hold upon thee, O thou skeleton monarch, and He will avenge my blood on thee. Christ shall certainly avenge Himself on Death for all the injury which Death hath done to His beloved kinsmen. Passing on in our text to notice the next word, it seems that Job found consolation not only in the fact that he had a Goel, a Redeemer, but that this Redeemer liveth. He does not say, “I know that my Goel shall live,” but that “He lives,”--having a clear view of the self-existence of the Lord Jesus Christ, the same yesterday, today, and forever. He is the Lord and giver of life originally, and He shall be specially declared to be the resurrection and the life, when the legions of His redeemed shall be glorified with Him. Let us look up to our Goel, then, who liveth at this very time. Still the marrow of Job’s comfort, it seems to me, lay in that little word “my.” “I know that my Redeemer liveth.” Oh, to get hold of Christ! I know that in His offices He is precious. But, dear friends, we must get a property in Him before we can really enjoy Him. What is honey in the wood to me, if, like the fainting Israelites, I dare not eat? What is gold in the mine to me? Men are beggars in Peru, and beg their bread in California. It is gold in my purse which will satisfy my necessities, purchasing the bread I need. So what is a kinsman if he be not a kinsman to me? A redeemer that does not redeem me, an avenger who will never stand up for my blood, of what avail were such? But Job’s faith was strong and firm in the conviction that the Redeemer was his. There is another word in this consoling sentence which no doubt served to give a zest to the comfort of Job. It was that he could say, “I know.” To say, “I hope so, I trust so,” is comfortable; and there are thousands in the fold of Jesus who hardly ever get much farther. But to reach the marrow of consolation you must say, “I know.” “Ifs,” “buts,” and “perhapses” are sure murderers of peace and comfort. Doubts are dreary things in times of sorrow. I would not like to die with a mere hope mingled with suspicion. Assurance is a jewel for worth but not for rarity. It is the common privilege of all the saints if they have but the grace to attain unto it, and this grace the Holy Spirit gives freely. Surely if Job in Arabia, in those dark, misty ages when there was only the morning star and not the sun, when they saw but tittle, when life and immortality had not been brought to light,--if Job before the Coming and Advent still could say, “I know,” you and I should not speak less positively. God forbid that our positiveness should be presumption.
III. And now, in the third place, as thy anticipation of future delight, let me call to your remembrance the other part of the text. Job not only knew that the Redeemer lived, but he anticipated the time when He should “stand in the latter day upon the earth.” No doubt Job referred here to our Saviour’s first advent, to the time when Jesus Christ, “the Goel,” the Kinsman, should stand upon the earth to pay in the blood of His veins the ransom price, which had, indeed, in bond and stipulation been paid before the foundation of the world in promise. But I cannot think that Job’s vision stayed there; he was looking forward to the second advent of Christ as being the period of the resurrection. We cannot endorse the theory that Job arose from the dead when our Lord died although certain Jewish believers held this idea very firmly at one time. We are persuaded that “the latter day” refers to the advent of glory rather than to that of shame. Our hope is that the Lord shall come to reign in glory where He once died in agony. Mark, that Job describes Christ as standing. Some interpreters have read the passage, “He shall stand in the latter days against the earth”; that as the earth has covered up the slain, as the earth has become the charnel house of the dead, Jesus shall arise to the contest and say, “Earth, I am against thee; give up thy dead!” Well, whether that be so or no, the posture of Christ, in standing upon the earth, is significant. It shows His triumph. He has triumphed over sin, which once like a serpent in its coils had bound the earth. He has defeated Satan. On the very spot where Satan gained his power Christ has gained the victory. Then, at that auspicious hour, says Job, “Sin my flesh I shall see God.” Oh, blessed anticipation--“I shall see God.” He does not say, “I shall see the saints”--doubtless we shall see them all in heaven--but, shall see God.” Note, he does not say, “I shall see the pearly gates, I shall see the walls of jasper, I shall see the crowns of gold and the harps of harmony,” but “I shall see God”; as if that were the sum and substance of heaven. “In my flesh shall I see God.” The pure in heart shall see God. It was their delight to see Him in the ordinances by faith. There in heaven they shall have a vision of another sort. Please to notice, and then I shall conclude, how the patriarch puts it as being a real personal enjoyment. “Whom mine eye shall behold, and not another.” They shall not bring me a report as they did the Queen of Sheba, but I shall see Solomon the King for myself. I shall be able to say, as they did who spake to the woman of Samaria, “Now I believe, not because of thy word who did bring me a report, but I have seen Him for myself.” There shall be personal intercourse with God; not through the Book, which is but as a glass; not through the ordinances; but directly, in the person of our Lord Jesus Christ, we shall be able to commune with the Deity as a man talketh with his friend. (C. H. Spurgeon.)
The living Redeemer
Job seems to have entertained no expectation of deliverance from his troubles in the present world. Therefore he looks forward to the world beyond death and the grave for perfect felicity and undisturbed repose. Make some general observations for opening up the passage.
1. God, in His abundant mercy, has provided a Redeemer for fallen man. The word “redeemer” here means “next-of-kin.”
2. The living Redeemer has been the hope of the saints under every dispensation of grace, and in every period Of the world.
3. No distress or suffering can pluck asunder those bonds that unite the believer to his Saviour.
4. When the believer has attained to the knowledge of his interest in the Redeemer, this will administer great comfort and encouragement to him in suffering and distress.
Consider now the support and consolation which believers should derive from the assurance that their Redeemer liveth.
1. It should afford Christians consolation and support when struggling with a body of sin and death, to know that their Redeemer liveth; who shall at last be “glorified in His saints.”
2. It may afford the Christian support and consolation in the season of poverty and want.
3. It may afford the believer support and consolation in the prospect of death and the eternal world.
4. And under all the distresses and afflictions to which the Church is exposed in this evil world.
5. And also with respect to the public calamities and judgments which threaten the place or country where the believer’s lot is cast.
(1) Hence see to whom we are indebted for all the privileges and blessings and security which we now enjoy.
(2) Let us be encouraged to trust in Christ in every future exigency and difficulty.
(3) Let Christians make it their great study to live to the honour and praise of this living and exalted Redeemer.
(4) Let perishing sinners make it their great concern to get an interest in the living Redeemer. (James Hay, D. D.)
Job’s confident expectation
In this confession Job declares the promised Messiah to be his Saviour; and professes his faith in His coming to judgment; the resurrection of the dead; and the beatifical vision.
I. The matter of the comfort.
1. That there is a Redeemer. It implies that He is our kinsman after the flesh, or by incarnation. That He paid a price to God for us in His Passion. That He pursueth the law against Satan, and rescues us by His power; all which are notable grounds of comfort.
2. That He is their Redeemer. Job, by a fiducial application, makes out his own title and interest. Faith appropriates God to our own use and comfort.
3. The next ground of comfort is that our Redeemer liveth. This is true of Christ, whether you consider Him as God or as man. Christ’s living again in His resurrection is a visible demonstration of the truth of the Gospel in general, and in particular of the article of eternal life. His living after death was the solemn acquittance of our Surety from the sins imputed to Him, and a token of the acceptation of His purpose. His living implies His capacity to intercede for us, and to relieve us in all our necessities. His living is the root and cause of our life; for He having purchased eternal life, not only for Himself, but for all His members, ever liveth to convey it to them, and maintain it in them.
4. Another ground of comfort is the certainty of persuasion. “I know.” This implies a clear understanding of this mystery; and a certainty of persuasion, which includes a certainty of faith, or of spiritual sense.
II. The applicability of this comfort in our afflictions. Such as public troubles and difficulties; spiritual distresses; outward calamities; calumnies and slanders; and death. Exhortation--Believe and be persuaded of this truth. Endeavour to arrive at the highest degree of assent. (T. Manton.)
The believer’s triumph
1. Afflictions do not dissolve the endeared relation between the Redeemer and the redeemed.
2. Jesus Christ, as He is the only Redeemer of fallen man, has been all along so, even from the beginning.
3. A believer may attain a comfortable evidence of a special relation to Christ and interest in Him.
4. A believer knowing his Redeemer liveth, hath therein a spring of abundant consolation, whatever affliction he here labours under, or is liable to.
I. How the title Redeemer belongs to Christ. He is fitly called a Redeemer upon a threefold account. In regard to the bondage state He finds us in. His relation to us. And what, in that relation, He does for us. As our kinsman, He redeems us by paying the price of our redemption; and by rescuing us from the tyranny of Satan.
II. Believers will and ought to betake themselves to Christ, the living Redeemer, for relief and comfort under all their troubles.
1. As fallen creatures, there is no coming unto the Father but through a Mediator.
2. Christ is the only Mediator between God and man.
3. He is provided and exalted of God to this very end, that the weary and heavy-laden, under whatever burden, might apply to Him for ease and rest.
4. To them that believe He is precious, from the experience they have had of His power and grace.
III. It is of powerful use to the consolation of believers, in looking to their provided Redeemer, to know that He liveth, and that He is theirs. That He liveth may be said of Him as God, and as Immanuel, God-man. As Divine, and as risen. The resurrection speaks the value and efficacy of His death and sacrifice. His living again confirms the truth of His doctrine and promises.
3. It is no small addition to a Christian’s comfort that Christ lives in heaven. And Christ also is theirs; in gracious, helpful, personal relations with them.
IV. How believers may fetch suitable support from hence, under the trials wherewith they may be most sorely pressed.
1. What they feel upon a public account; their tender sense of the Church’s troubles, and concern for their brethren in the same household of faith, by reason of the hard things they suffer, and the deep distress they are sometimes brought into. He liveth, and has the turning of all the great wheels of providence.
2. As to public calamities that may happen in our day, or reach the place where our lot is cast. Christ’s voice to all is, “Be not terrified.”
3. In poverty and want, ,pinching necessities and straits, we may look up with comfort while able to say, “I know that my Redeemer liveth.”
4. As to losses in substance, or near and dear relations, bodily pains, the injuries and reproaches of enemies, and hard censures of friends, with whatever the Christian may undergo from heaven, he hath enough to feed his comfort in being able to say, “I know that my Redeemer liveth.”
5. As deprived of the sense of God’s favour.
6. As to the temptations of Satan, the wiles and assaults of the power of darkness.
7. Under the afflictive sense of sin, as to guilt and corruption.
8. As in solitude about finding the way to heaven by reason of error and delusion.
9. Under persecution of suffering for the sake of Christ, and devotedness to Him.
10. The Redeemer’s living is the believer’s security against the dread and danger of apostasy.
11. As afflicted with the death of the righteous, private Christians or ministers.
12. That the Redeemer liveth may keep up the believer’s joy when he comes to die. Application--
(1) Let your faith be well grounded and firm in this great truth, that there is a Redeemer living.
(2) How much is everyonr concerned to look after an interest in a living Redeemer.
(3) In order to this, let every heart open to a living Redeemer.
(4) Having a living Redeemer, follow His example, and tread in His steps.
(5) Long to be with your living Redeemer. (D. Wilcox.)
Glory of the resurrection
Faith is most sorely tried when the hand of God touches ourselves. Yet even then the patriarch Job believed in the coming of Christ, whom on earth he was not to see; he believed that the Redeemer who was to come “akin to us,” had then, too, life in Himself, and should come to redeem him also. “I know that my Redeemer liveth.” He should at the end “stand the Last,” as well as the First, with power “over the dust”; and though the worms should prey upon and bore through this poor body, he himself, for himself, should, out of that very flesh, behold and gaze on God. “I know,” said the patriarch. True faith is solid, sure as knowledge. God writes it on the heart, and the heart knows what it believes, more surely than the senses know what they perceive. See how Job contrasts, not only life with death, but life as the produce of death. And so it must be. After our bodies had through sin become subject to corruption, it had been endless misery for them to have lived on forever. And so God the Son took our nature upon Him in its purity, to make it to us a new origin of being. For us He was born as man. For us, to pay the ransom for us, He died. For us, not for Himself, He rose again. Jesus rose to give us all which He is. After His resurrection, the very being of His body was spiritual. The glory of Christ began with the grave. As to Him, so to us, if we are His, the grave is the vestibule to glory. Claudius says, “The tokens of decay are the cock crowing to the resurrection.” Yet the change and transformation must begin here. It consists in first giving our whole souls to God, yielding ourselves to His transforming grace, that He would change us as He wills; and then, with steady, unwavering step to obey each impulse of His grace, This will seem hard until thou knowest the sweetness of pleasing God. (E. B. Pusey, D. D.)
Job’s sure knowledge
I.Job had a true friend amid cruel friends. He calls Him his Redeemer, and looks to Him in his trouble. The Hebrew word will bear three renderings, as follows--
1. His Kinsman. Nearest akin of all. No kinsman is so near as Jesus. None so kinned, and none so kind. Voluntarily so. Not forced to be a brother, but so in heart, and by His own choice of our nature: therefore more than brother. Not ashamed to own it. “He is not ashamed to call them brethren” (Heb_2:11). Even when they had forsaken Him, He called them “My brethren” (Mat_28:10). Eternally so. Who shall separate us? (Rom_8:35).
2. His Vindicator. From every false charge by pleading the causes of our soul. From every jibe and jest: for he that believeth in Him shall not be ashamed or confounded. From true charges, too; by bearing our sin Himself and becoming our righteousness, thus justifying us. From accusations of Satan. “The Lord rebuke thee, O Satan!” (Zec_3:2.)“The accuser of our brethren is cast down” (Rev_12:10).
3. His Redeemer. Of his person from bondage. Of his lost estates, privileges, and joys, from the hand of the enemy. Redeeming both by price and by power.
II. Job had real property amid absolute poverty. He speaks of “my Redeemer,” as much as to say, “Everything else is gone, but my Redeemer is still my own, and lives for me.” He means--
1. I accept Him as such, leaving myself in His hands.
2. I have felt somewhat of His power already, and I am confident that all is well with me even now, since He is my Protector.
3. I will cling to Him forever. He shall be my only hope in life and death. I may lose all else, but never the redemption of my God, the kinship of my Saviour.
III. Job had a living kinship amid a dying family. “My Redeemer liveth.” He owned the great Lord as ever living--As “the everlasting Father,” to sustain and solace him. As head of his house, to represent him. As intercessor, to plead in heaven for him. As defender, to preserve his rights on earth. As his righteousness, to clear him at last. Our Divine Vindicator abides in the power of an endless life.
IV. Job had absolute certainty amid uncertain affairs. “I know.” He had no sort of doubt upon that matter. Everything else was questionable, but this was certain. His faith made him certain. Faith brings sure evidence; it substantiates what it receives, and makes us know. His trials could not make him doubt. Why should they? They touched not the relationship of his God, or the heart of his Redeemer, or the life of his Vindicator. His difficulties could not make him fear failure on this point, for the life of his Redeemer was a source of deliverance which lay out of himself, and was never doubtful. His cavilling friends could not move him from the assured conviction that the Lord would vindicate his righteous cause. While Jesus lives our characters are safe. Happy he who can say, “I know that my Redeemer liveth.” Have you this great knowledge? Do you act in accordance with such an assurance? Will you not at this hour devoutly adore your loving Kinsman?(C. H. Spurgeon.)
My Redeemer
There is no need to push these words too far. We lose a great deal by attempting to find in a passage like this what in reality is not in it. Suppose that Job is referring to Goel, the elder brother of the family, whose business it was to redeem, and protect, and lead onward to liberty--suppose that this is an Oriental image, that is no reason for saying that it is nothing more. There have been unconscious prophecies; men have uttered words, not knowing what they were uttering; thus Caiaphas said to the council, “Ye know nothing at all, nor consider that it is expedient for us, that one man should die for the people, and that the whole nation perish not,” not knowing himself what he said. We must allow for the unconscious region of life, the mysterious belt that is round about so-called facts and letters; we must allow for that purple horizon, so visible, so inaccessible. He would be an unwise teacher who said, Job knew all that we understand by Christ, resurrection, and immortality; but he would be unwiser still who said that when his soul had been wrought up to this high pitch of enthusiasm in the ardour of his piety he knew nothing of the coming glory. Let Job speak literally, and even then he leaves a margin. Here we find a man at the utmost point of human progress; figure him to the eye; say the progress of the world, or the education of the world, is a long mysterious process; and here, behold, is a man who has come to the uttermost point: one step further and he will fall over: there, however, he stands until vacuity is filled up, until vaticination becomes experience, until experience has become history, until history, again, by marvellous spiritual action, shapes itself into prophecy, and predicts a brighter time and a fairer land. There have been men who have stood on the headlines of history: they dare not take one more step, or they would be lost in the boundless sea. Thus the world has been educated and stimulated by seer, and dreamer, and prophet, and teacher, and apostle. There have never been men wanting who have been at the very forefront of things, living the weird, often woeful, sometimes rapturous, life of the prophet. What was a dream to Job is a reality to us. We can fill up all Job would have said had he lived in our day; now we can say, “I know that my Redeemer liveth, and that He shall stand at the latter day upon the earth.” When these words are sung, do not think they are the words of Job that are being sung; they are Job’s words with Christ’s meaning. Yes, we feel that there must be a “Redeemer.” Things are so black and wrong, so corrupt, so crooked, so wholly unimaginable, with such a seam of injustice running through all, that there must be a Goel, a firstborn, an elder brother, a Redeemer. It is the glory of the Christian faith to proclaim the personality and reality of this Redeemer. I am not ashamed of the Gospel of Christ, for it is the almightiness of God, the very omnipotence of the Trinity, to everyone that believeth. “God forbid that I should glory save in the Cross of our Lord Jesus Christ.” Nor can we consent to change His name: what word sweeter than “Redeemer”? what word mightier? A poem in itself; an apocalypse in its possibilities; Divine love incarnated. Oh, come Thou whose right it is! “Who is this that cometh from Edom, with dyed garments from Bozrah? this that is glorious in His apparel, travelling in the greatness of His strength? I that speak in righteousness, mighty to save.” That same Son of Mary, Son of Man, Son of God. Accept Him as thy Redeemer! (Joseph Parker, D. D.)
Job’s great hope
Let us clearly understand the point and value of the argument. It is not that a man who has served God here and suffered here must have a joyful immortality. What man is faithful enough to make such a claim? But the principle is that God must vindicate His righteousness in dealing with the man He has made, the man he has called to trust Him. It matters not who the man is, how obscure his life has been, he has this claim on God, that to him the eternal righteousness ought to be made clear. Job cries for his own justification; but the doubt about God involved in the slur cast upon his own integrity is what rankles in his heart; from that he rises in triumphant protest and daring hope. He must live till God clears up the matter. If he dies he must revive to have it all made clear. And observe, if it were only that ignorant men cast doubt on Providence, the resurrection and personal redemption of the believer would not be necessary. God is not responsible for the foolish things men say, and we could not look for resurrection because our fellow creatures misrepresent God. But Job feels that God Himself has caused the perplexity. God sent the flash of lightning, the storm, the dreadful disease; it is God who, by many strange things in human experience, seems to give cause for doubt. From God in nature, God in disease, God in the earthquake and the thunderstorm, God whose way is in the sea, and His path in the mighty waters,--from this God, Job cries in hope, in moral conviction, to God the Vindicator, the eternally righteous One, Author of nature and friend of man. This life may terminate before the full revelation of right is made; it may leave the good in darkness, and the evil flaunting in pride; the believer may go down in shame, and the atheist have the last word. Therefore a future life with judgment in full must vindicate our Creator, and every personality involved in the problems of time must go forward to the opening of the seals, and the fulfilment of the things that are written in the volumes of God. This evolution being for the earlier stage and discipline of life, it works out nothing, completes nothing. What it does is to furnish the awaking spirit with material of thought, opportunity of endeavour, the elements of life; with trial, temptation, stimulus and restraint. No one who lives to any purpose or thinks with any sincerity can miss in the course of his life one hour at least in which he shares the tragical contest, and adds the cry of his own soul to that of Job, his own hope to that of ages that are gone, straining to see the Goal who undertakes for every servant of God. By slow cycles of change the vast scheme of Divine providence draws towards a glorious consummation. The believer waits for it, seeing One who has gone before him, the Alpha and Omega of all life. The fulness of time will at length arrive, the time foreordained by God, foretold by Christ, when the throne shall be set, the judgment shall be given, and the aeons of manifestation shall begin. (Robert A. Watson, D. D.)
My Redeemer
Then there pass from Job’s lips words into which Christian translators have breathed a distinctness, a hope and certainty, which doubtless far transcends the sublime, but dim, faith of the original. “I know,” he cries, “that my Redeemer, my Rescuer, my Vindicator, liveth.” Liveth, for He is none other than the living God--no more mute inscription, no human Goel, or avenger--on whom Job rests his faith. “And He, at the last,” when all this bitter conflict is over, “will stand upon the earth,” or rather, “on the dust,” the dust of death into which I am sinking. “And” even “after my skin,” this poor skin with all that it encases, “is destroyed”--even when “the first-born of death,” and the “King of Terrors” himself, of whom you speak, have done their worst--“yet,” even then, not “in,” but rather “from” (in the sense most probably of “removed from,” or “without”) “my flesh,” though my body moulder in the dust, “I shall see my God”--the God now hidden, the God to whom he had appealed before to hide him for awhile from the world of the dead, and then to call him forth. He will manifest himself at last to his forgotten friend, who will have survived for this the shock of the meat Destroyer; “whom I shall behold,” he goes on, yea, I the prey of death, “shall see Him, shall see Him for myself.” (Or see Him “on my side,” the phrase is ambiguous.)“Yea, mine eyes shall behold Him, I, and not another. My reins,” my very inmost heart, “consume,” and melt “within me” at the vision . . . The sick heart faints with joy. Despair gives way to gladness. The poor tortured sufferer, who again and again has looked on the inevitable death which is waiting for him, as the limit of his days, as the final severer between himself and his God, rises to the region of a sublime, a rapturous hope. We dare not write into his words all the “sure and certain hope of a joyful resurrection,” which the Christian utters; still less that anticipation of a bodily rising from the grave, of a reclothing of his spirit in flesh, which the passage breathes in the great Latin translation, dear for ages to Western Christendom. We recognise even in the familiar words of our own older version, phrases and thoughts which outrun the patriarch’s aspirations, the patriarch’s faith. But for all that, when we have stripped the passage of all that is adventitious--all that even unconsciously imports into its framework the ideas and faith of another and later age--we still hear the cry of the saint of the old world, as he stands face to face with the King of Terrors; “Though my outward man decay and perish, yet God shall reveal Himself to me, to my true self.” He plants, as it has been well said, the flag of triumph on his own grave. And his words, in one form or another, have lived longer than he looked for. They will outlive the scroll for which he sighed, the very rock on which just now he wished to see them engraved. (Dean Bradley.)
The hope of restoration
Trans. thus, “For I know that my Goel lives, and (my) Vindicator will arise upon the earth.” The Fathers, both Oriental, and Occidental, regarded this passage as a proof text, not only of the imortality of the soul, but also of the resurrection of the body. Some even saw in it a conclusive proof of the divinity of Christ. This view prevailed through the Middle Ages. But this interpretation is now generally rejected by critics and commentators, though it was at one time almost universal. Two views need to be considered.
I. Job hoped for restoration in this life. This view has never been popular. Some scholars support it on the following grounds:--
1. The language requires such an interpretation.
2. Whatever there is in the passage which can be applied to a resurrection body, can also be referred with equal force to a restored body in this life.
3. If this passage refers to a future life, it is strange that this glorious doctrine is not more fully presented: Elihu passes it over in silence. Not a word is to be found regarding it in the sublime discourses of the Almighty.
4. The question of restoration to the favour of God in another existence is not even incidentally raised.
5. There is no force in the assertion often made that we cannot limit Job’s expectation for deliverance to this life without lowering the evidence and power of his faith. This is mere rhetoric. Instead of his faith being lowered, it is enhanced.
6. It would have been more satisfactory to Job to have been delivered from the unjust charges laid against him, and to have been justified by the Almighty, who could not err, in the presence of his friends and acquaintances, on the very scene of the conflict here on earth.
7. Certainly this would have been of more advantage to Job’s contemporaries, for whom the new revelation was intended.
8. The denouement, or final issue, favours this view.
II. Job did not expect deliverance in this life, bit in a disembodied state, after death. The following arguments for this view have been adduced.
1. This is evident from the plain meaning of the text. The two clauses in verse 26 are not antithetic, for the second has the same thought as the first, and must read, “And after my skin is thus destroyed, and without my flesh (body) I shall see God.” After my skin, without my flesh, and dust, are parallelistic equivalents.
2. That Job did not expect deliverance in this life is also shown by his desire to have his protestations of innocency engraved on the rock forever.
3. That Job expected no restoration here on earth is clear from his own words in other portions of the book . . . After carefully weighing the arguments pro and con, we are forced to the conclusion that Job expected restoration in this life. This is the most natural interpretation. It also accords with the development of doctrine in the Old Testament, for it is an intermediate step between Mosaism and Christianity in regard to suffering and retribution in this life. And in accepting this view, no one is forced to the conclusion that Job had no hope or knowledge of immortality, but only that the future life is not referred to in this passage. (W. W. Davis, Ph. D.)
Precious experience
I.The highest form of knowledge is the consciousness that we have a Redeemer.
1. This is the knowledge which diminishes the distance between us and God. Whatever else sin may be, it is the estrangement of the soul from the source of all its joys. Sin has made us to be “far off” from God. He is denied His place in thought. He is excluded from the counsels of the will. His own monitor--conscience--is indifferent to His presence. The heart has sought the fellowship of other lovers, but they all have left “an aching void,” which cries, “Neither is there any daysman betwixt us, that might lay his hand upon us both.” This has been attempted by many. Prophets, priests, and kings stretched their hands upwards towards God, and downwards towards man, but their arms were too short. Philosophers, moralists, and philanthropists have endeavoured to fill the gulf, and pave the way for the contending parties to approach each other, they also have all disappeared in that awful chasm. But there is “One Mediator between God and men, the man Christ Jesus.” Have we felt the reconciling touch of His hand? “I know that my Redeemer liveth,” is the only answer.
2. This is the knowledge which removes all differences. We cannot meet God, we cannot enjoy God, with the burden of guilt on our soul. The voice of justice in heaven cries against us; the voice of conscience within is not less in its denunciation.
3. This is the knowledge which restores the full harmony between us and the Father. There is no other platform from which we may survey the whole situation.
II. That the highest form of consciousness is faith in a living saviour. “My Redeemer liveth.” If we possibly can, let us bring the text to a nearer touch of our life. One of the functions of faith is to convert historical Christianity into a living power in the soul, by enacting the life of Jesus in our own.
1. The living Redeemer is the life of faith. Faith leans on a living bosom, and draws its comfort from a living heart.
2. The living Redeemer is the stay of faith. The Hebrew Goel was the next-of-kin who avenged his brother’s wrongs, and redeemed his life and property. Our Saviour is that next-of-kin who watches over our affairs, and will see that justice is done. Remember, brethren, He is the custodian of your character and reputation. The man who deals a blow at your circumstances, must meet Jesus, and settle the matter with Him. “Avenge not yourselves,” but “cast all your care upon Him, for He careth for you.”
3. The living Redeemer is the satisfaction of faith. He who can say “My Redeemer!” has enough. Things of life are transmissible. The man goes to his solicitor to have the property he has bought conveyed to him. When it is done, he says, “I want you to make my will.” Then runs the instrument, “I give and bequeath,” etc. But “my Redeemer” is not a transitory possession; it abides the inheritance of the soul forever. Thomas made a noble confession, “My Lord, and my God.”
III. The final triumph of faith will be the meeting of the saint and the Saviour. “Whom I shall see,” etc. Faith will launch her bark into the sea of His presence.
1. Your rights will be vindicated, and all your trials explained. A light will be thrown on all the difficult passages in your life. Faith said all the time that His judgments are righteous and true; you will understand that then. That day will be a commentary on all the chapters of life, for “the day will reveal it.”
2. Immediate communion with Jesus. In that day they will all turn aside, and our eyes will feast on the beatific vision, for “we shall see Him as He is.” These eyes, which have wept many times, shall see Him in the clear light of heaven. Thank you, a thousand times, ye noble prophets and apostles, for your beautiful photos of Him, now we see Jesus Himself.
3. Faith will realise all anticipations and hopes. What is your ruling passion; is it Poetry? Then the muse will be on the heights of Parnassus, Music? The melody of the cross will have attracted all the harmonies of the universe to itself. Beauty? The rose of Sharon will be there. Life? Live on. Regarding the wonderful utterance in the text in the light of the circumstances in which the patriarch was placed, we have here a marvellous picture of faith. In the presence of such a faith, shall we allow ours to fret and fear in the face of small difficulties? Put all the difficulties and sufferings of your life by the side of those endured by the patriarch, and they will pale and die. However, we may not be the strong men in faith that his stature would suggest. Look to your Goel. (T. Davies, M. A.)
The living Redeemer
Schultens suggests that the patriarch, in the previous verses, refers to an inscription upon a sepulchral stone. Job relies upon God for his ultimate and full vindication. Expecting to go down to the grave under the reproach of guilt, he would have it engraven upon the stone at the door of his sepulchre, that his trust was in his Redeemer.
I. The meaning of the term Redeemer, as applied to our Lord Jesus Christ. The word Goal has two significations. One, to be stained or polluted with blood; the other, to ransom, redeem, or purchase back. The duties of a Redeemer among the Jews included--delivering a kinsman out of captivity by force or ransom; and to buy him out when his liberty had been forfeited by debt, buying back an inheritance that had passed out of the hands of a poorer kinsman; advocating the right of those who were too weak to sustain their own cause. All these offices of the Redeemer, the Lord Jesus was fitted to sustain, and has exe
