Wasn’t Job just some guy who suffered loads of terrible trials in the Old Testament? He believed in ‘God,’ that much is clear, but he didn’t know anything else. How could he know anything else? He was a primitive man with a primitive faith and understanding.
Of course, now we know that in the end Jesus will return and bring about the new heavens and the new earth and we will all have new resurrection bodies and live on earth with Jesus. But Job couldn’t possibly have understood any of that, could he? In fact, some scholars will have us believe that after all that Job went through, he had no hope of any kind of afterlife – and certainly no hope of any sort of resurrection or new creation body.
But hang on… is this true? Let’s take a look at Job 19:25-27:
25 I know that my Redeemer lives,
and that in the end he will stand upon the earth.
26 And after my skin has been destroyed,
yet in my flesh I will see God;
27 I myself will see him
with my own eyes—I, and not another.
How my heart yearns within me!
So Job knows that his Redeemer lives? And, of course, we all know who the Redeemer is, don’t we? (Galatians 3:13).
And Job knows that in the end his Redeemer will stand upon the earth (Revelation 22:3).
And Job knows that even after his skin has been destroyed, in his flesh he will see his Redeemer – he himself, with his own eyes (1Corinthians 15).
And it is something that Job’s heart yearns for – because he loves his Redeemer!
Matthew Henry, the great Puritan commentator, says: ‘He believes the happiness of the redeemed, and his own title to that happiness, that, at Christ’s second coming, believers shall be raised up in glory and so made perfectly blessed in the vision and fruition of God; and this he believes with application to himself.’
So Job had a clear understanding that at the end, even after his body had perished, he would be on the earth, in his body, with his Redeemer whom he loves – doesn’t seem so primitive, does it?
Christ: Sun of Righteousness 
Seems far superior to most Christians today if you ask me!
🙂
I’m with you on that one, Glen. I couldn’t even put a number on the amount of times recently I have come across the idea that ‘we die and then we go to heaven… end of!’ The resurrection seems to be getting squeezed out. Is the Church going gnostic?!
[…] Ezekiel when he raised from the dead a vast army in the Valley of Dry Bones (Ezekiel 37); it was the reality that Job looked forward to when he proclaimed: ‘I know that my redeemer lives’ (Job 19:25-27); and it was the hope […]
[…] Ezekiel when he raised from the dead a vast army in the Valley of Dry Bones (Ezekiel 37); it was the reality that Job looked forward to when he proclaimed: ‘I know that my redeemer lives’ (Job 19:25-27); and it was the hope that […]
Reblogged this on Anthony's Blog.