“I Know That My Redeemer Lives”

One of the earliest, most profound and sincere expressions of faith and redemptive hope found in the Bible comes from the lips of a man named Job.  Job, a man who was declared by the LORD God Himself to be righteous (Job 1:8), experiences over a very short period of time wave after devastating wave of excruciating personal loss beginning with the death of all of his beloved children, then all of his wealth and possessions, and finally the loss of his health to where he agonizingly teeters on the brink of death (Job Chapters 1 and 2).

Job’s wife, his extended family and closest friends show little pity or compassion toward him, essentially blaming him for the condition he is in, with his wife calling for him to “curse God and die” (Job 2:9).  Yet in the midst of the suffering and sorrow, the inherent loneliness and depression of such a plight, Job exclaims, “For I know that my Redeemer lives, And He shall stand at last on the earth;  And after my skin is destroyed, this I know,  That in my flesh I shall see God,  Whom I shall see for myself, And my eyes shall behold, and not another.  How my heart yearns within me!”(Job 19:23-27).

What a glorious proclamation of faith in the goodness and faithfulness of God, as well as confident hope of the resurrection to newness of life with God, which Job confidently expresses in the midst of the most horrifying and debilitating circumstances one can imagine (Isaiah 25:8-9).  Despite the physical agony, despite the inconsolable losses, despite the unjust accusations and conclusions of those who should love and believe the best about him, and despite some emerging concerns in his own mind regarding God’s goodness and justice that are provoked by his deep suffering and limited perspective regarding what He sees as God’s unjust treatment of him (Job 27:2),  Job knows, has absolute confidence,  that in the end, on that final day of this “present evil age”, He will see God in all of His glory and be restored to the glorious life with God for which man was created, what is referred to in the New Testament as “eternal life” (Titus 1:1-2) (1 Corinthians 13:12). It is this certainty that allows Job to earlier proclaim regarding the LORD in Job 13:15, “though He slay me, I will trust Him”.

Although we do not know for certain who the LORD used to write the book of Job, the events presented are believed by Biblical historians to have taken place during what is referred to as the Patriarchal Period, within the time of Abraham, Issac and Jacob.  In it, the eternal God provides for us, particularly in chapters 1 and 2 and in 33 through 42, a glorious revelatory exposition of His incomparable majesty, power, goodness, wisdom, righteousness, justice, mercy and grace, while asserting and highlighting His sovereignty, His absolute control over all that occurs in creation and in our individual lives, and specifically in carrying out His plan of redemption, of graciously reconciling and restoring a sin cursed world and sin corrupted, justly condemned men and women to the glorious relationship with Him for which man was created (Acts 3:19-21).  It is a plan that was announced first in Genesis 3:15, progressively revealed throughout the Old Testament (Isaiah 43:1), and accomplished fully in and through the person and work of God the Son, Jesus Christ (Colossians 1:14).

In between these two sections of the Book of Job noted above, particularly chapters 4-25, we have the misguided counsel of Job’s three “friends”, who misrepresent and misapply truths regarding the LORD to Job’s situation and thus only increase his misery in their doing so. Their prideful, self-righteous speeches throughout those chapters include many inaccuracies as to why God allows suffering, expressing with great certainty that suffering is always retributive, essentially the LORDS’s just and punitive response to sin and unrepentance, and that Job’s immense suffering can only be God’s just response to Job’s hidden, unconfessed sin and unwillingness to acknowledge and repent of it (Job 4:7-9) (Job 8:1-7) (Job 11:1-6)  (Job 22:21-30)   Truths regarding God’s mercy, grace and compassion have little place in their discomforting of Job (Isaiah 30:18).

The LORD God Himself makes it clear in Job 42:7, that in their expressed beliefs and conclusions the friends did not speak rightly regarding Job or Him.   We know from the first two chapters of the book that Job’s suffering was initiated by the LORD who literally boasts to Satan of Job’s righteousness, of His glad and worshipful obedience to God and consistent display of HIs nature and character (Job 1:8).   Satan responds by accusing Job of being a fair-weather believer, that his outward obedience and worship is only in response to the innumerable material, relational and physical blessings the LORD has bestowed upon Job, and that if those blessings were withheld, Job’s phony faith would be exposed.  In response God, for His good and wise purposes, will allow Satan to test the sincerity, the genuineness of Job’s faith  (Job 1:9-12).

The LORD already knew that Job’s faith was authentic;  that Job trusted, obeyed and worshiped Him out of a knowledge and understanding of and delight in the greatness, goodness and glory of God’s person-  HIs inherent worthiness to be loved, trusted, obeyed and worshiped as the gracious creator of all things, the source of all good, and the redeemer of sinners  (Hebrews 11:6) (Psalm 119:68) (Psalm 78:35).  And the LORD knew this by the fact that He Himself had granted Job such faith, as a gift, which is the only way anyone obtains such faith (Ephesians 2:8-9).  And it is by this faith alone that sinful men and women are declared or accounted as righteous in the eyes of this holy God and then enabled by God the Holy Spirit to live as truly righteous men and women (Romans 4:5-8) (Philippians 3:9-11) (Galatians 5:22-25).

And thus despite Satan’s best efforts to prove otherwise, despite some tottering in Job’s faith and temptation to self-righteousness, Job’s faith will prevail, with his trust in God strengthened, his relationship with God deepened, his submission to the will of God broadened, and his hope in God’s redeeming love sustained (Job 40:3-5) (Job 42:1-6).

Suffering is a fact of life in “this present evil age” due to the prevalence of sin and death (Romans 5:12).  For the unbeliever, it is meant to bring them to repentance, to turn from their sin and self-centered lives to a God-centered life of joy in doing His will (Luke 13:1-9).  For the believer,  it is part of God’s eternal plan of redemption, of reconciling and restoring a sin cursed creation, and a sin corrupted, sin condemned humanity to the beauty, harmony and glory which He intended in the beginning (James 5:10-11) (Joel 2:25–26) (Isaiah 65:17-25).

The Apostle Paul, whose sufferings are well documented throughout the book of Acts and the Epistles, tells us that our sufferings in this age are not worthy to be compared to the glory, the untold and unimaginable blessings that await us in the consummation of God’s redemptive plan (2 Corinthians 11:22-29) (Romans 8:18-21).

This redemption would be accomplished by the sinless life and the unjust and incomprehensible suffering of God the Son, Jesus Christ on the cross, in our place (Isaiah 53:4-6) (1 Peter 2:20-24). By His sufferings He would “justify the  many” (Isaiah 53:11); the many being those whom, like Job, God would grant faith, the faith necessary to trust Jesus as our all sufficient savior/redeemer (Matthew 16:13-17), to joyfully submit to Him as our sovereign LORD (Romans 10:9-11), and to love and hold fast to Him in faith as the one who loved us first and redeemed us with His blood (Galatians 2:20) (1 John 4:19) (Ephesians 1:7).

We are told in Ephesians 2:7 that God did so “that in the ages to come He might show the exceeding riches of His grace in His kindness toward us in Christ Jesus”.

However, during this present age, our sufferings as believers are ordained by God to prepare us for those ages, working in us “an eternal weight of glory” (2 Corinthians 4:17).  They are designed to bring us into a deeper knowledge and understanding of the glory of God’s person (Jeremiah 9:23-24), a closer relation with and dependence upon God (Job 42:5), to confirm (to us and those around us) the genuineness of our faith (1 Peter 1:6-7), to discipline us in times of waywardness (Hebrews 12:3-11), and to refine or sanctify us, progressively conforming us to the nature and character of God as revealed in the man Jesus Christ, which is the ultimate intent of all of the trials and suffering that God’s redeemed people experience while in this present age as God prepares us for the day we will be restored to the perfect humanity for which we were created (Romans 8:28 – 31) (2 Corinthians 3:18) (1 John 3:1-4) .

Thankfully, during our times of suffering and trial, the LORD provides as an anchor for our soul, namely His exceeding great and precious promises that nothing we go through in this age will be able to separate us from His love (Romans 8:38), and that He will, in the end, on that final day, present us faultless before His throne, with “exceeding great joy”, both His and ours, where we will live forever with Him in a new heavens and new earth, where there will be no more sorrow, weeping or pain, but only “fulness of joy and pleasures forevermore” (Jude 24-25) (Revelation 21:1-4) (Psalm 16:11).

Thus, in all of our sufferings and afflictions we can joyfully declare like Job, “I know that my redeemer lives”, and from our own hearts proclaim “To Him be all glory and majesty, dominion, power and blessing both now and forever.  Amen!”

Grace and Peace ×

P.S.  I wrote this blog in the midst of my precious wife’s intense suffering as she endures a very painful treatment for cancer.  As with many trials, this was most unexpected.  I am praying daily that God grants her the grace to endure by being fully persuaded in her heart that He is wise and good, sovereign and present, that He loves her beyond what she can know while in this world, and that He is truly working this all for her ultimate and eternal good.  I humbly request that if the LORD puts it on your heart, that you will join me in my prayer.

Thank you.

Jim Novell