Key
verses: "I know that my redeemer lives, and that in the end He will stand
upon the earth."
Job
19:25
"Where
O death, is your victory? Where O death
is your sting? Thanks be to God! He gives us the victory through our Lord
Jesus Christ."
1
Corinthians 15:55-&-57
Way
back at the beginning of our journey we described Job as an example of a man without
the hope of Christ. O how he longed for a mediator between he
and God, to plead his case and move the heart of God with compassion in his
situation. He longed to be relieved from
his suffering. We described Job as a
man, like so many today, who have no hope of a savior or of a personal
relationship with God. Yet, remarkably,
the Holy Spirit reached out to the heart of Job to help him know, without
seeing, that there is a redeemer, the one he yearned for and that someday, even
after he is dead and decayed, he would meet that One face to face. Job knew of a resurrection. He didn't understand it. He had never seen it, but he proclaimed it
just the same thousands of years before it took place. "And after my skin has
been destroyed, yet in my flesh I will see God; I myself will see Him with my
own eyes; I and not another." (Job
19:26-27)
Now
Paul, after Christ, explains what Job, and we, will experience in Christ. "The perishable must clothe itself with
the imperishable, and the mortal with immortality. When the perishable has been clothed with the
imperishable, and the mortal with immortality, then the saying that is written
will come true: "Death has been
swallowed up in victory."" (1 Cor. 15:53-54) Christ, as the first fruit, went first,
shedding His perishable form that He used to walk among us and conquer death, and then resuming His imperishable self, leading the way for us to follow
through His power.
"Therefore
My heart is glad and My tongue rejoices; My body will also rest secure, because
You will not abandon Me to the grave, nor will You let Your Holy One see
decay. You have made known to Me the
path of life; You will fill Me with Joy in your presence, with eternal
pleasures at Your right hand."
(Psa.16:9-11) Paul makes it clear
to his listeners in Perga, that even this is a prophecy of the Christ that was
fulfilled in Jesus. (Acts
13:35) For Jesus did not decay, but
was raised because the imperishable cannot decay.
From
end to end of God's Holy Word, His promise of the resurrection is
proclaimed. It did not take place in the
way it was expected, but then, when God does things God's way, that is usually
the case. He is the God of the
unexpected, the God of surprises. He
foretold what would happen, just as the prophets foretold His birth in
Bethlehem, but the knowledgeable missed it because they walked by sight and not
with the faith of the heart. So, they
missed the resurrection of the carpenter, because He didn't look or act like
the Messiah that their learning had told them to expect. He was Emmanuel, "God with us." May our hearts remain open so that we are not
guilty of the same.
The
Holy Spirit reached out to Job to assure him of a resurrection to come. Now, Jesus has given us that assignment to
tell others of the hope and victory that is found in him. In Job's case, all his human companions could
do was find fault and suggest that Job repent, but there was no real hope. We can be true friends to the Jobs in our
lives by bringing the knowledge of the Forgiver who will make all things new.
Hymn: "Up From the Grave He Arose"
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