’For I know that my redeemer liveth, and that he shall stand at the latter day upon the earth: And though after my skin worms destroy this body, yet in my flesh shall I see God: Whom I shall see for myself, and mine eyes shall behold, and not another; though my reins be consumed within me.
Job 19:25-27 KJV
The Amplified rendering brings out the meaning very clearly…
25. ‘“For I know that my Redeemer and Vindicator lives, And at the last He will take His stand upon the earth. 26. “Even after my [mortal] skin is destroyed [by death],
Yet from my [immortal] flesh I will see God, 27. Whom I, even I, will see for myself, And my eyes will see Him and not another! My heart faints within me.
Job is here confessing Christ as His Redeemer –even though he lived many hundreds of years before the incarnation. He knew that his Redeemer would physically and visibly take his stand upon planet earth and that he, Job, would be there, in His presence and in his, Job’s, immortal body. This caused his heart to ‘faint’, or be overwhelmed with the emotion of anticipating this great event.
Our anticipation should, and can be, exactly the same. Consider Peter’s words in the same context…
‘Whom having not seen, ye love; in whom, though now ye see him not, yet believing, ye rejoice with joy unspeakable and full of glory: Receiving the end of your faith, even the salvation of your souls.’
1 Peter 1:8-9 KJV
Bible believing followers of the Lord Jesus have this exact same sense of joyous anticipation. We can’t wait. This life has no attractions by comparison with the promise of Christ in the Gospel for everyone who has confessed faith in Christ for salvation.
Alongside Job’s wonderful confession of faith referred to above I would like to put something else he said a little earlier in the book,
‘If a man die, shall he live again? all the days of my appointed time will I wait, till my change come.’ Job 14:14 KJV.
The first statement, which is made in the form of a question, has the answer implied in the next phrase, the one I would like to focus attention upon.
‘If a man die, shall he live again?’ Answer, YES, absolutely. Both saved and unsaved will live again –the saved will be resurrected to eternal life, the unsaved will also be resurrected, the scripture is very clear; see Hebrews 9:27, and Revelation 20:15 which tells us about the Great White Throne where all the dead who have not accepted Christ as saviour will, in their physical body, receive the just judgment of almighty God. ‘Whosoever was not found written in the book of life was cast into the lake of fire’. This is why we must proclaim the Gospel to all who will listen.
However, the second phrase says something very wonderful for every believer. ‘All the days of my appointed time I will wait, till my change comes’. This is something we can all say as an expression of our trust and confidence in the faithfulness of God and the promise of eternal life. We all have an ‘appointed time’ of life here on earth. Psalm 90:12 exhorts us to pray earnestly that God would ‘…teach us to number our days, that we may apply our hearts to wisdom’. Job’s confession of faith is a pattern for each of us to ‘wait’ with faith based anticipation ‘all the days of [our] appointed time UNTILL our CHANGE comes’. What is that change? Answer, the ‘manifestation’ or apocalypses that Paul speaks of in Romans 8:19 of the ‘sons [and daughters] of God’. Paul in 1 Corinthians 15:51-52 refers to that wonderful moment in these words,
’Behold, I shew you a mystery; We shall not all sleep, but we shall all be changed, In a moment, in the twinkling of an eye, at the last trump: for the trumpet shall sound, and the dead [the redeemed] shall be raised incorruptible, and we shall be changed.’
Let us live in faithful anticipation of that day, when our change comes.
God bless you.