Is Jesus Christ your kinsman? Are you related to him by saving faith? Job said, “I know that my Redeemer lives.” Can you say, “My Redeemer, my Jesus”? Do not let this Christmas go by until you can claim that personal relationship with Jesus for yourself. Do not rest this night until you rest in him.
Job's confession is expressed so that each part is more surprising and remarkable than the last. We have already noted, first, Job's strong belief in a personal, vindicating God; and second, Job's faith in the coming incarnation of his divine Redeemer, the Lord Jesus Christ. Here, in the third place and amazingly, we see Job's faith in his own bodily resurrection:
So far this week we have only said that Job believed in God, personally to be sure. He did not have a remote, abstract, unconcerned deity to worship, like so many do. He believed in a living, powerful, compassionate and vindicating God. But so did many of the Old Testament figures. By definition, any truly godly person believes in a personal, powerful, living and vindicating God.
There was a purpose to all of Job's suffering, of course. This is what the story's opening and epilogue are all about. I call it the meaning of history, namely, that God and his ways are good even if they do not seem good to us, even if they involve us in much suffering, and that believers prove the truth of this by how they accept what God sends.
When we think of the Christian doctrine of the resurrection we think first and naturally of the gospel accounts of Jesus' resurrection and then of the later New Testament teachings built upon it. But it is a remarkable fact that one of the greatest statements of resurrection faith in the Bible is found not in the New Testament, but in the Old. It is the testimony of Job, and is found in our passage for this week, Job 19:25-27.
