Job: seeing Christ as the answer

Ultimately, Job's suffering is only given an answer with the meaningful suffering of Jesus Christ and His resurrection.

Job is brought to the point where he realises the 'otherness' of God. He understands something of the divine mystery, and he feels keenly the gap between him and his Creator.

'For He is not a man, as I am, that I might answer Him, that we should come to trial together. There is no arbiter between us.' (Job 9:32-33a)

Job needs a mediator, and so do we. The Bible clearly tells us that we find the mediator we need in Jesus Christ:

'For there is one God and one mediator between God and mankind, the man Christ Jesus' (1 Tim 2:5).

It is a wonderful thing; Jesus makes the sacrifice once and for all for sins (Hebrews 10). He died for the sins of the whole world (1 Jn 2:2) and made the propitiation that no one else could. Think about it: if Job, even Job, with all his righteousness, had died on the cross, what would have happened? Would the sky have turned dark and rocks split open and the dead been raised? No. There would have been no atonement, and no resurrection. Only Jesus could fulfil this role uniquely as the mediator because He was both God and man, and in sinless perfection, He could bring us to His Father.

In a stunning glimpse of gospel-clarity, Job sees that resurrection is needed to solve the mystery of suffering: 'For I know that my Redeemer lives, and at the last He will stand upon the earth.' (Job 19:25)

Only God has power of death (Job 38:17). Christ's victory over Satan will ultimately answer all the human frustrations of suffering and injustice. Redemption in Christ gives a final answer to Satan's accusations by justifying the ungodly (Rom 4:5).

'He is able to save to the uttermost those who draw near to God through Him, since He always lives to make intercession for them... He did this (offered sacrifice) once for all when He offered up Himself.' (Heb 7:25-27)

'For as in Adam all die, so in Christ all will be made alive.' (1 Cor 15:22)

We have only ever known this world to be full of suffering and death since Adam fell; Jesus offers the only solution to our fallen human condition. In sending Jesus, God wasn't pressing the 'pause' or even the 'stop' button on the world's suffering; He was entering into it Himself to deliver us eternally. The rest of our earthly life will continue to be marked with suffering as part of our mortality, but we can be made right before God through Jesus Christ and spend an eternity in His perfect new creation where there will be no more tears (Rev 21).

Jesus is not only our mediator, but our friend. He is acquainted with sorrow (Isa 53:3), and He gets how we feel, and He is not lacking in compassion for us:

'For we do not have a high priest who is unable to sympathize with our weaknesses, but one who in every respect has been tempted as we are, yet without sin. Let us then with confidence draw near to the throne of grace, that we may receive mercy and find grace to help in time of need.' (Heb 4:15-16)

His nail-marked hands hold ours as we walk through life with all its shadows and pain. Each step takes us closer to seeing Him face to face in an eternity without suffering.