Jesus in the Old Testament 031:
Job’s Mediator
Job 9:1-35
Thesis: Job rightly understands that he has no right or expectation of a “day in court” with God. His might and his righteousness are inscrutable and incomparable to Job’s. He cries out for a mediator and bemoans the absence of one. Jesus is this mediator for us.
Nutshell w/ Kids
Imagine if you felt like your brother did something to make you mad. Would you tell him about it? Who would you go to for justice?
What if your Dad was the problem? Where would you go?
What if a police officer was the problem?
What if the governor of Indiana was the problem?
What if the President of the United States was the problem?
What if God were the problem?
Job felt like he needed to take God to court. But there’s nobody to judge that case.
What should we do if we are mad at God?
Be honest. That’s okay.
Know who he is and who you are.
Because of our sin, we are “in trouble” with God, and it is a huge problem.
Jesus is the only one who can bring our problems to God and represent us to Him.
Because of Jesus, we can be at peace with God.
Deeper w/ Adults
Problem #1 The insurmountable gap between God and Job.
God’s righteousness is far superior to Job’s
Vs 1-3
Eliphaz had challenged Job that all his sufferings were indicative of someone who was guilty before God. (4:17).
Job responds by saying that we’re all guilty in comparison with God! Nobody can measure up to the righteousness of God (Rom 3:23, etc.).
If a man were to argue righteousness with God, he wouldn’t be able to answer one question in a thousand (Job 38-41).
Vs 14-16
God is so severely “other” that we cannot hope to have words with Him.
Even though Job is righteous (and God agrees! Job 1:1, 8; 2:3), his righteousness does got give him the right to speak to God.
Vs 16: Even if Job summoned God to court and He showed up, there wouldn’t be any expectation of a “fair hearing.” Job and God are just too different in nature and righteousness.
Vs 15: All He can do is throw himself on the mercy of the court, but the judge (Job feels) is also his accuser.
If the defense attorney is “in on it” with the prosecutor, the defendant has no hope: Pastor in Eritrea.
Vs 19-21
If Job were to argue for his righteousness, even this action would demonstrate that he is not equal to God.
“Whatever you say can and will be used against you in a court of law.”
Vs 21: Job declares that he is blameless, but he is still nothing compared with God, so he despairs of life.
He has to be more than righteous. In order to be able to argue with God, he’d need to be like Him.
God’s power is far superior to Job’s
Vs 4-13
Vs 4 is a general thesis statement that fighting against God is pointless.
God is wiser and stronger than any adversary.
“Hardened himself” is the same underlying phrase as “stiff-necked” which is used as an accusatory phrase against Israel so many times.
Nobody has squared up with God and survived!
Vs 5-14 are written in a Hebrew Poetic style called a “participle poem,” where the actions of God are presented as a hymn of praise, frequently focusing on creation (See Isa 44; Psa 87, and others).
Here, though, most of the actions are “anti-creative” or “overriding creation.” Job sees God as walking over and trampling his creation.
Job 38:31
Isa 44:24
Vs 11: The actions of his anger can be felt, but He cannot! His is transcendent but still shakes creation (c.f. Jn 3:8).
Vs 12: Because God can’t be directly interacted with, nobody can stop His action. Neither is anyone in a place to reverse them (Rom 9:20).
Vs 13: Rahab: A Mesopotamian Pagan water dragon deity of chaos, the conquering of which was the fist step of the creation of the world according to area creation myths (Gen 1:2?).
Vs 17-19
The results: Job is instantly defeated by comparison with God.
Job’s attacks from Satan came so swiftly and simultaneously, that Job “can’t catch his breath” between them.
God’s judgments (for so Job perceives them) have robbed him of happiness and have filled his heart with bitterness. Not sinful, just honest emotion.
God’s purposes are far superior to Job’s. (vs 22-26)
Vs 22: All people die. All people suffer. This is an argument against the accusation of Eliphaz that only the wicked suffer. Not the case! (Ecc 9:2)
Vs 23 “Disaster” is literally the whip, the scourge.
When righteous people are suddenly and horribly punished, as Job has been, it does not actually lampoon God’s nature. His righteousness does not suffer because of his otherness.
“Mocks the calamity” sounds heartless. Perhaps that’s where Job’s heart was. The point is that God does not feel the need to intervene or overturn every suffering righteous person.
Against the just th’ Almighty’s arrows fly,
For he delights the innocent to try,
To show their constant and their Godlike mind,
Not by afflictions broken, but refined.
—Sir R. Blackmore
Vs 24: Two interpretations based on the premise that the wicked have overrun the Earth. The source of evil does not lie in the nature of God.
He has sovereignly blinded the eyes of the Judges so that their justice is perverted, furthering the reign of injustice in the land even under the exercise of his will.
He has “covered their faces” with a sack as men condemned to die are lead to their execution. God’s judgment on the lack of righteous justice is forthcoming.
Vs 25-26. Job uses the fastest things he can think of on land, water, and air to describe the fleetingness of his life in comparison with God’s eternal nature and perspective (Psalm 89:47; Ecc 6:12; Jas 4:14).
Problem #2: Job cannot build the bridge on his own.
Vs 27-28: He can’t just smile and pretend he’s not angry and suffering
He can look good and happy on the outside, but God knows his heart.
He will still be guilty of being angry with God, even if he’s smiling on the outside.
Vs 29-31: He cannot actually make himself clean before God and stand on a level playing field with Him.
Vs 29: Nobody can be good enough on their own. It’s a bankrupt prospect.
Remember that he is sitting in dust and ashes, scrapping himself with pot shards.
He can clean himself up on the outside with soap and spring water, but that won’t affect his heart.
God’s judgment wouldn’t be fooled by a clean body. He will be plunged back into a cesspool.
Afterward, even clothes plunged into a septic tank would find his heart more repulsive than their outward filth and would be offended by the person they’re covering more than the foulness of their own septic-bath.
Self-righteousness is always insufficient. Isa 64:6
Job’s cry for a mediator Vs 32-35
Vs 32: God’s otherness is summarized in massive understatement: He is not a man.
There is no hope for a level playing field to serve as the basis for a conversation, much less Job’s day in court.
Vs 33: Job needs a mediator an arbitrator who is both God and man.
Jesus is the only hope for reconciliation between a Holy God and sinful men.
1 Tim 2:5-6
Heb 9:15
Vs 34: The mediator would need to take away God’s rod of punishment. Nobody can wrestle that out of God’s hand. God would have to take it away from himself, so the mediator needs to be God himself.
Vs 35: If God’s rod of wrath were taken away, Job could speak without fear.
Job declares that this isn’t his situation.
It is ours, however. Heb 4:16
Job’s growing confidence
After several more exchanges with his horrible comforters and bad counselors, Job is convinced that God is the source of his suffering and also that God’s righteousness has not changed.
He believes that God loves him still and that, while he has not had his day in court, there must be someone in heaven that is standing for him.
16:18-22
His protestations are not in vain.
Job is hopeful that there is in fact an arbitrator.
Vs 21: this arbitrator is distinct from the Father (yet 9:35 says that it has to be God).
Vs 22: Job will know the outcome of His case when he is dead and his flesh is done (also 17:1).
19:23-27
Still calling for his day in court, he finally embraces the goodness of God toward him even in his travail and declares in faith that He has an arbitrator, a mediator.
Vs 25: His Redeemer is alive and present in his trial.
Vs 26: Job will not be recompensed in some vague future ethereal reality. His answer will be presented in a physical setting (resurrection in the renewed creation, Messianic kingdom?).
Job’s body, which has been utterly decimated by his experiences, will be restored in the presence of his God.
Post-script. Eventually, Job does get his “day in court,” and he is undone, as he knew he would be. God’s answer to him goes on for 3 chapters.
In the end, he declares that he has seen God “face to face,” 42:1-6.
Job couldn’t have seen God the Father (Ex 33:20).
Quite likely, Job encountered his arbitrator, Jesus Christ, and it leads to repentance.
“When the time comes to you at which you will be forced at last to utter the speech which has lain at the center of your soul for years, which you have, all that time, idiot-like, been saying over and over, you'll not talk about the joy of words. I saw well why the gods do not speak to us openly, nor let us answer. Till that word can be dug out of us, why should they hear the babble that we think we mean? How can they meet us face to face till we have faces?”
― C.S. Lewis, Till We Have Faces
This fantastical example is a manifestation of the experience of every sinner who comes to encounter the reality of their God and the depth of their sin.
Discussion Questions
Is there anything in your life story that made you mad at God? What was it?
What have you done with it? Do you still need to deal with it?
How would you counsel your own heart in light of what you’ve learned about God’s justice from Job?
How does the existence of Christ as a mediator affect the way we talk about the gospel?
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