Metropolitan Tabernacle Pulpit · Sermon No. 2909
“For I know that my Redeemer lives.” Job 19:25.
I DARESAY you know that there are a great many difficulties about the translation of this passage. It is a very complicated piece of Hebrew, partly, I suppose, owing to its great antiquity, being found in what is, probably, one of the oldest Books of the Bible. Besides that, different persons have tried to translate it according to their own varying views. The Jews stiffly fight against the notion of the Messiah and His Resurrection being found in this verve, while many Christian commentators see here everything that we can find in the New Testament and translate the passage as though Job were as well instructed in this matter as we are now that Christ “has brought life and immortality to light through the Gospel.” Others say that while there is, no doubt, a reference to the Person and the Resurrection of Christ, yet it is not so vivid as some seem to think.
Personally, I am quite satisfied with the translation given in our Authorized Version, yet it has occurred to me that possibly, Job, himself, may not have known the full meaning of all that he said. Imagine the Patriarch driven into a corner, badgered by his so-called friends, charged by them with all manner of evils until he is quite boiling over with indignation and, at the same time, smarting under terrible bodily diseases and the dreadful losses which he has sustained— and, at last, he bursts out with this exclamation, “I shall be vindicated one day. I am sure I shall. I know that my Vindicator lives. I am sure that there is One who will vindicate me and if He never clears my name and reputation as long as I live, it will be done afterwards. There must be a just God in Heaven who will see me righted and even though worms devour my body until the last relic of it has passed away, I do verily believe that, somehow, in the far-off ages, I shall be vindicated.”
He throws his faith forward to some tremendous era which he anticipates and he declares that there will be found then, as he believes there is alive even now, a Goel, a Kinsman, an Avenger who will stand up for him and set right all this wrong. He cannot conceive that God will permit such gross injustice to be done to a man who has walked as he has walked, to be brought so low and then to be stung with such unfounded accusations. He is positive that there must be a Vindicator for him somewhere and he appeals to that Last Dread Tribunal which he dimly sees in the far-off future and he believes that someone will be found to stand up successfully for him there.
If that is the case, you will see that Job was driven, perhaps beyond his former knowledge, by his very pains and trials. He may but dimly have perceived a future state, but his condition revealed to him the necessity for such a state. He felt that if the righteous suffer so much in this life, often apparently without any just cause—and if the wicked prosper— then there must be another state in which God will set right the wrongs of this and rectify the apparent inequalities of His Providence here. Job realized that and, possibly, his deep griefs may have been the channel of another Revelation to him, namely, that there was a mysterious Divine Being concerning whom that dark prophecy had been handed down from the Garden of Eden, itself, “The Seed of the woman shall bruise the serpent’s head.” He felt sure that for those who were wronged as he had been, there must be an Advocate provided. He had before complained that there was no Umpire—no “Daysman”—to stand between them both, but now he asks for an Advocate and he feels that there must be one, yes, he knowsthat there is and he declares that somewhere or other, there is an Advocate who will, some day or oth-
er, set right all that concerns him, let things go now as they may! So possibly Job was seeing more than he had ever seen before of that mysterious One who pleads the cause of those who are oppressed and shows Himself strong on their behalf at the right hand of God!
I am not going to enter into any discussion of the matter, but shall use the passage in the full Evangelical sense. Job may have known all that we now know concerning Christ, for he may have had special Revelations and manifestations. We do not find all that we know in his Book, yet he may have meant all that I shall say in this discourse. If he did not mean it, I trust that we shall, under the gracious guidance of the Holy Spirit!
I. I shall speak first upon this point—JOB HAD A TRUE FRIEND AMID HIS MISTAKEN FRIENDS. These men were miserable comforters, but Job had a real Comforter. They were estranged from him, but he had a true Friend left, so he said, “I know that my Goel lives.” That is the Hebrew word. I suppose you all know that it means the person nearest akin to him who, because he was nearest akin, was bound to take up his cause. If a man was slain by misadventure, the goel pursued the one who had slain him and endeavored to avenge his death. If a person fell into debt and was sold into slavery because of the debt, his goel, if he was able, had to redeem him—and hence we get the word, “redeemer.” Or if estates became mortgaged through poverty, it was the duty of the next of kin to redeem them, if possible, and so, again, we get the idea of redeemer. But the word, “goel,” is more comprehensive than the word, “redeemer,” so we will begin with its first meaning.