Job’s call for a Mediator

The book of Job is interesting for it opens before us the nature of the great controversary that exists between God and Satan the accuser. Job a righteous man who prayed for and offered sacrifices to God on behalf of his children is attached on all fronts. His family was destroyed, he lost his wealth as it was stolen from him and finally, he lost his health.

Job’s friends accuse Job of being a sinful man, having some secret sin in his life. Yet God himself in Job 1:8 describes Job as an upright man, one who fears God and shuns evil?

So what gives, why does Job suffer. The answer comes later in the chapter when Satan accuses Job of only worshipping and honoring God because of what God has given him.

The accuser is allowed to test Job, but for the entire book of Job, he does not understand why.

Job even wishes there was a court in which he could take his case before God and plead for mercy. His argument is made in the 9th chapter. Here toward the end of Chapter 9, Job makes a very profound statement in that God is Almighty, and I am but a mere man. How can I answer Him that we might go to court together. Then in verse 33 Job says, Nor is there any mediator between us, Who may lay his hands on us both.

How profound these words are! Job sees no hope of coming to an understanding with God because of the great gulf between them. God is infinite and Job painfully realizes how finite his own life is.

So Job says, “If only there was a mediator between myself and God.” In his argument with God, Job feels that there is no one to whom he can look as an arbiter. On one of two condition only, he thinks, could the contest be more even between himself and God: (1) If God divesting Himself of all his divine attributes, became man, one like you and I or as Job. (2) If some mediator could be found so that he could decide the contest.

Job thought neither condition possible. Yet the gospel provides a fulfillment of both conditions. “The I AM (of the Old and New Testament) is the mediator, or arbiter between God and man. Made possible by the fact that He did laid down his divinity and took up the likeness of mankind. He suffered and died. Not that we really truly need an arbiter between God and man but Jesus is the One who represents God to man, the One through whom man can understand and approach God (see Hebrews 2:17, 18).

Therefore, Jesus came to mediate or show us how it becomes possible for us to approach God. He shows us how to have an intimate relationship with God the Father.

Does God Sing?

I want us to take our perception we have of the God and the Old Testament and put it in the back of our mind. Yes, I said, put it in the back of our mind and then try not to think about it as we explore the following text. By the way, the following Text is written in the form of a song.

Behold! My Servant whom I uphold,
My elect One in whom My soul delights!
I have put My Spirit upon Him;
He will bring forth justice to the Gentiles. Isaiah 42:1

My Servant is a designation for the pre-incarnate Christ as we see in Isaiah 41:1 and confirmed in Matthew 12:18. So it would appear this song is being sung by someone and they are singing to someone and the subject of the song is the pre-incarnate Christ.   The key to who is singing comes in the second word which is My. So God the Father is singing this song to us about His Servant which is the pre-incarnate Christ. The Servant, (pre-incarnate Christ) is the God Elect One in whom My soul delights. God is saying I enjoy spending time, having a friendship with and companionship with My Elect One. God the Father is saying “in My Chosen One, My soul delights to be with. He has a great burden to bear and so I have put My spirit upon Him. This great burden is to bring forth justice to the Gentiles.

God is so concerned with the mission that His chosen has been given, that God enlists the third member of the Godhead to descend upon Him, because He will bring brining justice to the Gentiles. His Servant the Chosen of God has been asked to carry justice to the Gentiles in the form of salvation and because the mission is so dangerous, He has set His Spirit upon Him, to guide and strengthen Him while the Servant is on His mission to bring justice to the world.

This song sung by the Heavenly Father is sung to the sons of men, telling them that the pre-incarnate Christ is coming in the form of a servant to show justice in a world lacking justice.

Now does God the Father you see singing to his earth children sound like the tyrant we have pictured in the Old Testament. Instead, we see a Heavenly Father that is full of love and goodness wanting to redeem a fallen world to himself.

 

Hope for the Discouraged

Have you ever woken in the morning confused and wondering what life has in store for you? If yes, you are not alone for all of us have felt that way at one time or another.

The prophet Jeremiah spoke words of comfort to a people that had recently been scattered across the face of the then known world. A people that thought they had lost all hope.  To them Jeremiah wrote: “The LORD has appeared of old to me, saying; ‘Yes, I have loved you with an everlasting love; Therefore with lovingkindness I have drawn you. Again I will build you and you shall be rebuilt, O virgin of Israel! You shall again be adorned with your tambourines, And shall go forth in the dances of those who rejoice’” Jeremiah 31:3, 4.

To those feeling broken hearted and forsaken, God is promising that as He has loved those in the past, He loves you today and He will love you tomorrow. As I loved your fathers in days gone by, I will love you as I have loved them. But not only do I love you, but this is an everlasting love, a love that cannot be broken. And because it cannot be broken, I draw you unto myself.

Because he has loved us with this everlasting love, He will rebuild us. He will take our heart of stone and make it into a heart of flesh, that will be receptive of His love and His law. A law by the way which shows us the character of God Almighty Himself.

Hosea the prophet used similar words when he said: “I drew them with gentle cords, with bands of love, and I was to them as those who take the yoke from their neck. I stooped and fed them” Hosea 11:4.

To me this sounds like a God that truly loves us and wants the best for us and is always drawing us to himself. Therefore we should be happy and rejoice. The expression for joy and happiness here is in the shaking of the tambourine and the dance of those making merry for the grace and mercy God has shown upon them even though they have wondered from the LORD, He is still drawing them to himself.

So today, let us rejoice for we are loved by a God that has promised with an everlasting love that He loves us and is drawing us to Himself, the giver and sustainer of life.

 

 

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