Job 9 – We do have a mediator!

Day 5 of the “Chrono Read” has me smack dab in the middle of Job – and we see Job crying out to the Lord after getting some questionable advice from his friend.  Job has lost his house, his family and now he is covered in itchy painful sores from his head to his toe, sitting in the dirt and scratching his sores with broken pieces of pottery. That’s pretty low.

BUT…You see, Job is completely innocent here – he did nothing to bring this trial on.  Certainly not sin as his pal suggested.  Job is also keeping his perspective – in the midst of that he gives an awe-inspiring reminder of who God is:

¹Then Job answered and said:
²“Truly I know that it is so:
But how can a man be^(A) in the right before God?
³If one wished to^(B) contend with him,
one could not answer him once in a thousand times.
⁴He is^(C) wise in heart and mighty in strength
—who has^(D) hardened himself against him, and succeeded?—
⁵he who removes mountains, and they know it not,
when he overturns them in his anger,
⁶who^(E) shakes the earth out of its place,
and^(F) its pillars tremble;
⁷who commands the sun, and it does not rise;
who seals up the stars;
⁸who alone^(G) stretched out the heavens
and trampled the waves of the sea;
⁹who^(H) made^(I) the Bear and^(J) Orion,
the Pleiades^(K) and the chambers of the south;
¹⁰who does^(L) great things beyond searching out,
and marvelous things beyond number.
¹¹Behold, he passes by me, and I^(M) see him not;
he moves on, but I do not perceive him.
¹²Behold, he snatches away;^(N) who can turn him back?
^(O) Who will say to him, ‘What are you doing?’

In light of who God is…who will say to him – “What are you doing?”  Job knows he didn’t do anything to bring this on,  but he also knows who God is.  There is another thing – in light of who God is – who would Job go to as a “mediator” or as he says an “arbiter?”  Who could possibly stand in front of this God and contend with him?

³²For he is not a man, as I am, that I might answer him,
that we should^(AQ) come to trial together.
^33(AR) There is no^[d] arbiter between us,
who might lay his hand on us both.

I love reading thru the whole Bible, particularly in the OT with passages like this where it leaves a giant question mark.  It causes tension to enter in…the thought of “Yeah…we have no mediator…what are we going to do?!!”

Enter Jesus.

That’s what we are going to do.

The OT points to Christ and the cross.

1 Tim 2:5-6 –

⁵For^(H) there is one God, and there is one mediator between God and men, the man^[a] Christ Jesus, ^6(I) who gave himself as a ransom for all, which is^(J) the testimony given^(K) at the proper time.

Jesus Christ is that mediator between us and God.  He is the only mediator that is possible – as he is fully God!  God provided him as a sacrifice to pay for our sins and reconcile us to God.

Jesus answers Job’s question in v2 – ‘How can a man be right before God?’ – Thru Jesus and his cross.

AMEN!