Today in God's Word—June 2023
East Tallassee Church of Christ
June 4, Job 9
”There is no arbiter between us, who might lay his hand on us both." - Job 9:33
The adolescent boy wants very badly to talk to the girl of his dreams. They have several classes together, and she is friendly. But he is too awkward and unsure of himself to approach her. So he asks one of their mutual friends to speak to the girl and put in a good word for him. The friend of both the boy and the girl becomes the go-between because the young boy is overwhelmed by what he perceives to be the distance between them.
When I was in Cuba or Ukraine on mission trips through the years, my very limited knowledge of Spanish and Russian made it necessary for me to teach and preach and have conversations with the locals through an interpreter, a translator who spoke both my English and their native tongue. The gap between our languages made meaningful conversation impossible, but the translator bridged that gap for us.
And it was Hathach in the story of Esther. He was the faithful messenger who went back and forth between Queen Esther inside the palace complex and her guardian cousin Mordecai out in the city square, outside the gate of the palace. The gap between Esther and Mordecai was one of distance, and the servant Hathach became the go-between for the heroes of the story to communicate.
When Job responded to unkind Bildad and said, "Truly I know that it is so," I don't think he was agreeing that he was wicked as Bildad had claimed. But he did agree that God was very great, and that human beings were very small and powerless by comparison. God is too wise, too powerful, too angry, too righteous, too eternal for a man who was none of those things to be able to make his case and plead his innocence to such a great God. Job felt the futility of an unbridgeable gap between himself and God. He longed for an arbiter, an umpire, a mediator who could bridge that gap. Job was
confident of his innocence. He knew that he was not guilty of evil as Bildad had charged him. But he felt powerless and unable to discuss his case with God.
It is impossible for us to read the words of Job as he longed for a mediator to intercede for him with God without thinking of our Mediator, Jesus Christ. We know that he is the very one Job longed for — someone who could lay his hand on both God and himself. It was a perfect idea, but Job could not know or even imagine how it would come about. But the One he longed for came, when the Word became flesh and dwelled among us. His longing suggests the exact role that Jesus would accept to build a bridge across the impossible gap between fallen, sinful humans and Almighty God.
Job and his friends never mentioned Satan. They apparently had no knowledge of the evil one who had suggested and inflicted (with God's permission) all the pain and suffering Job experienced. They saw it all as the hand of God. We know more about Job's situation and the cause of it than Job knew as he lived the excruciating experience. Again, New Testament light gives us understanding that Job lacked about Satan. But even with his limited knowledge of unseen spiritual realities, Job held onto his integrity and his trust in God through all the adversity that he suffered. But he sensed the need for a mediator, and by his longing words described exactly who Jesus would be and what he would do.
We should be thankful for the additional light we have on these subjects, and be encouraged by Job's example to be men and women of faith and integrity. Our own righteousness will never justify us before God on our own. But praise the Lord that we know the mediator Job longed for, and his name is Jesus.
Copyright © 2023 by Michael B. McElroy. Used by permission. All rights reserved.
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