Job 19:25

And then, in the middle of all these laments, he speaks those magnificent words of faith: "I know that my Redeemer lives." But this was the very God whom he was accusing of injustice a moment ago! How good it is to see Job's faith in all this turmoil turning to the very One he was speaking against! Truly these — not his own protests of innocence — are words worth carving into lasting rock.

The Redeemer is the ordinary word for next of kin. The right of redemption and of avenging injuries fell on him. God would be his goel, to use the Hebrew word. People have thought Job's faith could not have reached this — perhaps not as a settled habit. But here his soul rises up to God. He sets life in God against the present wasting away of skin and flesh. The power to deliver from that perishing condition — and the will to do it — was there. He lives; He stands up above all that is dust. Job was possibly looking for deliverance in this life, but I have no doubt the Spirit looks on to a better resurrection.

If he knew that his Redeemer lived, that could only be true of a Divine Person. He believed He would come to this earth. He did so, and will do so again. Then Job also knew that he himself would be raised in the body if he died. He had no doubt or scepticism about resurrection.

It was because he knew that his Redeemer was the living One, and that as "the Last," He would stand upon the earth. Darby's New Translation renders it this way, as really being a name of God, pointing us to Isaiah 48:12. So again, Job showed clearly that he knew death was not the end of everything for man. He expected a resurrection which would reach his body. What was not revealed then was the state of incorruption that resurrection brings us into. Life and incorruptibility came to light through the gospel, as 2 Timothy 1:10 reads when rightly translated.

In the following words commentators have found different meanings, depending on their translation. We can reduce these to two. Does Job say, "In my flesh I shall see God," or "Away from my flesh I shall see God?" Is he declaring his belief in a spiritual, bodiless condition after death, where he will see God and receive his vindication? Or is he plainly stating his conviction that there will be a literal bodily resurrection?

Does not Job speak here of seeing the Lord with his own eyes, and does this not need a resurrection? He does not seem to have been looking for the Redeemer to act for him in this present life. He looked beyond his death — to a glorified body. So, as someone has beautifully said, "he plants the flag of victory on his own grave."

Job looked forward, through the dim twilight, to something that was to be done in the far-off future. We look back, from the full flood-tide of divine revelation, to something that has been done. Job could say of his Redeemer that "at the last he will stand upon the earth." We know that our Redeemer sits on the throne of the Majesty in the heavens. He lived, laboured, and died on the earth first.