Job 9:34

It is not that his conscience was bad; but he sees that, if God enters into judgment with His servant, no man living can be justified. His light would detect every fault, so that the clothes would shrink with horror from the wearer. Job therefore longs for an umpire or mediator between God and man, one who might lay his hands on both. Otherwise he is left in his weakness and failings before the awful, unbending, withering judgment of a Being so infinitely removed from him. If He would only remove His rod, he would not fear to speak; but he could not in his actual state.

He gets before God as Judge; and his perplexity is very great. He cannot answer God one in a thousand. "I am afraid of all my sorrows. I know that you will not hold me innocent." Poor Job! He does not know now which way to turn. And is not this the case with every believer the moment he gets before God as Judge? How can he or you be just before God? Would not one sin of a thousand utterly condemn you?

How clear it is that Job knew he was a sinful creature before his holy Creator, and that he had in himself no means of getting right. That being so, his only hope was the stepping in of a third party; but no such third party, or "daysman," was known to him. His three friends could not act the part, nor could any other man, since the daysman must be great enough to lay one of his hands upon Almighty God, and gracious enough to lay the other upon poor diseased and sinful Job.

What Job said he had not got is exactly what we have now in Christ. Was Christ a terror in this world? The law was this exactly. There were thunderings and lightnings. Even Moses said, "I tremble with fear," and the people said, "Do not let God speak to us." The law struck with terror, but it produced no real change in man, and no confidence in God.

If only there were an effective go-between, how different it would be! But, says Job, "it is not so with me." Have we ever thanked God with enough warmth that it is so with us? The fact is that though he may not have known it, Job was longing for the coming of CHRIST. We can now rejoice in the "one mediator between God and men, the man Christ Jesus" (1 Tim. 2:5). By Him the ransom price was paid, so that it is possible for a man to be just with God.

Though he would speak on God's behalf, he himself was a man, "formed of the clay," just as Job was. Job had said of God, "let not dread of him terrify me" (Job 9:34). Yet what this man had to say, as explaining God's ways, would bring no terror to Job's spirit. Just as our Lord Jesus became a Man, so bringing God to us without any sense of terror.