The Yearning of Job

It constantly amazes me to read the Old Testament.  As Christians who live under the covenant of the New Testament, I think we oftentimes dismiss or skim over the OT and many Christians begin and end their study of the scripture with the gospels (but that’s just my very unscientific assumption; I’d love to be proven wrong).  If we do skip over it or just skim it, then we miss the whole point of the scripture.  There is so much in the OT that needs to be unpacked and studied in order to truly understand what the NT says to us.

Think about how much you would miss if you read just The Return of the King and or just The Dark Tower and skipped the rest of the books in the series.  (Of course, no one but a dedicated scholar with a degree in Middle English history could read the Silmarillion, but the first ten minutes in the movie pretty much sums it up).

(source: http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Hand_of_Sauron.jpg)

In Job, there is a constant yearning for someone to intercede on man’s behalf.  Job is righteous – he has not wronged God, but God is too big for Job to approach on his own.  Job is seeking an arbitrator, an intercessor, a redeemer, or just a even just a friend.   (See Job 9:32-35, 16:18-21, 19:25-27)

Job 14: 15-17 says:

You will call and I will answer you

You will long for the creature your hands have made

Surely then you will count my steps

But not keep track of my sin

My offenses will be sealed up in a bag

You will cover over my sin

Job understood the creation and fall of man.  And though he was “blameless and upright”, he still knew he had sins that needed to be covered.  He was searching for the son of God who was also the son of Man, the bridge between God and man.

In the end of the book, after God speaks to Job from the storm, Job’s response is very simple and I believe this is the same response we should have in front of the cross:

My ears had heard of you, but now my eyes have seen you

Therefore I despise myself and repent in dust and ashes (Job 42:5-6)