Sermon XII. - Job XIX. 25

    ‘For I know that my Redeemer liveth.’—Job XIX. 25.

    HESE words were spoken by Job, a man for the present miserable, and suspected by his friends as one that neither feared God nor trusted in him. Therefore, to comfort himself in his misery, and to vindicate his innocency, he makes confession of his faith.

    In this confession you have the grand and most important articles reckoned up.

    1.      He doth solemnly declare and believe the promised Messiah to be his Saviour: Iknow that my Redeemer liveth.

    2.      His coming to judgment: and that he shall stand at the latter day upon the earth.

    3.      The resurrection of the dead, with application to himself, for he saith, ver. 26, And though after my skin, worms destroy this body, yet in my flesh shall I see God.

    4.      And lastly, the beatifical vision, ver. 27, WhomIshallseeformyself,andmineeyes shall behold, and not another, though my reins be consumed within me.

    We have to do with the first article, his belief of salvation by the promised Messiah: ‘For I know that my Redeemer liveth.’

    I am not ignorant that this whole context is carried to another sense, not only by the Jewish doctors, but by some Christian interpreters of good account, whose reasons, consisting wholly in grammatications, I list not now to examine. The common and received sense seemeth better.

    1.      Because these words are ushered in with a solemn preface, containing in them some notable truth: ‘Oh that my words were now written! Oh that they were printed in a book! Oh that they were graven with an iron pen and lead in the rock for ever! For I know,’ &c. Surely such a passionate preface will become no other matter so well as the great mystical truths of the Christian faith.

    2.      The word (Goel, or kinsman) redeemer, will suit with no person so well as Christ.

    3.      The rest of the passages do not run smoothly unless they be accommodated to this sense, and that I take to be the most obvious sense which the words will best bear.

    4.      Job, as it is clear by many passages in this book, had often disdained all hopes of being restored to any temporal happiness in this life, affirming that all his hope was gone, that he was worse than a tree cut down. This is the drift and current of all his former discourses.

    5.      When he saith that he should see God in his flesh, and with the same eyes he now had, I cannot imagine why these passages should be so emphatically spoken if he only intended in this paragraph a hope of being restored to his temporal happiness.

    Having premised this, in the words observe:—

    1.      The causal particle, for, giving thereby a reason why he would have his words so marked, because of the excellency of the matter.

    2.      The article of faith: my Redeemer liveth.

    3.      The manner how this article is asserted and professed by Job.

    (1.) With certainty of persuasion: Iknow. (2.) With application and appropriation: my Redeemer; for I know my Redeemer liveth. All put together will yield this point:—

    Doct. That it is a great comfort to the saints in all their afflictions to know that they have a Redeemer living in heaven.

    This is the first thing whereby Job comforteth himself.

    I.      I shall consider the matter of the comfort.

    II.      Show you how it is applicable to all afflictions.

    I.      The matter of the comfort consists in four things:—

    1.      That there is a Redeemer.

    2.      That he is their Redeemer.

    3.      That he liveth.

    4.      That they know this upon certain and infallible grounds.

    1.      That there is a Redeemer; for he doth not say, I know that my Creator liveth, but my Redeemer.

    The word is Goel. The Septuagint render it ὁ ἐκλύειν μὲ μέλλων, he that will deliver me. Theodotion, better, ὃτι ὁ ἄγχιστος μοῦ ζῆ, my near kinsman liveth. The word properly signifies such a one as, in regard of propinquity or nearness of kindred, had a right to redeem a mortgage, or the like engagement of land or livelihood: Lev. xxv. 25, 26, ‘If thy brother be waxen poor, and hath sold away some of his possession, and if any of his kin come to redeem it, than shall he redeem that which his brother sold.’ Or else to prosecute the law against the murderer of his friend or kinsman, Num. xxxv. 19, 24.

    It is taken sometimes more largely for any deliverer out of thraldom, or avenger of wrong in general. And so is in the Old Testament applied to God or Christ, to whom the term chiefly belongeth. To God, because of his powerful providence and rescuing his people out of their calamities: Ps. xxv. 22, ‘Redeem Israel, God, out of all his troubles.’ To Christ, to whom it is most proper: Isa. lix. 20, ‘And the Redeemer shall come to Zion, and to them that shall turn away ungodliness from Jacob;’ which the apostle applieth to Christ, Rom.

    xi. 26. He then is the Redeemer, and it implieth—(1.) That he is our kinsman after the flesh, or by incarnation; (2.) That he paid a price to God for us in his passion; (3.) That he pursueth the law against Satan, and rescues us by his power; all which are notable grounds of comfort. For under the law the redemption of the in heritance, or the person of the poor brother sold, was to be made by the next of blood, and that by the male side, not by the mother’s, but by the father’s side, and he also was to be the avenger of blood.

    [1.] There is much comfort in this, that Christ is our kinsman, bone of our bone, and flesh of our flesh, and therefore certainly will not be strange to his own flesh. He did redeem us, not only jureproprietatis, by virtue of his interest in us as our Creator, but jure propinquitatis, by virtue of his kindred, one of us, of our stock and lineage; the Son of Adam, as well as the Son of God. The apostle tells us, Heb. ii. 11, ‘For he that sanctifieth and they that are sanctified are all of one; for which cause he is not ashamed to call them brethren.’ As the first-fruits offered to God were taken out of the same heap, so he was of the same mass with us. Christ is not only man, but ‘the Son of man.’ He might have been man if God had created him out of nothing, or he had brought his substance from heaven. But he is the Son of man, one descended of the loins of Adam, as we are; even thus ‘he that sanctifieth and they that are sanctified are all of one.’ He is of the same stock with all mankind, but the kindred is reckoned to the sanctified, because there it holdeth of both sides. Christ is born of a woman, and they are born of God, and so he is a kinsman doubly—rationeincarnationis suae, and regenerationisnostrae; in regard of his own incarnation and our regeneration. He partaketh of the human nature, and we partake of the divine nature. And it followeth, ‘therefore he is not ashamed to call us brethren.’ We are said to be ashamed when we do anything that is filthy, dishonest, or base, or misbecoming our dignity and rank which we sustain in the world. The former consideration is of no place here. For the latter, those that bear any port and rank in the world are ashamed to show too much familiarity towards their inferiors; but such is the love of Jesus Christ towards his people, that though he be infinitely greater and more worthy than these, he is not ashamed to call us brethren. Well, then, here is the first step of our comfort and hope, to see God in our natures. The eternal Son of God became our kinsman that he might have the right of redemption, and recover the inheritance which we had forfeited. We could not have such familiar and confident recourse to an angel, and one who was of another stock and different nature from ours, nor put ourselves into his hands with such trust and assurance. Now he and we are of one nature, we may be the more confident. It is a motive to man: Isa. lviii. 7, ‘Thou shalt not hide thyself from thine own flesh.’ In Christ all the perfections of man were at the highest. This made Laban, though otherwise a churlish man, kind to Jacob: Gen. xxix. 14, ‘Surely thou art my bone and my flesh.’ One of our stock and lineage will pity us more than a stranger.

    [2.] This kinsman was to pay the price and ransom of his captivated brother; that also is implied in the notion of a Redeemer: Lev. xxv. 48, 49, ‘After that he is sold, his uncle, or his uncle’s son may redeem him, or any that is nigh of kin to him of his family may redeem him.’ So when we had sold ourselves, Jesus Christ, who only of the kindred was free and able to do it, paid a price for us: 1 Cor. vi. 20, ‘We are bought with a price.’ And this price was no less than his own precious blood, 1 Peter i. 18, 19. A price was necessary; for God was not an enemy that could be overcome, but must be satisfied, and amends made for the wrong done to his majesty, that the notions which are ingrafted in man’s heart concerning God might be kept inviolate. The Lord knows how apt we are to please ourselves with the thoughts of impunity, as if it were nothing to sin against God, and a small matter to break his laws. Now, to prevent this thought in us, before his justice would let go the sinner, he demanded satisfaction, and equivalent satisfaction to the wrong done, to expiate the offence done to an infinite majesty. Therefore no less could be a sufficient ransom for lost sinners than the blood of Christ. This is the price which our kinsman hath paid down for us. In short, the wrong was done to an infinite majesty, the favour to be purchased was the eternal enjoyment of the ever-blessed life, the sentence to be reversed was the sentence of everlasting death; and therefore Christ alone could serve the turn. Here is another ground of comfort. Cyril calls it, καύχημα τὴς καθολικῆς ἐκκλησίας.

    [3.] This kinsman was to revenge the quarrel of his slain kinsman upon the murderer. So he is a Redeemer, and that not only by merit, but by power; not only as a lamb, but as a lion. There needed no price to be paid to Satan: we are redeemed from him, not by satisfaction, but by rescue. The apostle tells us, Col. ii. 15, ‘He spoiled principalities and powers.’ Luke xi. 21, ‘He bindeth the strong man, and taketh away his goods.’ Heb. ii. 14, 15, ‘That through death he might destroy him that had the power of death, that is, the devil; and deliver them who through fear of death were all their lifetime subject to bondage.’ The devil had partly a usurped power over man, as the god of this world, or at least as the enemy of mankind; so Christ rescues us by force: partly a ministerial and permitted power, as the executioner of God’s curse and vengeance; so he outlaweth him, and puts him out of office by the merit of his passion. Satan had no power over death as dominus mortis, as the supreme lord, that hath power to save and to destroy; but as ministermortis, as a hangman and executioner hath power from the law to put the male factor to death. So Christ destroyed him not in regard of essence, as if there were no more a devil to tempt and hurry us to destruction; nor in regard of malice, as if he did no longer seek to devour; but in regard of office and ministry; he is put out of office, and hath no more law-power to destroy those that have fled to Christ for refuge; and so hath freed us from all the fears of death and hell, which our guilt and Satan’s temptations subjected us to.

    2.      That he is their Redeemer is the next ground of comfort. Job doth not profess faith only in a Redeemer, but in his Redeemer: ‘I know that my Redeemer liveth;’ not by an uncharitable exclusion shutting out others, and engrossing the Redeemer to himself, but

    [1.] By a fiducial application making out his own title and interest. Some things in nature are common benefits, not lessened to any because others enjoy them, as a speech heard, and the sun shining, &c. The saints do not exclude others: 1 John ii. 2, ‘And he is the propitiation for our sins; and not for ours only, but for the sins of the whole world;’ 2 Tim. iv. 8, ‘Henceforth there is laid up for me a crown of righteousness; not for me only, but for all them also that lot e his appearing.’ This doth not lessen the benefit to us, and our obligations to him. Plato thought himself obliged in kindness to one that paid his fare for his passage over a river, and reckoned it positumapudPlatonemofficium, a courtesy that obliged Plato; but when he saw others partakers of the same benefit, he disclaimed the debt, and only took part of it on himself. Upon which Seneca groundeth this aphorism, that it is not enough for him that will oblige me to him to do me a good turn, unless he do it to myself directly—non tantummihi,sedtanquammihi; otherwise, quoddebeocummidtis,solvamcummultis. I will only pay my portion and share of thanks and respect. But this cannot be applied to this extraordinary kindness of Christ, for every man is indebted for the whole, not every man for a part of redemption. God’s love to every one is infinite, and he hath paid an infinite price for thee, purchased an infinite happiness to thee. His love to thee was without measure and bounds, so must thy thankfulness be to him without stint and limit. Though he died for others as well as thee, yet thou art bound to love him no less than if it had been for thee alone; he shed his whole blood for thee, and every drop was poured out for thy sake.