statements, meaning that will apply personally to heart and life. There is no greater tragedy than for one to rest upon a superficial head knowledge of the finished work of Christ, and to refuse to experience that heart knowledge which is essential to salvation. If the certainty of Christ’s redemptive work is not yours, pause and ask God to reveal the reality cf it to you by His Spirit. He longs to do that! Just when this unshakable certainty gripped the heart and mind of Job we are not told. Whether the truth of a living, loving Redeemer came as a crisis or as a process in Job’s experience is unrecorded. He knew, and that was sufficient for time and eternity. Many there are who can point to a definite day and hour when the miracle of the new birth was accomplished in them, and they became children of God. Others, just as certain that they possess personal faith in Christ, can not give the exact date of this transaction. We are told that when the old age pension system was introduced in Britain, scores of elderly people had no birth certificates to produce that would prove that they were eligible for the pension. They did not know when they were bom or how old they were, but they knew they were alive and aged. Similarly, there are many saints who cannot name the time and place when they were “ bom again, not of corruptible seed, but of incor ruptible, by the word of God, which liveth and abideth forever” (1 Pet. 1:23), but they are truly saved. The question each of us must be assured of is whether the deliverance from the guilt of sin which the Redeemer accomplished by His death and resurrection, has become a personal reality. Can you say with Job, “ I know that my Redeemer liveth” ? If not, then before another moment rolls into eternity, you can, through the simple acceptance, by faith, of what God’s Word declares, pass from darkness into light and share the knowledge that God, for Christ’s sake, has forgiven your sins. A Complete Atonement Just what did Job mean when he affirmed that he knew that his Redeemer lived? Some expositors explain the word Redeemer by saying that Job expected one of his relatives to arise after his death as the avenger of his blood and to exact retribution for it. Job’s hope, however, utterly contradicts this inter pretation. Already the man of God had expressed his desire for a daysman (7?. V. umpire) between himself and God, who could be no other than a divine personage (9:32-35). He also declared his conviction that he had his “ witness . . . in heaven” (16:19). He longed to have an advocate to plead his cause (16:21). He called upon God to be “ surety” for him (17:3). Thus, having already acknowl edged God as his Judge, Umpire, Advocate, Witness, and Surety, Job did not have to take a long step in the acknowledgment of God as his Redeemer. The word Job uses for Redeemer is of intense signi ficance. In the original, it is goel, that is a “ kinsman redeemer.” In the Old Testament, goel was one who brought back a forfeited inheritance, redeemed a slave, avenged the slain, or one who perpetuated a family name and heirship among the families and estates of Israel. We have no hesitation in affirming that Job’s Redeemer is likewise ours — even the Lord Jesus Christ — for the language he used suggested a divine Goel: “ Shall I see God” (19:26). Though he lived hundreds of years before Calvary, Job meant, when he used the word Redeemer, exactly what we mean when, in the full blaze of divine grace, we use the same word.
Commenting on Isaiah 59:20, Dr. C. I. Scofield reminds us that the Old Testament figure of a kinsman-redeemer is a beautiful type of Christ. Explaining the New Testament doctrine of redemp tion, Dr. Scofield points out that there are three words translated redemption in the Scriptures. One word means to purchase in the market — in which there is the thought of a slave market. Another word implies to buy out of a market. And still another word suggests to lose or to set free by paying a price. The Saviour performed all of these services on behalf of the believer. Our Heavenly inheritance was mortgaged by sin, and we were utterly unable to pay the debt, to satisfy God’s justice for sin, to renew our mortgage, or to provide a new settlement of our inheritance. Something of our con dition is seen in the experience of Ruth, the Moabitish woman. As the widow of Mahlon, she was involved with her first husband in his losses and liabilities. But when she became the wife of Boaz, the redeemer of her estate and the lord of the harvest, she and her inheritance were redeemed, and she became the sharer of his wealth and social standing. In Christ, we who in Adam were con demned and alienated, are justified and reconciled. From another angle, we were slaves of Satan and justly doomed to eternal woe, having no kinsman to vin dicate our cause and interpose for us by power or price. We were sold under sin. Easter, however, reminds us of Christ our Redeemer, who, veiling His deity in human flesh that He might sympathize, suffer, and save, paid a terrible price in order to redeem His enemies from the curse. He “ gave himself a ransom for all.” By His own blood, He redeemed us from sin and the grave, and by His power He conquered our murderer. Hallelujah, what a Saviour! The story is told of a Russian officer whose accounts could not be made to balance and who feared that the merciless despotism of the empire would allow no room for leniency in dealing with him. While hopelessly pour ing over his balance sheet, and in despair of ever making up his deficiency, he wrote half inadvertently on the page before him, “Who can make good this deficit?” Then he fell asleep at his table. The Czar, passing by, saw the sleeping officer, glanced curiously at the pages, and, taking up the pen, wrote underneath the question these words: “ I, even I, Alex ander.” Who is there who is really able to pay the sinner’s debt to a broken law? There is One who died and rose again, and from the cross of Calvary, from the tomb in the garden, from the throne in Heaven, He answers, “ I am he.” A Continual Advocacy One of the most amazing aspects of Job’s Blaster evangel - is that he knew that his Redeemer was alive. He declared: “ I know that my redeemer liveth.” This present-tense word liveth, implies a continual existence. As the Eternal One, the Redeemer must have been alive in, as well as before, Job’s day; He is “ alive for evermore.” Job used the term liveth, as applied to the Redeemer, in opposition to his own condition. Man dies; his Goel lives! Because of the ravages of a skin disease, Job anticipated the utter destruction of his bodily frame, but he affirmed that his Redeemer was deathless. Having been made by the living God, Job needed a living Redeemer, one who would be able to undertake for him when he slipped away into the shadows of the tomb. Like Job, we, to, face separation and the grave. Unless we are among the number who are “ caught up together . . . in the clouds, to meet the Lord in the air” at His return for His own (1 Thess. 4:17), we must each pass
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THE K IN G 'S BUSINESS
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