I know that my Redeemer lives (but I’m not certain how Job did…)
I want to preach Christ. And I want to do it from everwhere. Jesus says he’s everywhere in the Bible, so when I preach, I want to find him, and make him clear to people.
Sometimes, this is easy. Turn to Mark, and it’s fairly easy to see Jesus. Turn to Esther, and it’s not so easy (whoaoh there cowboys! Don’t rush ahead to the comment bit yet…).
Or in Job. This Easter I thought I’d be a smarty pants. Job 19 - ”I know that my Redeemer lives”. Piece of cake, thought I. Jesus = The Redeemer, He lives. Easy.
Until I started working on it. Who was this Job? Job in the opening chapter, we’re told, is a good God fearer - makes sacrifices for his family and has lots of cows. Sounds like Abraham, probably one of his contemporaries. Which means he’s proper early in the Bible story. Pre-exodus, and importantly, pre-law of Moses. That’s important because it’s from the Law that we get all our understanding of the Redeemer that Jesus ultimately fulfills. So the question I started asking (and am still asking) is ‘what did Job mean when he said ‘Redeemer’?’ And as much as I tried, I couldn’t answer with ‘the same as us’. 
See, I know that Jesus is our kinsman redeemer because a redeemer had to be like the one that he was taking the place of, or avenging. As Jesus came in the likeness of sinful flesh to redeem us from the curse of the law, he was like us, and did for us what we couldn’t do. I see how Jesus fulfills the Redeemer thing. But if Israel was not going to have any idea about what a Redeemer was meant to do for another few hundred years what did Job mean… and don’t even get me started on Job not even being an Israelite…
Two things over-ride my thinking. First is this ‘progressive revelation’ thing (a posh way of of saying that as the Bible story developed, people learnt more about Jesus). I think it’s real. To me, it makes perfect sense that Adam knew less than us, Abraham knew less than us, Moses knew less than us… Isaiah knew more, but still less than us. Now, as Jesus goes ‘no one gets to the Father except through me’ it’s clear that they were all saved by Jesus. But whether they knew that as we do? I seriously doubt.
Which brings me back to Job. It’s clear that he trusted God. It’s clear that he was vindicated by God. and that he spoke to God. And all of this, looking back, I am convinced is Jesus. Lookinh via the cross, I know that Job 19 is about Jesus. I just don’t have a clue whether he knew this at the time.
The other factor is that I want to be true to the text. I don’t want to go all Spurgeon on anyone. I know “he was greatly used by God” and that I should pray for a bit of what he was given… but he’s no model for explaining the text is he? (Except for the Treasury of David for some reason…).
But maybe I’ve gone too far over to the dry side. All word and no spirit, that’s what they call it. The more I tried to find Jesus legitimately in Job, whilst fighting my temptation to see him as I see him, before seeing him as Job saw him… the less I could see anything. Are you confused? Good. So was I.
In the end, I cut my loses. And went after Romans 1 instead.
Two things.
1) when I was preaching about Boaz being the kinsman redeemer, jon told me some stuff about people talking about more than they knew. I wont explain what he said, I understood it at the time.
2) There’s a bit in Job when he alludes to knowing that there needs to be a mediator between man and God thats a man and a God. So he knew that, he knew that he needed a redeemer. Job was more clued up than we’d give him credit for.
He also seems to know that God is called Yahweh. e.g. “The LORD gave, the LORD has taken away” etc 1:21
If Job was referring to the Redeemer (as in Christ), he may have known about it from God’s promise about the serpant-crusher. In a mostly oral culture, understanding of such things passed from person to person, and it may not have had to pass through many people to get to Job - Adam and Noah’s dad were alive at the same time for 56 years, and Noah lived for 350 years after the flood. Also, whilst progressive revelation is clearly correct, God may have given some people a little bit more than we know about - c.f. Gen 14:20.
But then, he may have not been thinking about the serpant-crusher. ‘Redeemer’ could translate as ‘vindicator’, which may still mean God, but could just be a further protest of his innocence. Still points to Christ though.
Or he could be talking about his words written down in verses 23-24 as his vindication, which doesn’t quite so clearly point to Christ.