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In the midst of suffering, it can be difficult to find hope in the truth that God ordains our pain. Yet it should be reassuring that all things come to us from our Father’s hand. Job wisely recognized this: “Though he slay me, I will hope in him” (Job 13:15). In the midst of suffering, Job asked God for two things. First, he asked the Lord to remove his suffering (v. 21). Second, he asked God to remove his fear of having to stand one day before the holy God (v. 21).
Ultimately, Job’s request is answered in Jesus Christ. Jesus became “a merciful and faithful high priest . . . to make propitiation for the sins of the people” (Heb. 2:17). Therefore, believers can “with confidence draw near to the throne of grace” (4:16).
For Job, God seemed like an enemy who frightened him, wrote bitter things against him, and held the sins of his youth over him (Job 13:23–27). His words “Why do you hide your face and count me as your enemy?” (v. 24) anticipate another righteous sufferer who hung on the cross of Calvary in order to atone for the sins of God’s people. Jesus cried, “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?” (Matt. 27:46). Because Christ satisfied God’s wrath, our sins have been removed “as far as the east is from the west” (Ps. 103:12).
In the midst of trials and tribulation, Job wanted God to leave him alone so that he could enjoy life. He tenaciously held to God’s sovereignty, recognizing that “his days are determined” (Job 14:5). Importantly, Job wrestled with questions that religious men in Jesus’ day continued to wrestle with: “Who can bring a clean thing out of an unclean? There is not one” (v. 4). Although Job and Nicodemus could not answer this question, Jesus did: “Unless one is born of water and the Spirit, he cannot enter the kingdom of God” (John 3:5).
Job could see the resurrection life around him in creation (Job 14:7), but he was not yet convinced of his own resurrection: “If a man dies, shall he live again?” (v. 14). At the same time, he wanted to hide from God’s wrath (v. 13) and wait for the Lord to “cover over [his] iniquity” (v. 17). Job’s longing anticipates the gospel of God. It is “the blood of Jesus” that “cleanses us from all sin” (1 John 1:7). “If we have been united with him in a death like his, we shall certainly be united with him in a resurrection like his” (Rom. 6:5).
Thanks be to God that in the midst of suffering, our cries for help don’t fall on deaf ears. The Lord of heaven and earth sees our pain. He has responded once and for all through the cross. But He also daily responds as our Great High Priest who “helps the offspring of Abraham” (Heb. 2:16).