The Reasons for a Mediator

Job 9:15-35

15 For though I were righteous, I could not answer Him;
I would beg mercy of my Judge.

16 If I called and He answered me,
I would not believe that He was listening to my voice.

17 For He crushes me with a tempest,
And multiplies my wounds without cause.

18 He will not allow me to catch my breath,
But fills me with bitterness.

19 If it is a matter of strength, indeed He is strong;
And if of justice, who will appoint my day in court?

20 Though I were righteous, my own mouth would condemn me;
Though I were blameless, it would prove me perverse.

21 "I am blameless, yet I do not know myself;
I despise my life.

22 It is all one thing;
Therefore I say, He destroys the blameless and the wicked.'

23 If the scourge slays suddenly,
He laughs at the plight of the innocent.

24 The earth is given into the hand of the wicked.
He covers the faces of its judges.
If it is not He, who else could it be?

25 "Now my days are swifter than a runner;
They flee away, they see no good.

26 They pass by like swift ships,
Like an eagle swooping on its prey.

27 If I say, 'I will forget my complaint,
I will put off my sad face and wear a smile,'
28 I am afraid of all my sufferings;
I know that You will not hold me innocent.

29 If I am condemned,
Why then do I labor in vain?

30 If I wash myself with snow water,
And cleanse my hands with soap,
31 Yet You will plunge me into the pit,
And my own clothes will abhor me.

32 "For He is not a man, as I am,
That I may answer Him,
And that we should go to court together.

33 Nor is there any mediator between us,
Who may lay his hand on us both.

34 Let Him take His rod away from me,
And do not let dread of Him terrify me.

35 Then I would speak and not fear Him,
But it is not so with me.

Job realized his need of a mediator with God, but also the reasons for that in spite of his uprightness in His and other’s eyes.  He first of all realized that he would still require mercy if he was truly righteous, for he would still need mercy before the judge of the living and the dead.  We now know is true because the gospel has been unfolded from the Old Testament into the explanations of the New; we now understand that we are all unrighteous due to the inheritance through the first Adam, whose sin we are all born with and carry to the judgment seat without the Mediator between God and man, Jesus Christ our Lord (1 Timothy 2:4-6).  He alone is able to forgive and reconcile us because He is divine and sinless, unlike every child of Adam and Eve.  Job was so utterly despondent without that mediator that he could not believe God really would hear him if He answered Job’s cries for deliverance.  He looked at his circumstances only to come to this conclusion, not knowing the heavenly backstory.  He knew God’s omnipotence and justice, yet knew that his own righteousness fell short of God’s just standards (Romans 3:23).  His own words would testify to this fact because he really did not know himself fully, not completely understanding the fall of his progenitor, Adam, nor that effect of sin on himself.  He saw only that apparently God destroys both the wicked and blameless, and that he was bitter after having struggled to live by righteousness his whole life.  The world seemed to have been put in the hands of the evil one in verse 24 (which has been done temporarily as we see in John 12:31, 1 John 5:19, and John 16:11), and Job needs someone to rescue him from the common end all face in judgment.  He saw his life coming to a swift end, but could not bring himself to put on a happy face of denial because of his current and future (eternal) suffering brought on by his guilt and just due to come.  He wondered why he tried to do good if the end was determined; all his attempts to do good and make himself clean and righteous seemed ineffective in God’s estimation.  Because the Divine was not a man like Job, he could not just go to court to arbitrate his sentence.  Of course we now realize that Christ did exactly that by being both a man and God to be able to arbitrate by taking the sentence upon Himself to both satisfy justice and to impute His righteousness to us so we would not suffer our just due.  Such grace not clearly revealed or understood yet in Job’s days!  He knew only that there was no apparent Mediator who could bridge that gap yet.  He only desired mercy and forgiveness to take away the fear of torment because of due punishment (1 John 4:18).  He wanted to speak to God without fear.  We can do this in and through our Mediator, Jesus Christ!