Job 9:1-35
Job: There Is No Mediator
1 Then Job answered and said:
2 “Truly I know it is so,
But how can a man be righteous before God?
3 If one wished to contend with Him,
He could not answer Him one time out of a thousand.
4 God is wise in heart and mighty in strength.
Who has hardened himself against Him and prospered?
5 He removes the mountains, and they do not know
When He overturns them in His anger;
6 He shakes the earth out of its place,
And its pillars tremble;
7 He commands the sun, and it does not rise;
He seals off the stars;
8 He alone spreads out the heavens,
And treads on the waves of the sea;
9 He made the Bear, Orion, and the Pleiades,
And the chambers of the south;
10 He does great things past finding out,
Yes, wonders without number.
11 If He goes by me, I do not see Him;
If He moves past, I do not perceive Him;
12 If He takes away, who can hinder Him?
Who can say to Him, ‘What are You doing?’
13 God will not withdraw His anger,
The allies of the proud lie prostrate beneath Him.
14 “How then can I answer Him,
And choose my words to reason with Him?
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 continues to question his circumstances and their cause and comes to the conclusion that he desperately needs a mediator between him and God to settle the case set against him to find relief from his sentence of suffering. He admits that nobody can possibly be righteous before God no matter how many times a man tries to reason or answer the accusations of the Almighty. The only recourse is to beg for mercy from the Judge of all. He needed a mediator between him and the Judge, a lawyer to present his case and take the punishment of judgment himself, for the man standing in the heavenly court has been proven guilty already and needs such a Mediator. That Man is the Lord Jesus Christ. He alone is our Mediator (1 Timothy 2:5, Hebrews 9:15, 12:23-24) who can stand before the Judge and step into the docket to then assume our guilt and take our sentence for our sin. Job continued his discourse with the power of God to create such a vast universe in the heavens and on earth, doing marvelous innumerable things for us to see His character and ultimate authority over everything and everyone. He works also in ways we cannot see with our eyes and we have no right to question anything He does; we are to trust in His goodness and work in all our bountiful and suffering times therefore, as Job was beginning to understand the mere edges (Job 26:14, Ecclesiastes 3:11, Romans 11:33) of His ways. Once again, Job cries out how he cannot reason or justify himself before God and calls for mercy, which is the same cry required by the gospel to us today, even if when we call we still experience suffering and even wonder if He truly hears us. We can be confident that He does because we cannot see the war behind the scenes in the heavenly places for our souls and must trust His goodness in the answer as our Mediator before the Eternal Sovereign Judge. Job realized that though he seemed to live a righteous life and do no wrong, he was guilty before the LORD and had no defense argument against the true accusations of the inward corruption that he faced. He saw his days swiftly pass by in this state and realized that putting on a happy face did nothing to take away the inward suffering of his guilt; he wondered why he labored in vain if this proven lack of innocence is what he faced. He could not make himself clean and realized his desperate need for a Mediator to go with him to court to escape his sentence looming before his eyes. Only then could the rod of justice and terror of the LORD be taken away and his fears relieved. But he could not yet see this for himself and continued to wallow in his woes throughout the rest of this book until the account provided such a hope of a Mediator. We know the rest of his story, but we also know the story this was a dim picture of, namely that God was in Christ reconciling us to Himself as our Mediator in the court of heaven to provide absolute hope of release from the sentence of judgment and death we all face. Our sinful and hopeless state is why we all need this Mediator to stand (Ephesians 6:13, 1 Peter 5:12) before the Judge on that final Day!
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