Laying His Hand On Us Both

By Stephen Leonard

Job is in a terrible dilemma. It is the hardest quandary with which he has ever struggled. He cries out to God as if there is no one who can mediate between himself and God. 

Job sees God as God, not as the kindly Grandfather of so many who view God falsely. Job sees God as the true God. He is the Almighty Sovereign over all things! We wonder about His purposes, especially when we suffer. God causes the rain to fall on the godly and the ungodly. And just as well, He causes misfortune and trouble to fall on both. One is judgment on unbelievers; the other is the testing and the strengthening of the faith of His children. 

This is what causes Job to wrestle with God, crying out for a “mediator” who touches both him and God. One who can lay his hand on both creature and Creator and yet feel and experience the suffering the creature knows because of sin. 

It is at the cross where Jesus solidifies becoming the mediator between God and you. This is the supreme wonder of the cross and what transpires there on Golgotha. Jesus forevermore becomes your mediator between a redeemed you and the God and Creator of the Universe. Jesus is the “bridge” that makes it possible for you to be a participant in God’s family; a true son or daughter to be rejoiced in as he Fatherly hugs a redeemed you to himself. 

Prior to Jesus giving his life as your substitute, there was no mediator between God and man. This is why Job cried out for one. But through faith, in the story of Job’s wretched journey and his found answer of great consequence from God, Job can say in faith, “I know that my Redeemer lives, and in my flesh I shall see God!”(Job 19: 25-27)

In other words, there is a Redeemer who is both flesh and God. He is the only One who is fully sufficient as Redeemer. He is sinless and therefore, “the perfect Lamb of sacrifice.” He who was without sin, became sin for you. 

This is the reason and purpose for the Book of Job to be written and to be included in Holy Scripture! It answers the problem of pain! It answers the problem of a mediator! It answers with the promise of Jesus, the Redeemer. There is a Mediator between God and man! It is the Man Christ Jesus!

Encouragement