“For I know that my Redeemer lives, and at the last he will stand upon the earth. And after my skin has been thus destroyed, yet in my flesh I shall see God" (Job 19:25-26). 

Then Job arose and tore his robe and shaved his head and fell on the ground and worshiped. And he said, “Naked I came from my mother’s womb, and naked shall I return. The LORD gave, and the LORD has taken away; blessed be the name of the LORD.” (Job 1:20–21) 

Job begins not in rebellion but in recognition of God and submission to Him. When his wife urges him to forsake God, Job defers to God: “But he said to her, ‘You speak as one of the foolish women would speak. Shall we receive good from God, and shall we not receive evil?’” (Job 2:10). In other words, Job ascribes to God the right to do as He wills, what he describes as a mark of wisdom and not foolishness. 

Job’s acceptance of his position is not cavalier or without cost, expressed as some sort of religious platitude as we might hear as comfort from the mouths of those who attempt to console us in our grief. We hear the conflict of Job’s heart as he tenaciously holds to his faith while at the same time wrestling with his own doubts and pain. “Though He slay me, I will hope in him; yet I will argue my ways to his face” (Job 13:15). 

Job processes his grief through the lens of faith he brings to bear at the outset. His acceptance of loss is not a final stage at which he arrives but the first page from which he begins in communion with the God he knew. All the emotions and thoughts that besiege him are processed from the position of wisdom-steeped acceptance. 

At the heart of acceptance is the hope of God’s Redeemer. “For I know that my Redeemer lives, and at the last he will stand upon the earth. And after my skin has been thus destroyed, yet in my flesh I shall see God, whom I shall see for myself, and my eyes shall behold, and not another. My heart faints within me!” (Job 19:25–27). This Redeemer longed for in Job is the same Deliverer promised in Genesis. 

The hope that is an anchor in the storm is not wishful thinking for a better place or a better day. It is the hope of the gospel, the same hope extended by Paul to the Thessalonians when he urged them not to grieve as the rest of men who had no hope. Paul explains that hope in terms of the purpose of God bound up in the suffering and deliverance of His Son: “For God has not destined us for wrath, but to obtain salvation through our Lord Jesus Christ, who died for us so that whether we are awake or asleep we might live with Him” (1 Thess. 5:9–10). 

It is this rest in God that enables Job and all who trust in Him to “consider that the sufferings of this present time are not worth comparing with the glory that is to be revealed to us” (Rom. 8:18). By such acceptance, may we know the strength for today and bright hope for tomorrow that are ours in our Redeemer.

This article first appeared in the June 7, 2023 issue of tabletalkmagazine.com.