III. Job’s faith anticipated a Living Redeemer. “I know that my
Redeemer liveth”—is the Living One—he that has life, underived and
independent, in himself—the agent and source of all life in the universe,
who will at last quicken the dead.
The first woman was called Eve—that is, Life—because she was the mother
of all living—the mother of him who is the life of the world. This was
fulfilled four thousand years afterward in one of her daughters, a
virgin, who brought forth a son, whose name is Jesus, Emmanuel, the
Living God, the true God, and eternal Life. He is the Lord of life, and
the life of all that believe. “Because I live, ye shall live also.”
With the flame of one candle you may light many others, and the light of
all is the same. Christ is the source whence all his people derive their
light, the great central luminary of his church. “In him was life, and
the life was the light of men.”
When the prophet stood in the valley of dry bones and prophesied, there
was a wonderful agitation, and the bones came together, and formed
themselves into skeletons, and sinews and flesh covered them, and each
form was enclosed with a skin; but they were still dead, and it was not
till the breath of God blew upon them, and kindled the flame of life
within them, that they “stood up an exceeding great army.” So Christ is
the resurrection and life alike of the soul and of the body. “He that
believeth on him, though he were dead, yet shall he live.” He is the
bread and the water of life. “He that cometh unto him, shall never
hunger; and he that believeth on him, shall never thirst.” “He that hath
the Son, hath life; and he that hath not the Son, hath not life.” “We
are dead; and our life is hid with Christ in God; when Christ who is our
life shall appear, then shall we also appear with him in glory.”
IV. The Living Redeemer of Job was to appear in this world. “He shall
stand at the latter day upon the earth.”
A woman who is travelling, and has no money to bear her expenses, obtains
credit on her husband’s account, who afterward passes that way, and
discharges the obligation. So ancient saints went home to glory on
credit: and in the fulness of time, Christ came and paid their debt; not
by installments, but all at once; and the virtue of his own offering went
up to the gate of Eden, and down to the end of the world. As on both
sides of the altar of burnt-offering, were pipes, conveying the blood
into the basins, till they were full; so the great altar on Calvary
communicates with past generations, and generations yet to come; and the
saving merit of the one sacrifice runs back to Abel and to Adam, and
forward to the last believer.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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