A Promised Redeemer – A Messianic Prophecy

“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 (ESV).

The Hebrew noun, goel, translated “Redeemer,” is often used in the Old Testament to mean “kinsman redeemer,” or one who is legally responsible for vindicating a family member.  We see it in the familiar case of Boaz who married the widow Ruth who chose to go with her mother-in-law Naomi from exile in Moab back to Israel.  Use of goel with reference to God in the Old Testament indicates that He redeemed His people from slavery in Egypt (Exodus 6:6).  God also is noted as the Redeemer of individuals.  Joseph (Genesis 48:16) was redeemed and paved the way in Egypt for his whole family from Israel to escape famine. David in Psalm 19:114 called the Lord his “strength and redeemer.”  Job made the statement, often quoted, “I know that my Redeemer lives and at last He will stand upon the earth.”  Even though Job had suffered much since calamities befell him, he held faith that even though he should die he would still see God.  “My heart faints within me!” indicates the depth of Job’s physical and emotional suffering.  But I like to think that as Job thought of the marvelous truths revealed to him, my Redeemer lives…I shall see God” that his heart welled up so much within him he could not help but exclaiming (even as we do sometimes, just thinking about God’s provision for us): My heart faints within me!” Translated, this could mean, “I can hardly take this in (understand it)!”

In New Testament fulfillment of Job’s Messianic hope, we turn to these scriptures:  “Truly, truly, I say to you, an hour is coming and is now here, when the dead will hear the voice of the Son of God, and those who hear will live.  For as the Father has life in Himself, so He has granted the Son also to have life in Himself.” (John 5:25-26).  “But when the fullness of time had come, God sent forth His Son, born of woman, born under the law, to redeem those who were under the law, so that we might receive adoption as sons.” (Galatians 4:4).  “In Him we have redemption through His blood, the forgiveness of our trespasses, according to the riches of His grace” (Ephesians 1:7).

With the meaning of redemption from Old Testament and New Testament teachings, the idea is not abstract but concrete.  Behind the words redeem, redemption is the custom of buying back something which formerly belonged to the person but for some reason had been taken over by another.  The original owner could get back the land or whatever the item by paying a redemption price for it.  And God made provision through the Redeemer, His Son, to pay the redemption price for man’s sin.  Before sin entered the human race, man was innocent.  But with the disobedience of Adam and Eve, a curse was therefore set upon mankind and he no longer had fellowship with Creator God.  Jesus became the Redeemer as he bought back man’s degradation from sin.  “Without shedding of blood there is no remission for sins” (Hebrews 9:22b).  It was remarkable that Job could foresee the time when the Redeemer would come to earth to do the work of redemption, to buy back man from the terrible penalty of sin, spiritual death, and separation from God.

Prayer.  Lord, pausing to think of how the Redeemer set us free is a heart-knowledge but again a thought too wonderful to comprehend fully.  We thank You and want to live for You in the sure knowledge that we are redeemed.  Amen.

At the Right Time – A Messianic Prophecy

“Seventy weeks are decreed about your people and your holy city, to finish the transgression, to put an end to sin, and to atone for iniquity, to bring in everlasting righteousness, to seal both vision and prophet, and to anoint a most holy place.  Know therefore and understand that from the going out of the word to restore and build Jerusalem to the coming of an anointed one, a prince, there shall be seven weeks.  Then for sixty-two weeks it shall be built again with squares and moat, but in a troubled time.  And after the sixty-two weeks an anointed one shall be cut off and shall have nothing.  And the people of the prince who is to come shall destroy the city and the sanctuary.  Its end shall come with a flood, and to the end there shall be war.  And he shall make a strong covenant with many, for one week, and for half of the week he shall put an end to sacrifice and offering.  And on the wing of abominations shall come one who makes desolate, until the decreed end is poured out on the desolate.” –Daniel 9: 25-27 (ESV).

Many scholars have tried to interpret the time frame intended by Daniel’s “seventy weeks” and multiples of seven weeks.  The mention of “abominations” in  Daniel 9:27 has come to be called “the abomination of desolation.”  Charts and time tables are available that seek to show various times in history when the events spoken of by Daniel transpired—using a reckoning of a perfectly-held number, seven, as the basis for the calculations and the matching-up of events with his prophecy.  The intent of this short devotional is not to argue with which interpretation of Daniel’s prophecy is right. We reckon time in finite days, weeks, years, decades, centuries.  It is hard for us to conceive of God’s time table which is infinite and beyond measure.  But we can be assured that “in the fullness of time,” there cane “an anointed one”—as Daniel predicted.  He did, indeed, “make a strong covenant with the people,” and that covenant cost Him His life.  It became the New Covenant, written in His blood, that those who come to Him in faith, believing, can have restoration with God and salvation.

Paul the Apostle in writing to the Christian churches in Galatia, gave immeasurable insight into the time of Christ’s birth.  “In the fullness of time” has become a way of summarizing not only Daniel’s forthtelling of Christ’s coming, but of all we know, with the event being past history to us living beyond the time of that blessed event.  Paul wrote: “But when the fullness of time had come, God sent forth His Son, born of woman, born under the law, to redeem those who were under the law, so that we might receive adoption as sons.  And because you are sons, God has sent the Spirit of His Son into our hearts, crying, ‘Abba!  Father!’ So you are no longer a slave, but a son, and if a son, then an heir through God” (Galatians 4:4-7, ESV).  The time of His coming was God-ordained.  At no other time in the history of mankind was it more the time for such an astounding appearance of One sent from God with a defined mission.  Pax Romana, a strong rulership of an empire far-flung in nature, had set the stage for the time being right.  Even though it is hard for us to understand Daniel’s numbers and his reckoning of time, we know assuredly that God was (and is) in control of the “seven times seven and seventy times seven”—all the perfect reckonings of times—to bring Christ to earth.  Likewise, God’s timetable will work in bringing to an end the dispensation of this age and the second coming of the King of Kings.  Our task is not to understand as much as to trust and be ready.  Like the lowly shepherds on that Bethlehem hill long ago, our happy privilege is to find and follow the King and to make known abroad that He has indeed come, “in the fullness of time.”

Prayer.  Lord, thank you that Jesus came ‘in the fullness of time.’  Let us pledge our faithfulness until, in the fullness of time, He returns to claim His own among all the peoples of the earth!  Amen.