We need Jesus. Job’s faith in his redeemer in chapter 19 is one of the most staggering examples of gospel hope in the Old Testament. His confidence that his Redeemer lives and will stand on the earth and rise over it conquering the dust/death and then he will see God is astounding. It shows us the believers greatest hope in anchored in Jesus no matter what he faces. 

Having spent so long on Job here are a few final random reflections:

1. We need this book. If I’m honest I’ve often shied away from the book of Job. When I have read it through a few times I have found myself often lost in the maze of the three friends peculiar mix of wrong theology and right theology wrongly applied. Untangling the mess takes some time. But as I’ve spent more time in Job it is like a precious jewel that is worth the effort to excavate or to polish so we see it’s brilliance and learn it’s lessons. We need it because it reminds us of key things we in our generation forget, even, and maybe especially, in the church.
2. God is Sovereign and Good. Throughout the book God is portrayed again and again as sovereign. He is sovereign over evil in chapters 1 and 2, a theme to which the book returns with the two chaos monsters of evil in chapter 40 and 41. This challenges our theology. We want God to be nice and easily explained to our friends and family and so we default to God ‘knowing of’ or ‘allowing’ evil things to happen. But Job goes so much further than that, and if the Bible troubles our comfortable theology which limits God then that is a good thing. The only comfort for Job in his agony is that God is sovereign even over evil and chaos, that he sets it’s limits and takes responsibility for bringing good from it.
3. We are totally dependent. I wonder if this another reason we don’t naturally love the book of Job.

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