In his final speech, Job takes an oath to the effect that he has not sinned like the first sinner, but where Adam failed, he has succeeded. While he suffered in innocence, Job became the typological spokesman of the last Adam, who is the only One who could say such a thing (Romans 5:12–21; 1 Corinthians 15:45).

The book of Job is unique, but it traces a familiar pattern of experience that pulsates throughout redemptive history. It is a story shared by characters such as Joseph and David. It is the story of a man who is favored by God, is cast down into the depths of suffering, and is then raised up and vindicated. It is the story of Christ’s experience, foretold through typology, and fulfilled when the Son of God suffered the depths of humiliation before He was given the name above every name (Phil. 2:5–9). Peter tells us that the message of the Old Testament prophets, given by the Spirit of Christ Himself, is all about “the sufferings of Christ and the subsequent glories” (1 Peter 1:10–11). This pattern of suffering leading to glory, which anticipates the work of Christ, is the essence of Job’s story.

Job is introduced to us without genealogy, a unique feature that he shares with Melchizedek, and a feature that the writer of Hebrews took as prima facie evidence of typology (Heb. 7:1–3). Job is described as “blameless and upright” and “greatest of all the people of the east” (Job 1:1, 3). God further praises him by saying that “there is none like him on the earth” (1:8; 2:3). Job was not sinless, of course, but we are meant to see him in the midst of his sufferings as what God declares him to be—blameless and upright. A “blameless” man suffering great hardship will be an intolerable thought to Job’s friends but a clue to Job’s typological role. It points to the plan of salvation, which required a truly blameless man to be tested by suffering.

The book quickly flashes to the throne room of heaven, where we find God calling Satan to give account of himself. Satan brags that he has been wandering the earth at will (1:7). How will God respond to Satan’s work in the world and his boastful claim of autonomy? How will God answer the adversary who wanders the earth and sheds his evil influence? This is the key question of the book, to which God responds, “Have you considered my servant Job?” God’s response to the earth-wandering adversary will come in the form of a blameless man who endures great suffering and is exalted at last. It is a foretaste of the gospel, in which one righteous man is bruised but the adversary is crushed (Gen. 3:15).

God’s response to Satan invites the challenge to test Job’s faith through hardship. What unfolds is no ordinary story about an average believer’s trusting the Lord through difficult times. What unfolds is the story of the greatest and most upright man on earth losing everything but his life in a single day. There is nothing ordinary about this story. Job touched the extreme outer limits of human experience at both ends of the spectrum, from being the greatest and most pious man on earth to becoming unrecognizable to his friends (Job 2:12). So great a condescension anticipates One even greater, beyond the limits of human experience, from having “equality with God” to the “death on a cross” (Phil. 2:6–8).

A dialogue ensues between Job and his “friends” that occupies no less than thirty-five chapters. The crux of the argument is whether Job had sinned and brought this calamity upon himself. Eliphaz, Bildad, and Zophar insist that Job must be hiding some great sin because only sinners suffer such calamity, while the righteous enjoy prosperity (they were the “health and wealth” preachers of their day). These three friends and their simplistic view of providence are rebuked by God at the end of the book, but they unwittingly play a role in the typology of Job. They falsely accuse this “blameless and upright” man of sins that he did not commit, just as the truly perfect Savior would be unjustly accused and “numbered with the transgressors” (Isa. 53:12; Luke 22:37).

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