I often wondered as I grew up why the Old Testament was so important. I thought that the New Testament was what I needed to focus on because of the birth, life, death and resurrection of Jesus….along with all He taught. But, Jesus also taught his disciples that the entirety of the OT actually pointed to Him. So, now I’ve grown to appreciate and see how important OT Scripture is.

So, today we’re looking to see if we can find Jesus in the Book of Job, 1800-2000 years before He was born. We’ll look at only 1 of the 20 or so possible choices we could have looked at.

Imagine a courtroom. Job’s best friends are taking turns accusing him of being sinful, that he is somehow deserving of the suffering he was experiencing. Here’s what they were accusing him of:

• • Eliphaz argued, “If you sin, you suffer. And the wicked suffer.”
  • Bildad argued, “You must be a sinner…You are a sinner.”
  • Elihu argued, “You need to humble yourself and submit to God”

We experience accusations too. We get accused by others; both from people we love and know well along with those we don’t. We can also be good at accusing ourselves…telling ourselves that we’re not good enough. The problem is that we take those accusations, perceived or otherwise, and take them on as truth sometimes. Satan is especially good at getting us to believe the lies. That’s why Scripture calls him “the great accuser.” Satan likes to go to God and accuse us, like Job’s friends did, of being sinners and not good enough.

When Job is being accused, and has finally had enough, he cried out with a response (9:32-35). “If only there were someone to mediate between us.” Job (16:18-21) goes on to teach us that we actually do have a mediator. Job sees a witness in heaven who is testifying on his behalf. When everyone on earth seems to be against him, he knows there’s someone in heaven who is for him. Jesus is that witness. He stands up for us, advocating on our behalf. Praise be to God.

1 Timothy 2:5-6 says, “There is one God, and there is one mediator between God and men, the man Christ Jesus, who gave himself as a ransom for all.”