The Mediator.
The object desired by Job—and here he speaks for all sinful ones—is to obtain reconciliation with Jehovah, against whom he acknowledges himself to have sinned. He cries for a mediator, an arbiter, an umpire; one able to "lay his hand upon us both"—to bring us together, mediating between us.
I. THE NECESSITY FOR THIS ARISES:
1. From Job's consciousness of sin. In his prayer (verse 28) he confesses to God, "I know thou wilt not hold me innocent." "I am not innocent," is the first confession of guilt. "If I justify myself, my own mouth shall condemn me."
2. From Job's inability to "answer" to God. Of this he has made both complaint and confession. "Whom, though I were righteous, yet would I not answer" (verse 15). Fear and just humility seize him. "How much less shall I answer him?" (verse 14). Man cannot order his own cause before the eternal Judge. "He cannot answer him one of a thousand" (verse 3).
3. From their utter inequality. "He is not a man, as I am" (verse 32). They could not therefore "come together in judgment." How vain of poor, ignorant, feeble, sinful man to suppose that he can answer to God—that he can "appear before him!" How vain even to imagine himself justified and pure before him! Yet many "appear before" God in the presumptuous, self-excusing, self-justifying thoughts of their minds. All such self-justification condemned by Job's wise words and just views of things.
II. JOB'S CRY IS THE UNCONSCIOUS CRY OF THE UNIVERSAL HEART OF MAN FOR A MEDIATOR. Seen in all religious systems—the faith in the priest—the conscious ignorance of hidden spiritual verities. The uninterpreted apprehension of a spiritual world and government and future, and yet the inability to deal with these and to put one's self in a right attitude respecting them. This cry is heard in all lands, languages, and times. "Oh that there were a daysman!" This cry prepares for and anticipates the true Mediator.
III. THE RESPONSE TO THE UNIVERSAL NEED IN THE "ONE MEDIATOR BETWEEN GOD AND MEN." Happily "himself Man." God "hath spoken unto us in his Son"—no longer in prophets, but in a Son, who is at the same time "the effulgence of his glory, and the very image of his substance;" and yet "Man"—"bone of our bone." "God manifested in the flesh," and yet "in all things" "made like unto his brethren." Speaking with Divine authority to us in our language, and of heavenly things on our level And revealing within the compass of a human life, and by means of human acts and human sentiments, the thought and love and pitiful mercy of God. And representing us—doing what Job felt (and all have felt whose views were just) he could not do, "appear before the face of God for us." Now we "have our access through him in one Spirit unto the Father." If we cannot order our speech or our cause, he can. If we cannot answer one of a thousand, he can. For he is able, indeed, to "put his hand upon both."—R.G.
HOMILIES BY W.F. ADENEY