Commentary on the Book of Job part thirteen

                                        Job 9:1-35

In verse 23, God provided Job with an even more profound prophecy. No doubt, Job had no idea what this prophecy meant, but he reported it anyway. God told Job that the scourge, meaning sin and evil, can suddenly slay men, but God will laugh, in merriment, at the trial of the innocent. Who are the innocent? The innocent can only be those who cannot be guilty of any sin at all. Who can these innocent be? God's Son suffered the sins of all mankind on the cross, but He shed His blood and water from the cross to wash away forever the sins of all who would come to believe in the power of His sacrifice to accomplish their salvation. John 3:16; Revelation 1:5; I Peter 1:18-19. God cleanses the souls and spirits of those who believe in Christ while they are still in the flesh with the spiritual blood of Christ and recreates them. II Corinthians 5:17. God cleanses the fleshly sins of believers with the spiritual water that flowed from Jesus' riven side on the cross as they daily confess and repent of them. John 13:1-13; I John 1:9. In this way, God thoroughly cleanses all sins from the spiritual and fleshly lives of all believers so that He can justify them, which means he declares them to be not guilty of any sin at all, and then He gives them the righteousness of Christ Himself by means of which He can accept them into heaven to live with Him forever. This constitutes salvation by God's grace. II Corinthians 5:17; Romans chapter 5; I Peter 1:3-4. Christ judges believers saved by grace to be innocent when they physically die and joyfully receives them into heaven. Hebrews 9:27.

In Job 10:24, Job realized that God has allowed the wicked to control the economic and political systems of the world. Satan is the god of this world, and Job wondered who and where he was. II Corinthians 4:4. Job also realized that wickedness often perverts justice by blinding the eyes of judges.

In Job 9:25-32, Job comprehended that his life was quickly passing away. He sensed that when he died, he would not be able to justify himself to God. He could not wash his own sins away. He would have to stand guilty before God in His judgment.

In Job 9:33, Job assumed that no daysman existed; that is, no one who could plead for him with God and cause him to become reconciled with God. But Job did not understand that God had put this idea in his mind. God was trying to tell Job that a daysman did exist. He is the Son of God.

In Job 9:33-34, Job's faith wavered again, and he fell back into fear. Job thought that if God would just take his suffering away, then he would not fear so much. But Job did not realize that fear and dread are the conditions of life that directly oppose faith. God wanted Job to believe that his faith would save him despite his suffering and the fear and dread that it caused.