Job hits on the real problem, his friends have
"magnified themselves against me."
Their words are not reproof or correction, they are lectures from on
high. If Job needed correction, what he
truly needed was for these men to provide specific correction, not lofty
sophistry from theological experts.
Job's life has become an utter misery, there is literally no one who
will simply be his friend, not one who will treat him as a human being. He has not lost faith in a redeemer, one who
will take the cause of the innocent victim.
In spite of the fact that he has been abandoned by all, he believes in
one who will care about justice, one who will plead his case. We know that that one is Jesus, the only
righteous man who ever lived and he pleads not for justice but for mercy on our
behalf.
Job says that all have deserted him and this blind man now
finds that his own parents have failed to stand by him. They are afraid of being de-synagogued, for
the leaders have made it plain that anyone who stands with Jesus is no longer
welcome in the house of the Lord. It is
amazing that these parents refuse to acknowledge Jesus as the healer of their
son. Surely they are overjoyed at this
development. The man himself sees far
more clearly than the Pharisees. They
fall back on their two main arguments against Jesus, he sins by doing things
unlawful for the Sabbath and they know where He comes from. The man has two benefits they don't, the
healing was a sign to him and he is logical.
His redeemer has come and he is quick to put his faith in Him.
Paul and Barnabas are asked, per the custom of the day, to
speak if they have any encouragement for the worshippers. Paul gives a brief history of the nation,
mentioning the highlights, God choosing a people, blessing the people,
delivering the people, giving them a man after His own heart as a king and then
skipping forward to John the Baptist's proclamation of Jesus. This was surely not going the way the
synagogue leaders would have thought. Paul
is telling them about the redeemer and Messiah for whom they had hoped for
centuries. The redeemer whom Job sought
has come and they can put their trust not in an ideal or a promise but in a
person, the man called Jesus.
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