Character of Jesus

Our Goel is Our Avenger and Giver of Life

Sherry Attributes of God, Character of Jesus, Christian Life, promises, Sovereignty of God 2 Comments

For I know that my Redeemer liveth… – Job 19:25

For since by man came death, by Man also came the resurrection of the dead…The last enemy that will be destroyed is death. – 1 Corinthians 15:21,26

If a person had been slain, the Goel was the avenger of blood; snatching up his sword, he at once pursued the person who had been guilty of bloodshed. So now, let us picture ourselves as being smitten by Death. His arrow has just pierced us to the heart, but in the act of expiring, our lips are able to boast of vengeance, and in the face of the monster we cry, “I know that my Goel lives.” You may flee, O Death, as rapidly as you will, but no city of refuge can hide you from Him; He will overtake you! He will lay hold upon you, O you skeleton monarch, and He will avenge my blood on you.” I would that I had powers of eloquence to work out this magnificent thought. Chrysostom, or Christmas Evans, could picture the flight of the King of Terrors, the pursuit by the Redeemer, the overtaking of the foe, and the slaying of the destroyer. Christ shall certainly avenge Himself on Death for all the injury which Death has done to His beloved kinsmen. Comfort yourself then, O Christian; you have always living, even when you die, One who avenges you, One who has paid the price for you, and One whose strong arms shall yet set you free!

It seems that Job found consolation not only in the fact that he had a Goel, a Redeemer, but that this Redeemer lives! He does not say, “I know that my Goel shall live, but that He lives“—having a clear view of the self-existence of the Lord Jesus Christ, the same yesterday, today, and forever. And you and I looking back do not say, “I know that He did live, but He lives today.” …He is the Lord and giver of life originally, and He shall be specially declared to be the resurrection and the life, when the legions of His redeemed shall be glorified with Him! ~ C.H. Spurgeon

https://www.blueletterbible.org/comm/spurgeon_charles/sermons/0504.cfm

Redeemed by His Power

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For I know that my Redeemer liveth, and that He shall stand at the latter day upon the earth: And though after my skin worms destroy this body, yet in my flesh shall I see God… – Job 19:25

It was always considered to be the duty of the goel, not merely to redeem by price, but where that failed, to redeem by power. Hence, when Lot was carried away captive by the four kings, Abraham summoned his own hired servants, and the servants of all his friends, and went out against the kings of the East, and brought back Lot and the captives of Sodom. Now, our Lord Jesus Christ, who once has played the kinsman’s part by paying the price for us, lives—and He will redeem us by power! O Death, you tremble at this name! You know the might of our Kinsman! Against His arm you can not stand! You did once meet Him foot to foot in stern battle, and O Death, you did, indeed tread upon His heel. He voluntarily submitted to this, or else, O Death, you had no power against Him. But He slew you, Death! He slew you! He rifled all your caskets, took from you the key of your castle, burst open the door of your dungeon; and now, you know, Death, you have no power to hold my body. You may set your slaves to devour it, but you shall give it up, and all their spoil must be restored. Insatiable Death, from your greedy mouth shall return the multitudes whom you have devoured; you shall be compelled by the Savior to restore your captives to the light of day. I think I see Jesus coming with His Father’s servants; the chariots of the Lord are twenty thousand, even thousands of angels. Blow the trumpet! Blow the trumpet! Immanuel rides to battle! The Most Mighty in majesty girds on His sword. He comes! He comes to snatch by power, His people’s lands from those who have invaded their portion. Oh, how glorious the victory! There shall be no battle. He comes, He sees, He conquers! The sound of the trumpet shall be enough! Death shall flee in fear; and at once from beds of dust and silent clay, to realms of everlasting day the righteous shall arise. ~ C.H. Spurgeon

https://www.blueletterbible.org/comm/spurgeon_charles/sermons/0504.cfm

My Goel, My Kinsman Lives

Sherry Attributes of God, Character of Jesus, Christian Life, promises, The Holy Spirit Leave a comment

For I know that my Redeemer liveth, and that He shall stand at the latter day upon the earth… – Job 19:25

“I know,” said he, “that my Redeemer lives.” The word “Redeemer” here used is in the original “goel“—kinsman. The duty of the kinsman, or goel, was this—suppose an Israelite had alienated his estate, as in the case of Naomi and Ruth. Suppose an inheritance which had belonged to a family, had passed away through poverty. It was the goel’s business, the redeemer’s business, to pay the price as the next of kin, and to buy back the heritage. Boaz stood in that relation to Ruth. Now, the body may be looked upon as the heritage of the soul—the soul’s small farm—that little plot of earth in which the soul has been accustomed to walk and delight, as a man walks in his garden or dwells in his house. Now, it becomes alienated. Death, like Ahab, takes away the vineyard from us who are as Naboth. We lose our patrimonial estate. Death sends his troops to take our vineyard, and to spoil its vines, and ruin it. But we turn round to Death and say, “I know that my Goel liveth, and He will redeem this heritage; I have lost it; you take it from me lawfully, O Death, because my sin has forfeited my right; I have lost my heritage through my own offences, and through that of my first parent Adam; but there lives one who will buy this back.” Brothers and sisters, Job could say this of Christ long before He had descended upon earth! “I know that He lives;” and now that He has ascended up on high, and led captivity captive, surely we may with double emphasis say, “I know that my Goel, my Kinsman lives, and that He has paid the price so that I should have back my inheritance, so that in my flesh I shall see God.” Yes, my hands, you are redeemed with blood—bought not with corruptible things, as with silver and gold—but with the precious blood of Christ! Yes, heaving lungs and palpitating heart, you have been redeemed! He that redeemed the soul to be His altar, has also redeemed the body, that it may be a temple for the Holy Spirit. Not even the bones of Joseph can remain in the house of bondage. No smell of the fire of death may pass upon the garments which His holy children have worn in the furnace! ~ C.H. Spurgeon

https://www.blueletterbible.org/comm/spurgeon_charles/sermons/0504.cfm

By That Same Divine Energy

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And though after my skin worms destroy this body, yet in my flesh shall I see God… – Job 19:26

The body has just been divorced from the soul. Believers who loved most tenderly have said—”Bury my dead out of my sight.” The body is borne upon the bier and consigned to the silent earth; it is surrounded by the earthworks of death…

I think very much of the essence of Job’s faith lay in this, that he had a clear view that the worms would, after his skin, destroy his body—and yet, that in his flesh he should see God! You know we might regard it as a small miracle if we could preserve the bodies of the departed. If, by some process, with spices and gums, we could preserve the particles for the Lord to make those dry bones live and to quicken that skin and flesh, while it is certainly a miracle, but not tangibly and plainly so great a marvel as when the worms have destroyed the body. When the fabric has been absolutely broken up, the tenement all pulled down, ground to pieces, and flung in handfuls to the wind, so that no relic of it is left—and yet when Christ stands in the latter days upon the earth, all the structure shall be brought together, bone to his bone—then shall the might of Omnipotence be seen! This, then, is the doctrine of the resurrection of the body. Happy is he who finds no difficulty here—who looks at it as being an impossibility with man but a possibility with God—and lays hold upon the omnipotence of the Most High and says, “You say it, and it shall be done!” I comprehend You not, great God; I marvel at Your purpose to raise my moldering bones; but I know that You do great wonders, and I am not surprised that You should conclude the great drama of Your creating works here on earth by recreating the human frame by the same power by which You did bring from the dead the body of Your Son Jesus Christ, and by that same divine energy which has regenerated human souls in Your own image. ~ C.H. Spurgeon

https://www.blueletterbible.org/comm/spurgeon_charles/sermons/0504.cfm

The Miracle of Our Resurrection

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For I know that my Redeemer liveth, and that He shall stand at the latter day upon the earth: And though after my skin worms destroy this body, yet in my flesh shall I see God: Whom I shall see for myself, and mine eyes shall behold, and not another; though my reins be consumed within me. – Job 19:25-27

Dear friends, why should we wish to have it otherwise? Why should we desire to preserve the body when the soul has gone? What vain attempts men have made with coffins of lead, and wrappings of myrrh and frankincense!…No, let the dust go, the sooner it dissolves the better. And does it matter how it goes? What if it is devoured of beasts, if it is swallowed up in the sea and become food for fishes? What if plants with their roots suck up the particles? What if the fabric passes into the animal and from the animal into the earth and from the earth into the plants and from the plant into the animal again? What if the winds blow it along the highway? What if the rivers carry it to the ocean waves? It is ordained that somehow or other it must be all separated—”dust to dust, ashes to ashes.” …Do not seek to avoid what God has purposed; do not look upon it as a gloomy thing; regard it as a necessity—no, more—view it as the platform of a miracle, the lofty stage of resurrection, since Jesus shall surely raise again from the dead the particles of this body, however divided from one another! We have heard of miracles, but what a miracle is the resurrection! All the miracles of Scripture, yes, even those wrought by Christ, are small compared with this! The philosopher says, “How is it possible that God shall hunt out every particle of the human frame?” He can do it! He has but to speak the word, and every single atom, though it may have traveled thousands of leagues, though it may have been blown as dust across the desert, and later have fallen upon the bosom of the sea, and then have descended into the depths thereof to be cast up on a desolate shore, sucked up by plants, fed on again by beasts, or passed into the fabric of another man—I say that individual atom shall find its fellows—and the whole company of particles at the trumpet of the archangel shall travel to their appointed place, and the body, the very body which was laid in the ground, shall rise again. ~ C.H. Spurgeon

https://www.blueletterbible.org/comm/spurgeon_charles/sermons/0504.cfm

Might This Be Our Epitaph, too?

Sherry Character of Jesus, Christian Life, promises, Sovereignty of God Leave a comment

“For I know that my Redeemer lives, and He shall stand at the latter day upon the earth: and though after my skin worms destroy this body, yet in my flesh shall I see God: whom I shall see for myself and my eyes shall behold, and not another, though my reins be consumed within me” – Job 19:25-27

Our text deserves our profound attention; its preface would hardly have been written had not the matter been of the utmost importance in the judgment of the patriarch who uttered it. Listen to Job’s remarkable desire—”Oh that my words were now written! Oh, that they were printed in a book! That they were engraved with an iron pen and lead in the rock for ever!” Perhaps, hardly aware of the full meaning of the words he was uttering, yet his holy soul was impressed with a sense of some weighty revelation concealed within his words; he therefore desired that it might be recorded in a book! His desire, by God’s grace, was granted, the Book of books embalms the words of Job! He wished to have them engraved on a rock—cut deep into it with an iron pen—and then the lines inlaid with lead; or he would have them engraved, according to the custom of the ancients, upon a sheet of metal, so that time might not be able to eat out the inscription. He has not had his desire in that respect, except only that upon many and many a sepulchre, those words of Job stand recorded, “I know that my Redeemer lives.” It is the opinion of some commentators that Job, in speaking of the rock here, intended his own rock-hewn sepulchre, and desired that this might be his epitaph; that it might be cut deep, so that ages should not wear it out—that when any asked, “Where does Job sleep?” as soon as they saw the sepulchre of the patriarch of Uz, they might learn that he died in hope of resurrection, resting upon a living Redeemer. Whether such a sentence adorned the portal of Job’s last sleeping-place we know not, but certainly no words could have been more fitly chosen. Should not the man of patience, the mirror of endurance, the pattern of trust, bear as his memorial this golden line—which is as full of all the patience of hope, and hope of patience—as mortal language can be? Who among us could select a more glorious motto for his last escutcheon? ~ C.H. Spurgeon

https://www.blueletterbible.org/comm/spurgeon_charles/sermons/0504.cfm

Begin Life Again

Sherry Attributes of God, Character of Jesus, Christian Life, confession of sin, prayer, promises, repentance, salvation, Sovereignty of God Leave a comment

Nevertheless I have somewhat against thee, because thou hast left thy first love. Remember therefore from whence thou art fallen, and repent, and do the first works… – Revelation 2:4,5

When the door to heaven seems shut to me as a saint, I will get through it as a sinner, trusting in the precious blood of Jesus. Come and stand again, as though all your sins were on you still, at the cross’s foot, where still may be seen the dropping blood of the infinitely precious atonement. Savior, I trust Thee again: guilty, more guilty than I was before, a sinful child of God, I trust Thee: “wash me thoroughly from mine iniquities and purge me from my sin.” You will never have your graces revived, unless you go to the cross. Begin life again. The best air for a man to breathe when he is sickly is said to be that of his birthplace: it was at Calvary we were born; it is only at Calvary we can be restored when we are declining. Do the first works. As a sinner, repair to the Savior, and ask to be restored. Then, as a further means of health, search out the cause of your declension. Probably it was a neglect of private prayer. Where the disease began, there must the remedy be applied. Pray more earnestly, more frequently, more importunately. Or was it a neglect of hearing the word? Were you enticed by novelty or cleverness away from a really searching and instructive ministry? Go back, and feed on wholesome food again perhaps that may cure the disease. Or have you been too grasping after the world?

Where the mischief began, there apply the remedy. And oh, I urge upon you, and most of all upon myself, do not make excuses for yourselves; do not palliate your faults; do not say it must be so; do not compare yourselves among yourselves, or you will be unwise; but to the perfect image of Christ let your hearts aspire, to the ardor of your divine Redeemer, who loved not Himself, but loved you; to the intense fervor of His apostles, who laid themselves upon the altar of God for His sake, for Christ’s sake, and for yours. Aspire to this and may we as a church live near to God, and grow in grace, then shall the Lord add to us daily of such as shall be saved. ~ C.H. Spurgeon

https://www.blueletterbible.org/comm/spurgeon_charles/sermons/1011.cfm