And after my skin has been thus destroyed, yet in my flesh I shall see God, whom I shall see for myself, and my eyes shall behold, and not another. My heart faints within me!
Job 19:26-27
Job has both a healthy confidence and a respectful fear when confronting the possibility of seeing God when his body is no more. This is hope. It is also awareness that even in his hope, there is a fearful aspect of standing before God... a God that Job has confidently claimed as his only Redeemer (Job 19:25).
The reality of this is close to Job. He has lost all the relationships and the accoutrements of this life. He is suffering in a death-like mortality as his body wastes away. His friends offer no consolation... only judgment. His hope is only in what he knows about God and in his conviction that even after death he will see God. This is at least some thought of an afterlife, and even a mild statement of a resurrection (after my skin has been... destroyed; in my flesh I see God). Job's faith is spectacular. He is a patriarch. There is not even an Israel or a covenant to cling to. Job must have had a spectacular walk with God.
It goes without saying that Christian hope is even brighter. If Job could say these things, how much more can I, who have a factual, reliable body of New Testament witnesses and a resurrected Redeemer Who stands for me at the right hand of the Father? Of course, there is a healthy fear attending that thought for me as well.
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