Job Sees The Light - Forty-fourth and final in a series
Some final notes on the book of Job:
1. An aspect that is not especially integral to the plot is that Job’s daughters mentioned in the final chapter received an inheritance among their brothers (Job 42:14-15). Commentators state this was not the norm, and that it proved Job’s wealth and a family unity. Also, as we know, women can be left without husbands and cast on the mercy of others, so to have their own inheritance could be helpful. Perhaps this showed that Job had not forgotten how it felt to be without resources, and did not want any of his children to experience that dilemma.
2. Was Job really blameless? In what sense did God mean that he was “perfect and upright” (Job 1:8 KJV)? We learned he was not; on the contrary God wanted to draw him out of himself, to enter the high plane of humility. He needed to see he had pursued his own perfection to the exclusion of God’s overarching right to be glorified for his preeminence as the Creator and everlasting Father.
Likewise Paul the apostle grew to understand that self righteousness was merely trusting in flesh (Phil 3:4-7). He arrived at the same revelation as Job. Anyone whose faith is resting on his own qualifications must come in to a new way of seeing.
3. An evolutionist will not like the Book of Job. God claims Creation as living proof of his superiority and sovereign power over the universe, man included. If man cannot worship God as the Creator, he has been blindsided by Satan.
4. God has the right over each of our lives to impose any trial, and we can trust that as he does, there are good and perfect reasons and an expected beautiful outcome. (Isa 64:8)
5. Finally, was Job Melchizedek? To be sure, no one can know. Yet, it is a matter for reflection.
Christ became our high priest “after the order of Melchizedek.”
A. W. Pink in “An Exposition of Hebrews” points out there are aspects to this verity that would matter to Jews who needed to emerge beyond their dependence on the Levitical priests.
Melchizedek is mentioned in Scripture as king of Salem which could only refer to Jerusalem, and priest of Jehovah, the “proper name of the one true God.” (ref) In Hebrews we are told that Levi himself paid tithes “in Abraham” to Melchizedek since he was Abraham’s descendant but not yet born (Heb 7:9-10) when Abram was blessed by Melchizedek.
Melchizedek mysteriously is present after Abram rescued from enemy armies his brother, Lot, who provided two ancestors to the line of Christ. (Mat 1:5,7 —Ruth of Moab, Rehoboam’s mother, an Ammonitess- 1 Ki 14:21) Lot and others living in Sodom were carried off with their possessions when their own king had fled in battle. Abram pursued the enemy troops along with 318 members of his own household (Gen 14:14), freeing Lot and his neighbors along with their goods.
After Melchizedek refreshed Abram with bread and wine and blessed him as belonging to the most high God (Gen 14:18-19) who had won the battle, Abram tithed to him from the spoils of the rescued.
In this single event memorialized by David (Ps 110:4), Melchizedek is established as a priest who takes precedence over the Levites. Jews should feel free to worship Christ who is the priest not modeled after the law of a carnal commandment (Lev 8:1-13), but after the power of an endless life (Heb 7:16), who lives now to make intercession for whosoever believes.
We know that Job by his repentance from self righteousness gained the power of an endless life, shown by God’s complete embrace of him thereafter. He then acted as a priest for his friends by interceding for them, asking God to forgive their sins. (Job 42:8)
Thus Job may have been Melchizedek. We cannot find any other individual in Scripture who would qualify for this honor. Considering this possibility calls us to reflect on what must be done to gain an endless life, which from one Testament to the next was different yet in locked relation.
Whether or not Job was Melchizedek, an endless life is a marvel to ponder:
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 RSV)