The Creed from the Ash Heap Text: Job 19:23-27
Introduction: A Diamond in the Dunghill
The book of Job is not for the faint of heart. It is raw, rugged, and refuses to give us tidy, sentimental answers to the problem of suffering. We live in a soft age, an age that believes comfort is a right and that all pain is ultimately meaningless. When tragedy strikes, our modern therapeutic culture offers little more than shallow psychobabble and a prescription. The world sees suffering as a cosmic accident, a glitch in the system, something to be avoided, medicated, or explained away. But the Bible, and the book of Job in particular, stares unflinchingly into the abyss of human anguish and finds, not a void, but the very face of God.
Job is a man stripped of everything. He has lost his wealth, his children, and his health. He is sitting on an ash heap, scraping his oozing sores with a piece of pottery. His wife has told him to curse God and die. His friends, his miserable comforters, have come to accuse him, insisting that such monumental suffering must be the result of some monumental, hidden sin. They are operating on a neat and tidy retribution principle, where every effect has a visible and proportionate cause. If you are suffering this badly, you must have sinned this badly. But Job, for all his confusion and complaint, knows this is not the whole story.
And then, in the middle of this swirling vortex of pain, accusation, and confusion, something utterly astonishing happens. Out of the depths of his despair, from the center of the ash heap, Job erupts with one of the most glorious, confident, and foundational creedal statements in all of Scripture. It comes out of nowhere, like a lightning flash in a midnight storm. He has been complaining bitterly, questioning God's justice, and wishing for a hearing. And then, this. This shining testimony of faith sits in the midst of his complaints the same way the godly Job himself sat on the ash heap. It is a diamond in the dunghill. It is a declaration that the ultimate reality is not his suffering, not his friends' accusations, not his own confusion, but rather the living God who will one day stand upon the earth.
This is not cheap grace or a Hallmark card sentiment. This is bedrock faith. This is the kind of faith that is forged in the furnace of affliction, and it is the only kind of faith that can truly sustain a man when the world falls apart.
The Text
"Oh that my words were written! Oh that they were inscribed in a book! That with an iron stylus and lead They were engraved in the rock forever! As for me, I know that my Redeemer lives, And at the last He will rise up over the dust of this world. Even after my skin is destroyed, Yet from my flesh I shall behold God, Whom I myself shall behold, And whom my eyes will see and not another. My heart faints within me!"
(Job 19:23-27 LSB)
A Permanent Record (vv. 23-24)
Job begins with a desperate desire for his words to be preserved.
"Oh that my words were written! Oh that they were inscribed in a book! That with an iron stylus and lead They were engraved in the rock forever!" (Job 19:23-24)
Job understands the gravity of what he is about to say. This is not a fleeting thought or a momentary emotional outburst. He wants this testimony to be permanent. He moves from the idea of a scroll, which can perish, to an inscription in rock with an iron pen and lead, which is meant to last for generations. He is about to make his last will and testament, not concerning his earthly goods, for he has none, but concerning his ultimate hope.
There is a profound irony here. Job's wish was granted far beyond what he could have imagined. His words were not just engraved in rock; they were inscribed by the Holy Spirit into the eternal rock of Scripture. We are reading them thousands of years later. He wanted a permanent record of his defense and his hope, and God gave him one. This is a testimony to the providence of God over His Word. God ensures that the testimonies of His saints, particularly those forged in the deepest trials, are not lost. They are preserved for the encouragement and instruction of the Church for all time.
The Living Redeemer (v. 25)
Here is the core of the confession, the central pillar upon which everything else rests.
"As for me, I know that my Redeemer lives, And at the last He will rise up over the dust of this world." (Job 19:25 LSB)
Notice the certainty. "I know." This is not "I hope" or "I think" or "I feel." In the midst of utter uncertainty, where he cannot understand God's providence, he clings to what he knows of God's character. His theology is holding him, even when his experience is screaming the opposite.
And what does he know? "That my Redeemer lives." The word for Redeemer here is Go'el. This is a crucial term. A Go'el was a kinsman-redeemer, the closest male relative who had the responsibility to vindicate, protect, and restore a family member who was in trouble. If you lost your land, the Go'el would buy it back. If you were sold into slavery, the Go'el would pay the price to set you free. If you were killed, the Go'el was the avenger of blood. Job, abandoned by friends and seemingly by God, declares that he has a kinsman, a divine relative, who will take up his cause.
And this Redeemer is not a distant, abstract principle. He "lives." While Job is dying, while his whole world is turning to dust, his Redeemer is the living one. This is the anchor. And this living Redeemer will have the final word. "At the last He will rise up over the dust of this world." The Hebrew is literally "He will stand upon the dust." Job sees a future day of vindication. His Redeemer will come and stand victoriously on the very earth that has become for Job a place of dust and ashes. This is a prophecy of a final, decisive intervention in history. The Redeemer will not remain distant; He will stand on the earth. This is a picture of triumph and judgment. The one who has the right to redeem will stand over the grave of this fallen world and claim it as His own.
The Bodily Hope (v. 26)
Job's hope is not for some ethereal, disembodied escape. It is a gritty, earthy, bodily hope.
"Even after my skin is destroyed, Yet from my flesh I shall behold God," (Job 19:26 LSB)
Job has no illusions about his physical condition. He looks at his decaying skin, his flesh being eaten by disease, and he knows where this is headed. "After my skin is destroyed." He is looking death square in the face. He fully expects his body to decompose and turn to dust. There is no denial here.
But that is not the end of the story. "Yet from my flesh I shall behold God." Some translations render this "in my flesh," and the meaning is the same. Job's hope is not to become a ghost that sees God. His hope is that he, Job, in a real, physical, resurrected body, will see God. This is one of the clearest affirmations of the resurrection of the body in the entire Old Testament. This is not the immortality of the soul, which is a Greek philosophical concept. This is the biblical doctrine of the resurrection of the body. We do not yearn to become ethereal spirits. Our hope is not to become heavenly ghosts. The Christian faith, from Job to the Apostles' Creed, affirms the resurrection of the body.
God made the material world and called it good. Sin brought death and decay into that good world. Redemption, therefore, is not about escaping the body, but about the redemption of the body. Christ did not come to save our souls out of our bodies; He came to save us, body and soul together. His own resurrection is the first fruits of this great harvest. Job, centuries before Christ, understood this foundational truth. My body will be destroyed, but in my body, I will see God.
The Personal Vision (v. 27)
This hope is not a general, abstract hope for humanity. It is intensely personal.
"Whom I myself shall behold, And whom my eyes will see and not another. My heart faints within me!" (Job 19:27 LSB)
Job emphasizes the personal nature of this vision three times. "I myself shall behold." "My eyes will see." "And not another." This will not be a second-hand experience. It will not be a report from someone else. Job himself, the same person who suffered on the ash heap, will be the one to see his Redeemer. The continuity of personal identity is essential. The resurrected Job will know that he is the same Job who endured the trial.
And what is the sight that he will see? He will behold God. This is the beatific vision. This is the ultimate hope of every believer. To see God face to face. This is what makes heaven, heaven. It is not the absence of suffering, but the presence of God. This is the great restoration. The God who seemed so distant, so hidden in the whirlwind of his suffering, will be seen with his own eyes.
The force of this glorious hope is so overwhelming that he concludes, "My heart faints within me!" The literal Hebrew is "my kidneys are consumed within me." For the Hebrews, the kidneys were the seat of the deepest emotions. He is saying that the longing, the sheer, breathtaking anticipation of this future reality, is almost too much for his physical frame to bear. It is a longing that consumes him from the inside out.
The Gospel According to Job
We must not miss the central point. Job's hope, articulated in the depths of Old Testament shadow, is fulfilled in the blazing light of the New Testament. We know who this living Go'el is. He is the Lord Jesus Christ.
He is our kinsman-redeemer. He took on our flesh and blood, becoming our brother, so that He could have the right to redeem us (Heb. 2:14-15). He is the one who lives. "I am the resurrection and the life," He said (John 11:25). He was dead, and behold, He is alive forevermore (Rev. 1:18).
He is the one who, at the last, will stand upon the earth. He has already stood upon the earth once, to purchase our redemption. And He will stand upon the earth again, at His second coming, to consummate that redemption, to judge the living and the dead, and to make all things new. He will stand on the dust of this old creation and command it to be glorified.
And because of Him, we share Job's hope. After our skin is destroyed, after our bodies are laid in the ground, we too, in our flesh, shall see God. Our vile bodies will be fashioned like unto His glorious body (Phil. 3:21). "Beloved, now we are children of God; and it has not yet been revealed what we shall be, but we know that when He is revealed, we shall be like Him, for we shall see Him as He is" (1 John 3:2).
This is the faith that holds. When your world is crumbling, when your health fails, when friends betray you, when God seems a million miles away, you must do what Job did. You must plant your feet on the bedrock of what you know. You must say, "As for me, I know that my Redeemer lives." He is not a dead founder of a religion; He is a living Savior. And because He lives, you also shall live. This is the creed from the ash heap, and it is the only hope for a world of suffering.