When asked about his age, Jacob described his life as a sojourning. This idea comes up fairly frequently in scripture, that our time on Earth is just a period of passing through, that this is not really our home. There is a sense in which it is--the new Heavens and new Earth where we dwell with God is a restoration of that which already exists, which means we will live forever on this very Earth after it has been renewed--but we cannot allow ourselves to see only this passing age of death and sin and turmoil as where we ultimately belong. This world cannot hold our affections, certainly not our allegiance, as it is not our true home, and we will not be here for long.

But we have been granted something greater than Earthly experience and wealth. Christ has given us a new home, a kingdom that Hebrews states Jacob and his fathers longed after. A kingdom that Christ proclaims our access to and affiliation with in Matthew 16, speaking to Peter regarding the church that would be built with him.

How would we interact with this world, with its affections and concerns and obsessions, with its nations and its peoples, if we truly understood ourselves to be sojourners in a world that is passing away? If we truly understood what it is that Christ has done by giving us a new home, a new identity, and a new status? I think we do a great disservice to ourselves and our God and our world when we try to divorce the doctrines of the Kingdom and the church from each other. After all, how can we ever bring the glories of our home to the land in which we sojourn, if we do not consider what the glories of our home actually are?

Job is a type of Christ, in that we see in him a picture of some aspect of who Jesus would be and how He would fulfill the promises of God. This is nowhere more apparent than in chapter 42.

​Job has gone through a great trial. A massive affliction that he did not deserve was laid on his head, costing him all of his wealth and family (except his wife, who turned against him) and drawing others to point to it as evidence of evil in his heart. He bore the marks of condemnation on his very body. He was raised up for them as a symbolic curse, a lesson for those who oppose God, though he never had and those who made the accusation did so based on a misunderstanding of who God is. Job is the essence of the suffering servant, the righteous one who endures great trial. But the imagery that ties Job to Christ does not end at his suffering. In chapter 42, we get some more very important details. 

There are a few things here worth noting. One, Eliphaz is probably a descendant of Abraham. Genesis 36:10-11 tells us that Esau had a son named Eliphaz to his wife Adah, and Eliphaz had a son named Teman. If he is not to be read as an archetype, then, Eliphaz the Temanite is likely from the clan of Teman and bearing a family name. Bildad the Shuhite may also be descended from Abraham, a member of the clan of Shuah, a son of Abraham by his second wife, Keturah, from Genesis 25. What we have in Job 42, then, is a descendant of Abraham who lives outside the promise made to Abraham receiving direct word from God that the only way he and his companions (another descendant of Abraham outside the promise, and a man likely unrelated to Abraham at all) can be made right before God is to go to the man they had scorned as cursed by God and welcome the sacrifice that he would make on their behalf. Through this, God did not directly promise to accept them, but did accept Job because of his sacrifice and, near as we can tell, accept the others on Job's behalf.

Why did Job have so much blessing at the end of his life? The end of the book records a massive amount of wealth and a broad family coming to Job, and I have heard it preached as though God was repaying Job for all that had been taken away from him. But the verse above seems to indicate another angle: God did not reward Job as a direct result of his suffering, but as a result of his sacrifice and prayer offered on behalf of the people who had condemned him.

Let's tie this all together. Job points forward to Christ not only as the suffering servant, but as the only way to find restoration to God for both the blood of Abraham and the gentile, especially because both parties have rejected and condemned him due to a misunderstanding of who God is. As a result of interceding and making sacrifice on their behalf, God not only accepts them but glorifies him. All of this is true of Christ.

We, by being born of the spirit and turning to the Christ that the world has rejected, are welcomed by God while Christ, who was perfect but suffered and offered his own life as sacrifice on our behalf, is glorified for His work to save us. The whole gospel is imaged in the Old Testament, if only we will allow ourselves to see it.

How many times have we heard atheists, when asked about what they would do if they actually met God, explain that they would demand answers about how the world is. "How dare you," general thrust of these questions tends to go, "how dare you allow a world that has these things in it?"​

When God finally addresses Job, starting in chapter 38 of the book named for him, He challenges Job to stand up and raise charges. He charges Job multiple times to "gird up your loins and stand up like a man" and lay out his case against God in the midst of his trials. Job, for his part, answers very briefly in chapter 40.

The theme of the day's reading is God's supreme power, but beyond that, God's supreme right to judge. God is the very foundation of the concept of justice, He is the cornerstone upon which everything we know and value rests. We cannot hold Him to a standard because He is the one true standard, and we can never know either His creation or the proper application of His law better than He does. He creates, He sustains, He tames the most powerful wild forces and humbles the most exalted mortal soul. Confronted with His glory, none may stand and lay a charge. If we allow ourselves for even a moment to believe that we have something to condemn in Him, then our idea of God is a pale comparison to the One revealed in scripture.

We must remember that this God we serve is so much greater than we can even imagine, and His methods are perfect on a scale we cannot comprehend. When we get lost in our concerns about the troubles we face in this life, we can come back to confidence in the knowledge that God has things under control, God knows what He is doing and what He is allowing, and that His promise that those in Him shall be glorified with Him will not be interrupted by momentary muck and mire. And we can look forward to the completion of His perfect plan and justice, and say with Abraham,

In the beginning, God created mankind, and then He gave mankind a job to do. Adam was placed in the garden, not just to enjoy it, but "to cultivate it and keep it" (Genesis 2:15c, NASB). The very next thing we have Adam doing is, at God's request, naming the animals, an act which showcases his authority over them--an authority that God had by virtue of creating them, but handed off to Adam. When Adam is punished for his fall in the next chapter, the world itself is cursed. This connection between the people and the land continues all through scripture.

Mankind is given a sabbath rest, and commanded to give the land one as well (Leviticus 25:4). One aspect of the exile of the nations of Israel and Judah was to give the land the sabbath it had not received (2 Chronicles 36:21). The world, subjected to futility, longs for redemption alongside mankind, as described in Romans above. Finally, in Revelation, God remakes creation in a perfect state after condemning "those who destroy the Earth" (Revelation 11:18d, NASB).

Why does the land itself suffer so much hassle? Why does God make such a concern about how we treat the world? There are a few interrelated aspects of this to explore. One is that, as image-bearers and wielders of some measure of God's authority over creation, mankind was designed to serve as a race of priests. As such, we are to be as God to the created order, and as creation before God. Another is that the punishments handed out to Adam, Eve, and the serpent directly relate to the core of who they were all created to be. Adam and Eve have been commanded to work the land and multiply, and their curses reflect their imperfect ability to meet God's commands. But today's reading highlighted another.

In 1 Samuel 12, Samuel is following up on the coronation of Saul. Saul has already been anointed by Samuel, named king by the people, led a successful military campaign to save Israel from the Ammonites, and made peace with the select few people who didn't expect him to be suitable as king. Things are going well. But Samuel takes a moment to ask the people why they have chosen to have a king instead of God, and reminds them that this decision was a sinful one. But he also ties the fate of the people and the king together.

The books of Kings and Chronicles show that this impact goes both ways. When the people begin to falter, the king fails to bring them back. When the king falters, the people follow. The governor is never removed from the governed, that which holds authority is influenced through the same avenues by which it influences.

God has put creation, to some significant degree, under the authority of mankind. When mankind falls, creation falls; when creation suffers, mankind suffers. We are in a connected system. Are we taking our responsibility over the land seriously? How do we interact with the Earth? Are we honoring God in our practice of authority over creation?