If there be for him an angel,
Job 33:23-25 (ESV)
a mediator, one of the thousand,
to declare to man what is right for him,
and he is merciful to him, and says,
‘Deliver him from going down into the pit;
I have found a ransom;
let his flesh become fresh with youth;
let him return to the days of his youthful vigor’;
Much of the book of Job is a series of dialogues between Job and three of his friends. That is followed by an extended speech from Elihu, a fourth friend who has waited until the end. Elihu is concerned about defending God, the unrighteousness of humans, and how we can be made right with God.
In this passage, Elihu defines one way that might happen, although he believes it is a stretch, one chance in a thousand. And that is for a mediator to be found. One who will represent the unrighteous person before God.
This mediator would plead with God on our behalf, explaining that he had found a ransom for the one who had sinned. A ransom that would prevent his client from going down into the pit and would give him a new life.
Elihu did not know Jesus and the work he would do. But he describes well what Jesus did for us. Jesus is our mediator or intercessor with God, pleading with God on our behalf (1 Jn 2:1). He is the ransom that was paid to God on our behalf (Matt. 20:28). His advocacy on our behalf redeems us from the pit (1 Pet. 1:18-19). And in him, we are born anew (2 Cor. 5:17).
How great it is that what Elihu saw as one chance in a thousand was realized in Jesus, our redeemer and Lord. Because of what he did on our behalf, we can be made right with God.
