Posts tagged ‘Hymns’
Resurrection! It’s Not Just for Jesus
One of my favorite parts of Holy Week is the music. Last night in Maundy Thursday worship, we sang of Christ’s body and blood, given for us sinners to eat and drink. I’ve been singing the words to this hymn this morning:
God’s Word proclaims and we believe
That in this Supper we receive
Christ’s very body, as He said,
His very blood for sinners shed.
Today, as we reflect upon the cross of Christ, we will sing another of my favorite songs:
Mighty, awesome, wonderful,
Is the holy cross.
Where the Lamb laid down His life
To lift us from the fall.
Mighty is the power of the cross.
And then, on Easter, will come this powerful anthem:
I know that my Redeemer lives;
What comfort this sweet sentence gives!
He lives, He lives, who once was dead;
He lives, my ever-living head.
The words of this final song, of course, are taken from the book of Job where, even after Job has lost everything, he declares his faith in God and his desire for an advocate to plead his case to God: “I know that my Redeemer lives, and at the last He will stand upon the earth. 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 19:25-27)! These words have long been taken by Christians as a foreshadowing of Christ’s resurrection. Hence, the reason we sing these words on Easter! Interestingly, however, it’s not just Christians who have found hints of a resurrection in Job’s story, the ancient Jews did too.
In the third century BC, a Greek translation of the Old Testament was commissioned. Because of the rampant Hellenization of the ancient world, many Jews could no longer read Hebrew, the language in which the Old Testament was originally written, and so this work of translating the Bible into Greek was undertaken so that people could read the Bible in their language. The Septuagintal translation of Job is especially interesting because whoever translated it seems to have a love for resurrection! Consider these passages:
- Job 14:14: Hebrew – “If a man dies, shall he live again?” Greek – “If a man dies, he shall live!”
- Job 19:26: Hebrew – “After my skin has been thus destroyed…” Greek – “And to resurrect my skin upon the earth that endures these sufferings…”
- Job 42:17: The Greek Septuagint adds a line to this verse not in the Hebrew text: “It is written of Job that he will rise again with those whom the Lord will raise.”
Clearly, the translator of Job believed in the resurrection! Thus, the book of Job not only foretells Jesus’ resurrection in that famous line from Job 19, it foretells the resurrection of Job and all the faithful as well. For because Christ has risen, we will rise! In the words of the prophet Daniel: “Many of those who sleep in the dust of the earth shall awake, some to everlasting life, and some to shame and everlasting contempt” (Daniel 12:2). For those who trust in Christ, we will be raised to everlasting life. Because Christ has risen, we will rise. The translator of Job knew and believed this. I hope you do too. For if you know and believe that your Redeemer lives, you can know and believe that you will live…forever.
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