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. Job 19:25-26
This is one of the greatest statements about the Redeemer in the Old Testament. Anna would have known it well. She had been waiting for the Redeemer.
Anna saw and welcomed the infant Jesus, but thirty years would pass before Christ began His public ministry. At the age of eighty-four, Anna would not have lived long enough to hear the teaching of Jesus or to see His mighty works. The world when she died would have looked pretty much as it did when she was born—wars, violence, disease, greed, and people grabbing power.
The great truth that Job stated so wonderfully is that the work of the Redeemer stretches beyond this life. There’s a part of our redemption that believers begin to enjoy now, but the largest part of all that Christ has purchased for us is still to come.
That great theme is taken up in Romans 8: “We … groan inwardly as we wait eagerly for adoption as sons, the redemption of our bodies” (verse 23). The redemption Christ has purchased includes not only your soul, but also your body.
And what He has purchased includes not only you, but the world in which you will live: “the creation itself will be set free from its bondage to corruption” (8:21). There will be a new heaven and a new earth, and it will be the home of righteousness. No violence, no racism, no disputing as to who is God, no tears, no pain, no hatred, no war, no death.
As you look at the effects of sin and decay around you, are you taking to heart that Jesus has secured an eternal redemption for you by His blood?
