Job 19:25-27
I Know My Redeemer Lives
25 I know that my redeemer lives,
and that in the end he will stand on the earth.
26 And after my skin has been destroyed,
yet in my flesh I will see God;
27 I myself will see him
with my own eyes—I, and not another.
How my heart yearns within me!
This is the account of the heavens and the earth when they were created, when the LORD God made the earth and the heavens...Now no shrub had yet appeared on the earth and no plant had yet sprung up, for the LORD God had not sent rain on the earth and there was no one to work the ground, but streams came up from the earth and watered the whole surface of the ground...Then the LORD God formed a man from the dust of the ground and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life, and the man became a living being...
Now the LORD God had planted a Garden in the east, in Eden; and there He put the man He had formed...The LORD God made all kinds of different trees grow out of the ground—trees that were pleasing to the eye and many that were good for food...There were also two very special trees in the Garden...In the middle of the Garden were the tree of life and the tree of the knowledge of good and evil...
A river watering the Garden flowed from Eden; from there it was separated into four headwaters...The name of the first is the Pishon; it winds through the entire land of Havilah, where there is gold...(The gold of that land is good; aromatic resin and onyx are also there.)...The name of the second river is the Gihon; it winds through the entire land of Cush...The name of the third river is the Tigris; it runs along the east side of Ashur...And the fourth river is the Euphrates...The LORD God took the man and put him in this Garden of Eden to work it and take care of it...And the LORD God commanded the man, “You are free to eat from any tree in the garden; but you must not eat from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, for when you eat from it you will certainly die.”...This was the only thing that was told them they could not do in the Garden of Eden...
The LORD God said, “It is not good for the man to be alone...I will make a helper suitable for him.”...Now the LORD God had formed out of the ground all the wild animals and all the birds in the sky...He brought them to the man to see what he would name them; and whatever the man called each living creature, that would be their name...So the first man named Adam gave names to all the livestock, the birds in the sky and all the wild animals...But for Adam no suitable helper was found...So the LORD God caused the man to fall into a deep sleep; and while he was sleeping, he took one of the man’s ribs and then closed up the place with flesh...Then the LORD God made a woman from the rib He had taken out of the man, and He brought her to the man...The man said, “This is now bone of my bones and flesh of my flesh; she shall be called ‘woman,’ for she was taken out of man.”...That is why a man leaves his father and mother and is united to his wife, and they become one flesh...Adam and his wife were both naked, and they felt no shame...There was no shame in the Garden of Eden...God made man and woman and placed them in this Great Paradise, the Garden of Eden...
But as fate would have it with man and woman, the evil one was there in the Garden lurking and tempting them...A Paradise, yet in Paradise there still temptation...And so it is written that the craftiest of all the wild animals the LORD God had made was the serpent...And he said to the woman, “Did God really say, ‘You must not eat from any tree in the Garden’?”...The woman said to the serpent, “We may eat fruit from the trees in the Garden, but God did say, ‘You must not eat fruit from the tree that is in the middle of the garden, and you must not touch it, or you will die.’”...“You will not certainly die,” the serpent said to the woman...“For God knows that when you eat from it your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God, knowing good and evil.”...When the woman look and saw that the fruit of the tempting tree was good for food and very pleasing to the eye, and also desirable for gaining wisdom, she took some of the fruit and ate it...She had disobeyed God...She also gave some to her husband, who was with her, and he ate it...Now they both had disobeyed God...And after they ate the fruit the eyes of both of them were opened...Somehow they now realized they were naked...So they sewed fig leaves together and made coverings for themselves...Shame and guilt had entered the Garden...Then the man and his wife heard the sound of the LORD God as He was walking in the garden in the cool of the day, and they hid from the LORD God among the trees of the garden...But we cannot hide from our LORD God...The LORD God called to the man, “Where are you?”...He answered, “I heard You in the garden, and I was afraid because I was naked; so I hid.”...Adam realized he and his wife were naked...And our LORD God said, “Who told you that you were naked?...Have you eaten from the tree that I commanded you not to eat from?”...The man said, “The woman You put here with me—she gave me some fruit from the tree, and I ate it.”...Then the LORD God said to the woman, “What is this you have done?”...The woman said, “The serpent deceived me, and I ate.”...So the LORD God said to the serpent, “Because you have done this, “Cursed are you above all livestock and all wild animals!...You will crawl on your belly and you will eat dust all the days of your life...And I will put enmity between you and the woman, and between your offspring and hers; He will crush your head, and you will strike His heel.”...To the woman LORD God said, “I will make your pains in childbearing very severe; with painful labor you will give birth to children...Your desire will be for your husband, and he will rule over you.”...To Adam He said, “Because you listened to your wife and ate fruit from the tree about which I commanded you, ‘You must not eat from it,’ “Cursed is the ground because of you; through painful toil you will eat food from it all the days of your life...It will produce thorns and thistles for you, and you will eat the plants of the field...By the sweat of your brow you will eat your food until you return to the ground, since from it you were taken; for dust you are and to dust you will return.”...
Adam named his wife Eve, because she would become the mother of all the living...The LORD God made garments of skin for Adam and his wife and clothed them...And the LORD God said, “The man has now become like one of us, knowing good and evil...He must not be allowed to reach out his hand and take also from the tree of life and eat, and live forever.”...So the LORD God banished him from the Garden of Eden to work the ground from which he had been taken...After He drove the man out of the Garden of Eden, He placed on the east side of the Garden of Eden cherubim and a flaming sword flashing back and forth to guard the way to the tree of life...
Adam and Eve had eaten the fruit from the tree of knowledge...That has changed everything...Shame, remorse, guilt, blame, and negative thoughts had entered the world from Paradise...Physical death would now happen on earth...We had fallen short of the Glory of our LORD God by disobeying Him...We had sinned, and the wages of sin is death...Since Adam and Eve had disobeyed LORD God and sin had entered the world they would have to leave Paradise...The Tree of Life was now only a dream...We could no longer eat from it and become eternal like LORD God...We would live in a sinful state, a sinful nature from now on, while we are on earth...We would need a Way to Redeem ourselves...We would need a Redeemer, who would always live...
Years later the LORD God gave one of His messengers, a man named Moses a way to atone for our sins, through sacrifice of animals and grains...But later a Great Thing would happen...The LORD God will send to you a Prophet...This Prophet will come from among your own people, and He will be like the LORD God...You must listen to Him...The LORD God will send you this Prophet because that is what you asked Him to do...When you were gathered together at Mount Horeb, you became frightened and said, ‘Don’t let us hear the voice of the LORD God again!...Don’t let us see that great fire or we will die!’...“The LORD God said to me, ‘What they ask for is good...I will send them a Prophet like you...This Prophet will be One of their own people...I will tell him what He must say, and He will tell the people everything I command...This Prophet will speak for Me, and I will punish anyone who refuses to listen to my commands.’...
Other wise men and prophets of Scripture would write about an Anointed One who would come some day come to earth...He would be different from all men...He would always speak the Truth and no deceit or sin would leave His lips...So God one day sent the One who was written about in the Old Testament...God would send His Son, the Messiah to act as One who would Atone for our sins...He would be our Redeemer...One who is the Truth, the Way, and the Life...He is the Only Way to LORD God...He is One with LORD God and LORD God is in Him and He is in LORD God...LORD God has given Him all authority to do all things on earth...And He would die on the cross...As St. Peter said that the LORD God of our ancestors raised up the Messiah from the dead after you killed Him by hanging him on a tree...He Himself bore our sins in His Body on the tree, so that we might die to sins and live for righteousness; “by His wounds you have been healed...And this tree would be our new Tree of Life...Salvation is found in no one else, for there is no other name under heaven given to mankind by which we must be saved...
So St. Peter will always remind us of these things, even though we know them and are firmly established in the Truth we now have in the gospels...It is always right to refresh our memories as long as we live in a tent, what we call the body...Soon our tents wear, tear, and age and are put aside...And St. Peter wants us to always remember these things after his death and in the future...For the Disciples did not follow cleverly devised stories when they told and wrote about the coming of our LORD Jesus Christ in power, but the Disciples were eyewitnesses of His Majesty...
Our Redeemer Lives...