In this remarkable chapter Job seizes hope in a hopeless situation by looking forward to Christ and to his, Job’s, resurrection from the dead:
Job had said above that his hope had been taken away, “like an uprooted tree.” (19:10) He certainly said this referring to the hope of recovering temporal prosperity, to which the friends urged him many times. But he showed in many ways above (vv.11-20) that he ought not to have this hope by reducing their arguments to various unfitting conclusions. Now he clearly declares his intention to show that he had not said these things before in despair of God, but because he bore a higher hope about Him, which was not even related to present goods, but to future goods. Because he was about to speak about great, wondrous, and certain things, he first shows his desire that the thought he is about to express would endure in the faith of his descendants. We transmit our words and their meaning to our descendants through the function of writing. So he says, “Who would grant me that my words be written down?” namely, what I am about to say about the hope which I have fixed in God so that my speeches may not be forgotten. What is written in ink usually fades with the long passage of time and so when we want some writing to be preserved for a long time, we not only record it in writing, but by some impression on skin, on metal, or in stone. Since what he hoped for was not in the immediate future, but is reserved for fulfillment at the end of time, he then says, “Who would grant me that my words be engraved in a book with an iron stylus,” like an impression made on skin, “or,” if this is not enough, by a stronger impression made, “on a plate of lead, or,” if this seems not enough “securely sculptured,” with an iron stylus, “on flint?”
He shows what the discourses are he would like to be preserved with such great diligence adding, “For I know that my redeemer lives.” He clearly attributes this to the manner of a cause. Things which we are not sure of we are not anxious to commit to memory, and so he clearly says, “For I know,” namely by the certitude of faith. This hope is about the glory of the future resurrection, concerning which he first assigns the cause when he says, “my redeemer lives.” Here we must consider that man, who was established as immortal by God, incurred death through sin, according to Romans, “Through one man sin entered the world, and through sin, death.” (5:12) Job foresaw through the spirit of faith that the human race must be redeemed from this sin through Christ. Christ redeemed us from sin by death, dying for us, but he did not so die that he was consumed by death, because although he died according to his humanity, yet he could not die according to his divinity. From the life of the divinity, the humanity has also been restored by rising up to life again, according to what is said in 2 Cor., “For although he was crucified because of our infirmity, yet he lives by the power of God.” (13:4) The life of the Risen Christ, moreover will be diffused to all men in the general resurrection, and so in the same place the Apostle Paul puts, “For we are weak in him, but we will live in him by the power of God in us,” (11:4) and so the Lord says according to John, “The dead will hear the voice of the Son of God, and those who hear it will live: for just as the Father has life in himself, so he gave it to the Son also to have life in himself.” (5:25-26) Thus the primordial cause of the resurrection of man is the life of the Son of God, which did not take its beginning from Mary, as the Ebionites said, but always was, according to Hebrews, “Jesus Christ yesterday, today, and forever.” (13:8) Therefore he clearly does not say, “My redeemer will live,” but, “lives.” In this cause he foretells the future resurrection and he determines its time when he then puts, “and I shall arise on the very last day from the earth.” Here one must reflect that some men posited that the motion of the heavens and this state of the world would endure forever, and they maintained that after a fixed number of revolutions of years, when the stars return to the same places, dead men would be restored to life. Since a day is caused by a motion of the heavens, if this motion of the heavens will endure forever, there will be no very last day. Thus to remove the aforementioned error he then clearly says, “on the very last day,” and this is consonant with the statement of the Lord, who says in John, “I will raise him up on the very last day (novissimo die).” (6:40)
There were other men who said that men will rise by resuming not an earthly body, but some kind of heavenly body. To exclude this he then says, “I will be surrounded again with my own skin.” He expressly says this because he had said above (v.20) that only the skin had remained around his bones. In this way of speaking he assigns the explanation (ratio) of the resurrection, namely, that the soul does not always remain divested of its very own skin. Again there were some who said that the soul will resume the same body it had put aside, but according to the same condition, so that it would need food and drink and would exercise the other fleshly works of this life. But he excludes this saying then, “and in my flesh I shall see God.” For it is clear that the flesh of man is corruptible according to the state of the present life. As Wisdom says, “The body which is corrupted weighs down the spirit.” (9:15) and so no one can see God while living in this mortal flesh, but the flesh which the soul will resume in the resurrection will certainly be the same in substance, but will have incorruptibility by a divine gift, according to what is said by Paul, “This corruptible must put on incorruption.” (1 Cor.15:53) Therefore, that flesh will be of this latter condition because it in no way will impede the soul from being able to see God, but rather will be completely subject to the soul. Porphyry, not knowing this said, “The soul must flee the body to become happy,” as though the soul and not man will see God. To exclude this Job places, “whom I myself will see,” as though he should say: Not only will my soul see God but “I myself” who subsist from body and soul. To indicate that the body will be a participant in that vision in its proper own way he adds, “and my eyes will behold him,” not because the eyes of the body would see the divine essence, but because the eyes of the body will see God made man. They will also see the glory of God shining in created things as Augustine says at the end of The City of God. That one believe that man must be restored the same in number and not only the same in species in order to be restored to see God he says, “and not another,” in number. This is so that one might not believe that he expects to return to the kind of life which Aristotle describes in II De Generatione saying that each corruptible substance which has been moved will be restored in species, but not in the same number.
Go here to read the rest. This chapter calls to mind this passage from The Screwtape Letters:
One moment it seemed to be all our world; the scream of bombs, the fall of houses, the stink and taste of high explosive on the lips and in the lungs, the feet burning with weariness, the heart cold with horrors, the brain reeling, the legs aching; next moment all this was gone, gone like a bad dream, never again to be of any account. Defeated, out-manœuvred fool! Did you mark how naturally — as if he’d been born for it — the earthborn vermin entered the new life? How all his doubts became, in the twinkling of an eye, ridiculous? I know what the creature was saying to itself! “Yes. Of course. It always was like this. All horrors have followed the same course, getting worse and worse and forcing you into a kind of bottle-neck till, at the very moment when you thought you must be crushed, behold! you were out of the narrows and all was suddenly well. The extraction hurt more and more and then the tooth was out. The dream became a nightmare and then you woke. You die and die and then you are beyond death. How could I ever have doubted it?”
