I Know That My Redeemer Lives!

Philippians 4, Job 19:23-27a

December 7, 1997

by Dave Wilkinson

Have you ever wondered how the hymns we sing on Sunday morning became written? Maybe you have. Maybe not. But it's a very interesting story.

As a child, I had the idea that someone just sat down one morning to write a hymn. But I know now that very few of the hymns that last were written by someone who "just sat down to write." The great hymns -- the ones that speak to us powerfully -- touch authentic human emotion. This is because they were written from a time of transcendent awe or overwhelming need by one of our brothers or sisters in faith. Our hymnal is a special legacy to us from the people of God in other times and places.

In 1873, for example, a Christian lawyer from Chicago named Horatio Spafford placed his wife and four children on the luxury liner Ville de Havre sailing from New York to France. Spafford expected to join them in about three or four weeks after finishing some business. But except for his wife he never saw them again. The trip started beautifully. But on the evening of November 21, 1873, as the Ville de Havre proceeded peacefully across the Atlantic, the ship was suddenly struck by another vessel, the Lochern, and sank a mere thirty minutes later, with the loss of nearly all on board.

On being told that the ship was sinking, Mrs. Spafford knelt with her children and prayed that they might be saved or be made willing to die, if such was God's will. A few minutes later, in the confusion, three of the children were swept away by the rising waves while she stood clutching the youngest. Suddenly the youngest child was swept from her arms. She reached out and caught the baby's gown. Then the baby, a little girl, was lost again. Mrs. Spafford became unconscious and awoke later to find that she had been rescued by sailors from the Lochern. But her four children were gone.

Back in New York, Horatio Spafford was waiting for news of his family. And at last, ten days later (after the rescue ship had reached Cardiff), it came. "Saved alone" was his wife's cable message. That night Spafford walked the floor of his rooms in anguish, as anyone would have done. But this was not all. For as he shared his loss with his Lord, a loss which could not be reversed in this life, he found, as many have, that peace which passes all understanding. Toward morning he told a friend named Major Whittle, "I am glad to be able to trust my Lord when it costs me something."

Spafford left the next day for England to be with his wife. When his ship came to the place where the Ville de Havre was rammed and sunk -- where his four precious children were lost to him in this world -- he leaned upon the rail and thought these words that he later wrote into a hymn:

"When peace, like a river, attendeth my way,

When sorrows like sea-billows roll;

Whatever my lot, Thou hast taught me to say,

It is well, it is well with my soul."

The hymn is "It is Well with my Soul" by Horatio Spafford. The tune is Ville de Havre after the ship that was lost.

Spafford said: "I am glad to be able to trust my lord when it costs me something." In these words Spafford echos the words of Job about God even as he sat in his pain on the dung heap -- "although God slays me, I will trust him" (Job 13:15). You remember the story of Job from the Old Testament.

Job has lost everything that he has treasured--his family, his farm, his wealth and his health. He has only one thing left -- his certainty that he is innocent. He has done nothing to deserve this. Leave aside for a moment the question of universal sinfulness. Leave aside the notion of his stubborn pride. Put yourself for a moment in Job's place. He has suffered far more than he could ever have deserved. It was not fair. It was not right.

Job was a prosperous man. He had a large and happy family whom he loved. He was also a good man. In fact, in all the earth there was none better. That is why Satan -- the tempter and the tester of the Old Testament -- sought permission by God to try Job's faith -- to put Job to the test and see if his faith and goodness are only a result of God’s blessing or if they are based on a genuine, rock-solid core of trust. Satan not only takes away Job's children and possession. But when this fails to make Job curse God, he covers Job from head to toe with a loathsome and painful skin disease. Job's condition is so miserable that his wife urges him to curse God and die. But he rebukes her and accepts his condition as coming from God -- whom he refuses to criticize. Job's friends are no more help than his wife. Soon he is left alone. But surely his pain is not the last word of a righteous God.

Although Job can see no justice in his present situation, he believes that the final count is not in. With every fiber of his being -- though he feels it is God himself who is putting him through this torture -- Job believes in God's ultimate righteous character. Finally he blurts out one of the great statements of faith ever made:

"Oh that my words were written!

Oh that they were inscribed in a book!

Oh that with an iron pen and lead they were graven in the

Rock forever!

For I know that my redeemer lives, and at the last he will take His stand upon the earth,

Even if my flesh is destroyed, then in my flesh I will see God."

The roots of the story of a job are as old and deep as those of any book in the Bible. And in these deep roots we see the promise that we celebrate this Christmas season -- that our redeemer does live and that he has stood upon the earth in the person of Jesus Christ. Job knew instinctively the things we can know as fact.

Job sees that God's love and justice demand a life beyond this one. "Even though my flesh is destroyed, yet in my flesh I will see God." But he also sees one thing more. He sees that there is a redeemer. If Satan was the public prosecutor trying Job's faith, then there must be a public defender to plead Job's case. If God is a holy judge -- far removed from our sinful condition, then there must be a mediator to bridge the chasm between God’s throne and human need. Job knows that somewhere there is somebody who cares about him and will stand beside him to intercede in his behalf before God. He knows that his redeemer lives and that this redeemer will someday stand upon the earth.

Like Horatio Spafford in his loss, Job can say: "whatever my lot-- whatever happens to me or to those whom I love--even so it is well with my soul." For like Job, Spafford knew that his redeemer lives.

On this first Sunday of December as we approach Christmas, this is my prayer for each of us -- that we can have that same confident assurance of Christ's love. We don't know what the new year or the new millennium will bring. Not one of us knows what the future holds. But we do know who holds the future. So we can also say, whatever comes, "it is well with my soul."

Let us prepare our hearts to come to the table of Him who has stood upon the earth -- who has redeemed us and loved us and who will return in glory for us -- as we listen to the whole of Spafford's great expression of our faith.