Donald W. Parry
Job: Suffering Servant, A Type of Jesus Christ
Donald W. Parry, “Job: Suffering Servant, A Type of Jesus Christ,” in The Jesus Christ Focused Old Testament: Making Sense of a Monumental Book (Springville, UT: Book of Mormon Central, 2022), 92–93.
Job, a man from the land of Uz, is described as being “perfect and upright, and one that feared God, and eschewed evil” (Job 1:1). Job’s uprightness emulates Jesus Christ’s excellence, and Job’s blamelessness foreshadows Jesus’s sinlessness. Job offered sacrifices and sanctified his children (Job 1:1, 5), anticipating Jesus’s infinite sacrifice and the sanctification of those who will become his sons and daughters. Job served as a mediator between God and his children and friends (Job 1:5; 42:8), and Jesus was the “one mediator between God and men” (1 Tim. 2:5).
Job experienced enormous sufferings, distresses, and tragedies (Job 1:2, 14–19). He responded to these tragedies by rending his mantle, shaving his head, falling to the ground, and worshipping the lord. As Job 1:22 states, “In all this Job sinned not, nor charged God foolishly.”
Job’s great sufferings in the flesh—his loss of children and property and the boils that covered him—anticipated the Suffering Servant and Man of Grief, Jesus Christ (see Isa. 53). Jesus descended below all things and yet remained the Sinless One. Jesus suffered bodily pain and affliction beyond mortal comprehension, and yet, like Job, He never charged His Father foolishly. While experiencing His sufferings, Job even bore a very powerful testimony of the Redeemer and the Resurrection: “For I know that my Redeemer liveth, and that he shall stand at the latter day upon the earth; and though after my skin worms destroy this body, yet in my flesh shall I see God” (Job 19:25–26).
After all of his afflictions, Job received a double portion of property—fourteen thousand sheep, six thousand camels, one thousand yoke of oxen, and one thousand she-asses (Job 42:12–13), representing exactly double the numbers of his portion from his earlier days. During certain eras of the Old Testament, the firstborn son often received a double portion (Deut. 21:15–17) of his father’s inheritance. Therefore, Job’s double portion points to Christ, who is the Firstborn (Rom. 8:29; Heb. 1:6).
Job: Suffering Servant, A Type of Jesus Christ
Concept | Job | Jesus Christ |
|---|---|---|
Sacrifice | Job offered blood sacrifices (Job 1:5). | Jesus offered Himself as a sacrifice (Heb. 7:27). |
Perfection | Job was “perfect” (Job 1:1). | Christ is perfect. |
The Law | Job went beyond the law: he offered sacrifices just in case his children sinned during the festival (Job 1:5). | Christ went beyond the law of Moses and introduced the law of Christ. He is the Lawgiver (Isa. 33:22). |
Mediator | Job was a mediator between God and his children, his friends (Job 1:5; 42:8). | Jesus was the “Mediator” between God and man (1 Tim. 2:5). |
Sanctification | By offering a sacrifice, Job sanctified his sons and daughters (Job 1:5). | By offering Himself as a sacrifice, Jesus sanctifies those who accept Him and His Atonement. |
Suffering Servant | Job was a type of the suffering servant, the man of grief. | Jesus is the Suffering Servant and Man of Grief (see Isa. 53). |
No Sin | In all his suffering, “Job sinned not, nor charged God foolishly” (Job 1:22). | Jesus Christ is “without sin” (Heb. 4:15). |
Affliction | Job suffered bodily pain and affliction (see Job 2). | Jesus suffered bodily pain and affliction (Matt. 27:35). |
Resurrection | Job prophesied of the Resurrection, “For I know that my Redeemer liveth, and that he shall stand at the latter day upon the earth; And though after my skin worms destroy this body, yet in my flesh shall I see God” (Job 19:25–26). | Jesus is the Resurrection and the Life (John 11:25). |