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CHAPTER EIGHT
THE TEST OF LIFE AND THE WAYS OF IT
We have been regarding planting and fruit, basics and products, and the way the engineering of superstructure is lamentably in vain, when the blessed grace of a new foundation for life, where sin is absent and the Redeemer is present, is not in place, first place. Now let us examine a testing situation, not intended as rebuke, but edifying confirmation of truth in practical living, exposing the ravishing lusts of the devil, who hates reality and lives with a fanciful fiction as his motivation. Job in the first Chapter, shows the reason for, the liveliness of and the terms of the test: YES,it is to show, Job does NOT love God for reward, or because he prospers, but because that is the nature of a love between man and God, that it transcends self-centred littleness, as the sun the moon, indeed the universe a speck of dust; and more so, for that is material and this is spiritual, personal.
We turn, at Job Ch. 9, to a crucial phase in this test.
The Admission Concerning God
Job has received his testing-only series of challenges. It looks as if he is being singled out, and that is quite right: he is. Such is the position as we come to Chapter 9 of Job.
He feels this is unjust, but it is not. He acts as if being godly means having standing and not falling, but does not appreciate the depth of the connection, that it is far beyond - though not less than - morality, savoury though that is. The acme of godliness passes even helpfulness, delightful as that can be in a person's ways; it is beyond concern, and even the free flow of compassion, as highly as that rates. The good tree has to be planted by God, and have the intrinsic inner qualities which pass all reform. It is good to listen to what is right, but it is better to have (spiritual) ears with which to do it.
The FIRST commandment is to LOVE God, not as incidental to a nice life, a quiet life or a pleasant one. It is WITH ALL the heart and mind, soul and strength. This is not put in for effect; and it is a very effective summation. It is great to have a fine building, but not if it be built on sand.
Paul actually refers to being killed all the day long ( Romans 8:36, Palm 44:22), nor is this some desperate innovation. The book of Job is an excellent illustration of this.
Christ having come, one must take up one's cross and follow Him, forsaking ALL one has (Luke 14:26-33), and this not as some mere form, but so that one is, as far as this world and its lusts are concerned, "crucified with Christ," as in Galatians 2:20, and this not as mere high-point episodes, flitting sanctities, but as a continual condition. In Greek, this verb is the "perfect", speaking of a condition, not just an act. The completeness of the purity is in principle; for who but God is perfect (I John 1:7ff.); but it should be impassioned.
To be sure, errors come, slackness has to be checked, over-zealous reactions need charity, slovenly permissiveness in self or the Church needs attention despite possible unpopularity (Hebrews 3:13); self-control has to be added with care as in II Peter 1, together with many features, as noted there, easy to say, hard to achieve. There has to be growth, readiness to face calamities, humility that has no significant height to fall from, poverty of spirit that needs no rebuke: but for all that, discipline will come, for we are weak and He is strong.
Indeed, even this does not in the least remove the absoluteness of the first commandment, to love God with ALL your hearts and minds, or the reciprocal vast yearning to fulfil it (as in Philippians 3:12-16). John 3:16 is a reminder of the limitless surge of the love of God that the world be not condemned, the staggering gift of Christ, in both the testimony of His sincerity and the scope of His desire.
Philippians 3:16, in context, tells of the need to realise that we are not static saints, but growing ones, not carnally content, but spiritually chastened, charged, enlivened, needing to LIVE and to long, seek, delight in overcoming, with His undertaking, like lively horses, groomed, quietened, ready for displays of energy with allegiance and alertness.
Imperfection is not another name for slackness, indifference, cowardice or slippery definitions. There is a fight inside, as outside (Psalm 97:11), and it involves being as circumspect as soldiers, watchful as athletes. There is rest, for that is the beauty of Christ's presence in relief from redemption and peace from restoration (Matthew 11:27ff.); and it is profound. Yet when we get out of bed, it is not to sleep, but to live; and so even though the soul be at rest (cf. John 8:29), it is not an inert sort of a thing.
How does this relate to Job ? It is so because his admission of the purity of the life of God, while the depth of his life, was under severe and divinely intended challenge, for he met a riveting reality going to his greatest depths.
It is in this way that in the first 13 verses of Chapter 9, Job is itemising the singular sovereign uniqueness of God, including this, "Who can say to Him, what are You doing ?" (9:12). Yet in effect, this is precisely what Job goes on to say in his own way. GOD has no weakness, filled with wisdom, rules never in vain. Job admits this; but then in an agony that awaits being crucified, he erupts.
The Charge
The plaintiff charges the Judge.
Yet even at Job 6:8-10, he is talking about a grant from God, namely to "crush me," as a thing longed for, cutting him off. Then one finds in Delitzsch (as paralleled in the NIV), this rendering. If he WERE cut off,
"then I should still have comfort - (I should exult in unsparing pain) -
that I have not disowned the words of the Holy One."
What a collision of heart is here! So vast is his devotion to the word of God, and so moved is he at the selective thrusts of misfortune and assault, he is being made to endure, that he would take it as a mercy to be cut off by God, so that he might, in this now defined situation, relish the fact, that he had been faithful, despite anguish through actual exclusion, rejoice that he had not violated nor divorced himself from the word of God. Later, he declared, "Though He slay me, yet will I trust Him," Job 13:15. It is true, however, that even in that predicament, he adds: "though I will maintain my own ways before Him." (bold added). If God is so wise and singularly righteous, why that!
There lies a basic weakness. It is GOOD that Job wishes to be reasonable, seek righteousness, be utterly devoted, and not only commendable; indeed his passion is stark and almost beautiful (the 'almost' coming from the addition!) Whatever God may have to say, he Job, will not unsay his protestation. This omits the possibility of a divine depth unsighted. Indeed, the proceedings which the reader of Job 1 knows in fact to be there, are beyond his knowledge. Moreover, what really lies behind all this, in reality, is highly complimentary to Job, though not palatable in enduring it, without knowledge of it. It is in such omissions that grief and rebellion, self-centredness and fanaticism can bask; for as soon as your wisdom becomes either greater than that of God, or a marshalling yard for His to be on display, at your good pleasure, you are simply out of place.
It is therefore not in the least surprising (though saddening) that Job proceeds after the first 13 verses of Chapter 9, to level some charges at God, contrary to his first praises indeed, but galled into outlet in his sense of exceeding shame, humiliation, the multitude of successive thrusts at the peace and prosperity of his life, as from a skilful swordsman, the multiple dimensions of his suffering stunning, and above all, the grief of the sense that there is some kind of spiritual rejection afoot.
First, "If I called and He answered me, I would not believe that He was listening to my voice." He gives as his reason, this, the second charge against God: "He crushes me with a tempest, and multiplies my wounds without cause," Job 9:17. The 'reason' for his first charge, comes with "without cause" as its assault on God, and the first charge itself, is not only morose, but an implied clout to the hand of grace! YOU answer some request of mine! Couldn't believe it...
Next comes another charge based on inadequate premiss. He declares this, "I am blameless," while acknowledging that he does not really know (in an analytical and deeply probing sense) his life; and THEREFORE he has another charge against God. It is most serious: "He destroys the blameless and the wicked." Carried completely away, he adds to this genre, while indulging it, declaring that "He laughs at the plight of the innocent... He covers the faces of its (the earth's) judges," Job 9:23-24. For one who does not really know his life, his judgments are profuse!
Once the pipe of purity was broken, then the dammed-up vitality in man spilt, roared, surged into things evil and muted, outrageous and raucous, with a source for light still provided, a redemptive source, a granted source, a redemptive resource, sketched in animal sacrifice, strengthened in spiritual restoration, newly dynamised in divine thrust. It was restorative in nature, so that the medley of many musics, uproarious diversities of life, could now be replaced in one governed by the spirit of holiness, granted the covenant of eternal life; and its basis in pardon could be, as it was, uncovered in the Messiah, Himself first revealed in words and then in works, from Genesis 3:15 onward. His people chosen in this Messiah, the Christ, before the foundation of the world (Ephesians 1:4),were enveloped by grace (Ephesians 2:8, 1:6), given place without cost, one reserved in heaven (I Peter `1:5-8).
Though he writhes, affirming his own righteousness, he is less concerned at this point with that of God (as in the rebuke of Job 40:8! "Would you condemn Me that you might be justified!" Thus his calamities do bring in an outburst, CHARGES from his lips which, though mitigated in his other words, are by no means left to drift in the end of the matter; nor could or does he pretend otherwise (Job 40:4-5).
The Lament
Laudable Sentiments lie slain.
Job 29, after the initial tempests (which did not arise till the pressure became very intense, Job's first response being ideal - Job 1:21), spiritually scurries off into lamentation.
His itemisation of some of the virtual majesty accorded to him in his earlier days, where he appears righteous, piteous, concerned, with a zealous life for good, leaves him overwhelmed with the sheer wonder of it, it would almost seem. "Men listened to me and waited, and kept silence for my counsel. After my words they did not speak again, and my speech settled on them as dew," Job 29:21-22.
How sad that such a delectable, and to his mind, reasonable state of affairs should have long existed, and then been snuffed like a brightly burning candle, blown out by the wind, and then smouldering with unpleasant fumes. He had conceived a different progression of events, thinking this: "I shall die in my nest," Job 29:18. As for inconspicuous people, once respectful, "Now I am their taunting song," Job 30:9. Have I done any of the following listable wrongful deeds ? he asks in effect, in Job 30 through 31, satisfied within himself acutely, with his performance.
It WAS profoundly good; but what of the inner realms of his spirit ? It was not a case of rebuking the ungodly, a false interpretation of his life, as his friends suggested, but one of testing the righteous in HEART! and this for a purpose. It was NOT because his way had been so treacherous against God, but on the contrary, rather because it had been so conspicuous a life that he led, that it aroused Satan's cynicism.
The Longing
based partly on a sense of innocence that the right seems wrongly to blight,
and the Answer of the LORD
In the interim, he WAS tested, but despite lapses, shuddered like a great aircraft struggling to land on a muddy field. He was out of his depth, slithering, spouting and then affirming, almost in two minds and yet, as in Job 19, he SAW the point behind it all. He like all others NEEDED the Redeemer, and death was no undue penalty, but something requiring divine dismissal on good grounds, and these came from merciful intervention by One who would not only as God, redeem, but redeem HIM personally, and this not only in some mystical sense, but in such a grandeur that even his very body, symbol of wonder in life, and divine requital in death, would be set to arise. More, he would by the divine grace be enabled to SEE GOD FOR HIMSELF, and in the crux of it, SEE the REDEEMER face to face, not as interpreted by devious, dubious and self-assertive MEDIUMS! (Job 19:27).
Here was the King's Counsel! It had involved a vast training session, deep vision chastening outcome. But there was triumph in it.
God would be His own medium, and indeed Job's longing for a mediator, a daysman, one to appoint a day in court for him and for God, so that the matters could openly be brought out (Job 9:32-35), is here surpassed in Job's vision of the glory of an active, sin-cancelling God as man, Redeemer, Comfort, Companion, not vindicating his imperfections, but indicating a life nothing could more crush. Nevertheless, in one thing Job was vindicated: he emphatically had NOT lapsed into immorality of life, was NOT being punished for it; and his outstanding if puzzled and at times cracking performance was an incidental to the test which it had been his privilege to endure.
Instead of cursing God to His face, Job merely spouted the occasional folly, then affirmed a virtual contradiction (as in Job 28:28, 21:1-21), not willing to subdue the wonder of God, but not seeing how to comprehend what was happening to him. His affirmation by faith concerning the Redeemer (you don't have to redeem if there is no sin!) was the direct opposite of what Satan sought.
How deep it is! If God wants to use one's life to attest to all what will bless, uplift and illuminate many, and the love of God sent His only begotten Son, not to condemn the world, but that it might be saved, is this same love when it comes into a person on this earth, to be short-circuited by limitations, even though God keeps one in His mercy, ready to bless intensively (cf. I Peter 4:14)!
How good this is! how testing, triumphant in spirit, what a co-operative privilege, so to be called! and to continue through the fluency of His grace, in the love of God even in the fires of persecution and the testimonial trials, according to the fulness of the divine purpose.
The test was a success, and Job was purified in a deeper way than at first conceived by him, his friends given their place as false accusers, for whom he had to pray, and sacrifice, in benevolent concern, by divine command, marking the difference and rebuking rocketing imaginations, with truth.
See also the extended volume on Job