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Chapter 4
JOB 1
The Background
We have
already considered the conception in force in the book of Job: DOES JOB serve
God for some kind of reward ? IS it even material ? IS his interest merely a
machination of moral, financial or social convenience, so that in return for a
fealty of self-control and obedience, he gets a lot that many would like, but
somehow fail to grab ? IS there no love in it ? IS there no faith in it ? IS
Job a hypocrite in this, that all the elements of morality and spirituality are
mere mirages on the road, the road itself being formed of stubborn concrete,
and concerned with self-interest, at whatever ‘nice’ and engaging level it may
project itself, create garlands for itself or festoon philosophies to make it
seem more palatable!
Satan has
said in effect, that such things as these are so, that this schema is just,
true and palpable. God has said: Very well, TEST IT. That is only one of the
glorious things about God. TESTS HE LOVES, because they are allies of truth.
Therefore, to take a blighted romance of our own day, when evolution fails to
raise a toadstool in its field, in terms of positive results of carefully
controlled tests, that is the end before God. It doesn’t do it. When creation
passes all tests with flying colours, even inventing new colours, such is the
degree of utter and uncontrollable triumph in the face of any and every test
(cf. SMR pp. 140ff., TMR Chs. 1, 8,
A
Spiritual Potpourri Chs. 1-9, Wake
up World! … Chs. 5-7, Spiritual
Refreshings Chs. 6, 13, 16, Earth
Spasm… Chs.
1, 7
etc.), this is the end of the matter, except for those for whom unattested
dreams, rejected by logic and empirical scientific method alike, are the very
stuff of reality.
You get something
rather like that in the current craze of Harry Potter. Peter Pan had a little
in common. In these cases, the things that go on in the whirlwind of the dream,
do not go on in the winter of reality on this earth; and this is part of the charm of the
illusion.
However
those books are not presented as scientific reality, but imaginative journeys
for those who like to give some exercise to their powers of that order. When it
comes to discerning the difference between dream and reality, tests are the order
of the day, the desire of God and represent at least as to their results, the odium of those engineering entrepreneurs,
who seek to make reality out of dreams. God has never had much time for their
ways, as you see in Jeremiah 23:28-29. “What,” He asks, “is the
chaff to the wheat ?” and earlier in the same vein, “The prophet who has a dream, let him tell a dream; and he
who has My word, let him speak My word faithfully.” Chaff is the
comparison of the dream, and wheat of what actually works, has worked and does
work; and as a result of the work of we are equipped here to discuss such
things (cf. Repent or Perish Ch. 7).
TESTS THEN,
not mere biological ones, material ones, but the far more interesting and
subtler ones in the realm of MORALS and the working of MAN, come to light in
Job.
Job is in one sense, a walking laboratory. HOW
will he perform, react, to the tests which he is about to undergo ? The devil
stakes the claim, when at first, having lost children and riches, that his
health by itself is enough to make a man a willing slave for reward (Job 2). He
wants not only riches and children, but health stripped for this test. Hence
this too is suffered to be touched, but not to death, which would evacuate the
test of meaning! The wife advises Job, in his new and sudden distresses, to
curse God and die! (Job 2:9). This was an interesting feminine result in the
household of Job!
However in
this case, the attacked target was Job. His friends then become a new test.
Subtly at times, in terms of platitudes which Job so designates (Job 13:12),
they insinuate that since God is just, and Job suffers, he cannot be, and
should repent of whatever secret defects, deficiencies or even gross but hidden
sins have been his erstwhile ways.
Now here is
a very good test indeed. NO MAN is without sin. Some of course wallow in it,
love it and endorse it; some rather rarely indeed fall into any obvious and
immediately stylised sin, but ALL are sinners, falling categorically short of
the mark of the high calling demonstrated in Christ. In each, the sins of the
heart can become important, even when the spirit is unaware of them (cf. Psalm
139:23-24).
If then Job
had reacted to say I DO NOT SIN, that
would be a lie. If however, on the
other side, he should react to say, AH
yes, we are all sinners, so ho, there
we go, I am getting mine! that is an unclear testimony, as though any sin
could seduce him at will, as if an athlete would pretend to live a life similar
to that of someone whose booze stomach and gross indulgences made him a mere
mess physically.
The Perils and the Probity
Pride could
lead him to say the first, in reaction to the obvious antagonism, so superior
and swaggering at times, to be found here or there in this friend or that who
addresses his ‘case’. On the other hand, despair could lead him to subdue the
very force and power of the spirituality he has known personally for so long,
allowing him simply to collapse verbally into a heap, as if sin were his mere
sovereign, which of course, both as in Job and in Paul, in their (explicit or
implicit) teaching (cf. Romans 6), it is not.
THAT,
incidentally, is one of the constant harmonies one finds in the Bible. Here is
the book of Job, by many placed on various evidences, before Moses, saying
precisely what the Old Testament and the New do about sin, as you find in
reading David and Paul! It is not at all different. There is one God, one
message, one systematic theology, however much in detail it may and indeed does
develop. There is one teacher, who never changes, and His name is in the book
continually, constantly: it is Almighty God. There is no other. He stands
alone, writes alone, passes all tests alone. That is all there is to it at the
heuristic level.
Job
meanwhile does not fall into either of these most insidious traps.
On
the one side, in Job 9:29-31, you see the impossibility of being absolutely
sinless, exposed in dramatic style
§
“If I am condemned,
Why then do I labor in vain?
§
If I wash myself with
snow water,
And cleanse my hands with soap,
§
Yet You will plunge me
into the pit,
§
And my own clothes will abhor me” …
while in
Job 13:13-15,
§
“Hold your peace with me, and let me speak,
Then let come on me what may!
Why do I take my flesh in my teeth,
And put my life in my hands?
Though He slay me, yet will I trust Him.
Even so, I will defend my own ways before Him,”
you find
that Job is adamant on one thing. While admitting the sovereignty and insisting
on the justice of God (Job
He is not
going to aspire to be pretentious, or descend to being seditious: he is liable
to correction indeed, but there is no thought of equating his life which has
been in and for God, with one which is not. The gulf is absolute in kind, like
that of a child without parents, living among the drug-ridden street livers,
and one who enjoys with relish the constant honing in holiness of beloved
parents. To pretend otherwise is mere lie, and Job does not do this. He passes
these tests.
To be sure,
there is momentary weakness, when he fails to realise the plan of God and with
a boldness reminiscent of the advice given in the New Testament (Hebrews
4:15-16), opens his mouth too unrestrainedly (as in Job 9:17, 23-24), as if God
had NO CAUSE for His action concerning the patriarch Job, rather than no cause as yet
understood by Job. Nevertheless, this has two redeeming features, or at
least mitigating factors.
First, he
moves on from this to acknowledgement that he is in fact not at all perfect
(Job
There is,
also, even in his worst verbal fidgets, that sense of pursuing a thing actively
and remorselessly to the end, born of the certainty that reason and truth are
not in vain, that God is reliable, and that although there is something like a
slaying of his own person going on in grinding gradualness, yet GOD IS
TRUSTWORTHY, even then. Indeed, this, though He slay me, yet will I trust Him!
represents a resolution in which faith transcends reason, but not to the
exclusion of the same (Job
With this,
there is the delicious sense that there is INTEGRITY there, that it will WORK, that
despite all appearances, there is an answer, that in fact he, Job will be
vindicated (Job 13:18). This of course is a work of faith, not without ground,
for his entire long knowledge of God with all the interchange and of all whom
he has known and seen are ground; but it is one where faith acts as a
forerunner.
The Problem
There is
however a vast procedural problem afflicting this ancient saint. HOW can he
manage to get an interview with God, one in which he may both present his case,
despite the severity (admitted) of his afflictions, and deal with an honest
freedom as the case seems, in its anguish, to demand! (Job 9:32-35):
§
“For He is not a man, as I am,
That I may answer Him,
And that we should go to court together.
Nor is there any mediator between us,
Who may lay his hand on us both.
Let Him take His rod away from me,
And do not let dread of Him terrify me.
Then I would speak and not fear Him,
But it is not so with me.”
The term ‘mediator’ which in the AV is ‘daysman’, signifies
in context an arbiter, a chairman to resolve issues, and in some sense, an
independent assessor.
The plan or plea or desire is indeed bold with regard to
God, to seek such a person! A mediator with GOD! Thus Job – and this is another
endearing and righteous feature – is well aware of his boldness in making such
a proposal, and without exulting in it, yet feels a certain drive to have some
review in such a style; and he even says so (Job 13:13-14):
§
“Hold your peace with me, and let me
speak,
Then let come on me what may!
Why do I take my flesh in my teeth,
And put my life in my hands?
Though He slay me, yet will I trust Him.
Even so, I will defend my own ways
before Him.
He also shall be my salvation,
For a hypocrite could not come before Him.”
One is reminded almost of Gilbert and Sullivan with
the judge who demands of his court, “Let me speak! Let me speak!” Such
is his desperation; yet there is no humour in his situation, dire as was
WHY does he take his flesh in his hands then
? It is because of his utter conviction that reason and right is there, that
justice and truth will prevail, and that something is out of kilter; this on
the one hand: and that there is and must be an ANSWER if only he could find a
mode of access which, putting him beyond a selective situation, as the
complainant, might enable unrestricted communication, interrogation even!
There is an almost childlike beauty about this; but
it is the beauty of integrity, of trusting in the midst of an enigma, the
actual solution. Here it is something which WE KNOW, for we were shown it at
the first in this book of Job; but it is an aspect which equally surely, he does not know.
It is not a difficult thing in the least to
understand, the real reason for Job’s sufferings; a child of ten could grasp
it. However, when a man does not KNOW what is going on, and is in desperate
discomfort financially, socially and made to squirm morally, through false
attacks as from his friends (however veiled at times they may have been!), then
the simplicity of the solution (test for display, proper since you claim to
want to serve God at ANY COST) may not appear! Faith is then tried (ONE
purpose of the test in any case) in that although such things COULD BE, it has
to believe that some such thing is the case, instead of vilifying God in
an ignorant presumption which could come
close to hypocrisy.
What HONOURS GOD, in the event, in this laboratory
of history, it is Job’s absolute assurance that the appearances, even when he
spells them out in a sort of stunned horror, are NOT SO, and that WHEN he could
reach the divine presence unimpeded, there would be a vindication because truth
is truth and IN TRUTH he has with his whole heart sought to serve God! He does
not essentially ever vary from this oft-repeated proposition, presented now
this way and now that. So the test is a superlative success; but yet there are
some further elements of the utmost interest, showing that the test is actually
to JOB’S own ultimate advance in understanding, and to that of his friends,
though their arrogant judgmentalism had to be rebuked, and their pride humbled.
It was God who did that, as we shall
see.
Meanwhile, how poignantly does Job survey the
problem that death poses to the sensitive mind. Chop a tree, and the stump may
re-sprout; but let a man die, and what in
all nature avails for him! (Job 14:7ff.). Where is he ? comes the
searching riddle. Grave ? Ah a place of escape from the searching eye of his God
? (Job
The Parallel Bars
of Immovable Doctrine
Thus we see
v
Conviction of sin (14:17, Job 14:17, 13:26, John 16:9);
v
Conviction of righteousness (
v
Conviction of judgment (14:2, 13:9, John
v
Divine control and sovereign supervisory authority
(
v
The Boldness of Faith (Job
v
Divine
aseity and sufficiency (Romans
In Job as elsewhere in the Bible, it is all one in essence
and principle, with this difference that it is here CALLED FORTH in a drama as
deadly as death, and as we shall see, as certain as eternal life. In this word
of God, the Bible, whether in Moses, in Paul, in the Gospel, in Revelation, we
see life in faith which though equipped with many a blemish, is depicted in one
and the same frame. Doctrine does not vary: it is only that the character of
the drama and the subtlety of the test is a specific.
God is thus seen as sovereign, just, inscrutable, but man in
need of a mediator, a daysman, an arabitrator, an accessible and sympathetic
avenue for discussion, presentation of reason, procurement of interview,
assessment of cases, cover of sin, comfort and compassion of deportment, equity
and articulation.
God is presented here as elsewhere in the Bible, as neither
in need, nor desirous of receiving meretricious defence or praise, the truth
sufficing. He finds out all things and weighing all things has His way; His
zest reaches to the least of things and His relentless insistence on purity and
truth is unavoidable, deeper than any well, lake or oceanic crevasse; His
knowledge all comprehending.
We shall come to see far more of the parallels later.
MAJOR FINDING
Accordingly, in the course of his sufferings Job becomes
aware that the impasse between suffering and justice, reason and the seemingly
arbitrary, needs resolution. Since life is most challenging and God most
competent, what is needed for man is a resolution provider, One who will cover
the uncovered, keep the faith in its ground clear to the heart of man, suffer a
near approach even if man has, perhaps inadvertently, strayed in some way, and
somehow achieve a cleanness which, for a
bag in which sin is sealed, may be suggestively indicated, but yet must be
certainly present. How is all this to be done ?
THE MEDIATOR has already been emphasised by Job (9:32-35),
and just as there is no ‘solution’ if your house is burning like an inferno and
the flames lick your boots while you are drowsy, unless there is A WAY OUT and
a WAY ON, so here. How is it to be found ?
When
it is found, it is apparent that there is need of
v
a
stable and resourceful beauty of holiness, so that Job and others like him find
v
access
rather than merely feel unmitigated read, experience terror, and find
v
One
willing to listen,
v
even
if rebuke prove necessary (9:34ff.,
“Will you frighten a
leaf, driven to and fro ? and will You pursue dry stubble ?”
asks the persistent
and pathetic Job,
who for all that,
carries his argument
with courageous
conviction,
based on God’s
ultimate, actual and profound righteousness and care.
As we read in Job 28-29, it is a question of the PLACE OF
WISDOM, of the SITE of understanding, the ACQUISITION from God’s grace, of the
needed provisions for man that he might live.
With what zeal does Job desire it, like Solomon (cf. Wisdom Regained)!
§
“But where can wisdom be found?
And where is the place of understanding?
Man does not know its value,
Nor is it found in the land of the
living.
“The deep says, ‘It is not in me’;
And the sea says, ‘It is not with me.’
“It cannot be purchased for gold,
Nor can silver be weighed for its price.
It cannot be valued in the gold of
Ophir,
In precious onyx or sapphire.
Neither gold nor crystal can equal it,
Nor can it be exchanged for jewelry of
fine gold.
No mention shall be made of coral or
quartz,
For the price of wisdom is above rubies.
The topaz of
Nor can it be valued in pure gold.
“From where then does wisdom come?
And where is the place of understanding?
“It is hidden from the eyes of all
living,
And concealed from the birds of the air.
Destruction and Death say,
‘We have heard a report about it with
our ears.’
“God understands its way,
And He knows its place.
For He looks to the ends of the earth,
And sees under the whole heavens,
To establish a weight for the wind,
And apportion the waters by measure.
“When He made a law for the rain,
And a path for the thunderbolt,
Then He saw wisdom and declared it;
He prepared it, indeed, He searched it
out.
And to man He said,
‘Behold, the fear of the Lord, that is
wisdom,
And to depart from evil is
understanding.’
After this expression of conviction that WISDOM is
found in the invisible realm of power where God Himself is, that it is HIS,
that the world is established in its terms, and that man’s path is to have
reverential fear of God and zest to pursue His way, Job laments that this
wisdom now seems to be giving him difficulties as well as blessing. Where is
the carriageway over the chasm created in life by the sinner Job to the
friendship, once more, with God, in integrity and with a balm of blessing!
Where ?
§
“Job further continued his discourse,
and said:
‘Oh, that I were as in months past,
As in the days when God watched over me;
When His lamp shone upon my head,
And when by His light I walked through
darkness;
Just as I was in the days of my prime,
When the friendly counsel of God was
over my tent;
When the Almighty was yet with me,
When my children were around me;
When my steps were bathed with cream,
And the rock poured out rivers of oil
for me!
‘When I went out to the gate by the
city,
When I took my seat in the open square,
The young men saw me and hid,
And the aged arose and stood;
The princes refrained from talking,
And put their hand on their mouth;
The voice of nobles was hushed,
And their tongue stuck to the roof of
their mouth.
‘When the ear heard, then it blessed me,
And when the eye saw, then it approved
me;
Because I delivered the poor who cried
out,
The fatherless and the one who had no
helper.
‘The blessing of a perishing man came
upon me,
And I caused the widow’s heart to sing
for joy.
I put on righteousness, and it clothed
me;
My justice was like a robe and a turban.
I was eyes to the blind,
And I was feet to the lame.
I was a father to the poor,
And I searched out the case that I did
not know.
I broke the fangs of the wicked,
And plucked the victim from his teeth.
‘Then I said, “I shall die in my nest,
And multiply my days as the sand.
My root is spread out to the waters,
And the dew lies all night on my
branch.’ ”
Here we come upon an interesting new feature. Job
had INDEED been highly respected, even aware of his authority though by no
means using it either for self-aggrandisement or manipulation; and it HAS been
sweet and blessed, dew-anointed, emollient to the touch. He has rejoiced in all
of this. What then ?
Was this time of suffering, then, more than a mere
test ? Does it not have a sanctifying balm as well ?
Is it not salubrious that Job find the meaning of
life on the other side, where one receives bounty instead of merely giving it ?
Could this not temper his attitude to something more than judicious kindness,
longsuffering, uncomplaining righteousness, so that there is an empathetic and
even appealing aspect to his goodness, after his own tests are over ? There
has, moreover to be a foundational certainty which outside all question and
inside understanding, indeed equipped with revelational wisdom provides for Job
the awareness that not only must the love of God be pure, but the wisdom of God
must be realised to be profound, unimpugnable and so far from incomprehensible,
planned with a depth and a meaning that makes of life itself, a benediction.
Multi-dimensional wisdom is there, and it is not
only the individual and the Lord, or the realities of equity, justice, wisdom
and truth; it is also the triumphal tenderness of compassion which is willing
and able to provide a path, and to pattern it with vast and beautiful
deposition of news and provisions for the human race. Blessed is he who is used
to draw attention to this universal need and divine provision. Blessed is Job
for having done so. Blessed is the Lord who scheduled the plight of Job in
making manifest what He has done, seen, understood, contemplated and long
before provided.
In what way however has He done so, as attested in
Job ? It is to this we shall attend in our next Chapter
which DV will appear shortly.