Job and a Dangerous God
Introducing Job's three friends 2.11-13The friends of Job are members of that covenant community who hold to a chesed loyalty– the bond of friendship in ancient Israel is much different that what we think of today … So, whatever may later transpire their willingness to come a great distance and be with their friend bespeaks of their commitment to him – they are not Facebook friends. They have come to give comfort and the consolation spoken of here is interactive … Indeed, their first sight of Job is one of disbelief; he unrecognizable by his friends – this once noble personage sitting in ashes covered with sores. For seven days and nights they sit with him in silence covered with dust they have thrown into the air (from dust you have come and to dust you shall return) – their lament is a mourning of a man who has died.
II. Job’s Lament
We listened to the lament of Job 3. And then, after the beating of his breast, we reflect on its sobering implications. That is, we might grasp that a real believer may go through blank despair and utter desperation. That a blameless believer, who has not fallen into sin, may go through utter dereliction, and yet at the end be seen to be a real believer. That we might grasp that we ourselves, if we walk closely with Christ, may go through very deep darkness, deeper even perhaps than if we had not walked faithfully in his footsteps. And that as we grasp this sobering truth we may learn to weep with those who weep.Job 3 is a very important chapter for contemporary Christianity. There is a version of Christianity around that is shallow, trite, superficial, “happy clappy”(as some put it). It is a kind of Christianity that, as has been said, “would have had Jesus singing a chorus at the grave of Lazarus.” We have all met it— easy triumphalism. We sing of God in one song that “in his presence our problems disappear,” in another that “my love just keeps on growing.” Neither was true for Job in chapter 3, and yet he was a real and blameless believer. (Ibid. p. 68).
A LONGING FOR REST
Cowper’s troubled life – he came to faith in an asylum run by a Christian evangelical. Of his conversion he wrote: “Unless the Almighty arm had been under me, I think I should have died with gratitude and joy. My eyes filled with tears, and my voice choked with transport; I could only look up to heaven in silent fear, overwhelmed with wonder and love.” Yet, he was to continue to suffer from deep depressions and the last thing he said was: “I feel unutterable despair.” A search for inner peace
Where is the blessedness I knew,
When first I saw the Lord?
Where is the soul refreshing view
Of Jesus and His word?
The dearest idol I have known,
Whate'er that idol be,
Help me to tear it from
Thy throne, And worship only Thee.
So shall my walk be close with God,
Calm and serene my frame;
So purer light shall mark the road
That leads me to the Lamb.
So, too, we have read the words of the psalmist in 44 & 88 which appear on an casual reading to be words of despair. Consider also, the words of the prophet Jeremiah Cursed be the day on which I was born! The day when my mother bore me, let it not be blessed! Cursed be the man who brought the news to my father, “A son is born to you,” making him very glad. Let that man be like the cities that the Lordoverthrew without pity; let him hear a cry in the morning and an alarm at noon, because he did not kill me in the womb; so my mother would have been my grave, and her womb forever great. Why did I come out from the womb to see tail and sorrow, and spend my days in shame?(20.14-18). Job gives us an insight into what it feels like for a believer to suffer. In the book of Psalms we find several types of lament – individual laments(like Psalm 7, 13, 22, 28, 31, 55-57, 61, 62, 69, 142-143), & communal laments12, 44, 58, 60, 74, 79, 80, 90).
Job Curses the day of his birth(3.1-10)
Job does not curse God as Satan would have him do or as his wife encouraged him to do – but he curses the day of his birth. Indeed, he wishes that that particular day could be removed from the calendar. If every day is a new creation as some believed it to be then that particular day creation ought to be uncreated. Moreover, it is not just the day of his birth but the day of his conception that Job wishes never to have happened: let the day perish on which I was born, and the night that said “A man is conceived.”This speaks to the foundation of life; conception and birth are seen together as the substance of life.
Verses 4-5 address the day of his birth and 6-10 his conception and gestation in the womb; cf. Jeremiah 1.4-5: Now the word of the Lordcame to me, saying, “before I formed you in the womb I knew you, and before you were born I consecrated you; I appointed you a prophet to the nations.” The images: deep darkness, gloom, clouds, blackness, thick darkness, night, the stars of the dawn be dark, hope for light but have none, eyelids not open in the morning. The truth is that the night has terrors of its own and we were created to be people of the light.The creation narrative says that there was darkness everywhere, and “God said, ‘let there be light,’ and there was light. And God saw that the light was good. And God separated the light from the darkness. God called the light Day …” (Genesis 1.2-5). Jesus came as the light (John 1.4-5; 1.9; 3.19-21; 8.12 – I am the light of the world).
In 3.11-19 Job asks the question why was I not stillborn? He longs for a place among the dead – everyone ends up dead why must he go on living? The deep reason for Job’s unrest is that he cannot understand his sufferings. He cannot understand why a believer, a man of godliness and piety, suffers with such mind-numbing intensity. This inexplicable trouble shakes the foundations of his moral and ordered universe. It is for this reason he cannot and will not rest until he has found some resolution to this cosmic question. 29 At heart human rest is rooted in the rest of God when he looks on a completed and good creation (Genesis 2: 1– 3). Rest is predicated on cosmic order, a creation in which there are proper boundaries, in which virtue is rewarded and vice punished, in which there is justice and in which goodness triumphs. Job longs to share that rest with God.At the moment his experience is the polar opposite. So he ends his speech with a desperate question.
The Question– 3.20-26
In verse 20 “him who is in misery” is singular; we think of Job. But “the bitter in soul” is plural. Job’s question does not relate to Job alone. Although God is not mentioned by name, the verb “given” implies that God has given it, as in 1: 21 (“ The LORD gave . . .”); it is from the Lord that we “receive” good things and bad things (2: 10). The expression “bitter in soul” speaks of a deep distress. The expression is used of parents who have lost a child in 1 Samuel 30: 6 and of the sick and despairing King Hezekiah in Isaiah 38: 15. These are men and women who have lost all hope and who cannot see the point of continuing to live. Why does God give them life in the first place? asks Job.
In verse 23 he describes himself and others like him as walking on a way or path that is “hidden” from God’s blessing and grace, a God-forsaken walk, and a path that is “hedged in” by God. To be “hidden” suggests it has no purpose or meaning. To be “hedged in” is an ironic twist to what the Satan had said. In 1:10 the Satan said that Job’s happy prosperous life was hedged in by God’s gracious protection. Now he experiences a different kind of hedge, a hedge of razor wire, not to keep the marauder out, but to keep Job imprisoned in a miserable life he longs to leave but cannot, a life that is locked in to trouble, with the key thrown away.He speaks of it again in a later chapter: “[ God] has walled up my way, so that I cannot pass, and he has set darkness upon my paths” (19: 8). 34
Verse 26 is the climax of the speech, with its four images of rest/ unrest. Job is “not at ease,” he has no “quiet,” he has “no rest,” but instead just “trouble.”Three negatives (no “ease,” no “quiet,” “no rest”) and one terrible positive (“trouble”). This is torment not just of body, terrible though that is, but of the soul. The word “trouble” is the keynote and the closing word of the speech. What a contrast to the idyllic picture of 1: 1– 3, a portrayal of a restful prosperity untroubled by pain, a reassuring regularity unbroken by disorder.
This is one of the most disquieting symptoms. When you are happy, so happy that you have no sense of needing Him . . . if you remember yourself and turn to Him with gratitude and praise, you will be— or so it feels— welcomed with open arms. But go to him when your need is desperate, when all other help is vain, and what do you find? A door slammed in your face, and a sound of bolting and double bolting on the inside. After that, silence. You may as well turn away. The longer you wait, the more emphatic the silence will become. There are no lights in the windows. It might be an empty house. Was it ever inhabited? It seemed so once. – A grief Observed: C. S. Lewis
Although he says he has no hope, his restlessness betrays him. A restless man is not a defeated man; a troubled man is not a hopeless man resigned to his fate. If there really is no hope, there is no point asking “Why?”(v. 20). And yet Job does ask “Why?” and he asks it repeatedly and energetically. He says he wants to die, but his restless words betray him, for they point inexorably to life and resurrection. Ibid. p. 83
Overview of the Dialog between Job & his Three Interlocutors
The three friends are not clones of each other in what they say. There is a measure of development in their speeches; though by and large they say the same things in similar ways. As a group they are in agreement that they are not impressed with Job. For example: Bildad is riled by Job: How long will us say these things, and the words of your mouth be a great wind?8.2 Zophar: should a multitude of words go unanswered, and a man full of talk be judged right? Should your babble silence men, and when you mock, shall no one shame you? for you say, my doctrine is pure, and I am clean in God’s eyes. But oh, that God would speak and open his lips to you, and that he would tell you the secrets of wisdom! For he is manifold in understanding. Know then that God exacts of you less than your guilt deserves – 11.2-6.
By way of response, Job in son impress with his comforters:He who withholds kindness from a friend forsakes the fear of the Almighty My brothers are treacherous as a torrent-bed, as torrential streams pass that pass away, which are dark with ice, and where the snow hides itself.In 16.2-3 he call them “miserable comforters” and “windbags” that he wishes would shut up. Or the sarcasm of 12.2 No doubt you are the people, and wisdom will die with you.
It ought to be noted that God is not impressed with Job’s comforters: So who is right – Job or his Friends – in 42.7 God speaks to Eliphaz and says: My anger burns against you and against your two friends, for you have not spoken of me what is right.”
The theological system of the three friends is consistently flawed in all three of the friends:.
1. God is absolutely in control. (We have seen that this is indeed one of the foundational markers laid down by our narrator in Job 1,
2. God is absolutely just and fair.
3. Therefore he always punishes wickedness and blesses righteousness— always (and soon and certainly in this life). If he were ever to do otherwise, he would necessarily be unjust, which is inconceivable.
4. Therefore, if I suffer I must have sinnedand am being punished justly for my sin.
In truth people may suffer as a consequence of their own sin(cf. Psalm 32). The prevailing thought among many people is that “karma rules.” You get what you sow – indeed, Paul says as much in Galatians 6.7 Do not be deceived: God is not mocked, for whatever one sows, that will he also reap. For the one who sows to his own flesh will from the flesh reap corruption, but the one who sows to the Spirit will from the Spirit reap eternal life. But note what follows: And let us not grow weary of doing good, for in due season we will reap, if we do not give up. So then, as we have opportunity, let us do good to everyone, and especially to those who are of the household of faith.This is a suggestion of the great day of judgment. But while a person may suffer as a consequence of his own sin, Scripture clearly teaches that the wicked may prosper (Psalm 73) and the innocent may suffer without cause (Ecclesiastes 4; Psalm 24).
The tone of the Job’s friends –They are certain that they are right: Eliphaz says: We have searched out; it is true(5.27) so you better listen. Their certitude comes from the tradition handed down to them (8.8-10) of course, it may have been nothing more than the wisdom of the age. NO HONESTY – they do not look at the world through the lens of God’s Word. NO SYMPATHY – in effect Eliphaz says; “I can't quite see why you should be so miserable, Job. You used to be the one offering comfort to others, and I must admit you were very good at it. Well, that was not so difficult when you were not suffering; but now it’s your turn, and you don't like it, do you?”THEY HAVE NO LOVE –they do not listen to his cries. The cycles of the speeches in which they will not respond to Job’s pleas. WHAT THEY DON'T BELIEVE – their fault lies deeper than pastoral insensitivity. It is the content, and not only the tone, of their teaching that is false, their problem is not so much what they do say as what they don't.
What they don't believe:
NO SATAN -- They have no place in their thinking for the Satan. We know from Job 1, 2 that the Satan is a real and influential spiritual person. We know that the whole tragedy of Job has its origin in heavenly arguments between the Lord and the Satan. But the comforters have no place in their thinking for the Satan or for the spiritual battle.
NO WAITING – For them judgment is now. The wicked are punished now; the righteous are blessed now. But the promises of judgment are not for now. They are for the end – cf. Psalm 1.5 the wicked will not stand in the day of judgment. There is a distinction between the general truth of Scripture and saying it is true of every case. The comforters turn religion into an impersonal slot machine formula.
NO CROSS– “In the context of the whole Bible, perhaps the deepest error and omission of the friends is this: they have no place for innocent suffering. Eliphaz asks the question: “Who that was innocent ever perished?”
1stcycle of speeches Eliphaz (4.5) – Job (6 – 7):
“Eliphaz speaks firstin all three cycles of speeches. Here is the man from Teman in Edom, renowned for its wisdom. Eliphaz is the senior friend, named first in 2: 11 and summoned by the Lord as the representative of all three in 42: 7. He speaks kindly, courteously, deferentially, and sensitively, as best he knows how. He begins, “If one ventures a word with you . . .” (4: 2). He is not pushy or aggressive but respectful. He compliments Job on his past: “Behold, you have instructed many” (4: 3). He seeks to get alongside Job, saying things like “if I were you” (which is the sense of 5: 8), appealing with empathy. Sure, he counsels Job, but in the normal tone of the Wisdom Literature, the tone of voice we find all through Proverbs, for example. And yet he does no good.”
1. Be Consistent4.1-11 – Eliphaz ventures to put in his own two cents – remember when you were a counselor to those who were going through hard times? Well, now, it has come to you and you are impatient. “The point is that Job and Eliphaz start with exactly the same worldview. The advice that Eliphaz gives to Job is precisely the advice that Job would have given to Eliphaz had the boot been on the other foot. Eliphaz is simply appealing to Job to be consistent with the worldview they both know and accept” (p. 102). You know that you are a pious man and you know that God rewards integrity; after all, that is how the universe works, so be patient. Remember: who that was innocent ever perished? Or where were the upright cut off? (v7). This is the pivotal verse – it puts God in a box and has no place for a cross and Eliphaz assumes that God never allows the righteous to suffer.
In verse 8 I have seen … Eliphaz makes experience his foundation for truth. This is not the basis of the Christian’s epistemology – revelation is. We reap what we sow so is Eliphaz’s reasoning, and it is not unlike what Paul says in Galatians 6.7 Do not be deceived, God is not mocked, for whatever one sows, that will he also reap. For the one who sows to his own flesh will from the flesh reap corruption, but the one who sows to the Spirit will from the Spirit reap eternal life.Of course, the harvest is at the end of the age.
2. Be Realistic– (4.12-5.7) – Eliphaz makes the claim that he has had a supernatural revelation – disquieting thoughts from visions in the night. The question one may rightly ask: Who is the speaker in his vision? The narrator of the account does not portray Eliphaz’s vision as something positive; indeed, it is strange that Eliphaz’s juxtaposes his “wisdom of the ages with questionable mysticism. Though his revelation is more than a bit anticlimactic: Can mortal man be in the right before God? Can a man be pure before his Maker?It is a truth that is echoed by Job in 9.2. of course, the implied answer is that no one can be right before God. Frankly, this is Satan’s contention. This is at the heart of the gospel. This, too, follows Paul’s argumentation in Romans 3 None is righteous, no not one (3.9) but it is followed hard on by what may be considered the fulcrum of Scripture:But now the righteousness of God has been manifested apart from the law, although the Law and the Prophets bear witness to it— the righteousness of God through faith in Jesus Christ for all who believe. For there is no distinction: for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, and are justified by his grace as a gift, through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus, whom God put forward as a propitiation by his blood, to be received by faith. This was to show God 's righteousness, because in his divine forbearance he had passed over former sins. It was to show his righteousness at the present time, so that he might be just and the justifier of the one who has faith in Jesus (Romans 3.21-26)
3. Be Humble– (5.8-16) – Here is a common piece of advice: “If I were you …” don't try and be too clever, just turn your life over to God, trust him and everything will work out just fine. Eliphaz warns Job not to be too clever because God will catch you in your attempt to outwit him (cf. 1 Corinthians 3.19).
4. Be Submissive –(5.17-27) – Eliphaz closes with a beautiful blessing which truth is found in frequently in Proverbs, on in Hebrews 12 or Hosea 6 or Deuteronomy 32.39: Behold, blessed is the one whom God reproves; therefore despise not the discipline of the Almighty. For he wounds, but he binds up; he shatters, but his hands heal.The irony of Eliphaz’s appeal is that it is exactly what Satan claimed – Job will fear you, not because you are God, but for the rewards that piety brings with it.
Job can only be rightly understood in light of the cross of Christ. We are not like Job, but we may suffer for the sake of the gospel just as countless thousands have since the time of Christ.
Bildad(8) – Job (9-10) – Repent Job: You Great Bag of Wind – Job’s retort: How can a man come against God and succeed? Job says things about God that are right but he also says a great many things about God that are not right. Bear in mind the distinction between Job’s heart and Job’s understanding about God. Throughout his speeches he is an honest man with a heart for God grappling with a world that is falling apart all around him. As Ash puts it: “How does a person distinguish between the character of God and the actions of God?” God works through agencies of evil to accomplish good and defeat evil, but the actions themselves do not reveal God’s character. Key question for Job:But how can a man be in the right before God? For Job his relationship with God is more important than his health, his wealth, or his family.
Zophar(11) turns up the heat: Zophar asserts that Job claims to be clean (sinless) but in truth Job only claims that he has integrity (blameless). Zophar presumes to know what God’s judgment would be on Job – in this he oversteps his bounds. The statement know then that God exacts less of you than your guilt deserves.The cruelty of this comment to a man in extremis is almost beyond believed. Zophar challenges Job to know about the unknowable things about God. God knows the hearts of sinful men and summons them to court to pass judgment but Job is too stupid to profit from all this. In short Zophar says to Job: You do not understand God; but I do!
“There are two problems with what Zophar says, however. The first is that Job has no secret sinsof which he needs to repent, so Zophar’s counsel is irrelevant to him. The second— and this one is even more serious— is that the motivation Zophar gives to Job for repentance is precisely the motivation of the Satan’s accusation. The Satan thinks that Job has only been pious in order that his piety will win him prosperity. If Job repents in order to regain these blessings, he will prove the Satan right!” (157).
Job Responds(12-14) – Job speaks first to his friends 12-1-13.19; then to God 13.20 – 14.22. While he is responding to Zophar’s last comment he is speaking more generally to all three men. He understands the system but he now finds that it does not address his real world experience. It fails at several levels:
1. It is CRUEL (12.1-6) – this is the observation of the Preacher in Ecclesiastes – 6. So, too, Job says; “Those who are at ease have contempt for misfortune as the fate of those whose feet are slipping” (NIV).
2. It is SHALLOW (12.7-12) – you make the appeal to the non-rational as evidential proof of the truth of your claims – this is shallow thinking.
3.It isTAME(12.13-25) – Your system is tame but God is NOT. God is not complacent and easy to please.
“He is a destructive god, the god of “nature red in tooth and claw,” as Tennyson put it, the god of the tsunami. Think about water, says Job. Sometimes he gives too little, and there is drought (v. 15a); at other times there is too much, and we have floods (v. 15b). Far from being the God of a reliable natural order, he is the god of natural disasters.Job’s friends’ system could not account for that” (ibid. p. 163).
What God does with leaders and nations he does with all people – he takes away understanding from the Chiefs of the people of the earth and makes them wander in the trackless waste. They grope in the dark without lights, and he makes them stagger like a drunken man(13.22-25).
“This god is wild and dangerous. He is dangerous in nature, dangerous with leaders, dangerous with nations, and especially dangerous to all human beings who think— as Job’s friends did with their system— that they have the universe sorted out and have attained wisdom. “In short,” says Job, “your system is tame and cannot cope with the real God who is dangerous.”
4. Finally, it is DECEITFUL (13.1-12). – You [Job's friends] paint over a messy reality with whitewash and this is utterly unacceptable. You speak and I wish you would keep silent because all you say is laden with deception.
JOB SPEAKS WITH GOD (13.13-14.22)
The friends have proven to be worthless counselors; consequently, he must take his case to God (13.13-19). What Job does is dangerous – he is both sinful and mortal; however, he is not Godless: Though he slay me, I will hope in him; yet I will argue my ways to his face. This will be my salvation, that the godless shall not come before him.The believer knows that God has the final say in all things; that ultimately he may save or he may not save but there is no other (Deuteronomy 4.39), thus, the believer’s only hope is to trust in the mercy of God. Not unlike Daniel’s three friends on trial before Nebuchadnezzar: Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego answered and said to the king, “O Nebuchadnezzar, we have no need to answer you in this matter. If this be so, our God whom we serve is able to deliver us from the burning fiery furnace, and he will deliver us out of your hand, O king. But if not, be it known to you, O king, that we will not serve your gods or worship the golden image that you have set up.
“Job is about to do something hugely significant. It is worth pausing to ask why. After all, he knows it is dangerous. The Systemof his friends tells him he must be a secret sinner because he is suffering. He knows this is not true. The evidence of his eyes tells him that God is dangerous, random, and unpredictable. The faithin his heart tells him that God is righteousand that he, Job, is a believer who is in the right before God. Knowing The System is not true, and despite the evidence of randomness and danger, Job’s decision goes with Job’s faith. This is why he appeals to God.” (Ash: Job: The Wisdom of the Crossp. 167)
13.23 – 13.27 Job knows that the root of the problem is his sin(iniquities – moral evil, perversity, mischief; transgression – rebellion against God), but what he doesn't knowof what sin is being judged and why can he not be forgiven? Why is God treating him as an enemy? Have these sins been piling up since his youth (make me inherit the iniquities of my youth)? Job longs for the fellowship with God that he once knew and now he cannot understand why God is hiding his face from him (Isaiah 59.2); it is a reverse of Eden. In the garden Adam and Eve hid from God but now it appears that God is hiding from Job. All this time Job was under the impression that his sacrifices had been accepted as atonement for his sin.
13.28 – 14.6 Job feels the deep weight of his suffering. The images stack up one upon another: man is born in sin (Psalm 51.5); the effects of original sin weigh upon him and his few days are full of trouble. In western civilization there has been little respite from the ravages of war, famine, disease and general suffering. Even the two extended periods of peace (Pax Romana200 years & the Victorian Era 90 years) were accompanied by boarder wars.
“Writing toward the end of World War II, the German Lutheran pastor Helmut Thielicke wrote: Goethe . . . once said in his old age that he could hardly think that he had been really happy for more than a month in his whole life. And I believe that proportion would hold true in history as a whole: the happy times are like tiny islands in an ocean of blood and tears. The history of the world, taken as a whole, is a story of war, deeply marked with the hoofprints of the apocalyptic horseman. It is the story of humanity without a Father— so it seems.” (ibid. )
14.7 – 14.12 Job despairs of death.By all appearances this life is all there is. There is a limit beyond which no man can pass and then there is nothing – forever there is nothing! But God has put eternity into the heart of man (Ecclesiastes 3.11); so, what is man to do with that longing? Job hopes against hope for a resurrection wherein sin will be dealt with, for there seems to be no hope in this life. Job longs for eternity (14.13–14.17):Oh that you would hide me in Sheol, that you would conceal me until your wrath be past, that you would appoint me a set time, and remember me! If a man dies, shall he live again? All the days of my service I would wait, till my renewal should come.
“I know I’m heading for Sheol, the place of the dead, says Job “and we all know that Sheol is the place of no return. But what I wish is that you would ‘hide me’ there, ‘conceal me until your wrath be past’[v. 13], and that the day would come, your ‘set time,’ when you would ‘remember me’ and summon me back into life[v. 13]. This would be completely against what we know to be the case: ‘If a man dies, shall he live again?’ [v. 14a]. Not in the normal run of affairs, he won’t. But I would be willing to ‘wait, till my renewal should come’ [v. 14b].” Renewal is a lovely word for resurrection, a word that combines newness (renewal) with continuity (renewal). The most wonderful thing about this “renewal” (v. 14) is the personal relationship: “You would call, and I would answer you” (v. 15a). And the one who calls Job back from the dead would be the one who “would long for the work of your hands” (v. 15b). There is an anticipation here of the love of the resurrecting God. Furthermore, this God would now watch over Job for good rather than keeping watch over his sin (v. 16), for his sin would be dealt with once and for all: “my transgression would be sealed up in a bag, and you would cover over my iniquity” (v. 17). … Job knows that if his sin is dealt with, then— and only then— can he hope to come back from Sheol into relationship with the God he loves.”
14.18 – 14.22 If there is no resurrection then there is no hope. After Job's wistful ruminations he returns to his lament. As much as he might wish for a reconciliation with God in a resurrection, what appears plain from all his observations is that life goes on as it always has and just as the mountains fall and water wears away the stones, so, too, God prevails against man and he passes. Ultimately, sin destroys mankind.
“In his suffering Job foreshadows the man who will enter fully into the misery of being identified with sinners in life and death, who will feel in his own body the fragility of mortality, who will experience in all its horrors the final penalty for sins, and who will taste death on behalf of sinners, but not because he himself is a sinner. Job foreshadows the one who will be raised from the dead to prove that in his death he has decisively paid the penalty for sins, so that the sins of all who trust in him will be “sealed up in a bag” (v. 17) and covered over by his blood.What is more, Job foreshadows all men and women in Christ, who experience in their own bodies something of the misery of living in a world under judgment, who will know what it is in life to be surrounded by death, and who, because they are in Christ, will suffer not because they are sinners (though they are) but because they are blameless and because in some way their sufferings are a sharing in the sufferings of Christ. They too will discover the utter bankruptcy of The System of religion, its cruelty to sufferers, its shallowness and banality in the face of the realities of life, its pathetic tameness in the presence of a sovereign and dangerous God, and above all its false witness about God, its deceptiveness. They too will know what it is to pin all their hopes not on any system of religion but on the God they love and long to meet. They will experience mortality in all its transience and misery, death as their last enemy, and finally resurrection to eternal life.” (ibid. p. 174)
II. Job’s Lament
We listened to the lament of Job 3. And then, after the beating of his breast, we reflect on its sobering implications. That is, we might grasp that a real believer may go through blank despair and utter desperation. That a blameless believer, who has not fallen into sin, may go through utter dereliction, and yet at the end be seen to be a real believer. That we might grasp that we ourselves, if we walk closely with Christ, may go through very deep darkness, deeper even perhaps than if we had not walked faithfully in his footsteps. And that as we grasp this sobering truth we may learn to weep with those who weep.Job 3 is a very important chapter for contemporary Christianity. There is a version of Christianity around that is shallow, trite, superficial, “happy clappy”(as some put it). It is a kind of Christianity that, as has been said, “would have had Jesus singing a chorus at the grave of Lazarus.” We have all met it— easy triumphalism. We sing of God in one song that “in his presence our problems disappear,” in another that “my love just keeps on growing.” Neither was true for Job in chapter 3, and yet he was a real and blameless believer. (Ibid. p. 68).
A LONGING FOR REST
Cowper’s troubled life – he came to faith in an asylum run by a Christian evangelical. Of his conversion he wrote: “Unless the Almighty arm had been under me, I think I should have died with gratitude and joy. My eyes filled with tears, and my voice choked with transport; I could only look up to heaven in silent fear, overwhelmed with wonder and love.” Yet, he was to continue to suffer from deep depressions and the last thing he said was: “I feel unutterable despair.” A search for inner peace
Where is the blessedness I knew,
When first I saw the Lord?
Where is the soul refreshing view
Of Jesus and His word?
The dearest idol I have known,
Whate'er that idol be,
Help me to tear it from
Thy throne, And worship only Thee.
So shall my walk be close with God,
Calm and serene my frame;
So purer light shall mark the road
That leads me to the Lamb.
So, too, we have read the words of the psalmist in 44 & 88 which appear on an casual reading to be words of despair. Consider also, the words of the prophet Jeremiah Cursed be the day on which I was born! The day when my mother bore me, let it not be blessed! Cursed be the man who brought the news to my father, “A son is born to you,” making him very glad. Let that man be like the cities that the Lordoverthrew without pity; let him hear a cry in the morning and an alarm at noon, because he did not kill me in the womb; so my mother would have been my grave, and her womb forever great. Why did I come out from the womb to see tail and sorrow, and spend my days in shame?(20.14-18). Job gives us an insight into what it feels like for a believer to suffer. In the book of Psalms we find several types of lament – individual laments(like Psalm 7, 13, 22, 28, 31, 55-57, 61, 62, 69, 142-143), & communal laments12, 44, 58, 60, 74, 79, 80, 90).
Job Curses the day of his birth(3.1-10)
Job does not curse God as Satan would have him do or as his wife encouraged him to do – but he curses the day of his birth. Indeed, he wishes that that particular day could be removed from the calendar. If every day is a new creation as some believed it to be then that particular day creation ought to be uncreated. Moreover, it is not just the day of his birth but the day of his conception that Job wishes never to have happened: let the day perish on which I was born, and the night that said “A man is conceived.”This speaks to the foundation of life; conception and birth are seen together as the substance of life.
Verses 4-5 address the day of his birth and 6-10 his conception and gestation in the womb; cf. Jeremiah 1.4-5: Now the word of the Lordcame to me, saying, “before I formed you in the womb I knew you, and before you were born I consecrated you; I appointed you a prophet to the nations.” The images: deep darkness, gloom, clouds, blackness, thick darkness, night, the stars of the dawn be dark, hope for light but have none, eyelids not open in the morning. The truth is that the night has terrors of its own and we were created to be people of the light.The creation narrative says that there was darkness everywhere, and “God said, ‘let there be light,’ and there was light. And God saw that the light was good. And God separated the light from the darkness. God called the light Day …” (Genesis 1.2-5). Jesus came as the light (John 1.4-5; 1.9; 3.19-21; 8.12 – I am the light of the world).
In 3.11-19 Job asks the question why was I not stillborn? He longs for a place among the dead – everyone ends up dead why must he go on living? The deep reason for Job’s unrest is that he cannot understand his sufferings. He cannot understand why a believer, a man of godliness and piety, suffers with such mind-numbing intensity. This inexplicable trouble shakes the foundations of his moral and ordered universe. It is for this reason he cannot and will not rest until he has found some resolution to this cosmic question. 29 At heart human rest is rooted in the rest of God when he looks on a completed and good creation (Genesis 2: 1– 3). Rest is predicated on cosmic order, a creation in which there are proper boundaries, in which virtue is rewarded and vice punished, in which there is justice and in which goodness triumphs. Job longs to share that rest with God.At the moment his experience is the polar opposite. So he ends his speech with a desperate question.
The Question– 3.20-26
In verse 20 “him who is in misery” is singular; we think of Job. But “the bitter in soul” is plural. Job’s question does not relate to Job alone. Although God is not mentioned by name, the verb “given” implies that God has given it, as in 1: 21 (“ The LORD gave . . .”); it is from the Lord that we “receive” good things and bad things (2: 10). The expression “bitter in soul” speaks of a deep distress. The expression is used of parents who have lost a child in 1 Samuel 30: 6 and of the sick and despairing King Hezekiah in Isaiah 38: 15. These are men and women who have lost all hope and who cannot see the point of continuing to live. Why does God give them life in the first place? asks Job.
In verse 23 he describes himself and others like him as walking on a way or path that is “hidden” from God’s blessing and grace, a God-forsaken walk, and a path that is “hedged in” by God. To be “hidden” suggests it has no purpose or meaning. To be “hedged in” is an ironic twist to what the Satan had said. In 1:10 the Satan said that Job’s happy prosperous life was hedged in by God’s gracious protection. Now he experiences a different kind of hedge, a hedge of razor wire, not to keep the marauder out, but to keep Job imprisoned in a miserable life he longs to leave but cannot, a life that is locked in to trouble, with the key thrown away.He speaks of it again in a later chapter: “[ God] has walled up my way, so that I cannot pass, and he has set darkness upon my paths” (19: 8). 34
Verse 26 is the climax of the speech, with its four images of rest/ unrest. Job is “not at ease,” he has no “quiet,” he has “no rest,” but instead just “trouble.”Three negatives (no “ease,” no “quiet,” “no rest”) and one terrible positive (“trouble”). This is torment not just of body, terrible though that is, but of the soul. The word “trouble” is the keynote and the closing word of the speech. What a contrast to the idyllic picture of 1: 1– 3, a portrayal of a restful prosperity untroubled by pain, a reassuring regularity unbroken by disorder.
This is one of the most disquieting symptoms. When you are happy, so happy that you have no sense of needing Him . . . if you remember yourself and turn to Him with gratitude and praise, you will be— or so it feels— welcomed with open arms. But go to him when your need is desperate, when all other help is vain, and what do you find? A door slammed in your face, and a sound of bolting and double bolting on the inside. After that, silence. You may as well turn away. The longer you wait, the more emphatic the silence will become. There are no lights in the windows. It might be an empty house. Was it ever inhabited? It seemed so once. – A grief Observed: C. S. Lewis
Although he says he has no hope, his restlessness betrays him. A restless man is not a defeated man; a troubled man is not a hopeless man resigned to his fate. If there really is no hope, there is no point asking “Why?”(v. 20). And yet Job does ask “Why?” and he asks it repeatedly and energetically. He says he wants to die, but his restless words betray him, for they point inexorably to life and resurrection. Ibid. p. 83
Overview of the Dialog between Job & his Three Interlocutors
The three friends are not clones of each other in what they say. There is a measure of development in their speeches; though by and large they say the same things in similar ways. As a group they are in agreement that they are not impressed with Job. For example: Bildad is riled by Job: How long will us say these things, and the words of your mouth be a great wind?8.2 Zophar: should a multitude of words go unanswered, and a man full of talk be judged right? Should your babble silence men, and when you mock, shall no one shame you? for you say, my doctrine is pure, and I am clean in God’s eyes. But oh, that God would speak and open his lips to you, and that he would tell you the secrets of wisdom! For he is manifold in understanding. Know then that God exacts of you less than your guilt deserves – 11.2-6.
By way of response, Job in son impress with his comforters:He who withholds kindness from a friend forsakes the fear of the Almighty My brothers are treacherous as a torrent-bed, as torrential streams pass that pass away, which are dark with ice, and where the snow hides itself.In 16.2-3 he call them “miserable comforters” and “windbags” that he wishes would shut up. Or the sarcasm of 12.2 No doubt you are the people, and wisdom will die with you.
It ought to be noted that God is not impressed with Job’s comforters: So who is right – Job or his Friends – in 42.7 God speaks to Eliphaz and says: My anger burns against you and against your two friends, for you have not spoken of me what is right.”
The theological system of the three friends is consistently flawed in all three of the friends:.
1. God is absolutely in control. (We have seen that this is indeed one of the foundational markers laid down by our narrator in Job 1,
2. God is absolutely just and fair.
3. Therefore he always punishes wickedness and blesses righteousness— always (and soon and certainly in this life). If he were ever to do otherwise, he would necessarily be unjust, which is inconceivable.
4. Therefore, if I suffer I must have sinnedand am being punished justly for my sin.
In truth people may suffer as a consequence of their own sin(cf. Psalm 32). The prevailing thought among many people is that “karma rules.” You get what you sow – indeed, Paul says as much in Galatians 6.7 Do not be deceived: God is not mocked, for whatever one sows, that will he also reap. For the one who sows to his own flesh will from the flesh reap corruption, but the one who sows to the Spirit will from the Spirit reap eternal life. But note what follows: And let us not grow weary of doing good, for in due season we will reap, if we do not give up. So then, as we have opportunity, let us do good to everyone, and especially to those who are of the household of faith.This is a suggestion of the great day of judgment. But while a person may suffer as a consequence of his own sin, Scripture clearly teaches that the wicked may prosper (Psalm 73) and the innocent may suffer without cause (Ecclesiastes 4; Psalm 24).
The tone of the Job’s friends –They are certain that they are right: Eliphaz says: We have searched out; it is true(5.27) so you better listen. Their certitude comes from the tradition handed down to them (8.8-10) of course, it may have been nothing more than the wisdom of the age. NO HONESTY – they do not look at the world through the lens of God’s Word. NO SYMPATHY – in effect Eliphaz says; “I can't quite see why you should be so miserable, Job. You used to be the one offering comfort to others, and I must admit you were very good at it. Well, that was not so difficult when you were not suffering; but now it’s your turn, and you don't like it, do you?”THEY HAVE NO LOVE –they do not listen to his cries. The cycles of the speeches in which they will not respond to Job’s pleas. WHAT THEY DON'T BELIEVE – their fault lies deeper than pastoral insensitivity. It is the content, and not only the tone, of their teaching that is false, their problem is not so much what they do say as what they don't.
What they don't believe:
NO SATAN -- They have no place in their thinking for the Satan. We know from Job 1, 2 that the Satan is a real and influential spiritual person. We know that the whole tragedy of Job has its origin in heavenly arguments between the Lord and the Satan. But the comforters have no place in their thinking for the Satan or for the spiritual battle.
NO WAITING – For them judgment is now. The wicked are punished now; the righteous are blessed now. But the promises of judgment are not for now. They are for the end – cf. Psalm 1.5 the wicked will not stand in the day of judgment. There is a distinction between the general truth of Scripture and saying it is true of every case. The comforters turn religion into an impersonal slot machine formula.
NO CROSS– “In the context of the whole Bible, perhaps the deepest error and omission of the friends is this: they have no place for innocent suffering. Eliphaz asks the question: “Who that was innocent ever perished?”
1stcycle of speeches Eliphaz (4.5) – Job (6 – 7):
“Eliphaz speaks firstin all three cycles of speeches. Here is the man from Teman in Edom, renowned for its wisdom. Eliphaz is the senior friend, named first in 2: 11 and summoned by the Lord as the representative of all three in 42: 7. He speaks kindly, courteously, deferentially, and sensitively, as best he knows how. He begins, “If one ventures a word with you . . .” (4: 2). He is not pushy or aggressive but respectful. He compliments Job on his past: “Behold, you have instructed many” (4: 3). He seeks to get alongside Job, saying things like “if I were you” (which is the sense of 5: 8), appealing with empathy. Sure, he counsels Job, but in the normal tone of the Wisdom Literature, the tone of voice we find all through Proverbs, for example. And yet he does no good.”
1. Be Consistent4.1-11 – Eliphaz ventures to put in his own two cents – remember when you were a counselor to those who were going through hard times? Well, now, it has come to you and you are impatient. “The point is that Job and Eliphaz start with exactly the same worldview. The advice that Eliphaz gives to Job is precisely the advice that Job would have given to Eliphaz had the boot been on the other foot. Eliphaz is simply appealing to Job to be consistent with the worldview they both know and accept” (p. 102). You know that you are a pious man and you know that God rewards integrity; after all, that is how the universe works, so be patient. Remember: who that was innocent ever perished? Or where were the upright cut off? (v7). This is the pivotal verse – it puts God in a box and has no place for a cross and Eliphaz assumes that God never allows the righteous to suffer.
In verse 8 I have seen … Eliphaz makes experience his foundation for truth. This is not the basis of the Christian’s epistemology – revelation is. We reap what we sow so is Eliphaz’s reasoning, and it is not unlike what Paul says in Galatians 6.7 Do not be deceived, God is not mocked, for whatever one sows, that will he also reap. For the one who sows to his own flesh will from the flesh reap corruption, but the one who sows to the Spirit will from the Spirit reap eternal life.Of course, the harvest is at the end of the age.
2. Be Realistic– (4.12-5.7) – Eliphaz makes the claim that he has had a supernatural revelation – disquieting thoughts from visions in the night. The question one may rightly ask: Who is the speaker in his vision? The narrator of the account does not portray Eliphaz’s vision as something positive; indeed, it is strange that Eliphaz’s juxtaposes his “wisdom of the ages with questionable mysticism. Though his revelation is more than a bit anticlimactic: Can mortal man be in the right before God? Can a man be pure before his Maker?It is a truth that is echoed by Job in 9.2. of course, the implied answer is that no one can be right before God. Frankly, this is Satan’s contention. This is at the heart of the gospel. This, too, follows Paul’s argumentation in Romans 3 None is righteous, no not one (3.9) but it is followed hard on by what may be considered the fulcrum of Scripture:But now the righteousness of God has been manifested apart from the law, although the Law and the Prophets bear witness to it— the righteousness of God through faith in Jesus Christ for all who believe. For there is no distinction: for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, and are justified by his grace as a gift, through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus, whom God put forward as a propitiation by his blood, to be received by faith. This was to show God 's righteousness, because in his divine forbearance he had passed over former sins. It was to show his righteousness at the present time, so that he might be just and the justifier of the one who has faith in Jesus (Romans 3.21-26)
3. Be Humble– (5.8-16) – Here is a common piece of advice: “If I were you …” don't try and be too clever, just turn your life over to God, trust him and everything will work out just fine. Eliphaz warns Job not to be too clever because God will catch you in your attempt to outwit him (cf. 1 Corinthians 3.19).
4. Be Submissive –(5.17-27) – Eliphaz closes with a beautiful blessing which truth is found in frequently in Proverbs, on in Hebrews 12 or Hosea 6 or Deuteronomy 32.39: Behold, blessed is the one whom God reproves; therefore despise not the discipline of the Almighty. For he wounds, but he binds up; he shatters, but his hands heal.The irony of Eliphaz’s appeal is that it is exactly what Satan claimed – Job will fear you, not because you are God, but for the rewards that piety brings with it.
Job can only be rightly understood in light of the cross of Christ. We are not like Job, but we may suffer for the sake of the gospel just as countless thousands have since the time of Christ.
Bildad(8) – Job (9-10) – Repent Job: You Great Bag of Wind – Job’s retort: How can a man come against God and succeed? Job says things about God that are right but he also says a great many things about God that are not right. Bear in mind the distinction between Job’s heart and Job’s understanding about God. Throughout his speeches he is an honest man with a heart for God grappling with a world that is falling apart all around him. As Ash puts it: “How does a person distinguish between the character of God and the actions of God?” God works through agencies of evil to accomplish good and defeat evil, but the actions themselves do not reveal God’s character. Key question for Job:But how can a man be in the right before God? For Job his relationship with God is more important than his health, his wealth, or his family.
Zophar(11) turns up the heat: Zophar asserts that Job claims to be clean (sinless) but in truth Job only claims that he has integrity (blameless). Zophar presumes to know what God’s judgment would be on Job – in this he oversteps his bounds. The statement know then that God exacts less of you than your guilt deserves.The cruelty of this comment to a man in extremis is almost beyond believed. Zophar challenges Job to know about the unknowable things about God. God knows the hearts of sinful men and summons them to court to pass judgment but Job is too stupid to profit from all this. In short Zophar says to Job: You do not understand God; but I do!
“There are two problems with what Zophar says, however. The first is that Job has no secret sinsof which he needs to repent, so Zophar’s counsel is irrelevant to him. The second— and this one is even more serious— is that the motivation Zophar gives to Job for repentance is precisely the motivation of the Satan’s accusation. The Satan thinks that Job has only been pious in order that his piety will win him prosperity. If Job repents in order to regain these blessings, he will prove the Satan right!” (157).
Job Responds(12-14) – Job speaks first to his friends 12-1-13.19; then to God 13.20 – 14.22. While he is responding to Zophar’s last comment he is speaking more generally to all three men. He understands the system but he now finds that it does not address his real world experience. It fails at several levels:
1. It is CRUEL (12.1-6) – this is the observation of the Preacher in Ecclesiastes – 6. So, too, Job says; “Those who are at ease have contempt for misfortune as the fate of those whose feet are slipping” (NIV).
2. It is SHALLOW (12.7-12) – you make the appeal to the non-rational as evidential proof of the truth of your claims – this is shallow thinking.
3.It isTAME(12.13-25) – Your system is tame but God is NOT. God is not complacent and easy to please.
“He is a destructive god, the god of “nature red in tooth and claw,” as Tennyson put it, the god of the tsunami. Think about water, says Job. Sometimes he gives too little, and there is drought (v. 15a); at other times there is too much, and we have floods (v. 15b). Far from being the God of a reliable natural order, he is the god of natural disasters.Job’s friends’ system could not account for that” (ibid. p. 163).
What God does with leaders and nations he does with all people – he takes away understanding from the Chiefs of the people of the earth and makes them wander in the trackless waste. They grope in the dark without lights, and he makes them stagger like a drunken man(13.22-25).
“This god is wild and dangerous. He is dangerous in nature, dangerous with leaders, dangerous with nations, and especially dangerous to all human beings who think— as Job’s friends did with their system— that they have the universe sorted out and have attained wisdom. “In short,” says Job, “your system is tame and cannot cope with the real God who is dangerous.”
4. Finally, it is DECEITFUL (13.1-12). – You [Job's friends] paint over a messy reality with whitewash and this is utterly unacceptable. You speak and I wish you would keep silent because all you say is laden with deception.
JOB SPEAKS WITH GOD (13.13-14.22)
The friends have proven to be worthless counselors; consequently, he must take his case to God (13.13-19). What Job does is dangerous – he is both sinful and mortal; however, he is not Godless: Though he slay me, I will hope in him; yet I will argue my ways to his face. This will be my salvation, that the godless shall not come before him.The believer knows that God has the final say in all things; that ultimately he may save or he may not save but there is no other (Deuteronomy 4.39), thus, the believer’s only hope is to trust in the mercy of God. Not unlike Daniel’s three friends on trial before Nebuchadnezzar: Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego answered and said to the king, “O Nebuchadnezzar, we have no need to answer you in this matter. If this be so, our God whom we serve is able to deliver us from the burning fiery furnace, and he will deliver us out of your hand, O king. But if not, be it known to you, O king, that we will not serve your gods or worship the golden image that you have set up.
“Job is about to do something hugely significant. It is worth pausing to ask why. After all, he knows it is dangerous. The Systemof his friends tells him he must be a secret sinner because he is suffering. He knows this is not true. The evidence of his eyes tells him that God is dangerous, random, and unpredictable. The faithin his heart tells him that God is righteousand that he, Job, is a believer who is in the right before God. Knowing The System is not true, and despite the evidence of randomness and danger, Job’s decision goes with Job’s faith. This is why he appeals to God.” (Ash: Job: The Wisdom of the Crossp. 167)
13.23 – 13.27 Job knows that the root of the problem is his sin(iniquities – moral evil, perversity, mischief; transgression – rebellion against God), but what he doesn't knowof what sin is being judged and why can he not be forgiven? Why is God treating him as an enemy? Have these sins been piling up since his youth (make me inherit the iniquities of my youth)? Job longs for the fellowship with God that he once knew and now he cannot understand why God is hiding his face from him (Isaiah 59.2); it is a reverse of Eden. In the garden Adam and Eve hid from God but now it appears that God is hiding from Job. All this time Job was under the impression that his sacrifices had been accepted as atonement for his sin.
13.28 – 14.6 Job feels the deep weight of his suffering. The images stack up one upon another: man is born in sin (Psalm 51.5); the effects of original sin weigh upon him and his few days are full of trouble. In western civilization there has been little respite from the ravages of war, famine, disease and general suffering. Even the two extended periods of peace (Pax Romana200 years & the Victorian Era 90 years) were accompanied by boarder wars.
“Writing toward the end of World War II, the German Lutheran pastor Helmut Thielicke wrote: Goethe . . . once said in his old age that he could hardly think that he had been really happy for more than a month in his whole life. And I believe that proportion would hold true in history as a whole: the happy times are like tiny islands in an ocean of blood and tears. The history of the world, taken as a whole, is a story of war, deeply marked with the hoofprints of the apocalyptic horseman. It is the story of humanity without a Father— so it seems.” (ibid. )
14.7 – 14.12 Job despairs of death.By all appearances this life is all there is. There is a limit beyond which no man can pass and then there is nothing – forever there is nothing! But God has put eternity into the heart of man (Ecclesiastes 3.11); so, what is man to do with that longing? Job hopes against hope for a resurrection wherein sin will be dealt with, for there seems to be no hope in this life. Job longs for eternity (14.13–14.17):Oh that you would hide me in Sheol, that you would conceal me until your wrath be past, that you would appoint me a set time, and remember me! If a man dies, shall he live again? All the days of my service I would wait, till my renewal should come.
“I know I’m heading for Sheol, the place of the dead, says Job “and we all know that Sheol is the place of no return. But what I wish is that you would ‘hide me’ there, ‘conceal me until your wrath be past’[v. 13], and that the day would come, your ‘set time,’ when you would ‘remember me’ and summon me back into life[v. 13]. This would be completely against what we know to be the case: ‘If a man dies, shall he live again?’ [v. 14a]. Not in the normal run of affairs, he won’t. But I would be willing to ‘wait, till my renewal should come’ [v. 14b].” Renewal is a lovely word for resurrection, a word that combines newness (renewal) with continuity (renewal). The most wonderful thing about this “renewal” (v. 14) is the personal relationship: “You would call, and I would answer you” (v. 15a). And the one who calls Job back from the dead would be the one who “would long for the work of your hands” (v. 15b). There is an anticipation here of the love of the resurrecting God. Furthermore, this God would now watch over Job for good rather than keeping watch over his sin (v. 16), for his sin would be dealt with once and for all: “my transgression would be sealed up in a bag, and you would cover over my iniquity” (v. 17). … Job knows that if his sin is dealt with, then— and only then— can he hope to come back from Sheol into relationship with the God he loves.”
14.18 – 14.22 If there is no resurrection then there is no hope. After Job's wistful ruminations he returns to his lament. As much as he might wish for a reconciliation with God in a resurrection, what appears plain from all his observations is that life goes on as it always has and just as the mountains fall and water wears away the stones, so, too, God prevails against man and he passes. Ultimately, sin destroys mankind.
“In his suffering Job foreshadows the man who will enter fully into the misery of being identified with sinners in life and death, who will feel in his own body the fragility of mortality, who will experience in all its horrors the final penalty for sins, and who will taste death on behalf of sinners, but not because he himself is a sinner. Job foreshadows the one who will be raised from the dead to prove that in his death he has decisively paid the penalty for sins, so that the sins of all who trust in him will be “sealed up in a bag” (v. 17) and covered over by his blood.What is more, Job foreshadows all men and women in Christ, who experience in their own bodies something of the misery of living in a world under judgment, who will know what it is in life to be surrounded by death, and who, because they are in Christ, will suffer not because they are sinners (though they are) but because they are blameless and because in some way their sufferings are a sharing in the sufferings of Christ. They too will discover the utter bankruptcy of The System of religion, its cruelty to sufferers, its shallowness and banality in the face of the realities of life, its pathetic tameness in the presence of a sovereign and dangerous God, and above all its false witness about God, its deceptiveness. They too will know what it is to pin all their hopes not on any system of religion but on the God they love and long to meet. They will experience mortality in all its transience and misery, death as their last enemy, and finally resurrection to eternal life.” (ibid. p. 174)