Here, then, we find Job in the most marked place of a man blest of God in everything that heart could desire. It is needless to tell you that without one divine element there could have been no stable blessing according to God, but only a deception and a snare. And what was that? He was a man of God, “perfect and upright, one that feared God and eschewed evil.” He was not an angular or one-sided man, not defective in some and remarkable for other qualities. He had whole-heartedness and integrity; and this based on the fear of God and marked by the refusal of evil. The inner and the outer life were right all round. The word “perfect” gives no countenance in any degree to the foolish dream of the extinction of sin in the flesh. This is not the force of “perfect” in Scripture, but completeness of character spiritually with integrity. He “feared God and eschewed evil.” There we come to the roots of things. He was one who gave God His place and abhorred the evil surrounding him here below which was contrary to God. He was clearly a man born of God, one who walked in simplicity and trueness of purpose before God. Nor was this said of him in a merely general way. His position is brought before us, his family life, with remarkable beauty; his zealous, nay, jealous, piety; for even if sons and daughters met together on a special occasion, of what was Job thinking? He had his fear. How often is such a gathering a moment of danger for the soul! How it affords an opening for Satan! And so Job dreaded lest anything might have crept in and be a virtual renunciation of God, lest, as it is. said, they should have cursed [literally, blessed] God in their heart. We need not suppose anything formally uttered or done, but the heart thus failing at such a season in an unguarded moment. And this, too, was not merely on some particular occasion, or at a peculiar crisis when his sons stood exposed to the enemy. There is a still higher feature that characterizes him: “Thus did Job continually.” It was the tenor of his life. Such was the man whom God could single out in love; that He did so the book shows us.
But there was something more. It is not only that evil abounds in the world. There is an unseen enemy, and if we do not take account of him adequately according to God, we are in no small danger. We shall be perplexed and fail gravely in knowing how to estimate that against which we have to watch and with which we have to contend.
There is another thing here made apparent, that events on earth turn on the springs of heaven. Now doubtless the Christian is admitted to look into the opened heavens; but before this could be, through Christ's ascension and the descent of the Spirit as now, God could and did give glimpses of heaven. Not merely was there no great movement of the powers here below which did not turn on the mind of heaven, but the opening chapters let us know that it is as true of a single saint. Satan might pervert the truth into his lie of astrology for curious but unbelieving man: still the truth abides. The world might be in confusion, the eyes of the judges be blinded, oppression in the place of righteousness, groaning and misery everywhere; but, spite of misrule and rebellion, in heaven is the spring and center of power. It is not yet the day to put down evil, and enforce the government of God; still, even Satan himself cannot act without God. What an immense comfort! But there is another and a greater comfort for the child of God, that it is never Satan who begins the movement, but God Himself. It may be the direct calamity, the extremest suffering. Even so; God is at the helm, and God alone gives the word. The consequence is, that there is another feature attaching to it. Not only is God at the beginning, but He will surely be at the end; and meanwhile God puts limits on it. The way may seem dark and hard, and surely this book shows that Job at last proved utterly unequal to the strain, for he was not Christ. But Job learned at the end, if not at the beginning, that it was the gracious God who opened his heart at length and gave his lips to justify Him frankly and absolutely.
Here, then, is communicated to us what could not else be known, that it was God, and not Satan, who began the whole transaction. It was God who took notice of His servant Job, and it was His delight in His servant (for He does delight in His saints) which roused the malice of Satan.
Another thing may be here added by the way. It may seem very peculiar to some minds, but this is simply a consequence of not knowing the scriptures; namely, that Satan should come in among the sons of God. At first sight it may strike one as out of place, Satan coming in among the sons of God! meaning clearly the angels of God in His presence. But it appears to me that one better acquainted with scripture would see it as part of that mystery of God (Revelation 10) which forbears as yet for the highest ends to put down evil. He that is imbued with the mind of God in the word would feel rather that it is just what we might expect. Do you know who and what Satan was? Had he not been among them? Yes, of them. This helps us to understand quite simply how such a being, though fallen, should be allowed access till judgment come. For it is not man only that has sustained a fall. There was another and an anterior fall, and from a higher estate; though men are not wanting who, as they are now giving reins to their unbelief about man's fall, are bold enough to deny Satan altogether. And no wonder. Men easily disbelieve what they dislike, and the truth of the fall is offensive to their pride, so still more is their slavery through sin to Satan.
But why is the fall of both angels and men so repulsive to man's mind? Because it is the confession of creature guilt and ruin. It supposes the reality of creature weakness, and it enforces the need of dependence on God. The state of the creature before either fell testifies manifestly to God's goodness at a time when there was no evil above, no evil below; yet the creature left his first estate. Here we are let into a sight of Satan, the restless leader of sin. He is powerless to deceive the holy and elect angels; he can accuse the saints with a show of truth. Here the earliest and the latest revelation meet. One ceases then to see any unintelligible peculiarity in his coming, among the sons of God, into His presence. Alas! we are reminded that he well knew what it was to be there under very different circumstances. Among those sons of God he had once shone. What was he now? A rebellious and miserable being, who had made self his object and not God; and now, self failing to satisfy itself, he goes forth in malice against every other, especially against the objects of God's love, occupied in thwarting God and in hating man, in hating most of all such as God delights in.
But is there not a measure of comfort to the heart in the fact that the enmity of Satan, so bitter in its effects in our experience, bears witness to the love of God, which provokes him against us? If we know in sorrow the reality of Satan's efforts and assaults, let us not forget for our joy whence they spring. Is it not because of what we are to God? Is it because of what He says and Satan hears of any? If we have the same spirit of faith and are walking faithfully, Satan dislikes us no less than Job, and we are entitled to the comfort of this as of other scriptures. The same principle is true of every believer now. Christ is not ashamed to call them brethren; and the Father, one may say, does not withhold His love to them as children: each one is an object of the deepest interest to God Himself. Satan knows it well and for that reason he cannot endure them. It may be very trying to experience what the malice of the devil is; but what a comfort to know of God's love and gracious care and personal delight. Yet just this it is which excites the enemy to do us all possible damage.
Accordingly, then, on the day when the sons of God, the angels, came to present themselves before Jehovah, Satan came also among them. “And Jehovah said unto Satan, Whence comest thou?” He would bring it out. It could not be, of course, that God did not know; but, as in Genesis so here, we are in the atmosphere of those early days when God dealt as with children, and brought out things plainly for those who needed the plainest truth. Hence, therefore, we see Him elsewhere coming down to look after man. He knew perfectly well without calling after Him in the garden of Eden; but it is for us that He reveals it thus. And so it grieved Him at His heart when He saw man's wickedness great in the earth. Further, if it is a city and a tower that they unite to build in the land of Shinar; if the cry of Sodom and Gomorrah is great, He comes down to see whether things are really so bad as they seem. All things are naked and open to His eyes; but God would give us the grave lesson of never being precipitate in the judgment of evil; He knows right well how hasty we often are. Even God Himself will go down and sec whether they have done altogether according to the cry of it which is come unto Him; and if not, He will know. Appearances deceive men at least, and God would teach us how to guard against mistake. He loves patience in judgment. His word implies the utmost possible care. It is the same God who afterward ordained that the priest should judge in a suspected case of leprosy; but what waiting, and what shutting up again and again, unless there could be no mistake! What cherishing of the least hope of good! of any diminution in the evil! But what solemn sentence of judgment when the evil was all out! It is the same God everywhere; but what varied lessons on lessons for us!
So here: God speaks graciously in presence of all, and brings out the restless hate of the evil one, in contrast with Him who would come down in love to seek the lost. “Come unto me,” said He in the hour of His rejection—not unchafed only, but in overflowing love— “and I will give you rest.” Satan knows nothing of it, nor do the wicked. They are like the troubled sea; but Christ gives rest to all that labor and are heavy laden. I do not say it is all rest. There is such a thing as the work of faith and the labor of love in an evil world; but there never can be true labor unless there be a foundation of true rest—rest in Him. There must be Christ giving us rest first, if we are to acceptably labor in this scene which so loudly calls for it, and so deeply needs it. But here is the enemy of God and man, who knows no rest and displays his unrest in malicious activity, as we find afterward, till, wholly baffled, he disappears. He is not only a murderer but a liar; still he is obliged to tell out, as God is pleased to draw from him, his thoughts and wishes.
[W. K.] (To be continued)