“All our unhappiness and failure, whether as saint or sinner, springs from unbelief of the goodness that is in the heart of God for us” (H. E. Hayhoe).
In Job we see a man learning the lesson of his own nothingness, in the fierce fire of deep affliction, by “the messenger of Satan” — through loss, bereavement and disease — fighting single-handed against the crude philosophy and cruel attacks of his friends, and, above all, with his own proud, unsubdued self-righteousness and unbelief, until “an interpreter” is heard, who leads him to the point where he listens to God and learns the lesson of all the ages, that God alone is God, and therein lies man’s blessing.
Knowing God Personally
In piety as well as in prosperity, there seems to have been in Job a lack of that personal acquaintance with God. It is this lack of true acquaintance with God, with the corresponding ignorance of his own heart, which probably made necessary the trials to which Job was subjected.
God was going to vindicate His truth, silence Satan and wicked men, but He knew that His servant Job needed to learn lessons for his own soul. He would put the precious ore into the crucible, for He knew how much unsuspected evil lay hidden beneath all that outward excellence, mixed even with the inner piety of this good man. He would show that even piety cannot feed upon itself, nor righteousness lean upon its own arm. These are some of the lessons which Job is to learn. May we learn them too!
Doubting God’s Goodness
As long as Job’s sufferings were outward, or physical, he was calm, but when he begins to doubt the goodness of God, he collapsed. This will appear abundantly as we proceed; it is simply noticed here as suggesting a main theme of the book — the vindication of God, and His ways with men.
Job had lost the sense of God’s favor; his sighs gush forth like a torrent because he fears God has forsaken him. He could not withstand the torturing doubt that God had given him over to hopeless misery. This fear had apparently been lurking in his heart — possibly even in his bright days — and now it has come upon him! He laments, “I was not in safety, neither had I rest, neither was I quiet [from Satan’s first attack], then trouble cometh.”
In the controversy of the three friends, we have a unity of thought, based on a common principle. That principle is that all suffering is of a punitive rather than of an instructive nature—that it is based on God’s justice rather than on His love — though these are ever combined in all His ways.
Job differs from his friends in this: While they steadily tend to a conviction of his hypocrisy and sin, Job faces the awful thought of God’s injustice. He is led to this by the consciousness of personal uprightness, which he cannot relinquish in the darkest hour. Why then is he so afflicted? On the other hand, thank God, he has true faith. Even where he cannot understand, he must believe in God, and this faith remains, with increasing light, through all his sufferings and in spite of all mysteries.
In Job’s despair, his affliction is unspeakably great; there is no possible cure, therefore death would be a welcome relief. There is no gleam of hope amid the gloom; faith is almost completely eclipsed for the time, and there is the sense of God’s wrath which is the forerunner of a doubt of His goodness and justice. But Job needs light, and he must learn to trust God when he cannot understand Him. Job wants God to take his life. This, he says, would be a comfort, for his conscious uprightness would sustain him: He has not rejected God’s words—has not been rebellious against Him. We have here, as throughout his long conflict, a statement of conscious uprightness. While true — as it was indeed the fruit of God’s grace in him — Job is using this righteousness in a self-righteous way, to justify himself at the expense of God’s righteousness.
We have here the habitual state of Job’s mind throughout all his controversy with his friends. There is a sense of moral uprightness, of genuine fear of God, which he cannot deny. It is the testimony of a good conscience, and it stands as a rock against all his friend’s suspicions and accusations.
Charges Against God
He makes charges against God, for he is not yet ready to be stripped of all his fancied righteousness. He thinks that God holds him as an enemy, drives him as a withered leaf before the blast, and accuses him of those almost forgotten sins of youth (ah, Job, it seems that even you must acknowledge there have been sins).
The very fact that Job longs for an intercessor shows the faith hidden in his soul. Meanwhile he looks down to the grave, without a pause for God to speak to him. The very fact that he appeals to God bringing his doubts and fears to Him, shows that faith has not failed, and it cannot. Therefore we find here the noble outburst, which has expressed the faith of the saints of all ages: “I know that my Redeemer liveth” (Job 19:2525For I know that my redeemer liveth, and that he shall stand at the latter day upon the earth: (Job 19:25)).
Job is totally occupied with his relationship to God— he must understand God. Job charges Him as the author of his misery and suffering. His complaint and hot words give him no relief. He is unwilling or unable to trust God in the dark.
With his sense of outrage, Job desires to go before God and lay charges against Him! He would come boldly into His presence, in His very abode, and lay his case before Him, with his mouth full of arguments. He even challenges any reply from God, “I would know the words which He would answer me.” So can a righteous man speak when at a distance from God. How different it was when he had his desire and God appeared to him!
Mixing Faith and Unbelief
And here, when his almost insane defiance of God is at its height, there bursts forth a glance of that confidence in God which we have already had occasion to note. “Will He plead against me with His great power! No! but He would put strength in me,” or “regard me with compassion.” These are surely not the words of an unbeliever. He doubts God’s ways, accuses Him, but is confident that if he could only see Him all would be cleared. God would consider his “weak and wandering cries” and vindicate him from divine injustice! But what an anomaly—the righteous man disputing with Him and delivered by the Judge Himself from His unjust severity! Strange contradiction it all is, yet better far thus to long to go before God, than the pride which would say to Him, “Depart from us, for we desire not the knowledge of Thy ways.” It is always better to bring even our doubts of God to Himself, if we have nothing else to bring.
All unknown to himself, God’s grace was at work, for he was a child of God: He was not permitted to go where his unbelieving thoughts led him. But we have still to hear him pour forth all his heart, before God can be heard.
There is greater or less inconsistency in Job’s monologue (Job 29-31), corresponding to the state of his heart, in which conflicting emotions, of conscious integrity before man, and of the fear of the Lord, are mingled with unhealthy reminiscences of past greatness and laments over present degradation. The general tone, however, shows the need of God’s dealing with his soul, and prepares us for what follows.
For a sinner to dwell upon his own goodness — of which he has none — is repulsive, and for a child of God to follow the same course shows clearly that he has not yet learned his lesson.
Is Sincerity Enough?
We cannot question the truth and the sincerity of all that Job says, but, we may well ask, is his conclusion a happy one even for himself? He closes the mouths of his friends; he seems abundantly satisfied with himself. Suppose God were to let it go at that, is the spectacle of a completely self-vindicated man a pleasant one? Ah, divine truth, as well as divine love, will not suffer him to wrap himself in these weeds of self-righteousness. In other words, God is left out save as related to Job’s righteousness: His greatness, goodness, holiness, as themes of worship and joy, are ignored. At the close of all that he has to say, Job is as far from God as at the beginning; nay, farther. When we remember that all God’s ways with man are to bring him close to Himself, we see the folly and sin of Job’s course.
But we must take note of the self-righteousness which moved Job to speak of himself thus. He was arraying himself rather than giving glory to God. Doubtless at bottom he was a man of genuine piety, but it is not glory to set forth one’s own glory.
Elihu Speaks for the Lord
No; in one brief sentence Elihu sets aside all human reasonings: “God is greater than man.” In other words, God is God. If we are to reason, let it not be from the lesser to the greater, but from the greater to the less. Let us say, How could the Almighty, an all-perfect Being commit an unrighteous act? “Shall not the Judge of all the earth do right?” (Gen. 18:2525That be far from thee to do after this manner, to slay the righteous with the wicked: and that the righteous should be as the wicked, that be far from thee: Shall not the Judge of all the earth do right? (Genesis 18:25)). So long as a soul raises a question against the character of God, he is in no state to have his difficulties met. This Elihu now proceeds to explain. So long as Job accuses, he gets no answer; let him submit and God will make all plain.
Elihu makes it plain that God thus speaks to man. When the light of nature is withdrawn, when all is silent, He speaks in “a still small voice” and makes known His mind. Thus instruction is sealed upon the heart of man. His object is to correct wrong thoughts and actions, to withdraw man from “mischief,” or his purpose, and to hide pride from man. This goes deeper than action, for pride lurks in the heart, and God would hide it from man — hinder its control over him. “Keep back also Thy servant from presumptuous sins” (Psa. 19:1313Keep back thy servant also from presumptuous sins; let them not have dominion over me: then shall I be upright, and I shall be innocent from the great transgression. (Psalm 19:13)). Thus man is kept back from destruction. He bows to the correction of God’s truth and is thus spared from the smiting of the rod or of the sword.
Confidence in the uprightness of God is the foundation of an upright walk. “I know, O Lord, that Thy judgments are right, and that Thou in faithfulness hast afflicted me” (Psa. 119:7575I know, O Lord, that thy judgments are right, and that thou in faithfulness hast afflicted me. (Psalm 119:75)). Surely if we lose faith in God’s righteousness, what is left? This is walking “in the counsel of the ungodly,” far more dangerous than outward forms of evil. The effect of such teaching is that there is no profit in seeking to please God or to have fellowship with Him. What a monstrous charge to fall from the lips of one who was a child of God! We can be thankful that Job’s faith did not fail in spite of this cloud of unbelief. How could God act wickedly or pervert the right? He would not be God if this were possible.
“Although thou sayest thou shalt not see Him, yet judgment is before Him, therefore trust thou in Him.” Do not think God has forgotten; be patient; learn the lesson He would teach thee. How admirable and scriptural is this advice — exactly what Job needed. “Wait on the Lord; be of good courage, and He shall strengthen thy heart. Wait, I say, on the Lord.”
In one word he sweeps away the unholy suspicions which had been harbored by Job — “God is great, and despiseth not any.” Infinite in power as He is, He looks with compassion upon the feeblest of His creatures. There are two infinities in which He is equally seen — the infinitely great, and the infinitely small. How comforting is the truth, “He despiseth not any!” The despiser shall meet his doom with all the unclean, but God will save the humble sufferer, “in” and indeed “by” his affliction. It “worketh out” blessing for him. It is the Almighty, we cannot fathom His greatness, but we know His uprightness is as great as His power. Let us bow in worship before Him: He listens not to those wise in their own conceits.
The Voice of Jehovah
Jehovah’s testimony from Creation is testing Job and bringing him into the dust. We are no longer listening to the groping of the natural mind, as in the discourses of the friends; nor to the wild cries of a wounded faith, as in Job; nor even to the clear sober language of Elihu — we are in the presence of Jehovah Himself, who speaks to us.
So the voice that came to Job out of the whirlwind brought him into the presence of One of whose character he had until now been greatly ignorant. He had spoken many excellent things about God, but His actual presence had never before been known. This, it will be found, furnishes the key to the amazing change wrought in Job. When God is personally recognized as present, He is thus recognized in the entirety of His being. It is not merely His power that is seen or His greatness or even His goodness, but Himself, the One in whose presence seraphim veil their faces as they cry, “Holy, holy, holy.”
Peter caught such a glimpse of Him by the sea of Galilee (Luke 5), and was constrained to cry, “Depart from me, for I am a sinful man, O Lord.” And Paul fell to the earth under the same revelation, as also John in the Apocalypse. The outward display in each of these cases was different, passing from a lowly Man in a fisher-boat to the enthroned Majesty in the heavens; but the essential fact is that it is Himself, and however much He may veil His glory and meet man in mercy and grace, it is God who thus speaks and acts. If this is not realized, no grandeur of setting, no splendor of natural phenomena, can convey His message to man.
This is pitifully apparent in the use men make of the majestic panorama of nature daily spread before their eyes. The heavens as an infinitely spacious tent are arched overhead, resplendent by day and by night; the drapery of the clouds, the greatness of the mountains, the beauty of forest, field and sea—what do these tell to one who hears not the Voice? The heathen makes his image, or bows to sun and moon; the scientist sweeps the heavens with his telescope, and pierces the penetralia of earth with his microscope; he talks learnedly and interestingly of “laws of nature,” of “principles of physics and of chemistry,” of gravitation, cohesion and affinity: but unless he has heard the Voice of Jehovah, he knows Him no more than the poor deluded idolater groveling before the hideous idol Vishnu.
This ignorance is a guilty ignorance, “for the invisible things of Him from the creation of the world are clearly seen, being understood by the things that are made, even His eternal power and Godhead; so that they are without excuse: because that, when they knew God, they glorified Him not as God,” etc. (Rom. 1:18-2518For the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men, who hold the truth in unrighteousness; 19Because that which may be known of God is manifest in them; for God hath showed it unto them. 20For the invisible things of him from the creation of the world are clearly seen, being understood by the things that are made, even his eternal power and Godhead; so that they are without excuse: 21Because that, when they knew God, they glorified him not as God, neither were thankful; but became vain in their imaginations, and their foolish heart was darkened. 22Professing themselves to be wise, they became fools, 23And changed the glory of the uncorruptible God into an image made like to corruptible man, and to birds, and fourfooted beasts, and creeping things. 24Wherefore God also gave them up to uncleanness through the lusts of their own hearts, to dishonor their own bodies between themselves: 25Who changed the truth of God into a lie, and worshipped and served the creature more than the Creator, who is blessed for ever. Amen. (Romans 1:18‑25)). All men are in a measure conscious of this guilt and moral distance from God, and quite willing to remain in that condition. They stop their ears to the Voice of Him who is not far from every one of us.
How necessary for us, as we speak of it, to realize His voice who speaks in nature and in His Word. May it be ours, not to withdraw to a distance, nor to hide amid His beautiful trees, but to come near with unshod feet and veiled faces and hear what God the Lord will speak.
Looking at His words as a whole, we might be surprised at their character. They are not in one sense profound, as unfolding depths of theological truth. They are scarcely didactic in a moral sense, impressing upon man his duty. They are not so much a revelation of truth as a question to Job if he knows the truths that lie all about him in the vast creation of God. It is this which makes these words of Jehovah so wonderful. He speaks, not “in a tongue no man can understand,” but in the language of nature, about the earth, the sky, the clouds and rain, and beasts and birds.
For creation itself is, we would reverently say, a divine humiliation. It reminds us of Him who, “though He was in the form of God,” emptied Himself of His glory and took a servant’s form, being made in the likeness of men. Creation is the “lattice” behind which the Beloved hides Himself (Song of Sol. 2:99My beloved is like a roe or a young hart: behold, he standeth behind our wall, he looketh forth at the windows, showing himself through the lattice. (Song of Solomon 2:9)). And yet He reveals Himself thus to faith. The swaddling bands of Ocean are but a figure of those bands which He who made all things took upon Himself, when He became flesh. The whole universe, immense and boundless, forms the garments of the infinite God, who thus reveals Himself.
He encourages us to believe that He is drawing near to us, that the message He has to give is one of mercy. The message of nature and His Word tests and humbles man. Job, who boasted in his righteousness, who seemed to consider his knowledge all-sufficient, is obliged to own his ignorance, his weakness, and his unrighteousness. It is divinely done, and done so effectively that the lesson brings Job to his true place for all time.
Judging God
Job had presumed to sit in judgment upon Jehovah and His ways; his competence for this is tested: What does he know? What can he do? Shall the creature — so puny in power, so ignorant, and withal so filled with vain pride — presume to instruct God as to His duties, to point out to Him His failures, in fact to usurp His prerogatives? The effect upon Job is seen in his two answers. In the first reply to God’s questions, he abases himself and lays his hand upon his mouth. In the second, he makes full confession of his sinful pride and abhors himself, thus preparing the way for the outward recovery and restoration to prosperity.
We may say that the second part of the Lord’s address is devoted to the humbling of Job’s pride, by setting before him the creatures in which this pride is exhibited, in a typical way. The divine purpose can be seen throughout, and the effects are most blessed and complete.
Jehovah asks, “Who is this that darkeneth counsel,” that hides the purposes of God and the truth, “by words without knowledge”? Job had poured out a flood of words — lamentations, protestations, accusations. There was much that was true and excellent, but all was vitiated, so far as God’s purposes were concerned, by the exaltation of his own righteousness at the expense of Jehovah’s. He leads Job through the vast, and yet familiar, scenes of creation. Can he solve one of ten thousand of its riddles? Can he open the hidden secrets of nature? If not, why does he attempt to declare God’s counsels, and intrude into the purposes of One who giveth not account to any of His matters; of whom the worshiping apostle declares, “How unsearchable are His judgments, and His ways past finding out!” (Rom. 11:3333O the depth of the riches both of the wisdom and knowledge of God! how unsearchable are his judgments, and his ways past finding out! (Romans 11:33)).
Science has much to tell us that might well fill us with wonder and amazement, and with awe and worship—of WHOM? The more we know merely of His displays, the less we really know of Himself, save as He makes Himself known in Christ. He has not given to us to change the order of nature, or to ascend up into those heavens, but He teaches us to give the true answer to His questions, and that answer is, “We see Jesus.”
Thus Jehovah closes His first testing of Job. He has taken, as it were, the clay of Creation and put it upon the eyes of the poor sufferer, who had been blinded by his own griefs to all the power, wisdom and goodness of God. Will Job “go and wash in the pool of Siloam?”
Job’s Repentance
Will he bow to the testing of his Creator? “Shall he that contendeth with the Almighty instruct Him? He that reproveth God, let him answer it.” Here lies the root of Job’s trouble: He had sat in judgment upon God; he had accused the Omnipotent of evil. God has drawn near, has made His presence felt, and lifted the veil from the face of nature to reveal part of His character. What is the effect upon the proud man?
“I am vile; what shall I answer Thee?....I will lay my hand upon my mouth.”
Many words had Job uttered: at the beginning of his sufferings, words of faith in God. Even during his “crying in the night,” many beautiful and noble thoughts had fallen from his lips, but no such words as these — music in the ear of God—confession, contrition, mute acknowledgment of the whole error of his thought.
Here practically closes the test of Job, and yet in faithfulness Jehovah will probe still further to the deepest recesses of his heart and lay bare its potential evil. So we must listen further to what the Lord has to speak. In His second address the Lord deepens the work already taking place in Job’s heart. In the first, Job is silenced and convinced by the majesty, power and wisdom of God. Such a Being, whose perfections are displayed in His works, cannot be arbitrary and unjust in His dealings with man. The great effect of His first address upon Job seems to be that Jehovah has become a reality to him.
In the second address these impressions are deepened. God will not leave His servant with his lesson half learned: He plows more deeply into his heart until the hidden depths of pride are reached and judged. The second address therefore dwells upon this pride so common to the creature. He invites Job, as it were, to see whether he can humble the proud and bring them low. The manifest implication is that Job himself is in that class.
Yet in the call, “Gird up thy loins now like a man,” we have encouragement as well as rebuke. God is not crushing His poor, foolish servant, but appealing to his reason as well as his conscience. Already Job has learned, as indeed he has in measure known, God’s power, wisdom and goodness. But the present appeal particularly is to his conscience. Will he annul, deny God’s righteous judgment and condemn God that he may establish a petty human righteousness? This is really what lay at the bottom of Job’s complaints; he was suffering affliction which he did not deserve; he, a righteous man, was being treated as though he were unrighteous. The conclusion then was unavoidable — the One who was thus afflicting him was unjust! Elihu had already pressed upon Job these awful consequences of his thoughts: “I am righteous: and God hath taken away my judgment” (ch. 34:5). “Thinkest thou this to be right, that thou saidst, My righteousness is more than God’s?” (ch. 35:2). The Lord would press home upon Job the heinousness of this sin.
He has presumed to judge God — upon what grounds? Has he divine power and majesty? Can he speak in a voice of thunder? Can he quell the proud rebellion of every evildoer and bring men into the dust before him? Has he done so with his own proud and rebellious heart? Has he humbled even his friends? How much less the whole world.
Is it cruel of Jehovah thus to deal with a poor heartbroken creature? Rather let us ask, would it have been kindness to leave him holding his pride about him as a garment, and railing against the Almighty? Only thus can pride be abased, by being brought face to face with its nothingness in the presence of the majesty and boundless goodness of God. Until Job has learned this, and learned it to the full, all the dispensations of God with him in his afflictions, and the reasonings of his friends and of Elihu, are in vain, and worse.
We are brought thus to hearken to the application by Jehovah of the lesson of creature-strength and pride, as exhibited and typified in the behemoth and leviathan. And yet he is but a creature, endowed by God, for His all wise purposes, with superhuman strength. Let Job, let all who are tempted to trust in their own strength, whether of body, as here, or of heart and mind, consider this creature, self-sufficient and resistless. How puny will their own arm appear. Self-righteousness, self-seeking, pride of conduct or of character, denies its need of Christ and of God. Such is sin in the flesh — incorrigible and hideous. Who can subdue it or change its nature?
Job responds to the piercing, humbling words of Jehovah. He repeats first his confession in a complete way. He acknowledges God’s omnipotence and that He cannot be thwarted in His purposes, which exhibit His power, wisdom and goodness as fully as do His works. There is a complete surrender and reversal of all that he had previously said against God. Quoting Jehovah’s own words, he asks himself, Who is he who darkens counsel? Who dares to throw a shadow upon the Almighty? “Such knowledge is too wonderful for me. It is high, I cannot attain unto it” (Psa. 139:66Such knowledge is too wonderful for me; it is high, I cannot attain unto it. (Psalm 139:6)).
“Now Mine Eye Seeth Thee”
Applying Jehovah’s words to himself, Job asks himself, “Who is this?” “Hear, and I will speak.” It is as though he would abjectly bow to these questions by repeating them and give his answer to his divine Questioner. And what an answer it is! The only answer human pride can give to God: “I have heard of Thee by the hearing of the ear” — Job had in a general way been correctly instructed, but he had only learned about God—“but now mine eye seeth Thee” — he had been brought face to face with God, not indeed visually, though there was the awful glory in the sky, but he had had a soul-perception of God by his enlightened reason, and chiefly by conscience. God had drawn near, personally near, and Job was conscious of that ineffable holiness, as well as power, that belong to Him. Previously he had been in the presence of man, and he could more than hold his own with the best of them. In God’s presence no creature can boast, and Job was at last in that glorious, holy Presence. All the “filthy rags” of an imagined personal righteousness dropped from him, and he stood in all the naked horror of pride and rebellion against God. who can doubt that Job’s penitence goes beyond the mere judging of his words; he judged himself—“I abhor myself.”
These are the words for which we may say the Lord had long been listening. God’s purpose was to elicit just this confession. And why? To humiliate him? No, but to give him the true glory — to privilege him, out of the dust, to behold the glory of the Lord and never again to have a cloud upon his soul! Was the experience worthwhile? There is but one answer. May we all give it.
The controversy which has, for Job, so happily closed. Addressing Eliphaz, as the leader of the three, Jehovah declares His wrath against them all, because they had not spoken of Him the thing that is right, as His servant Job had. And yet their entire contention had apparently been for God’s righteousness! At least apparently so. But God does not accept honor at the expense of truth. It is His glory that all His attributes blend in one harmonious light. Can He then accept a vindication of His character and ways that is based upon a false charge? “As my servant Job hath.” When had Job thus spoken “the thing that is right?” Surely not when pouring out bitter charges against God.
This is the speaking of Jehovah “the thing that is right;” it is the taking and keeping of the sinful creature’s place who cannot understand the least of those perfect ways — ways which are right when they seem most wrong. It is the declaration that God is God — Jehovah, the self-existent, perfect One; most wise and just and good as well as most powerful; righteous and holy in all His ways, whatever they may be.
“Ye have heard of the patience of Job, and have seen the end of the Lord; that the Lord is very pitiful, and of tender mercy.”
S. Ridout (extracted and adapted)