So: what is the point of the book of Job, what has all this been about? Last time we explored what it teaches us about God; so now, what does it teach about us people?
Job is clearly, somehow, a story of a believer’s – painful – growth into deep relationship with God. It underlines, too, contrary to the prosperity gospel, that horrible things really can happen to good people – but longterm there has to be something great that comes out of them, even massively outweighs them (Rom 8:18); otherwise, God who loves us would obviously not let them happen. What then was it Job needed? How has Job changed, how has he grown? There are three possible answers: God’s, Job’s, and – James’ …
First then God’s. God states carefully at the finish, twice, that Job has `spoken of Me what is right`, and the three `friends` have not (42:7,8). How? What is this referring to? It’s somewhat surprising, given that Job has been saying numerous things like `God has wronged me… He throws me into the mud` (19:6, 30:19). What has Job said that’s so `right`?
Perhaps very little, yet what he has said now is crucial. He was right, of course, to insist earlier that sin and suffering, his included, don’t have any 1-to-1 relationship. But more probably it’s what Job has said about God in ch42: `I know that… no purpose of Yours can be thwarted… Surely I spoke of things I did not understand… My ears had heard of You, but now my eyes have seen You. Therefore… I repent…` This is repentance because of the greatness of God. There are things going on that are `too wonderful` for our comprehension: that’s what ch1 revealed at the book’s beginning – all along, none of the people involved really knew all that was happening, and we can be the same. (Maybe that’s often so in arguments about secondary doctrines?) But accepting this needs faith, indeed, is faith. Job `no longer needs an explanation for every mystery – he has come to trust God`, says Jonathan Lamb. Habermas summarizes its meaning for us (in a helpful, free downloadable, book about doubt, The Thomas Factor; http://www.garyhabermas.com/books/thomas_factor/thomas_factor.htm): `Job concluded that he knew enough about God to trust Him in those things that he didn’t know. Remember that Job never received an answer from the Lord concerning the reason for his suffering` (nor, indeed, any promise of God’s blessing, at that time); `yet, he was blessed`!
So there’s what God says about Job: he `has spoken what is right`. But what does Job himself say? `I am unworthy… I put my hand over my mouth… I will say no more… I spoke of… things too wonderful for me to know… My ears had heard of You, but now my eyes have seen You. Therefore I despise myself and repent in dust and ashes…` (40:4, 42:3,5). Might this just possibly be said with a slight, humble smile? (I have a relative who quotes the last sentence with a grin when admitting he was wrong.) Maybe so, also if Roger Forster is right that when God says `Brace yourself like a man; I will question you, and you shall answer Me`, there’s an element even of teasing: `If we are able to laugh at ourselves we alleviate some of the pain. It’s as if the Lord is saying to Job, “Come along now, you are acting like a growling animal! Talk properly with me like a man!”` But I think psychiatrist John White gets this right in his wonderful book People in Prayer (also titled Daring to Draw Near), so right that I’ll quote him at length.
It can be enormously positive, says White, to feel small, because something as great as what Job sees of God makes being small `at once fitting and uplifting. One cannot simultaneously be puffed up and [yet] lifted up…. To know that we are small yet accepted and loved, and that we fit into the exact niche in life a loving God has carved out for us, is the most profoundly healthy thing I know… Suddenly saying words of that sort became the sublimest gift that life could offer. [Job] was not only seeing God but seizing the high glory of praising Him… He laughs at himself through his tears. It is good to laugh in the presence of God at our own imbecility… Does Job sound as if he is grovelling? Do you despise people who grovel? Perhaps you don’t understand. What you hate is obsequiousness. When a man gets in the dust before God he is not currying favour. [Job’s] repentance was worship… You cannot retain self-loathing in the presence of [God’s] glory, for the glory burns it all away.` And White defines the implications for us as the book’s readers: `What matters is that God should receive from you the worship that such a God merits. It is His due… Be still by faith in His presence. Acknowledge in words that He is very God of very God, that every breath that fills your lungs comes from Him, that no one else is worthy to rule the universe… The Holy Spirit will teach you how to go on…’
Apostle Peter has a similar experience in Luke 5:`Go away from me, Lord, I am a sinful man!` Humility is too vague a word for this, but otherwise we could say (as indeed I did last post) that this is about humility in the presence of God’s unimaginable greatness. Job, says Crabb, has come to realize that while it is utterly right, even necessary, to pray (as Jesus did) with urgency, passion, and anguish, it is equally `uniquely unbecoming to demand anything of God’; let alone to accuse God and find fault with Him `without knowledge`, as Job realizes with horror that he’s been doing. Job has now seen enough about himself to humbly `let God be God in the way He chooses`, and that decision is crucial to this unique, amazing book. (And this, I think – if we listen carefully to the pointers in the text – is why God’s tour of His awesome creation comes to a sudden halt with a surprising remark about pride, ending with the comment that Leviathan [the emblem, let’s recall, of Satan] `is king over all that are proud` (41:34). Do we see now why God chooses to end by talking about pride, and why Job’s immediate response to this is to repent of it?) `This is what the high and exalted One says`, says Isaiah 57:15, `He who lives forever, whose name is holy: “I live in a high and holy place, but also with the one who is contrite and lowly in spirit; to revive the spirit of the lowly and to revive the heart of the contrite.”` Job had wanted to really meet with God (23:3ff); we do too?
`God loves Job enough to humble him`, says Ash. `…In the presence of the living God, to bow down low and to grasp how great he is and how small I am is a healthy thing… It is the mark of the love of God that he brings Job low… And it is true for us. We often pray for success… and yet so often success leads to pride, and pride to self-confidence, and self-confidence to independence from God, and independence from God leads to hell.` Success: this is where I suspect there’s a link back to Job’s closing words in ch31, `Like a prince I would approach Him.` All these things have happened to someone who is an important leader. (Job was `the greatest man among all the people of the East… as their chief… as a king` (1:3, 29:25).) Perhaps – just as James says that teachers in God’s church will have a higher level of accountability – all this is very, very relevant to Christian leaders, to any of us in any kind of leadership. Perhaps it is almost a compliment from God if ever He invests any hint of such a training in us, risks it with us? We all need this vision, this humility, this fear of the Lord – but leaders, tempted to pride, need it even more than most?
And all this growth, let’s repeat, is the result of truly seeing God (and a `seeing God` that came in a time of deep anguish). `Now that he has been in God’s presence, he humbly bows his head to acknowledge that God knows best` (Jonathan Lamb). Again, it’s like the deeply humbling vision of God’s greatness with which He equips Isaiah to be the greatest of the OT prophets, Isaiah 6. It flows, as Ash says, from worship, even is the same thing as worship. God’s compassionate gift of sheer awe at the vision of His glory is indeed the beginning of wisdom.
But one other thing. It’s always good to ask what the new testament has to say about the old. And for James 5:11 the point of this unique book is perseverance right through the deepest darkness: `We count as blessed those who have persevered. You have heard of Job’s perseverance and have seen what the Lord finally brought about. The Lord is full of compassion and mercy!` `Suffering produces perseverance`, says Paul (who like Job knew what he was talking about); `perseverance, character; and character, hope. And hope does not disappoint us!` (God calls this perseverance Job’s `integrity` in 2:3 (cf 2:9).) `Are you in the dark just now?` asks Oswald Sanders. `Then remain quiet. If you open your mouth in the dark, you will speak in the wrong mood; darkness is the time to listen.` But the really `hard question`, comments Os Guinness, `is whether we can say, “Father I don’t understand you, but I trust you” while we are still in the darkness.` Yet it is both the proof (1 Peter 1:6-7) and the fruit of Job’s genuine, God-empowered faith that he perseveres: amidst all the semi-blasphemous accusations he hurls at God, it shows there is that deep in Job that `knows that my Redeemer lives`, and, amid all the horrendous evil coming his way, longs, longs, to see Him…
In the end, persevering through agony and through God’s complete silence, Job has become more like the Jesus of the cross, Jesus who cried out `My God, my God, why have You forsaken me!`; Jesus who went through all a Job could suffer and so much more; and then, after `enduring the cross… for the joy set before Him`, `sat down at the right hand of the [very] throne of God`. Let’s `fix our eyes` on Him, says Hebrews 12…
And so it is that in ch42 Job who has suffered so much evil actually starts to be a means for bringing God’s goodness again into the world. On God’s calling he prays for the friends who have treated him so utterly insensitively, and that (therefore) he has felt really angry with; and it is after he does so (42:10) that his own situation changes. (`Refusing to forgive those who have hurt us, or who were the cause of our suffering, will only hurt us further`, says Jonathan Lamb. `It often happens that as a person becomes a channel for blessing, their own burdens seem lightened`, writes Forster.) In fact as he does so, God turns his fortunes and he ends up prosperous. This is, of course, the old testament, where the all-important spiritual principles revealed in the new are given physical illustration; new testament prosperity certainly isn’t a matter of acquiring physical riches as it is with Job. (See, for example, Paul in 2 Corinthians 6 and 11, or the Son of Man who had nowhere to lay His head.) But in this book that shows us things going so very wrong for the believer, God complements that by reminding us that, because He is the Lord, ultimately they will most surely go exceedingly right. `Earth has nothing that I desire besides You… Afterwards you will take me into glory`, as Asaph says at the end of his similar experience in the powerful Psalm 73…
Perhaps we can conclude our tour of the unique revelation in this colossal book by recalling Psalm 1, which so appropriately comes next in our Bibles:
`Blessed is the one
who does not walk in step with the wicked..
but whose delight is in the law of the Lord,
and who meditates on His law day and night.
That person is like a tree planted by streams of water,
which yields its fruit in season,
and whose leaf does not wither—
whatever they do prospers.
Not so the wicked!
They are like chaff
that the wind blows away…`
