OK, now we’re starting exploring the tough but astonishing book of Job. After last week’s intro, today chapter 1; which has at least two really remarkable insights for each of us.
I guess we all know the basic story of Job. In one utterly tragic, horrible day, his children are all killed; and, to make matters even worse, his possessions are wiped out (ch1). Then, in the midst of his bereavement, he contracts a painful disease (ch2), so that his body is `clothed with worms and scabs` (7:5). At which point the rest of his family desert him (19:13-14); and with all his resources gone this respected leader becomes an utter laughing-stock to the worst people around, who `do not hesitate to spit in my face`. `Terrors overwhelm me… Days of suffering grip me… My body burns with fever… My life ebbs away`. And `I cry out to you, O God, but you do not answer`; on the contrary `[God] throws me into the mud` (ch30). The central chapters of the book give us Job’s cries of outrage and utter horror that he simply doesn’t deserve these catastrophes, and his pleas to God for some explanation; and, in reply, come the really unhelpful though thoroughly religious words of his friends, saying he needs to face up to the fact that his misfortunes are God’s judgment on his sins.
Which, this first chapter is very careful to show us, is simply not so. `There is no one on earth like him`, says God Himself, repeatedly; `he is blameless and upright, a man who fears God and shuns evil.` (1:8, cf 1:1,5, 2:3). (God values and honours people; that’s great!) It’s true that Job knows he isn’t actually sinless (7:21, 9:28, 13:26, 14:4,17); and since the question of sin is so central to this book, there is inevitably a secondary theme, raised by three of the speakers, of `How can a mortal be righteous before God?` (9:2, 14:4,15:14, 25:4). Job knows that only God can solve this problem (14:17,17:3); and as we noted last week, Elihu’s speech shows these prehistoric people already knew that having one’s sins remitted and one’s soul `redeemed from the pit` comes from God `finding a ransom` (33:24,27-28). Whenever human beings are thinking about something important, this gospel issue can’t be far away. But as Roger Forster notes, `righteous` in Job doesn’t mean sinlessly perfect but rather – as it does for us too – `in a right standing before God` (cf 13:18, 40:8); which, ch1 shows us, Job evidently is.
So when God says of Job that he’s `blameless and upright, a man who fears God and shuns evil`, and indeed when the book states this also in its very first verse, it becomes utterly clear (but Christians can need to be reminded of this – even with regard to ourselves!) that suffering doesn’t necessarily imply either sin or God’s displeasure. We may well recall John 9 where the disciples ask Jesus, `Who sinned, this man or his parents, that he was born blind?`, and Jesus’ answer is quite categorical: `Neither!` There’s nothing to suggest that such catastrophes had any cause in Job; on the absolute contrary. Nor do his sicknesses and tragic losses imply any lack of faith. People of faith don’t always get healed, Scripture teaches us elsewhere: think of Trophimus or Timothy (2 Tim 4:20, 1 Tim 5:23). Further, faith isn’t about getting things; faith is a relationship with God, and so it can deepen when like Job we don’t get what we want, or even lose it (1:21) – when we don’t know what’s going on – and yet, we still trust. Such trials come, says apostle Peter, `so that the proven genuineness of your faith— of greater worth than gold… — may result in praise, glory and honour when Jesus Christ is revealed` (1 Peter 1:7). Faith in suffering, when God is hidden, actually flows from and glorifies Him.
But Job’s sufferings do have an immediate cause. And this is where ch1 shows us another factor, something crucial. What happens to Job is part of something cosmic, way beyond his vision and understanding; in a way he doesn’t even conceive, he is doing something phenomenal to the glory of God. Ch1 recounts how Satan challenges God repeatedly that His reign is based entirely on power, and that people worship Him only because of what they get out of the bargain, and because He keeps them from disaster (1:10); following God is, for them, basically a means to an end; not because of anything worthy of worship in God Himself. We’ll come back to applying that to ourselves, but for now let’s note something bigger. This is about the most important issue in the universe, the honour and glory of God. (For some thought-provoking parallels see Eph 3:10, and probably also 2 Sam 12:14, David’s huge fall into adultery that we looked at recently; the gloating `enemies of the Lord` there surely have to be spiritual forces, since no humans knew of David’s sin except Joab.)
When therefore Satan throws out this blasphemy, God doesn’t simply silence him by force. Instead, He allows Satan to assault Job in a way that will demonstrate what Job’s commitment to God really means. Job glorifies God publicly for thousands of years to come by his `perseverance` (James 5:11) that answers Satan’s accusations in the only way possible. But, importantly, Job himself doesn’t know what’s going on. Job is in fact told by the messenger of 1:16 that his losses have been caused by God, although it’s actually Satan (1:12), and in 2:10 and 30:21 he seems to be believing it. No wonder he cries out later against the incomprehensibility of his situation. And even at the end of the book he has received no inkling of Satan’s involvement.
OK then, now the point. We simply have no idea what’s going on in the supernatural realm, what Paul calls the `heavenly places`. Job never gets to learn what we read in ch1; Satan is never mentioned in the rest of the book. So here’s the first big lesson for us: things may happen to us, or to our ministries or whatever, that make no sense at all just in terms of the information we have. There are dimensions and implications to what goes on in our lives of which we simply have no conception; and we must remember that these especially include supernatural and cosmically important events in the `heavenly places`. (We thought about this 3 weeks ago in David’s life-song, 2 Samuel 22.) `Satan is very busy. Every morning we ought to wake up and say, “There is a vicious spiritual battle being waged in me today”`, says Ash; and it’s all the tougher because we may usually have no specific idea at all quite what is happening. (See 1 Peter 4:12-13.)
Yet in our vast ignorance, what we do know (what we can seek God’s help to cling on to), is that God is unimaginably good, God loves us enormously, God is in control. God will not let us suffer like this unless what comes out of it for us will totally outweigh our pain. (`Our present sufferings are not worth comparing with the glory that will be revealed in us` [Rom 8:18], says Paul, and he was someone who surely knew what serious suffering was, 2 Cor 11:23-29.) Still, Jesus also encourages us to pray `Do not lead us to the time of trial` – I’m glad because I hope I never get tested on all this; but perhaps all of us are, in at least some small way sometime. (`Every disciple, called to take up the cross and walk in the footsteps of Christ, must expect in some measure to walk in the footsteps of Job`, says Ash.)
So then the question, here and throughout the book, is how we respond to such a situation. Forster comments that often `the causes of suffering are too complex to unravel`, so the real question cannot be, “What caused the suffering?”, but (alluding to Rom 8:28, `In everything God works for good with those who love Him`, and looking ahead to what happens in Job 42:8-9), “How does God want in this instance to work for good with those who love Him? How can I cooperate?” However, while that is indeed where Job ends up, it is not his situation in ch1, nor in the many chapters that follow. Job’s response to the terrible news in 1:20-21 is indeed agonizedly God-ward (`he fell to the ground in worship`), but also enormous emotion and torment as he tears his robe and shaves his head. As in most human societies (the Quran is a good example of this), atheism is simply not an option for Job; but there is a terrible, disastrous temptation of bidding farewell to God, even cursing Him as Job’s own wife suggests (2:9).
So the `worship` of 1:21 and 2:10 (`Shall we accept good from God, and not trouble?`) is certainly not something someone in agony will achieve or attain once for all. These things zigzag, and we’ll see this throughout the book. `In all this,` says 1:22, `Job did not sin by charging God with wrongdoing`, but that doesn’t seem to be what we find in 7:20-21 or 10:3, or (as the book continues and it gets still harder for Job to cling on), 16:7-17 and then 19:6-7 and 27:1. But yet at the end of this colossal struggle, God hails Job as the one who has `spoken of Me what is right` (42:7). Perhaps then all we can say, all we can pray for, is the `perseverance` that James (5:11) defines as the lesson coming from Job’s history; a longterm discipleship even in incomprehensible situations of deep pain – or deep fruitlessness; and something that also, this chapter challenges us to seek to believe, creates something massive and eternal to the honour and glory of God…
But then lastly I have to ask myself the big question, raised by Satan’s challenge to God, that Atkinson’s Bible Speaks Today commentary sets out: `For some people their faith in God is [should we say `mostly`?] a means to an end… for others, God is [mostly?] seen as an end in Himself… Why do we serve God? Is it for what we can get out of it? Or [is it rooted in] the reality of a personal communion with God Himself – for His sake?`
Why do I? I wonder?
