Job: Jesus the Suffering Redeemer
Chp. 1-3 Stripped of security
Chp. 4-37 Why?
Chp. 38-42 Faith’s sight
We have left the historical books to the poetic ones, and we start with a book that bridges the two, Job. The style of writing is very much poetry, but Job was an actual person and the events recorded actual events thus Job is very much history. Job is thought by many to be the oldest book in the Bible set in the time frame of Abraham though written at a later date this book probably fits between the 11th and 12th chapters of Genesis some time after the tower of Babel but before the time of Abram. There are several reasons for this opinion:
- His long life span fits this time as he lived close to 200 years
- His wealth is measured in terms of livestock and not gold and silver
- He is the priest of his family as was Abraham
- No mention of Israel or even the Hebrew people
- The murder of his family by the Chaldeans who were nomadic at this time and not city dwellers as they were later
- Job uses the word “Shaddai” or “Almighty” for God 31 times, whereas it is only used 17 times in the rest of the Old Testament.
- Ezekiel in 14:14 mentions Job as a historical person as does James in 5:11
The authorship of this book is unknown some say it was written by either Job himself or Elihu, while others suggest Moses or one of the prophets. The name “Job” has two possible meanings:
- Persecuted one
- Repentant one
And both meanings can fit this book!
Chp. 1-3 Stripped of security
The question that most, like Job, want to be answered is: “Why do seemingly senseless tragedies invade my life”. What we shall see is that this book is not a book of solutions rather it is a book of revelation of both the human experience and God. Years ago Rabbi Harold Kushner’s three-year-old son was diagnosed with a terminal degenerative disease that would take his life during his early teens.
He faced one of life’s most difficult questions: “Why, God?” Years later, Rabbi Kushner wrote a book in an attempt to answer that question called “When Bad Things Happen to Good People” which spoke candidly of the doubts and fears that arise when tragedy strikes. The first thing we learn in Chapter 1:1-5 is that Job is not a man that one would think would be a candidate for such disasters as befall him.
- He has moral integrity
- A selfless service to God
So why do these things happen to him, why is he a candidate?
Now Job was not privy to what we are in the book that bares his name as we are told in 1:7 of the accuser who has come before God “From going to and fro on the earth, and from walking back and forth on it.” The answer to “Why do bad things happen to good people” is we have an enemy who according to Peter in 1 Peter 5:8 is our “adversary the devil walking about like a roaring lion, seeking whom he may devour.”
Senseless suffering comes from a combination of satan’s continual challenge to the goodness of God’s reign especially in hearts that have embraced His love for them. Our fleshly pursuit to find significance and comfort in things apart from our trust in God. Listen to Job’s own confession with regard to the second part of this in chapter 3:25 where he confesses, “For the thing I greatly feared has come upon me, and what I dreaded has happened to me.”
A brief look at satan’s words before the Lord in chapter 1:10-11 is quite revealing as satan said. “Have You not made a hedge around him, around his household, and around all that he has on every side? You have blessed the work of his hands, and his possessions have increased in the land. But now, stretch out Your hand and touch all that he has, and he will surely curse You to Your face!”
Satan’s premise before God is that Man’s worship of Him is based upon self-interest in what God gives us and Job will at God’s allowance have that theory put to the test. A general observation of these first chapters reveals that humanity seeks security and identity in 1 of five things and as Job will discover through this trial only one can provide true security and identity. Job will lose three of these things in the first two chapters and will discover that the fourth will be lost to him from chapters 3-38. In fact everything of Job’s life to which he had attached some measure of security and identity will be stripped away and he will come close to losing the only thing that can weather the storms of life! What are these things?
- 1:13-17 Finances: In successive raids the Sabeans; (who according to Isa. 43 and 45 were men of stasher and merchants and according to Gen. 10:7 from Africa), they took away the oxen, donkeys, and servants. The fire came down and took the sheep, and more servants. Then the Chaldeans came in three raids taking the camels and more servants. At time a man’s wealth was not measured by gold or silver but rather by livestock and servants which would have made Job a multi-billionaire.
- 1:18-19 Family: To make matters worse while Job is being informed about his financial ruin he learns that his seven sons and three daughters (1:2) have been killed in a tornado that struck the oldest son’s house as they were all gathered at a party. And what do we hear from Job in response to the loss of his finances and his family?
- 1:20-22 “Then Job arose, tore his robe, and shaved his head; and he fell to the ground and worshiped. And he said: Naked I came from my mother’s womb, And naked shall I return there. The Lord gave, and the Lord has taken away; Blessed be the name of the Lord.” In all this Job did not sin nor charge God with wrong.” Even though Job had lost his wealth, lost his children he still realized that the sum total of his being was more than finances and family. Job was more than what he possessed and more than the intimate relationships that he had so enjoyed.
- 2:3-7 Fitness: Though Job clung to the Lord and didn’t blame God satan still had yet another test and this time it was “skin for skin…all that a man has he will give for his life”, satan said. “Touch his bone and his flesh and he will curse you to your face.” So we are told in 2:7 “Satan went out from the presence of the Lord and struck Job with painful boils from the sole of his foot to the crown of his head.”
- So horrible was this illness that even Job’s beloved wife in 2:9 says, “Do you still hold fast to your integrity? Curse God and die!” Yet we still see Job clinging to the Lord as he replies to her in 2:10 “You speak as one of the foolish women speaks. Shall we indeed accept good from God, and shall we not accept adversity?” In all this Job did not sin with his lips.”
- Job though now stripped of his finances, family, and fitness still saw himself connected to God’s goodness and grace. Job is even disconnected from his own flesh in his bride and yet does not see his circumstances apart from first noting his loving relationship with his maker. Job has not lost the anchor of his soul even at the price of his greatest earthly companion.
- 2:11-13 Friends: So bad was Job’s condition that we are told in 2:12 that they did not recognize him. Oh and what friends they were as they came to mourn with him and comfort him and so they did for seven days and seven nights without a word they just wept and grieved for their beloved friend. Oh how I wish I could stop here but listen to Job’s own words as three of them each debate Job three times and in 16:2 he says to them “I have heard many such things; miserable comforters are you all!”
- If you get nothing else dear ones from this study in Job, get this! We have all said these words of Job and we each had these words said about us. How far better it would have been to have just stayed by our friend’s side and wept and grieved and kept our mouths shut! Learn the lesson that Jesus has taught us; remember that after Lazarus’s death he stayed by the tomb and wept.
Now devoid of all (Finances, Family, Fitness and Friends) that man so often places before the only thing that can bring comfort, security, and identity Job in 3:1 “opened his mouth and cursed the day of his birth.” Oh he did not take his brides advice and curse God and die but he did curse his life and wished his death. He has now lost even the sense of the intimacy of God, gone is the sense that God is in control, and what is left is only two things:
- The sense of God
- The sense of self
He wishes that the very day of his birth be stricken from the calendar. Job asks in 3:11 “Why did I not die at birth, why did I not perish when I came from the womb?” Again notice Job’s confession as to the place that Finances, Family, Fitness, and Friends played in his life now that they had been stripped as he says in 3:25 “For the thing I greatly feared has come upon me, and what I dreaded has happened to me.” Is this coming clearer to you my friend?
Martyred missionary Jim Elliot said it this way, “He is no fool who gives up what he can never keep gaining what he can never lose!” As wonderful as Finances, Family, Fitness and Friends are they will never be the ONE thing that can never be taken from us. And what is that ONE thing? Listen to what the author of Hebrews in 13:5 tells us as we are told that “He Himself has said, “I will never leave you nor forsake you.”
Chp. 4-37 Why?
Now on to the scene after 7 days and nights, three of Job’s comforters speak as to the question we all want to know WHY! Elphaz, Bildad, and Zophar each take three cracks at Job each attempting in different ways telling Job that this has come upon him as a result of sin. Job does not fare better in his quest for the answer to WHY as he comes up with three complaints:
- God does not hear: 13:22-24 “Call, and I will answer; or let me speak, then You respond to me. How many are my iniquities and sins? Make me know my transgression and my sin. Why do You hide Your face, and regard me as Your enemy?” There is nothing worse when afflicted and wanting to know the answer to why that you wait and hear nothing. But my friend the comfort your soul longs for is not in the answer to why but in the LOVE of the WHO!
- God is punishing me: Job 7:19-21 “How long? Will You not look away from me, And let me alone till I swallow my saliva? Have I sinned? What have I done to You, O watcher of men? Why have You set me as Your target, So that I am a burden to myself? Why then do You not pardon my transgression, And take away my iniquity? For now, I will lie down in the dust, And You will seek me diligently, But I will no longer be.” Have I somehow committed the unpardonable sin, we want to know.
- Is there no way out of this? All of us have gone through the hopelessness of WHY and have wondered in the words of David Gilmore of Pink Floyd fame when he wrote in a song “There’s no way out of here When you come in, You’re in for good” “There are no answers here, When you look out, You don’t see in, There was no promise made, The part you played The chance you took”
- God allows the wicked to prosper but I’m punished: In chapter 21:7, 14-15 Job writes; “Why do the wicked live and become old, Yes, become mighty in power? Yet they say to God, ‘Depart from us, For we do not desire the knowledge of Your ways. Who is the Almighty, that we should serve Him? And what profit do we have if we pray to Him?” Oh who has not felt that God is unfair and those who do not deserve to get what they have gone unpunished while we who love Him are based?
Yet with this said there are some amazing moments of clarity in Job’s own words such as Job 9:2 “How can a man be righteous before God?” Or 14:1 where Job says, “Man who is born of woman is of few days and full of trouble.” In the same chapter, he asks in 14:14 “If a man dies, shall he live again? All the days of my hard service I will wait, Till my change comes.” Then we read his words in 16:21 where he says, “Oh, that one might plead for a man with God, as a man pleads for his neighbor!”
Job still believes in God but now thinks that He is at a distance. Then out of nowhere a glimmer of faith in 19:25-27 where Job writes “For I know that my Redeemer lives, And He shall stand at last on the earth; And after my skin is destroyed, this I know, That in my flesh I shall see God, Whom I shall see for myself, And my eyes shall behold, and not another. How my heart yearns within me!” Only to later sink back into despair in Job 23:3-4 where Job writes, “Oh that I knew where I might find Him that I might come to His seat! I would present my case before Him And fill my mouth with arguments.”
It is not until Elihu enters the debate that Job begins to hear some insight as Elihu writes in 33:12-14 “Look, in this, you are not righteous. I will answer you, for God is greater than man. Why do you contend with Him? For He does not give an accounting of any of His words. For God may speak in one way, or in another, yet man does not perceive it.” In 33:23-24 Elihu continues saying, “If there is a messenger for him, a mediator, one among a thousand, to show man His uprightness, then He is gracious to him, and says, ‘Deliver him from going down to the Pit; I have found a ransom” Finally Elihu says in 36:22-24, “Behold, God is exalted by His power; who teaches like Him? Who has assigned Him His way, or who has said, ‘You have done wrong’? Remember to magnify His work, of which men have sung.”
Chp. 38-42 Faith’s sight
God had not said a word to Job, nothing about sin not a sentence about loss or sorrow. God offers nothing in explanation of the mysteries of Job’s loss that he so wanted an explanation for. Instead in chapter 38, the Lord answers Job out of the whirlwind and questions Job making sure that Job understands His relationship with Him and who He is. God passes His creative powers before Job to which Job is a mere spectator. He invites Job to take His seat as governor of the universe and gives two illustrations of purpose and his power as seen in the behemoth (40:15) and the leviathan (41:1) to which Job can only reply in 42:6 “Therefore I abhor myself and repent in dust and ashes.”
Job had challenged God to come out from hiding and when God obliges him Job responds in 40:4-5 “Behold, I am vile; what shall I answer You? I lay my hand over my mouth. Once I have spoken, but I will not answer; yes, twice, but I will proceed no further.” Think of this God has without a word about sin or salvation and only as a result of unveiling the power of His glory silenced Job and brought him to repentance. Oh, dear ones the answer is not in the explanation of WHY but rather in the revelation of WHO! The final outcome is that God restores double everything Job has lost with the exception of his children as he is blessed with 10 more. Ah but why not double them as well? Well, my friend they were doubled as the first ten were never lost to him only placed into His master’s loving arms. Oh that we could say as Job did in 23:10 after such a time as this that “He knows the way that I take; when He has tested me, I shall come forth as gold.”