Our community group is wrapping up our lessons in Job. Job can be a difficult book to understand due to its imagery and cultural background among other things.As we went on the some of the commentaries and books I read fell by the wayside. The most helpful commentary was Christopher Ash’s Job: The Wisdom of the Cross in the Preaching the Word series. It’s length may be intimidating to some, but have no fear.
The best parts of the book have been distilled in a much more economical book by Christopher Ash called Trusting God in the Darkness: A Guide to Understanding the Book of Job. Instead of verse by verse treatment, it is chunk by chunk. Ash breaks it down in digestible pieces and understandable themes. He doesn’t get into Hebrew grammar but keeps it simple and straight forward.
He begins with Getting to Know the Book of Job. He tells of an all too common tragedy that causes people to ask the question “Why?”. In this case a police officer was killed in the line of duty. He was a family man, a church man. Here was a “righteous” man (not perfect) who was senselessly killed. He considers this a “wheelchair question” when we know and love the person who suffers such seeming injustice.
He notes some of the challenges of Job. It is a long book (42 chapters) that takes many twists and turns. It is filled with Hebrew poetry. On one level it can seem obscure to us. But this poetry also is emotional. The author and Author invite us to enter into our uncomfortable emotions.
Do We Live in a Well-Run World?
This question frames the chapter on Job 1:1-2:10. All was well for Job. He was rich, had a big, healthy family. He was a blameless man. The world seemed to be well-run.
“He fears God, bowing down before him in the wonder, love, and awe, recognizing that God alone is the Creator to whom he and his world owe their entire existence.”
Job had integrity or sincerity. His family got along well, and then is was gone in a series of catastrophes. What in the world happened?
We have a scene in the Lord’s throne room. Satan is present along with the sons of God and is questioned by the Lord. The Satan has come from going to and fro in the world. God asks if he has considered Job, calling him blameless, upright revealed in fearing God and avoiding evil. The Satan’s challenge is that he’s not an authentic worshiper, but only worships because God protects him. Take away the blessing, the Satan argues, and supposedly righteous Job will curse you to your face. After Job’s wealth and children are taken from him, he continues to worship the Lord.
Back we go to the Lord’s throne room. It is almost a repeat as God asks the Satan where he’s been and suggest blameless Job. This time the Satan says that God strikes Job, he’ll crack and all will see his true colors. The Satan is given permission to strike Job, but not kill him. We see here that the Satan is not an equal in any way. He must receive permission to strike Job. But Job remains faithful despite the intense pain he feels: emotionally and physically.
Weep with Those Who Weep
Job 3 finds Job upon the ash heap, a garbage heap. Job is not suffering as a result of sin. Ash tells the story of William Cowper to remind us that people who seem blameless still suffer greatly. Like Cowper, Job is experiencing despair which is not the result of unbelief or unforgiven sin. These men went through great darkness. So may we.
Here is the point with Job: he is suffering because he is godly.
Job begins to lament. He seems to go on and on. It can sound wearisome. Job feels very alone despite the arrival of three friends. Soon they will exacerbate his loneliness. Job has no future hope of joy, he can only look back to find joy. He is in despair and introduces the image of Leviathan as the agent of his woes. He wishes he’d never been born.
Ash brings us from the ash heap to the Garden of Gethsemane where the Righteous One who is about to suffer is surrounded by three unhelpful friends. At least they don’t accuse Him, but they do fall asleep repeatedly instead of praying with Him. Both men experience profound loss and loneliness.
What Not to Say to the Suffering Believer
This little chapter covers 23 chapters. Yes, 23. There are plenty of twists and turns but the message of his three friends is pretty much the same. They make the same basis arguments but grow increasingly angry. His friends are not happy with him. They want Job to just shut up and listen. Job isn’t very happy with them either. Here we see what Ash calls “the Scheme” in his commentary, and here simply calls it “their system.”
God is in control. ==> God is fair and just. ==> He punishes the wicked and blesses the righteous. ==> Those who suffer must have sinned and is being justly punished (or if I’m blessed it must mean that I’ve been good)
As a result, his friends offer up accusations of great sin. Job, in their view, must be unrepentant because he suffers. They are throwing all kinds of sins against the wall to see what sticks. They are wrong. Their little logical syllogism lacks three important things. First, they have no place for Satan and spiritual warfare. Evil is a purely human phenomenon. Second, there is no waiting. Justice is swift! We don’t reap what we sow instantaneously. Often the righteous wait for vindication. Third, there is no cross and therefore not righteous sufferer or redemption.
Two Marks of a Real Believer
The next chapter covers the same territory but focuses on Job instead of the message of the friend. Ash uncovers two marks which seem to be paradoxical, and against all our instincts regarding religion. He begins by looking at worship. When worship is costly we can see the authenticity. In the midst of Job’s pain we are going to see worship.
The true believer reckons with the problem of pain. He believes that God is in control of this world, and God has control over our suffering. Job, for instance, sees himself as God’s target for practicing archery. He can’t conceive of anyone being able to overpower God to destroy him. Suffering that is undeserved seems to question God’s control or fairness. This can cause those who believe great pain.
Despite thinking that God has been unfair to him, Job longs to bring his cause to God. He fears God and yet wants an audience. He is in pain, but he wants to worship.
Is God for or against Me?
The next chapter covers only one chapter, 19. The marks of a Christian mean that we are marked by pain and prayer. Suffering produces the question: is God for or against me? If he’s for me, the suffering can’t destroy me though it sure may hurt. If he’s against me, than my despair is well-founded.
Ash argues that Job paints the picture of a monster God: one who torments him. Job believes in his innocence so God has no right to pounce on him. Like so many of us who’ve been falsely accused or suffered without an obvious reason, Job wants to be vindicated. God is treating him like he’s guilty.
While God is sovereign, it is not him who struck Job. He didn’t stretch forth his arm against him. He did permit Satan to stretch forth his arm to harm Job.
“The hands and fingers that destroyed Job’s possessions and killed Job’s children and wrecked Job’s health were the hands of Satan, not the hands of God. Certainly this is the hand of Satan acting with the permission of the Lord and within the strict constraints given by the Lord; but it was Satan’s hand and not God’s who actually did these terrible things. And this is very important.”
God does not act with malice toward Job. Satan does! We see the doctrine of concurrence here. God is proving the veracity of Job’s faith while Satan is trying to prove Job a fraud. Job laments because there is a monster attacking him, but it is Satan not YHWH. The Lord is his redeemer, not his destroyer.
This Redeemer will stand on the earth. All Job has (being a Gentile alive during the time of Isaac or Jacob) is the promise of the Seed of the woman. His longing is not misplaced, but there has come a Redeemer who stood on earth and vindicates all who trust in Him.
Why Will God Not Answer My Question?
Ash then focuses on Job 28 and the search for wisdom. The quest for “treasure” is hard and violent, and the search for Wisdom is compared to mining rather than agriculture. Wisdom is both priceless and unobtainable. This inability to obtain Wisdom means that we should bow before God Only Wise who chooses not to tell us all we want to know (Dt. 29:29). He can arrogantly demand such knowledge or humbly bow before Him.
Why Justification Matters Desperately
We have been reminded that God has spoken, just not all we want Him to say. Discipleship begins, Ash notes, by “bowing in humble fear before God” and walking in the way He has shown. Job compares his life before the Catastrophe (29) and life after the Catastrophe (30). He enjoyed God’s blessing and the respect of peers.
“For Job was not just a man who ‘happened’ to be rich and powerful. He was one who imaged and reflected in his life the character of God who had given him riches and power.”
Job utilizes a chaistic structure in these two chapters. a, b, b’, a’. He is now despised by men and God seems to be mad at him. Job hasn’t changed, just his circumstances. Since he hasn’t changed Job can’t understand the radical change in circumstances.
This is why justification matters so much. Does God really hate him? Did God turn on him or there is something else amiss? This is a most important question when our lives take dramatic downturns without any observable reason.
A Surprising New Voice
From out of nowhere we have Elihu who is burning with anger. He’s angry with Job. He’s angry with Job’s friends who can’t seem to answer Job’s self-justification. Ash is unwilling to dismiss his anger as unjustified and indefensible. Elihu is concerned to defend God’s honor rather than Job’s or his own. Ash is convinced that “Elihu speaks by inspiration of the Spirit as a true and prophetic voice.
Elihu accurately summarizes Job’s argument. He believes that God speaks to us in our pain as well. His argument is similar to C.S. Lewis’ argument in the Problem of Pain. Elihu is not relying on the System or Scheme. He argues for a personal God who does what is best to rescue sinners.
The One Who Is God
Ash notes that a BBC story revealed that God is less influential in people’s lives than David Beckham. The reason seems to be that God could stop suffering if He wanted to. The question that haunts the Book of Job is whether or not God is competent to run this world.
God appears to confront Job (and his three friends). He wants Job to answer His questions instead. The questions begin with the natural realm. For a man who can’t control the natural realm, much less bring it into being, Job’s questions seem off. God’s relentless questions begin with the inanimate aspects of creation and shift to the animal kingdom.
The issue of evil remains. What is God’s relationship to evil?
God’s second speech moves to the moral order. He asks, first, if Job can subdue the proud who plague the earth. If Job can, God will admit that he can save himself and God is unnecessary.
It gets more serious when God brings up Behemoth and Leviathan. Yes, it is poetry but attempts to make these normal creatures stretch even poetic license. Ash notes George Bernard Shaw’s scoffing remark that you can’t explain the problem of evil by pointing to a hippopotamus. These creatures represent death (untameable, nearly everywhere, lurking and ever-hungry) and Satan. Only God can tame these creatures. God is addressing the real reason for Job hardship, the Satanic accusations. Satan can do nothing apart from God’s permission, no matter how fearsome he is to us. This monster is still a creature. Satan is God’s enemy, but not His equal. This creature will eventually be defeated, not by brute strength, but by the weakness of the Redeemer who suffers unjustly and comes under the power of death. He will triumph over these spiritual enemies thru the shame of the cross.
The End Comes at the End
Ash now connects Job with James 5 and James’ comments about him. We are to consider Job and live like Job.
Job persevered in warfare. We are not only on the battlefield but are the battlefield. God and Satan were battling over Job. His point is that Job isn’t just suffering but that Job suffers because He is a believer. Job is a righteous sufferer. As those who are given the righteousness of Christ, we are now righteous sufferers. When we suffer, as professing believers, will we still love God? The truly righteous will. We stand, not by our strength, but by the intercession of Jesus.
Job also perseveres in waiting. This is not a passive waiting, but a prayer-filled waiting. His friends were content with their System, Job wanted God.
James reminds us that all this reveals that God is compassionate and merciful. God has the final word. God has humbled Job and restores Job. His final condition would seem to be greater than his previous condition.
“Job does not suffer because he has sinned, as his comforters would have it; but he has sinned (in some things he has said) because of his suffering.”
Not only does Job have a new family and wealth, Job is to pray for his friends. They need his help. They got it all backwards. He found that the grace of God is greater than the suffering we experience. God displays His mercy and compassion in His people, culminating with the return of Christ when we share in His glory.
Ash ends with laying out, very briefly, what we should expect from the “normal” Christian life: warfare, waiting, humbling, justification and blessing in the end.
As Christopher Ash notes this book is primarily about God and then about Job. It reveals a sovereign and free God that we are to worship even when life is painful and makes no sense.
Ash provides us with a concise, understandable explanation of this important book. This is a book well worth having. And reading. It will uncover your heart: do you live by a Scheme or do you want the Living God whose power is made perfect in your weakness? Do you worship Him because He is God or because you get nice things?
20 Then Job arose and tore his robe and shaved his head and fell on the ground and worshiped. 21 And he said, “Naked I came from my mother’s womb, and naked shall I return. The Lord gave, and the Lord has taken away; blessed be the name of the Lord.” Job 1
9 Then his wife said to him, “Do you still hold fast your integrity? Curse God and die.” 10 But he said to her, “You speak as one of the foolish women would speak. Shall we receive good from God, and shall we not receive evil?” In all this Job did not sin with his lips. Job 2
Read Full Post »