Tuesday, March 29, 2011

The Ultimate Issue in the Universe -- The Book of Job

A lot of people think that the book of Job is about suffering. That is surely a major theme. Others say it is the sovereignty of God. Again, no doubt, a major theme of the book. But I believe that the overall subject of the book of Job is God's wisdom and integrity.

Job was almost certainly the first book of the Bible written. Genesis goes back to the beginning of creation, but Moses wrote it long after Job was here and gone. In the orthodox Hebrews scriptures, Job is rightly placed first. In my opinion, not just because of its ancient roots, but because it addresses the most important issue in the universe: Was God's plan to create a race of people in His own image to voluntarily love and serve Him a sham or a success? And more specifically, was this plan wise and honest or foolish and manipulative?

In the beginning of the book we see that Satan is briefly allowed into God's presence and God points to Job as Exhibit A of how well His plan is working. Satan immediately responds by questioning the very foundation of God's plan. Satan's thesis is that Job only respects God because God is good to him. Satan claims that if God would take everything away from Job, he would no longer love and trust Him. God allows Satan to take away Job's wealth and children, which Satan did. Still Job respected God. Then Satan came back to God and said that if God took away Job's health, he would turn on Him. Again God allowed Satan to carry this out. But Job responded righteously once again. God's wisdom and integrity was upheld and Satan's accusation was crushed. But then beginning in chapter three, we have the account of Job's struggle to come to grips with why all this has happened to him. Job's friends are initially a comfort to him, but then they begin to accuse him of sinful behavior. He protests and claims that he is innocent of any serious wrongdoing. Along the way, they press their accusations more strongly, and Job defends himself and openly wishes that he, or someone else, could make his case before God. After all the parties have had their say, God finally speaks up in chapters 38-41, and asks Job over seventy questions. All of which are designed to demonstrate that Job does not have sufficient experience and knowledge about God's creative work to question God about anything. Job responds by saying "I repent" (42:6), but he is not admitting to sins that he was accused of, but rather the sin of thinking he had the right or wherewithal to question God's actions toward him. He relinquishes all rights to question what God has done or to insist on an answer from God about his situation.

In the end, God restored Job's health, wealth and family (42:7-17), although He was under no obligation to do so. What's more, God never explained to Job, according to this account, why Job had to go through such horrific trials. And that's the point, God created us to love and trust Him. God being God does not have to explain Himself. He may, as He has done in this book, explain things to a certain extent. He has given us general insight as to why bad things may happen to us. It could be temporal discipline for our sin. But it could also be that in the on-going contest between Himself and Satan, He is using us as an example of someone who will trust, love and obey Him no matter what. God may point to us as more proof that His creative plan was wise and legitimate. Hopefully we can pass the test as Job did. So help us, Lord!

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