Job: When Life Doesn't Make Sense--God

As with many books of Scripture, the most fascinating and important character is not the one the book is named after (in this case, Job) but rather the mysterious and hidden God who works through the other characters. As previously mentioned, the driving question of this book is posed by the Satan in 1:9-11. Much of Job’s story is about testing this hypothesis that people will only serve God for selfish reasons. However, there is another test being conducted…Job’s test of God.

Throughout this book, we’re forced to wrestle with theodicy (this is just a word that means, “If God is (1) all powerful; and (2) all loving; then why is there so much unjust suffering in the world?) Job wishes to put God to the test and demands answer for why this has come upon him. The counselors—fearful of having God put to the test—turn the situation back on Job and examine him. They pronounce Job to be responsible for all of his own sufferings and God to be blameless. Often, when people question why God allows terrible things to happen, we fall back into responses like those of the counselors (e.g., God didn’t really do it…He didn’t want it to happen…etc.) While those things may be true, they don’t evade the central problem that if God is, in fact, all powerful (and we believe He is) then He could stop evil. He could at least, stop little children from being molested (for example).

There is no easy way to solve the problem of theodicy. That’s another of the main points of Job. In fact, we cannot solve the problem at all. As Job learns, all we can do is have faith in God that despite the seeming victory of evil, in the end His will is being worked for all Creation…and that it is a gracious will. We can have no guarantee. We can have no binding legal contract with God for, as Job says, “Who can bring the Almighty to court?” In the end, the only assurance we can have that God will be there for us is His own word that He will be so. That’s just going to have to be good enough…because that’s all there is.

You will note, that Job never receives answer to the question, “Why did this happen to me.” What he receives, instead, is a visit and a vindication from God. The thing that Job needed most was not an answer…but his God. At times in life, we come to the place where words and explanations and rationality are useless. They have done all they can. At those times, there is nothing left to lean on except faith and one’s experience of fellowship with God.

The end of the dialogue [in chapter 28] teaches that people cannot find wisdom, whose dwelling place is known only to God, [except] in the fear of God; thus, this hymn judges the counsel of the comforters as lacking in wisdom…In the epilogue God will confirm this…by saying that the three friends have not spoken about Him rightly. (42:7-9)

Job also knows that in court he must have a witness to testify on his behalf, a witness more credible than the condemning testimony of his body. At this point, Job’s faith in God rises above his experience of suffering leading him to declare that God is his Witness (16:19), even his Redeemer (19:25-7), Whose testimony will vindicate him. Still, his pain terrorizes him and his dread is compounded by God’s silence. Finally, his confidence in his own innocence and God’s justice drives him to take a desperate course that will force God to act: He swears an avowal of innocence (chs. 29-31). Now God must answer him; for God to remain silent would be to concede Job’s claim to innocence.

Addressing Job, God affirms that He has structured the world exactly according to His blueprints (38:4-8). With this metaphor He claims that He has built justice into the structure of the universe. Moreover, God asserts that no corner of the world is outside His authority (38:16-24), thereby refuting any theory that injustice and suffering exist because God is in a struggle with a strong foe…God brings Job to realize that no human being has a proper perspective to judge the course of matters in the universe, let alone to accuse God of acting unjustly. The foundation of God’s argument in His speeches is that power and wisdom (justice) are one in the Supreme Ruler of the universe.

Awed by God’s majesty and overwhelmed that God in grace reasons with him, Job surrenders his complaint against God, realizing that a person must surrender even his rights to God because God is Lord. In yielding himself to God Job reveals beyond any doubt that he serves God out of love, not for material gain or prestige…In praise of God Job confesses, “I had heard You with my ears, but now my eyes have seen You.” (42:5). Clearly the author finds the profoundest personal answer to undeserved suffering to reside in the divine-human encounter. That God both appears to Job and speaks with him means that Job’s encounter is more than a mystical experience with a numinous force; it is a meeting with the personal God. God’s presence authenticates Job, drawing him out of his self-love to focus his affection on God. Job gladly abandons the complaints against God, conscious of the fact that he can trust God in His grace to accomplish that which is worthwhile from his undeserved suffering.
--[John E. Hartley, The Book of Job (NICOT series), (Eerdmans, 1998), 44-5, 49-50]

What Would God Do?

I had occasion some time ago to hear a gentleman speak about the small, struggling congregation of which he is a member. Apparently the church has struggled for a number of years. At one point a previous minister stood on the steps of the church building and announced: “God has abandoned this church.” The gentleman relating the story seemed to reject the very possibility of such a thing. His appeal was based on Jesus’ promise that “I will never leave you, nor forsake you.” (I assume he was referencing the King James Version of Hebrews 13:5) I don’t know the particulars of this situation. Perhaps this was simply a case of a frustrated preacher seeking to place the blame for his own failures on someone else. Frankly, the particulars are irrelevant to the basic point I want to discuss.

I am concerned by the near-certainty many Christians seem to have that God would "never" do such a thing. Of course, this is a discussion that can degenerate into semantics (e.g., What, precisely, do we mean by “abandon”? Does God abandon us, or do we abandon Him? Etc.) It is not that I think these points are invalid. (In Jer. 5:23, in fact, God speaks explicitly of the people having “turned away and abandoned Me.”) Yet I suspect that such digressions are often pursued simply because they afford a convenient way to dodge the uncomfortable question: Is it possible that God may actively bring great misfortune--and even suffering--upon people (even His own people) specifically in punishment for their sins? If we answer that it is at least possible, what are the implications of this possibility for our interpretation of and teaching about suffering?

It has been my experience that in cases of suffering and/or misfortune—the near-ubiquitous response of American Christians is to say, “God didn’t do that. God didn’t bring that about. God doesn’t do that kind of thing”

Yet the fifth chapter of Jeremiah testifies to at least the possibility that those who were once the apple of God’s eye can so degrade themselves and reject the LORD that they are—for want of a better word—abandoned by Him. Consider:

Go down the rows of the vineyards and destroy the grapevines, leaving a scattered few alive. Strip the branches from the vines for these people do not belong on the LORD. The people of Israel and Judah are full of treachery against Me,” says the LORD. They have lied about the LORD and said, ‘He won’t bother us! No disasters will come upon us. There will be no war or famine. God’s prophets are all windbags who don’t really speak for Him. Let their predictions of disaster fall on themselves!” Therefore, this is what the LORD God of Heaven’s Armies says: “Because the people are talking like this, My messages will flame out of your mouth and burn the people like kindling wood. O Israel, I will bring a distant nation against you, says the LORD…They will devour the food of your harvest; They will devour your sons and daughters. They will devour your flocks and herds; they will devour your grapes and figs. And they will destroy your fortified towns, which you think are so safe…And when your people ask, “Why did the LORD our God do all this to us?” you must reply, “You rejected Him and gave yourselves to foreign gods in your own land. Now you will serve foreigners in a land that is not your own.” – Jeremiah 5:10-15,17,19.

Reflections Questions
1. Compare Jeremiah 5:1 to Genesis 18:23-33. What seems significant to you about these passages? How do you think the first hearers of Jeremiah’s oracle would have understood his message in light of their knowledge of the Abraham story?

2. It is sometimes conceded that God came in temporal judgment on people in the Old Testament, but He has ceased to operate in that fashion since the coming of Jesus. Now all punishment inflicted by God is—according to this argument—reserved for the Final Judgment. Yet if this is the case, how do we explain:

-The case of Ananias and Sapphira? (Acts 5:1-5)
-Paul’s warning to the Corinthian Christians that “if you eat the bread or drink the cup [of the Lord’s Supper] without honoring the body of Christ, you are eating and drinking God’s judgment upon yourself. That is why many of you are weak and sick and some have even died.” (1 Cor. 11:29-30)
-The warnings of the Resurrected Jesus:
*To the church at Ephesus: “I will come and remove your lampstand from its place among the churches.” (Rev. 2:5)
*To the church at Thyatira: “I will throw [that Jezebel] on a bed of suffering, and those who commit adultery with her will suffer greatly unless they repent and turn away from her evil deeds. I will strike her children dead. Then all the churches will know that I am the One Who searches out the thoughts and intentions of every person. And I will give to each of you whatever you deserve.” (Rev. 2:22-23)
*To the church at Laodicea: “Since you are like lukewarm water, neither hot nor cold, I will spit you out of My mouth!” (Rev. 3:16)