Problemata mundi - Chambers, Oswald
Hast thou considered my servant job, that there is none like him in the earth, a perfect and an upright man, one that feareth god, and escheweth evil? Job 1:8
The book of job mirrors for all time the problem of things as they have been, as they are, and as they will be until they are altered by the manifestation of a new heaven and a new earth. When things go well a man does not want god, but when things get difficult and suffering begins to touch him, he finds the problem of the world inside his own skin. The slander of men is against god when disasters occur. If you have never felt inclined to call god cruel and hard, it is a question whether you have ever faced any problems at all. Jobs utterances are those of a man who suffers with- out any inkling as to why he suffers; yet he discerns intuitively that what is happening to him is not in gods order, although it is in his permissive will. All through, job stands for two things: that god is just, and that he is relatively innocent. Remember, job was never told the preface to his own story; he did not know that he had been chosen to be the battleground between god and Satan. Satan contention was that no man loved god for his own sakedoth job fear god for nought? Job only loves you because you bless him, let me curse his blessings and i will prove it to you. Satans primary concern is to sneer against god, he is after disconcerting god, putting god in a corner, so to speak, where he will have to take action along satans proposed lines.
There are circumstances in life which make us know that satans sneer is pretty near the mark. I love god as long as he blesses me, saves my soul and puts me right for heaven; but supposing he should see fit to let the worst things happen to me, would i say, go on, do it and love him still? The point is that gods honour is at stake in a man who suffers as did this perfect and upright man. Part of the problem was that in the bargain Satan made with god, he implied that god must keep out of sight; and god did, he never once showed himself to job. The presentation of the controversy between god and Satan is such that Satan has everything on his side and god nothing on his, so much so that god dare not say a word to job till he had proved himself worthy. Job cannot answer one of the charges the friends bring against him, he tears their arguments to shreds in the fervour of his pain, yet he clings to it, i will believe god, in spite of everything that seems to be contradicting his character.
The apostle James talks about the patience of job job patient! He was patient, but only to god. There is nothing logical about job, his statements are wild and chaotic, but underneath there is an implicit understanding of gods character. He is sure of god even though he seems to be doing everything to ruin him, and he draws steadily nearer god as his friends withdraw themselves from him, heaping their anathemas upon him. They slander job while standing up for god; but in the end god says, ye have not spo- ken of me the thing that is right, as my servant job hath. The citadel of true religion is personal relationship to god, let come what will.
Where does our mind rest regarding suffering? The bible makes little of physical suffering. The modern mind looks on suffering and pain as an unmitigated curse; the bible puts something akin to purifying in connection with suffering, e. G. , for he.
That hath suffered in the flesh hath ceased from sin (1 peter 4:1). The thing that moves us is the pathos arising from physical suffering; the anguish of a soul trying to find god we put down to lunacy. The only way traditional belief can be transformed into a personal possession is by suffering. Look at what you say you believe, not an atom of it is yours saving the bit you have proved by suffering and in no other way.
Never run away with the idea that Satan is sceptical of all virtue, he knows god too well and human nature too well to have such a shallow scepticism; he is sceptical only of virtue that has not been tried. Faith un-tried is simply a promise and a possibility, which we may cause to fail; tried faith is the pure gold. Faith must be tried, otherwise it is of no worth to god. Think of the dignity it gives to a mans life to know that god has put his honour in his keeping. Our lives mean more than we can tell, they mean that we are fulfilling some purpose of god about which we know nothing any more than job did. Gods government of the world is not for material prosperity, but for moral ends, for the production of moral characters, in the sense of holy characters. Time is nothing to god.
. . . The lord gave job twice as much as he had before. . . . So the lord blessed the latter end of job more than his beginning ( job 42:10, 12). The charge is made that because god gave job back his material prosperity, therefore the whole argument of the book falls to the ground; but the blessing of god on job was nothing more than an outward manifestation accompanying the certainty he now possessed, viz. , that he loves god and that god loves him. It is the overflowing favour of god poured out on a loved son who has come through the ordeal and won his way straight through to God.