De Profundis - Chambers, Oswald
Oh the regret, the struggle and the failing!
Oh the days desolate and useless years!
Vows in the night, so fierce and unavailing!
Stings of my shame and passion of my tears!
How have i knelt with arms of my aspiring
lifted all night in irresponsive air,
dazed and amazed with overmuch desiring,
blank with the utter agony of prayer!
F. W. H. Myers11
at this stage of his suffering job portrays the terrific despair that can lay hold of a man; yet job is not interested in himself, his is not the art of expressing the consciousness of every symptom of mind and heart characteristic of so many introspectionists to-day.
1. The anatomy of melancholy ( job 6:114)
oh that my grief were throughly weighed, and my calamity laid in the balances together! ( job 6:2)
As previously stated, no sane man who thinks and who is not a christian can be optimistic. Optimism, apart from a mans belief and his acceptance of Christianity, may be healthy-minded, but it is blinded; when he faces the facts of life as they are, uncoloured by his temperament, despair is the only possible ending for him. There is a melancholy that is insane, it comes from having a fixed idea about things and is the result of a diseased brain; but jobs melancholy is the result of an intense facing of the things that have happened to him, and of his refusal to allow his religious beliefs to blind him to what he sees. Job refuses to tell a lie either for the honour of god or for his own comfort. When a man gets within the outskirts of the experience of jobs suffering and perplexity and is in touch with the problems at the heart of life, he will probably do one of two things either tell a lie for the honour of god and say, i must be much worse than i thought i was, or else accept a form of belief which does away with thinking. Most of us take our salvation much too cheaply. There is no hope for job, and no hope for anyone on the face of the earth, unless god does something for him. One result of the war will be just this, that when a man faces things he knows despair is inevitable unless there is room for god to perform his almighty acts. This line of things may sound foreign to us because we do not think, we are too contented with what we are; we have not been desperately hit. Jobs melancholy is occasioned by his acceptance of the worst point of view, not a temperamental point of view.
2. The anger against misunderstanding ( job 6:1530)
My brethren have dealt deceitfully as a brook, and as the stream of brooks they pass away. ( job 6:15)
Job complains that his friends have dealt deceitfully as a brook, i. E. , they have answered his words and not his meaning (cf. Wilt thou indeed be unto me as a deceitful brook, as waters that are not sure? RV mg. ) a quaker friend of mine referring to a certain man said he did not like him because he did not hate properly. Jobs anger seems to be of the order the apostle Paul mentions be ye angry, and sin not (Ephesians 4:26); his anger was against the misunderstanding of his friends, he had a right to expect that they would not misunderstand. The reason they misunder- stood was that they took jobs words and deliberately
Denied the meaning which they knew must be behind them, and that is a misunderstanding not to be easily excused. It is possible to convey a wrong impression by repeating the exact words of someone else, to con- vey a lie by speaking the truth, and this is the kind of misunderstanding job indicates his friends are guilty of. They have stuck steadfastly to his literal words and taken their standpoint not from god, but from the creed they have accepted; consequently they not only criticise job and call him bad, but they totally misrepresent god. Jobs complaint is not the shallow expression often heard no one understands me; he is complaining of misunderstanding based on a misconstruction. He says in effect, you have given me counsel when i did not ask for it; i am too greatly baffled and can only hold to what i am persuaded of, viz. , that i have not done wrong; but i am indignant with you for not understanding. In a crisis people quote the advice of gamaliel for if this counsel or this work be of men, it will come to nought: but if it be of god, ye cannot over- throw it; lest haply ye be found even to fight against god (acts 5:3839), that is, there is no use fighting against it; whereas the christian standpoint should be one of positive anger when anyone is made to stumble. To remain indifferent when there is injustice abroad is to come under the curse of meroz, who came not to the help of the l ord . . . Against the mighty ( judges 5:23). A conscientious objector is not necessarily a christian. Conscience is a constituent in a natural man, but a christian is judged by his personal relationship to god, not by his conscience.
3. The anguish of misery ( job 7:111)
My days are swifter than a weavers shuttle, and are spent without hope. . . . Therefore i will not refrain my mouth; i will speak in the anguish of my spirit; i will complain in the bitterness of my soul. ( job 7:6, 11)
Misery is an exquisite degree of torture from which there seems no relief; it is very rare. Job suffered in this way, and many people are doing so to-day on account of the war. We all experience these things in a passing mood, but with job it is no mood, he is facing the real basis of life. That is why the book of job is included in the bible. His words are not the expression of ordinary misery and melancholy, they are the expression of a man face to face with the foundation of human life, which is tragic. Every time job opens his mouth he proves that the bot- tom board of rationalism is gone, there is nothing reasonable about what he is going through. The war has proved that the basis of things is what job discovered it to betragic, and men are being driven to realise the need for the redemption. Facing things as they are will reveal the justification of god in the redemption. No amount of sacrifice on the part of man can put the basis of human life right: god has undertaken the responsibility for this, and he does it on redemptive lines. Jobs suffering comes from seeing the basis of things as they are; and, diseased and wild as nietzsche was, his madness was probably from the same source. Imagine a man seeing hell without at the same time perceiving salvation through Jesus Christ his reason must totter. Pseudo-evangelism makes an enormous blunder when it insists on conviction of sin as the first step to Jesus Christ. When we have come to the place of seeing Jesus Christ, then he can trust us with the facing of sin. In dealing with men like job or the apostle Paul we must remember that we are dealing with men whom god uses to give us an estimate of things which we have never experienced. We cannot interpret job in the light of our own moods; the problem of the whole world is mirrored for us in jobs experiences.
4. The appeal for mercy ( job 7:1221)
Job gives utterance to a mood which is not foreign to us when he says, am i a sea, or a whale, that thou settest a watch over me? In certain moods of anguish the human heart says to god, i wish you would let me alone, why should i be used for things which have no appeal to me? In the christian life we are not being used for our own designs at all, but for the fulfilment of the prayer of Jesus Christ. He has prayed that we might be one with him as he is one with the father, consequently god is concerned only about that one thing, and he never says by your leave. Whether we like it or not, god will burn us in his fire until we are as pure as he is, and it is during the process that we cry, as job did, i wish you would leave me alone. God is the only being who can afford to be misunderstood; we cannot, job could not, but god can. If we are misunderstood we get about the man as soon as we can. St. Augustine prayed, o lord, deliver me from this lust of always vindicating myself. God never vindicates himself, he deliberately stands aside and lets all sorts of slanders heap on him, yet he is not in any hurry. We have the idea that prosperity, or happiness, or morality, is the end of a mans existence; according to the bible it is something other, viz. , to glorify god and enjoy him for ever. When a man is right with god, god puts his honour in that mans keeping. Job was one of those in whom god staked his hon- our, and it was during the process of his inexplicable ways that job makes his appeal for mercy, and yet all through there comes out his implicit confidence in god. And blessed is he, whosoever shall not be offended in me, said our lord.