Job 42:7-17

The Exaltation and Death of Job

Job 42:7-17

How God rebukes the wisdom of the wise! How God humiliates the very men who supposed that they were defending and glorifying him! How even Christian ministers may misrepresent God! We may be talking about religion without being religious. These are the thoughts which are excited by the circumstance that when all the comforters had exhausted their accusatory eloquence they had neither comforted Job nor pleased God. It is right The tone that is to comfort the world is not a tone of exasperation: when the world is really comforted in its inner heart it will be by music, by the singing of angels, by the reception of gospels, by communion with the loving God. How sad a thing is this, that men may suppose they are serving God at the very time they are angering him! How infinitely sad it is that a man may suppose he is preaching the gospel when he neither understands what he is saying nor feels it in all its pathos! Are there any critics so intolerable, so discouraging; to man, so unacceptable to God, as those who think they know all things, and can answer all questions, and rebuke all errors and infirmities, and sit in just judgment upon the whole race of mankind? They think they do God service; nay, they are sure of it; they affirm it with great emphasis; they suppose they are the men, and that wisdom will die with them: what if at the end they should argue themselves into a great divine wrath, and plunge themselves by their giddy logic into the very fire of divine judgment?

The three comforters surely spoke up for God nobly, with eloquence, and with great argumentative skill, and with signal critical ability; they did not hesitate to perform upon Job the whole process of vivisection; they were not kept back by any fear of wounding his feelings; they were exasperating preachers; they hurled at Job the largest missiles they could lift and throw: but where was their bowing down of heart, where their tender sympathy, where their desire to know the case in its reality and make the best of it? What if at the last the Christian preacher may have to apologise to the people whom he has been misleading for offering them false doctrine and false comfort! Did the comforters of Job ever say, Before we utter one word about this misery, let us pray? Was there any prayer in the whole process until Job began to pray at the end of the tumultuous colloquy? They began in high argument and in sonorous eloquence, and they hurled the commonplaces of their time at the wounded head of Job, but even Eliphaz the Temanite eldest, and in some respects best, of the comforters did not say, Let us put away all controversy, and come together in prayer without words that mute wrestling agony of the soul which God will understand and not pass by with neglect. What is this gospel we have to preach, and about which some people know everything, and know most about it when they are most ignorant of its spirit? The gospel is not a mechanical arrangement, it is not a new device in theological geometry; we cannot tell whence it cometh, whither it goeth, in many of its effects; we should always be right, however, when we proclaim this doctrine, namely "God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life." That is a sentence which admits of no amendment. We ought to be careful how we enlarge it, for it seems already to cover the very firmament and to flush the whole horizon with infinite and tender colour. What if it be our business to proclaim a gospel rather than explain it? What if there be no explanation of the gospel at all but a great deliverance of it a mighty, gracious, world-wide proclamation? It may come to pass that that may be the right thing after all. We get entangled amongst men's explanations. Men sometimes contradict one another in the very act of explaining what they believe to be the truth. What if it be so arranged that all we have to do is to take up the great music and repeat it, saying, God is love: the Son of man is come to seek and to save that which was lost: the Spirit and the bride say, Come; let him that heareth say, Come; and whosoever will let him come? These words may be so repeated as to affect the heart as no other words can ever affect it. The fussy, intrusive, self-laudatory, and self-trustful intellect, so-called, may force its way to the front and say, What do you mean by "come"? and we may think it reasonable that the question should be asked and that explanation should be given: thus we may alter the terms which God has imposed upon us; thus we may contract into a human argument what was meant to be an infinite revelation. Salvation can never be by argument; otherwise only they who are mentally gifted could be saved. How few there are who could follow an argument! How many there are who could accept an assurance, a gospel! The argument is for the trained, the skilled, the so-called wise; an argument is the very heaven of the wise man the man who is wise in letters and wise after the scale of this world's wisdom: he says he loves to argue. The gospel is not a mere argument of a mechanical or formal kind; it is a declaration that when man lost himself and could not recover himself when there was no eye to pity and no arm to save, God's eye pitied and God's arm brought salvation; and if we trouble that revelation with little questions and criticisms, we may be pleasing our own intellectual vanity at the expense of losing the meaning of God's love. Surely there was nothing wanting on the part of Eliphaz and his two friends in the way of argument, controversy: they stood up to the line well, they acted like skilled controversialists; no sooner did Job speak than they answered him with a multitude of hard words; and if words went for anything, truly they overpowered the poor sufferer with their rough and urgent eloquence. Yet all the time they were but exasperating the God they intended to serve. In all these great things let us pray, let us whisper, let us keep closely to the word as it is written for us, and nearer and nearer still to the gracious Son of God, and add no word to his, for our additions are subtractions, and our explanations do but mystify what might to our hearts in their sincerity and simplicity have been clear.

At the very last Job prayed for his friends. Even Job was wrong so long as he argued. Argument has done very little for the world. It has divided families; it has distracted individual minds; it has broken the devout attention which ought to have been fixed upon vital points; it has appeared to be doing great service when it was only hindering the highest and widest progress of the soul. We are receivers, not associates with God; we are to open our hearts to receive the rain of his truth and love and blessing, and let that rain percolate through the whole being, and then express itself when working in harmony with the life in all that is beauteous and fruitful. "The Lord turned the captivity of Job, when he prayed for his friends," as if to say, You are right; you have abandoned controversy, the clang and exchange of windy words; and you have begun to fall down at the altar, to clasp your hands and lift up your heart's eyes to heaven, and to pray: now all is yours that is of the nature of blessing and comfort and restoration. Let us pray for one another. Many have heard of the patience of Job who seem not to have heard of his prayer. What is this prayer? Is it an attitude? Is it a series of words? No; it is a condition of soul: not a word may be spoken, yet the mind may be deeply involved in the sacred engagement of prayer: it is the expectancy of the heart; it is the look which cannot be turned aside that fixed, ardent, soul-gaze that means to take heaven captive. We do not pray when we use words; the fewer words we use the better: "When ye pray, use not vain repetitions, as the heathen do; for they think that they shall be heard for their much speaking." There is little or no speaking in words; there is but a hinting, a putting up of a sentence as a signal or an indication, a pointing to the blessing which the soul would like to possess. Thus all men can pray. A few only may be able to pray in audible sentences: but salvation is no more of rhetoric and grammar than it is of argument. We can pray always; it is a tear, a look, an ejaculation, a sigh; it is the very mystery of life. Let no man, therefore, say that he cannot pray simply because he has no gift of words. The less gift of words the better. Words have troubled the ages; words have hindered the truth. The true religious condition is a condition of heart, a quality of temper, spirit, disposition, union with the Son of God.

Some have thought that the after-life of Job was not sufficiently blessed considering all the process through which he passed. Have they sufficiently attended to the expressions which are used in this connection? Let us look at this one in particular: Job 42:7 , "my servant Job"; Job 42:8 , "my servant Job"; Job 42:8 , again, "my servant Job." Who can tell how these words were said? They are attributed to the divine lips, and they are not to be read by us with all the fulness of their emphasis and signification. When the Lord said, again and again and again, "my servant Job," who can tell what music was in his tone, what unction, what recognition, what benediction? The anthem closes upon its key-note: at the very first the Lord said "my servant Job"; at the end he says "my servant Job." It is possible for us to say, "Well done, good and faithful servant," and merely to utter these as so many syllables more or less beautiful; but when Jesus Christ pronounces the very same syllables they will mean heaven. Words are not the same in different mouths. Some men have no gift of emphasis, no gift of expression; their words are dissociated, they are unrelated, they are cold, they are not fused by that mysterious power of sympathy and affection which runs them into consolidated beauty and blessing. When the Lord says "my servant Job" a word Job had not heard these many days he forgets his sorrow, and springs as Mary sprang when the supposed gardener addressed her by her name. There was a gardener's way of speaking and a Christ's way: when the Son of God said "Mary," all the past came back instantly, and heaven came more than half-way down to inclose the resuscitated heart in its infinite security. There may, therefore, be a better ending than we had at first supposed. The chapter may not be wanting in the highest force of expression when we really look into its syllables, when we really listen to its palpitation.

"The Lord turned the captivity of Job" took off his fetters, his manacles, and the devil-forged chain that was cast about him, and gave him liberty. Do not ask a free man what liberty means: ask an emancipated slave. "The Lord gave Job twice as much as he had before." This expression "twice as much" is arithmetical, and is but symbolic; it is in no sense literal. "Twice as much" means a million times as much multiplied by itself again and again. When God gives, he gives good measure, heaped up, pressed down, running over: "He is able to do exceeding abundantly above all that we ask or think." So it may be with you, poor suffering friend: this is the month of trial, this is the year of testing, this is the period of affliction and baffling, of bewilderment and stupefaction: hold on; cease from mere argument in words; pray, look heavenward, hope steadfastly in the loving One, and at the end you shall have "twice as much" as God interprets the word "twice."

"The Lord blessed the latter end of Job more than his beginning." There is a "latter end." By that all things must be judged. If you cut the life of Jesus in twain, you might accuse God of having exposed him to the utmost want, loneliness, and cruelty. We must not interfere with the divine punctuation of the literature of providence; we must allow God to put in all the secondary points, and not until he has put the full period may we venture to look upon what he has done and offer some judgment as to its scope and meaning. Let my latter end be like the good man's! He dies well; he dies like a hero; he dies as if he meant to live again: this is not dying, it is but crossing a little stream, the narrow stream of death, a step, and it is passed, and is forgotten. "Let me die the death of the righteous, and let my last end be like his." God may do much in one day; he may clear up all the mysteries of a lifetime by one flash of light. Judge nothing before the time. Let us run with patience the race that is set before us, looking unto Jesus the author and finisher of our faith; who for the joy that was set before him endured the cross, despising the shame looking upon it as a necessary process, and regarding the end as the explanation of all that had gone before.

"In all the land were no women found so fair as the daughters of Job." In Old Testament times great truths had to be hinted by these outward manifestations or indications of the divine providence. God set beauty before the eyes of him who had suffered much, who had felt the burden of darkness. The name of the first was "Jemima," from the Arabic, dove, gentle bird; or, from another origin, day, day-bright, the eye of the morning, the gleaming of a new dispensation. The name of the second, "Kezia" cassia, a fragrant spice. He who had sat long amidst pestilence and rotteness and decay and death, had cassia sent to him from the gardens above. "The name of the third, Kerenhappuch," the horn of beauty, or the horn of plenty: a sign of abundance in the house. All the names were histories or commentaries or promises. Thus God blessed Job in a way Job could understand: he sent him back voices to sing in the house, and when the fair girls passed before him, tinted with the vermilion of nature, he said, This also cometh forth from the Lord of hosts, excellent in counsel, as well as wondrous in working. See God in your family, in that sleeping infant, in that opening mind, in those clinging hands, in those eyes that are quickened into the expression of prayer; see God in the fields, in the sheep, and the oxen, and all the great abundance which is round about.

"So Job died, being old and full of days." We cannot tell what these words meant to an Old Testament mind. "Full of days." They brought to him a sense of completeness. He was not satiated, but satisfied. He said, The circle is complete; I do not want another hour: now I have completed my career; praise God in eternity. All this was significant of the future. We have seen again and again how earthly things have been invested with religious meanings. Abraham was called to go out into a far country, and promised a land that flowed with milk and honey; and when he came near it he said I do not want this; I want a country out of sight, a heavenly Canaan, a city which hath foundations whose builder and maker is God: I am glad I was stirred up from my home, that I am come out, for travelling has done me good; but as the ground has enlarged and I have seen things more clearly in their right proportions and meanings, I do not want the earth; its rivers are too shallow, its oceans too small, its space is a prison: I want heaven. This comes of our training in things inferior and minor and preliminary, if we rightly accept that training. The man who starts with the promise that he shall have gold at the end, if that man should live well, and be industrious with a mind that is honest, when he comes to the gold he will say, There is something beyond this; I am thankful enough for it in the meantime, but is there not a fine gold, a gold twice refined? Is there not some spiritual reward? O clouds! open, and let me see what is above, for I feel that there, even in the great height, must be the gold that would satisfy me. I counsel thee to buy fine gold: seek wisdom; get understanding; for the merchandise of it is better than silver and better and richer than gold.

Then does Job simply die? The Hebrew ends here, but the Septuagint adds a very wonderful verse "And Job died, old and full of days; and it is written that he will rise again with those whom the Lord raiseth." There needed some touch of immortality to complete the tragedy. Is there no immortality in the Old Testament? I hold that there is immortality in the very creation of man: to be a man is to be immortal. Where is it said, "The Lord made man rational"? any more than it is said, "God made man immortal"? Everything is said in this word "In the image of God created he him." That is reason; that is responsibility; that is immortality; that is but minor divinity. Have we laid the right emphasis upon the word "man" when we read of his creation? It would be a most noticeable thing, amounting to a conviction of the righteousness and goodness of God, if the Gentiles knew the doctrine of immortality when the patriarchs and Jews had been denied the realisation of that opportunity. Long before Christ came, and in countries where the name of Christ had never been mentioned until within recent years, the doctrine of immortality was affirmed. Plato, the most spiritual of the philosophers, believed in life after death; Socrates with all his accumulated wisdom taught the doctrine of life after death; in the Indian philosophies we find the declaration of a belief in life after death: these Gentiles were groping in darkness, or in twilight at best: wondrous if Plato, Socrates, and some of the great heathen thinkers in other lands had discovered the doctrine of immortality which was hidden from the men who were specially chosen of God to be the custodians of the truth, the depositaries of the very principles of the Church. I take it therefore, rather, that the whole doctrine of immortality is assumed, as is the reason of man, as is the responsibility of man; that it is involved in the very constitution of man. It is not my belief that God made man mortal. He made man, as to his thought and purpose, immortal: for man was made in the image of his Maker. Whatever may have been the condition of Old Testament saints, there can be no doubt about the position of man now, for life and immortality have been brought to light in the gospel. Jesus Christ boldly proclaimed the great doctrine of life after death, and he brought life and immortality to light; he did not create a new epoch, introduce a new series of thoughts, but he threw light upon ancient obscurities, and showed what marvellous assumptions had underlain the whole scheme of history and providence. "This is life eternal, that they might know thee, the only true God, and Jesus Christ, whom thou hast sent." "Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, which according to his abundant mercy hath begotten us again unto a lively hope by the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead, to an inheritance incorruptible, and undefiled, and that fadeth not away, reserved in heaven for you, who are kept by the power of God through faith unto salvation." This is our joy supreme, triumphant joy. "This corruptible must put on incorruption, and this mortal must put on immortality. So when this corruptible shall have put on incorruption, and this mortal shall have put on immortality, then shall be brought to pass the saying that is written, Death is swallowed up in victory. O death, where is thy sting? O grave, where is thy victory?" The last enemy that shall be destroyed is death, and that which shall be left shall be immortality, which being interpreted from the standpoint of Christ's cross means, not only longer life, but larger life, purer life, life consecrated to all high service, still finding its heaven in obedience, still finding its beginning and its ending in the eternal God.