Bibliotheca
Sacra 97 (386)(Apr 1940) 211-16.
Copyright © 1940
by
Job and the Nation
JOB AND THE NATION
Third Study: Face To
Face With The Lord
By
CHARLES LEE FEINBERG, TH.D.
(Concluded from the January-March Number,
1940)
The Book of Job reveals a victory but
it is not the vic-
tory of man's remarkable
reasoning, nor the victory of su-
perior argumentation, but the
blessed victory of faith (
This
triumph was not won in a moment nor by one leap, but
in definite and progressive stages. When the last
words of
Job
are given in chapter 31, his friends are still of their
opinion and Job is still of his conviction. The
problem is
deadlocked, as it were. The argument of the book is
sum-
marized in 32:1-3. "So
these three men ceased to answer
Job,
because he was righteous in his own eyes. Then was
kindled the wrath of Elihu
the son of Barachel the Buzite,
of the family of Ram: against Job was his wrath
kindled,
because he justified himself rather than God.
Also against
his three friends was his wrath kindled, because
they had
found no answer, and yet had condemned Job."
Then Elihu
comes preparing the way for the words of the Lord
which
follow. We take his words as appropriate because the
Lord
utters no rebuke of him later. In a sense he is the
answer
to Job's burning desire that he might have a Daysman
(mochiach, lit. an umpire, arbiter)
to stand between God and
himself (
The burden of Elihu's
several addresses is : (1) God is
infinitely and eternally greater than man in power.
In view
of this it behooves man to be in a place of submission
before
his Creator. (2) God is infinitely greater than man
in
dom. He has no need to detail His ways and plans to
man,
even if man could understand them (33:13 ). Man does
best
(when he awaits God's solution which He alone can give and
will give when it pleases him. (3) God is infinitely
greater
than man in righteousness. "Far be it from God,
that he
should do wickedness; and from the Almighty, that he
should
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commit iniquity. . . Yea, of a surety, God will not do
wick-
edly, neither will the
Almighty pervert justice" (34:10, 12).
It
is impossible for us fully to conceive how sinful it is for
us to condemn the righteous and just God, or seek
to maintain
our righteousness at the expense of His. (4) God is
infinitely
greater than man in His tender mercy (Jas.
could understand the heart of God, we should be
convinced
that even in Our afflictions which He permits, His
heart is
most tender and compassionate toward us. After these
addresses, God Himself appears. But He is not on
the de-
fensive, for He is responsible
and amenable to none of His
creatures.
JOB IN THE PRESENCE OF GOD
Neither the enemy nor the critics
dealt properly with Job
and his problem; that remains for God alone to do.
Job had
been afflicted inwardly and outwardly; now God
intends to
bless him inwardly and outwardly. God does this by
asking
Job well-nigh one hundred questions. (If one is ever in-
clined to feel quite exalted
in his own mind, we suggest that
he read through these questions. It is a most
beneficial and
deflating experience.) Suffice it to say, that Job
failed in
all his examination questions. But
the result. was blessed,
nevertheless. God revealed to Job
the omnipotence and
omniscience which are God's alone. Nowhere in the Bible
have we a more marvellous
delineation of the majesty and
greatness of God. This revealed to Job his own ignorance
(and of earthly, temporal things at that). Then God sets
forth the impotence of Job. This was not done to show
Job
that His ways are totally inscrutable. If so, then
why appear
at all in this problem if not to solve it Himself?
No, the
portrayal of the frailty and weakness of Job is
meant to
given him a clearer conception of the glorious nature
of his
Creator.
Job's arguments showed that he had an
imperfect, or
rather an incomplete, view of God. The pivot and
climax
of the book are verses 5 and 6 of chapter 42. Job
says: "I
Job and the Nation
had heard of thee by the hearing of the ear; but
now mine
eye seeth thee: Wherefore
I abhor myself, and repent in
dust and ashes." This is the height of the
piety and faith
of the afflicted one when brought to repentance.
Job's right-
eousness was real, for God had
boasted of it to Satan. But
in the light of God it appeared as nothing. Such
is the re-
pentance of the righteous. He
might try to clear himself
before men; before God this was impossible. The vision
of
God
had turned hearsay into clear vision. Hearsay is that
which is taught us, what we receive by tradition or instruc-
tion, what might be termed
the letter of the truth. (We
dare not press this out of bounds, for Job did utter
words
of faith and truth in chapters 13 and 19). Vision,
on the
other hand, is that view which is unclouded,
undimmed, un-
I
trammeled sight, having the eye filled to overflowing with the
knowledge of God. That Job did not know God in all
the
perfection of His Being is clear from the view of
God that
he now expresses. It is direct and soul-searching
experiences
together with the realization of God's power,
majesty, holi-
ness, love, and goodness that turn hearsay into
vision. He
sees clearly now that what he had mistaken for the
seizure
of an enemy was the firm grasp of a friend, and
what he
thought was the weapon of a foe was the careful
and skill-
ful physician who only cuts
to heal. The skilled physician
may hurt, but he does not injure. Is this not true
of our
God?
By God's appearing to Job he learnt
himself. Once hav-
ing seen God he sees
himself. He sees himself in all his im-
purity. When the seraphim stand before God they veil
their
faces before His holiness. When Isaiah saw the Lord
he
saw his own unclean lips and said, "Woe is
me!" When
Paul
saw Christ he fell to the ground as dead. When Peter
saw Christ he said, "Depart from me; for I am
a sinful man,
O
Lord." When John saw the Lord he said, "I fell at his
feet as dead." In God's sight all our
comeliness is turned
jnto corruption; in His
purity and whiteness all on earth is
polluted and blackness of darkness. To see God as
infinite
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is to see ourselves as finite. To see Him as
perfect is to
bring us forcibly to our imperfection. To know Him as
all-
knowing, the summation of all wisdom, is to
realize our
ignorance. To acknowledge Him as right is to own
our-
selves as wrong. To view His holiness is to be smitten
with
our own sin and contamination. Submission,
contrition, and
humility should then follow. Job, then, comes
forth with a
clearer vision of God, a discrediting of self, a
rejecting of
self-righteousness. When the spiritual and
the inward has
been cared for, then God showers upon the patriarch
the
temporal and the outward. He becomes the channel
of
blessing through his intercession for his friends
who had so
grievously maligned him, such intercession surely a
humiliat-
ing thing for them.
"And Jehovah turned the captivity of
Job,
when he prayed for his friends: and Jehovah gave Job
twice as much as he had before." Job's enemy
dealt ill with
him; his friends dealt with him as best they could;
it is God
who ever and always deals best with us. How true,
then, the
words of the apostle James, “ye have heard of the
patience of
Job,
and have seen the end [the final experience that came
into the life of Job by the Lord's command and
direction]
of the Lord, how that the Lord is full of pity,
and merciful."
That blessedness which was the portion
of Job in the'
presence of God, meeting Him face to face, will
be the ex-
perience of
will pour upon the house of David, and upon the
inhabitants
of
they shall look unto me whom they have pierced; and
they
shall mourn for him, as one mourneth
for his only son, and
shall be in bitterness for him, as one that is in
bitterness
for his first born" (
be a fountain opened to the house of David and to
the in-
habitants of
Job,
looking unto God, saw his own undone condition and was
cleansed;
Job and the Nation
will be fully cleansed. Then shall come to pass the
words
of Jeremiah: "In those days, and in that
time, saith Jehovah,
the iniquity of
none; and the sins of
for I will pardon them whom I leave as a
remnant" (50:20).
How
glorious will be the lot of God's ancient people when
appearing of the Lord to Job, he came to know God
as never
before; when God appears to
as never before. God's law will be implanted in
their hearts
after such a fashion, that they will not need to
teach their
neighbor in the knowledge of the Lord, for they
shall all
know Him from the least of them to the greatest (Jer.
31:31-34).
By coming face to face with the Lord
they will finally
understand and know themselves. They will repent in
deep
sorrow, mourning, and contrition. They will throw to
the
bats and to the moles all their vaunted
self-righteousness.
As
with Job, their former knowledge of God will appear
shallow in comparison with the light of that
hour. Job was
seeking after God and found Him; so will
The hour of Job's deliverance was one
of the most intense
pain, and mental and spiritual anxiety. Such will be
the
case with
eyes of the confederacies of the Gentile nations
will be at-
tracted to her. The confederacy
in the north of
that in the south of Europe (the revived
its ten kingdoms), that of the kings of the
sun-rising, and
the king of the north of
defenseless land with rapacity and avarice, to make
of her
a spoil. Zechariah foretold that all the nations
would be
gathered together against the holy city of
war with her.
national history; this will be the worst of all
and the culmi-
nation of them all. She will have her time of trouble
and
trial but God's Word is sure that she will be saved
out of
it (Jer. 30:7).
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Sacra
never before. "
without walls, by reason of the multitude of men
and cattle
therein. . . grain shall make the young men
flourish, and
new wine the virgins" (Zech. 2:4, 5;
the time when
others. First Job was blessed, then his friends
through him.
The
order is the same with
Psalm
67 puts it: when Jehovah blesses
that all the ends of the earth will fear Him.
enter actually into the fulfillment of God's original
purpose
for her--a kingdom of priests and a holy nation (Exod.
19:5,
6). Ten men out of all the languages of the nations
shall lay hold of the Jew and desire to go with him, recogniz-
ing that God is with him.
Job is a wonderful character;
above all! He is ready to forgive and pardon and
receive.
This
God is our blessed, daily portion.
The problem of Job is solved; that of
Then
it will be seen that afflictions try piety as well as in-
iniquity. Trials develop faith. Hardships lead to
clearer!
views of God. Tribulations draw the soul nearer to
God.
What
was formerly considered an unbearable burden is seen
to be an abiding blessing. What matters it, then,
if God
permit us to be delivered into the hands of the enemy,
or
allow us to be subjected to the vitriolic
ministrations of
physicians of no value, as long as at the end of it
all we
may have that meeting with Him face to face, to
minister
to our every need? Thrice blessed be God for
Himself and
for His all-sufficient provisions!
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