( Job 14) take a mental safety valve as the end of the matter.
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explain his sufferings by saying, "I am being punished because I have done wrong," or, "I am suffering because I needed to be perfected." The friends have accused Job of being a hypocrite and imply that he is also an atheist, but just at this very time Job gives expression to the most sublime utterance of faith in the whole of the Old Testament—"Though He slay me, yet will I trust in Him." "Though He, whom you are misrepresenting, and whom I cannot state in words—though He slay me, I will trust in the fact that He is full of the integrity I believe Him to be, and I will wait for Him. I will face my own commonsense integrity, and dedicate my instinctive sense of God's integrity, and in the end I know that both will work out into one."
a man responsible for is refusing to let Jesus Christ deliver him from it when he sees that that is what He came to do (see John 3:19).
Judged by average theology, many of Job's utterances sound far from right, yet in reality they are full of reverence. He is saying that in any statement about God there must be some indication that will justify Him in allowing human beings to be infirm—"Your statement of God is not only untrue to man, but blasphemously untrue to God." Job states the facts of human experience, and that there seems to be an unsatisfactory end to life—"Just when I was going to grasp the thing and find the fulfilment of all my desires, I am cut off." There are countless men like that to-day; just when life was at its best and highest, suddenly they are swept clean off.
Always remain true to facts and to the intuitive certainty that God must be just, and do not try to justify Him too quickly. The juggling trick tries to justify God for allowing sin and war. Sin and war are absolutely unjustifiable, and yet the instinct of every Christian is—"I know that in the end God will justify Himself." Meantime you can only justify Him by a venture of faith which cannot be logically demonstrated.
We get an expression of Job's meaning in verses 13–22 when we say of a man—"Well, he is dead now, and although he did not come up to the standard of our orthodox religion. we will leave him in the hands of a merciful God!" That is a subterfuge. Job states the facts and he is strong on the point that he will get to the place where he will see God justified in what He has allowed to happen. Never take a suspended judgement as final, but watch for the chance of getting fresh light on the matter. It is never sufficient to take a mental safety valve as the end of the matter. Many problems which arise from a man's instinctive integrity have not been answered; no theological statement can make answer to them, and we have to watch that we do not accept any statement which our instinctive nature tells us is a lie. We have our guide in Jesus Christ; we must never accept a view of God which contradicts what He manifested—"I am the Way, the Truth and the Life." The vital thing is to get on the trail of a personal relationship to God, and then use the facts of experience and of revelation to bring us to a consideration of things which satisfies our nature, and until it is satisfied, don't say it is. "I will stick to it that God is a God of love and justice, and I look forward to the time when I shall see it manifestly." We have no business to say piously, "Oh, I leave it with God." God will have us discern what He is doing, but it takes time because we are so slow to obey, and only as we obey do we perceive morally and spiritually.
5. The Consciousness of Implicit Infirmity ( Job 14) O that Thou wouldest hide me in the grave, that Thou wouldest keep me secret, until Thy wrath be past, that Thou wouldest appoint me a set time, and remember me! If a man die, shall he live again? all the days of my appointed time will I wait, till my change come. ( Job 14:13–14)
Job has discovered that the basis of things is tragic, not logical. "I know I am weak and there are facts in my life and in human history which I cannot explain, but because of my conscious infirmity I know that God will see me through it all and out the other side; meanwhile I refuse to accept a creed which misrepresents God, and also misrepresents me." To get there means a man is on the right trail.
Job's integrity remains as well as his conscious infirmity, and also the sense that he is not entirely to blame for his sinfulness. No man is held responsible by God for having an heredity of sin: what God holds
64 Baffled to Fight Better
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ponderosIty
Job 15 A pill to cure an earthquake. . . .
you are going through is much ado about nothing." Scolding is characteristic of the mind which is in a corner and does not see the way out; it falls back therefore to its own entrenched position. No one damns like an theologian, nor is any quarrel so bitter as a religious quarrel. If God can be summed up in a phrase—and Eliphaz and every man with a creed holds that He can be—then there is the ban of finality about the view: "What I say is God"; and this is the essential nature of religious tyranny. Up to the time of the war, God, to many a man, was merely his own theological statement of Him; but now his religious forms of belief have been swept away and for a while he says—"I have lost my faith in God." What has happened is that though he has lost his faith in his statement of God, he is on the way to finding God Himself. Never be afraid if your circumstances dispute what you have been taught about God; be willing to examine what you have been taught, and never take the conception of an theologian as infallible; it is simply an attempt to state things.
G. K. Chesterton
There is nothing more ludicrous than the way in which some folk try to soothe sorrow and deal with trouble in other lives. Eliphaz makes out that Job's problems are not what he thinks they are; he tries to wear down Job's opposition by sheer ponderosity, i.e., saying nothing with terrific emphasis. One can almost hear him choking with indignation: "What knowest thou, that we know not? . . ." ( Job 15:9). Then follows the revealing of the unconscious egotism of the orthodox credist, dictatorially asserting the character of God ( Job 15:14–16). Then, like a theological buzzard, he sits on the perch of massive tradition and preens his ruffled feathers and croaks his eloquent platitudes. There is no trace of the fraud in Eliphaz, he vigorously believes his beliefs, but he is at a total loss to know God. Eliphaz represents the kind of humbug that results from remaining true to conviction instead of to facts which dispute the conviction. The difference between an obstinate man and a strong-minded man lies just here: an obstinate man refuses to use his intelligence when a matter is in dispute, while a strong-minded man makes his decision after having deliberately looked at it from all standpoints, and when opposed, he is willing to give reasons for his decision.
2. The Weight of the Traditional Manner ( Job 15:7–13) Art thou the first man that was born? Or wast thou made before the hills? Hast thou heard the secret of God? and dost thou restrain wisdom to thyself ? What knowest thou, that we know not? What understandest thou, which is not in us? ( Job 15:7–9)
1. The Weapons of the Temporising Mind ( Job 15:1–6) Then answered Eliphaz the Temanite and said, Should a wise man suffer vain knowledge, and fill his belly with the east wind? Should he reason with unprofitable talk? or with speeches wherewith he can do no good? ( Job 15:1–3)
When once the sledge-hammer of tradition is brought to bear there is nothing more to say—"With us are both the grey-headed and the very aged men, much elder than thy father." Eliphaz says to Job— "Do you imagine that you have a setting of the problem which has never been dealt with before?" The Pharisees adopted this method with Jesus. Our Lord claimed that the law and the prophets were until Himself. "Ye have heard that it was said by them of old time, . . . but I say unto you . . ." The Pharisees said, "We have all the weight of history behind us and the lore of tradition, consequently the constitution of God is with us and not with You; You are devil-possessed and a sinner," and they put Him to death. That is the traditional manner at its worst.
A temporising mind is one that takes its position from immediate circumstances and never alters that position. Eliphaz says that Job is simply bombastic; he sees in Job what he is himself. The weapon of a temporising mind is sarcasm. There is a difference between sarcasm and irony (cf. Job 12:1–3). Sarcasm is the weapon of the weak man; the word literally means to tear flesh from the bone. Both Isaiah and the apostle Paul make free use of irony, but they never use sarcasm. If a weak man is presented with facts he cannot understand, he invariably turns to sarcasm.
The "Eliphaz" method has hindered more souls in developing the life with God than almost any other thing, because very few men are willing to say: "Yes, I have a re-statement of the problem which has never been dealt with traditionally." When once the weight of what was known in the past is brought to bear, it
Eliphaz addresses a "man of straw," but all the time he purports to be talking to Job. First, he takes the scolding turn—"All you say about the suffering