22. Matthew Arnold (1822–88), English scholar, poet, and critic.
The Complete Works of Oswald Chambers 79
(b) The Sorrowful Condemnation of Sanity
of absolute authority, the line of symbolism or creed, and when that which was symbolised appeared, they could not see Him.
( Job 37:23–24) Touching the Almighty, we cannot find Him out: He is excellent in power, and in judgement, and in plenty of justice; He will not afflict. Men do therefore fear Him: He respecteth not any that are wise of heart.
Every phase of this Book, with the exception of Job's own utterances, takes up the challenge of Satan—"No man, no matter how good he is, loves You for Your own sake. You call Job perfect, but touch the things You have given him, destroy his blessings, and he will curse You to Your face." Job's blessings were destroyed, and yet he clings to it, "I don't know the reason why I suffer; the reason you give is not the one, God alone can explain it to me, and I will wait for Him." Part of the gamble was that God must keep out of sight, and that Job must not be aided, and he was not. The exposition of Job's sufferings must be given in the light of this preface, which was never made known to him. Job never knew that Satan and Jehovah had made a battleground of his soul.
Elihu condemns Job sorrowfully, but absolutely; he declares that not only has Job made shipwreck of his faith, but he has become defiant in silencing the friends.
Job will not accept anything blindly, he says, "I must see that it does not contradict what I know." The apostle Paul speaks of "the foolishness of God" as pitted against the wisdom of men, and the wisdom of men when it saw Jesus Christ said, "That cannot be God." When the Judaic ritualists saw Jesus Christ, they said, "You are a blasphemer; You do not express God at all." Anna and Simeon were the only two of the descendants of Abraham who recognised who Jesus was, hence the condemnation of the other crowd. If two who had lived a life of communion with God could detect Jehovah as the Babe of Bethlehem within the symbolism, the others who did not recognise Him are to be condemned. They did not see Him because they had become blinded on the line
The problem in the Book of Job represents the problem of the whole world. No matter what a man's experiences may be, whether slight or terrific, there is something in this Book which gives him an indication as to why the Redemption was necessary, and also a line of explaining the otherwise inexplicable things of human experience.
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the passIon For realIty
Job 38–41
We cannot kindle when we will The fire which in the heart resides; The spirit bloweth and is still, In mystery our soul abides. But tasks in hours of insight will'd Can be through hours of gloom fulfill'd With aching hands and bleeding feet We dig and heap, lay stone on stone; We bear the burden and the heat Of the long day, and wish 'twere done, Not till the hours of light return. All we have built do we discern.
through conscience, because through conscience we get at the moral relation to things. We have seen that Job would not bow down to an authority which had not its basis in what was right in actual life. God has to clear Himself from the wrong presentation given of Him by the friends, and although Job is right in repudiating their presentation, God rebukes him for remaining too much of an agnostic, and He leads him out along the line indicated when he said, "Though He slay me, yet will I trust in Him," i.e., "I will trust that God is what my innate manhood tells me He must be." The authority we blindly grope after is God Himself, not a tendency making for righteousness, not a set of principles. Behind Reality is God Himself, and the final authority is a personal relationship. Christianity is a personal relationship to a personal God on the ground of the Redemption. The reason Jesus Christ is our Lord and Master is not first because He is God Incarnate, but because He is easily first in the human domain.
Matthew Arnold22
The word "Reality" is used to represent the realm of God and the whole of mankind in correspondence. The creeds give us a theological statement of God, but Job's experience proves that a statement of belief does not give us God. The only way we get at God is
22. Matthew Arnold (1822–88), English scholar, poet, and critic.