The word of God begins with, “In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth, and the earth was without form and void…” (Genesis 1:1-2). In other words, the earth was in chaos, with no form or order to it. This is repeated by the prophet at the prospect of the land of Judah and Jerusalem (with its Temple) being destroyed: “I beheld the earth, and, lo, it was without form, and void…” (Jeremiah 4:23). Jeremiah viewed the thing the Lord would bring to pass as utter chaos. Similarly, Job looked for the Lord in the thing that occurred to him. His family was destroyed; his wealth was gone; his health was depleted, and he was at death’s door. Why? Eliphaz had told Job, “Acquaint yourself with the Lord…” (Job 22:21), but where is God that I may present myself to him and be reconciled? If I go forward, he isn’t there, or backward, he isn’t perceived (Job 23:8). If I go to the left or to the right I cannot see or understand the work that he does (Job 23:9). Nothing makes sense. It is all “without form and void,” vis-à-vis utter chaos! The Lord had not treated Job according to his works. Job wasn’t wicked, as the friends contended, so why had the Lord singled him out in order to pour out his wrath upon him?
Job confessed that, although he was unable to understand what the Lord was doing in him (Job 23:8-9), God was able to know and understand the way Job took (Job 23:10; cp. Psalm 1:6). In other words, I can’t see God, but he could see me! Job was a conscientious man, whose efforts to do what was good should have been obvious to the friends, but they chose the make-believe religion of tradition: God’s wrath is always upon the unrighteous and only the unrighteous. While they found it impossible to believe God would destroy the righteous, Job found it impossible to understand why the Lord would destroy the righteous.
Indeed, Job was able to understand that the Lord often tried the righteous, and when the Lord was done with him, he would be as gold, coming out of the trial better for the work the Lord was doing. Yet, to utterly destroy him, leaving him at death’s door was an inconceivable thought. Why would the Lord utterly destroy the righteous? What purpose does such a thing serve?
Eliphaz had told Job to “lay up his (God’s) words in your heart” (Job 22:22; parenthesis mine), but Job claimed he had never rebelled against God, and not only so, neither had he ever even turned aside. That is, he had never purposely sinned against him. Rather, he had embraced the way of the Lord, treasuring his words more than his necessary food. Job understood that he had become wealthy through the blessing of God, so he had blessed others out of the blessing with which the Lord had blessed him, even to the point where Job had deprived himself of his own needs (Job 23:11-12). So, if he had done all he could to follow the Lord, to be to others as the Lord was to him (cp. Genesis 1:27), why had the Lord utterly destroyed him, leaving him at death’s door?
What Job didn’t understand, because it had not yet been revealed, is that the Lord’s Person is revealed only partially through the lives of the righteous, but wholly through the Elect One, who would come, namely, Jesus (John 1:1, 14, 18; Hebrews 1:3). While it is good to follow the Lord and do as he does, change comes only through suffering. New truth comes, not from the popular teacher, but, rather, from the one who has been rejected of men. Life changing truth comes only through those who are willing to follow their Lord to the point of imitating that Suffering Servant, by fellowshipping in his sufferings (Philippians 3:10). Therein, although despised and rejected of men (Isaiah 53:3), we, together with our Lord, bear (in part) the griefs and sorrows of others (Isaiah 53:4). Just as it was for Jesus, our wounds and bruises, even the chastisements that come from God, help to heal the brethren. It is for those, who so closely follow their Lord and Savior that their labor is done through suffering and rejection, that change comes. They are the conduits of mercy and goodness from the Lord, whose rejected lives and tired, perhaps broken, bodies magnify the sufferings of their Lord (Philippians 1:20; Colossians 1:24).
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