August 3

Job 33-34; Luke 24

For a moment there, it sounded like Elihu might be on the right track. He tells Job that he too, is just "a piece of clay" (33:6). Then he gets to the heart of the whole issue: "God is greater than any mortal" (12). So why does Job (or anyone else...us!) try to "contend against God" (13)?

That's pretty much what God is going to say to Job at the end of the book. Elihu is close to the "right answer" here, which is to say, the recognition that there is no right answer. We'll need to return to that thought in the last chapters of the book. But here, notice how quickly Elihu goes back to blaming Job for his troubles: "Who is there like Job, who drinks up scoffing like water?" (34:7) He turns Job into an exceedingly wicked person. Job must be that, of course, because God always repays a person according to his/her deeds (11).

We've seen already that this doctrine doesn't work, but the young Elihu, in spite of his frustration with the older friends, is now spouting the same viewpoint that they did. It's clear that this doctrine is mistaken, because we see the righteous suffer too often, and the wicked enjoy good things too regularly. But let's look at it from a different angle for a moment. Would we really want God to repay human beings consistently according to their (our!) deeds? After all, Job may have been supremely righteous, but I don't want to say that about myself. Do you?

Aren't we rather glad that, as the Psalm yesterday put it, "You, O Lord, are a God merciful and gracious, slow to anger and abounding in steadfast love and faithfulness" (86:15)? The Bible doesn't give us an answer as to why the righteous suffer in what appear to be unfair ways, but it does tell us what God is going to do because of our shortcomings and failures...God is going to allow Jesus to die on a cross and rise from the dead! Notice what Jesus tells his disciples in this last chapter of Luke's Gospel that we read today. Christ's suffering is allowed so that all nations could receive repentance and forgiveness (vs. 47). That doesn't exactly answer the traditional "problem of evil," but it does give us another perspective to look at it, and it can give us the same kind of great joy the disciples experienced as they went to the temple daily, praising and blessing God (vs. 53).

One other thought jumps out at me here. Job (and us, oftentimes?) wonders how God can allow the righteous to suffer. Doesn't God understand that this is unfair? To which, the Lord of heaven and earth might respond, "Ah, I think I do have some idea...It was my own innocent and pure Son who died on that cross."

Jim