Justifying Job

My personal Bible studies have landed me in the book of Job recently.  Job is a 'fan-favorite' because he famously suffered, and everyone feels that they suffer in similar ways.  Job was a "blameless and upright man" (1:1), and yet because of a wager between God and the fallen angel Satan, his family was killed, his possessions were lost, and all that was left for him was an unsupportive wife, and some friends who were as useless as they were ruthless.  I read how Jobs friends responded to Job's complaints with (an attempt) at theological correction, and when Job pushed back and they sheepishly didn't have anything further to say, I think to myself, "these guys would make excellent pastoral staff in a church today"!

Job spends much of the book (which is perhaps the earliest written book of the Bible) searching for answers regarding his plight.  He questions God and rebukes his friends when they fail to counsel him in a godly way, but all is wrapped up right before God sends a prophet in 32:1-2 with the story-teller telling us "these three men ceased to answer Job, because he was righteous in his own eyes...(and) he justified himself rather than God". 

To Justify

Justified is a word that we don't typically use in Western culture today, but it is one that must be understood if you'd be a student of the Bible.  It has a couple of different meanings in Scripture (depending on context), but the most oft-used meaning is "to declare right".  It's a statement of judgment, where one is judged to be in the right--when a judge is presiding over a case, all the evidence is laid out before him, he hears the witnesses and arguments, and then he will execute justice based on what he declares to be right.  He will either justify the defendant or the plaintiff as in the right.  It's a declaration, and a sentence based on the declaration.

Job justified himself, and not God.  He considered himself to be in the right, and God to be in the wrong.  For how many of us is this the case with our suffering or hardships!  (Apparently this has been mans' battle for a long time).  Even after his friends' counsel, they found their selves at a loss because Job just wasn't having any counsel from them.  After all, Job was "blameless and upright, one who feared God and turned away from evil" (1:1), right?  But we have to remember that God often makes judgment calls in Scripture based on the generation of the person he's talking about. For example, Noah was "a righteous man, blameless in his generation" (Genesis6:9), but later he proved to be a drunk in 9:20.  He was good compared to everyone else, but compared to a holy God, the judgment would be pronounced a little different. 
I believe Job to be similar to his judgment of Noah for two reasons:
        a) although he had a solid theology at the first part of the suffering (see 1:21 and 2:10), as the suffering continued he found himself questioning God, justifying himself and not God, and "multiplying words without knowledge" (35:16) to the point that at God's rebuke, he repents for having "uttered what I did not understand" (42:3), despising himself and repenting in dust and ashes (42:6).  When the heat got hotter, he was just as weak as the next person.  And later he repented, despising himself.  Sounds like he was convicted because he had a lot to be convicted of!  And...
        b) 22:6-9 and 34:7-9 show ways in which Job was involved in ungodly activity even before the suffering and testing came on him: he took part in unfair deals towards weaker people, was no help to the poor and needy, scoffs at the things of God, etc.
Again, how much is this like many of us!  We like to think we're pretty righteous, but if we were laid on a just balance, we'd be found wanting in many areas of our lives.  We put up blinders to our own sin so that we can't see how we're wrong, though we're experts in how others...especially God...are wrong. 

Justifying Self vs. Justifying God

After Job is done singing the blues and his friends sissy out, a young man by the name of Elihu shows up, and he's a prophet sent by God before God himself shows up (Elihu is kind of like John the Baptizer, preparing the way).  Elihu arrives furious at Job's fickle faith and the friends' Jello backbones, and his mission ("I'm full of words...my belly is like wineskins with no vent...ready to burst--33:18-19) is very similar to the prophet Jeremiah, for whom the Word of God had become like "a fire in my bones...I'm weary of holding it in, and I can not" (Jeremiah20:9).  He proceeds to preach hard truth about the sovereignty of God and His eternal purpose in a not so gentle way, which is often what's needed when men are too busy feeling sorry for themselves to listen to truth. 

In the midst of this, Elihu tells Job, "I desire to justify you" (33:32), which is remarkable to me, because Job's problem is that he's been justifying himself!  Why does Elihu say this?  Because in getting a correct view of God, we will see ourselves correctly in the light of His Lordship and purpose.  When God is justified, Job will be justified; but if Job is defending himself, he'll get neither.  This could be helpful for you--if you'd stop defending yourself to God, and come up underneath His grace and mercy in Christ, you'd find that you have Him as your defense (and no one can speak a word against Him).  But as long as you keep fighting God, it's going to be a constant war that never ends. 

In Luke 10:29, after Jesus has been teaching of the need to love your neighbor, a man "desiring to justify himself" asks Jesus, "who is my neighbor?"  Do you see why he's saying this?  It's because he hasn't loved and doesn't want to, and so the easiest way to wiggle off the conviction hook is to throw your arms in the air and say "I don't know who my neighbor is, so I don't have to!"  That's self-justification.  Jesus later tells the Pharisees, "You are those who justify yourselves before men, but God knows your heart" (16:15).  Since no one else can see your heart, you can make excuses and get by with it, and most of us do (we're such liars!).  Man's heart is deceitful above all things...but God searches the heart! (Jeremiah 17:9-10).  Job is in a similar boat, making excuses before his friends, and they believe him, because they can't see his heart.  But Elihu is sent to prepare the way for God--as a prophet, God has put His words in his mouth, and God sees Job's heart clearly. 

When talking about what true justification (being really justified before God) looks like, Luke gives us two pillar truths:
      a) You being justified comes from humbling yourself and crying out for mercy (18:13-14), which is to assume that God owes you nothing but even with your suffering has richly blessed you with life, provision, loved ones, food, etc. (even if you are rebelling in your faith right now); Jesus says that if you humble yourself and cry out for mercy from the Living God, you will be counted right in God's eyes right on the spot.
      b) Accepting the purpose of God is to "declare God just" (7:29-30--"when the people heard this, they declared God just...but the Pharisees and tax-collectors rejected the purpose of God). Job justified himself, and not God, when God is perfectly just in all He does.  To declare Him just is to accept His purpose without needing every answer.

Elihu tells Job in 33:19-30 that God gives hard times as a way to  to shake us up and awaken us out of our comfortable slumber where we are lord of our own lives while God the genie is kept in his bottle on our table (ie, a dusty Bible).  "God does these things twice, three times, with a man, to bring back his soul from the pit, that he may be lighted from the light of life" (33:29-30).

Do you think this was cold comfort for Job?  Do you think it's cold comfort, period?  Maybe it is.  But maybe it's the truth.  Maybe when the testing comes and that which is good is taken from us, our doubt and anger arises from our forgetting that the good He took from us was all a gift in the first place anyway!  Job lost not only properties, livestock, etc...but he also lost family members (2:18-19).  And yet, it's true.  Our problem is often that important things become ultimate things in our hearts, while God (the most important) remains trapped in his genie bottle.  His will is our having a correct view of Him so we can have a correct view of all else, and so that's why He tests us and tries our faith to bring us to that point.  But until that realization, we'll continually reject God's good purposes and struggle with whether or not He loves us.

All Things For Good

Paul famously writes in Romans 8:28 that all things work for good for those love God, who are called according to His purpose.  All things.  For good.  Do you believe that?  Maybe the problem with Job was that he loved God, given certain circumstances.  His theology weakened as the story-arc travels down.  The real tragedy in the Job storyline isn't the loss of his stuff, but the loss of his faith and the rise of his self-righteous rejection of Gods purpose.  Are you in the same boat?

Elihu's point in chapter 33 is that there is a purpose in this.  And you know what this is.  Maybe you're going through this.  But remember, if you love Him and if you are connected to the Father through the Mediation of His Son alone, even this is working for your good!  Surely Joseph struggled with believing this when his brothers sold him to slavery and he was naked and alone.  But later it was clear that God was at work.  The secret is not listening to your heart, but remembering His.  His heart is to minister to you and make you godly.  Often it hurts, but it is meant to be effective, and there will be a harvest of righteousness for those who endure. 

A similar experience happened in Paul's life.  After experiencing incredible affliction and discomfort in a ministry experience among haters, Paul can say, "We felt that we had received the sentence of death.  But that was to make us rely not on ourselves, but on God, who raises the dead" (2Corinthians1:9).  Hindsight is 20/20, but remember that one day this will be hindsight!  So cling to Christ and stand fast through faith.  God will not let fall by the wayside that which He began.  It was for the joy set before Him that Christ endured the cross for us...so you endure through this, knowing there is joy on the other side.  And the key is to continually declare God just, remembering His perfect purpose.  Like Abraham, don't waver in faith, but give God the glory, and you'll grow stronger in faith, "fully convinced He's able to accomplish that which He promises" (Romans4:20-21). 

You may doubt, question, shake your fists at God, etc.  But the grace of God is that because you are called according to His purpose, He will send His Spirit of Truth to bring you under conviction by remembering His purpose.  Job is a perfect example of this.  Even though his faith was tried and found wanting, the grace of God overflowed for him with truth.  God told Satan, "Job will endure", and then He sent the grace and truth necessary for him to endure.  Christian, you will endure, because His grace is never in vain.