by Tom Nettles | Oct 7, 2024 | New Testament, Old Testament
Job has listened with awe and humility and now confesses a fresh understanding of his position before God. Now that Job has had God appear before him and gives him a chance to speak, what does he say? Is it the bold defense of his righteousness and his demand that God show him exactly what he could find against him?
He first acknowledges that God is sovereign and may do with his own as he sees fit, and that none can interrupt or change his purpose. “I know that you can do all things, and that no purpose of yours can be thwarted” (42:2). Divine sovereignty does not eliminate the reality of divine justice and righteousness but makes us recognize that the spheres of goodness and righteousness that he determines to display in a sovereign manner do not always fit our preconceived categories. Paul employs this revealed truth, gained through Job’s great suffering, in his question concerning the objection of man to divine sovereignty, “But who are you, O man, to answer back to God? Will what is molded say to its molder, ‘Why have you made me like this?’” (Romans 9:20)
Job now acknowledges that his position was arrogant and he embraces God’s judgment on him. God asked, “Who is this that hides counsel without knowledge” (cf. 38:2). Job confesses that he had too narrow a view of God and thought that he knew himself better than God did. “I have uttered what I did not understand” (42:3). God’s righteousness and wisdom exceeded the most extended concepts of Job and Job’s sinfulness penetrated his whole being more profoundly than he had perceived. Later David would be brought to confess, “Behold, I was brought forth in iniquity, and in sin my mother conceived me” (Psalm 51:5 NKJV).
Now, his words with which he desires to come before God to receive an answer are words of wonder at his majesty and deep repentance in light of his new view of himself. There is nothing like a revelation to the soul of the wisdom and beauty of God’s character to quiet our complaints, enhance our worship, and promote soul-humbling repentance (5, 6).
Job’s friends, perhaps with much less arrogant confidence than before, and with little eagerness to make this appearance, are summoned. Informing Eliphaz of his anger kindled against them, God reprimands Job’s friends. He said that they had not spoken what was right as Job had (verses 7 and 8). This is difficult to discern how this is so, for they began with the same premise. Job, however, disagreed with the analysis of his friends, which was a very wooden quid pro quo analysis of each person’s state of being in this life. Job rejected that, but God also challenged the assumptions of Job. Job’s trial did cause him to struggle against the common view that prosperity denotes that one has lived a life pleasing to God. Conversely, tragedy equals punishment for an evil life. He knew that there was more to be learned from these events, and it drove him to embrace the need for a ransom-mediator.
By divine grace the entire event brought Job to a deeper frame of personal repentance and resignation to the wise purpose of God. Here we see a clear example of the comprehensive biblical principle that God rewards his people for the fruit of his own grace in their lives. “He is the source of your life in Christ Jesus, whom God made our wisdom and our righteousness and sanctification and redemption. Therefore, as it is written, ‘Let him who boasts boast in the Lord.’ … What do you have that you did not receive? If then you received it, why do you boast as if you did not receive it?” (1 Corinthians 1:30, 31; 4:7).
For their sin, the three friends had to offer sacrifices and ask for Job’s intercession. God had already humbled Job by his overpowering appearance in the whirlwind to bring about his repentance. Matthew Henry points out that now God “takes another course to humble them,” that is, to make them not only offer burnt offerings but to ask Job, whom they had condemned as offensive to God, to intercede for them before God. This is both a matter of humiliation and a matter of redemptive grace. He does not cast them off but makes a path of restoration.
Wrong ideas about God and his children are not amoral but are positively sinful. They were abusive toward Job because of narrow and uncritically received views of God and his ways. They told Job that God was his enemy because of Job’s wickedness, when all along Job was a delight in God’s affections. He did not intend destruction by his dealing with Job but to bring him to deeper knowledge, more pure worship, and a more profound sense of grace.
Making assertions that present false views of God, his purpose, his character, and his ways with men are not harmless. Those who set themselves forth to speak on behalf of God and present themselves as authorities must realize that their opinions and words are susceptible to judgment. James warned, “Not many of you should become teachers, my brothers, for you know that we who teach will be judged with greater strictness.” (James 3:1)
God restored Job to greater status than before. The text seems to indicate that this restoration came in the context of Job’s intercession for his friends. He conducted himself as a forgiven man. “Bless those who curse you.” He was under a curse greater than any that a mortal can sustain, but by divine provision had found a ransom. He knew he had been forgiven much and did not stand as their judge. As a manifestation to family and friends that his great suffering was not because he was a greater sinner than any around him, he was given twice as many livestock and the same number of sons and daughters as before the divine release to Satan’s devices of testing Job. Doubtless, this is to demonstrate not only to Job but to those around him that his trials were not those of an enemy of God under wrath but of a favorite of God being brought to greater purification and blessing. His daughters were beautiful, and he lived to see four generations of grands and greats. Nevertheless, “Job died,” even though “an old man and full of days” (42:17).
With the further revelation that we have of the shortness of this life and the glories of living in the presence of God, a truth that occurred to Job in the midst of his own trials, we are not to expect the increase of material things as a mark of divine favor. We have the complete revelation of God’s redemptive grace in his Son and the promise of eternal life verified by the resurrection of Christ so that we live under the objective impression of a living hope. Christ and all his appointed apostles died ingloriously in the eyes of the world, but they had a better hope stored up for them in heaven. The evidence of God’s favor toward us is so sufficient in Christ that no other evidence is needed. “He who spared not his own Son but delivered him up for us all, how shall he not also with him freely give us all things?” (Romans 8:32).
When James applies one of the lessons we are to take away from Job, he reminds his readers of the patience of Job and the purpose of God in manifesting his compassion and mercy. Job’s patience is demonstrated in his continual insistence that God had everything to do with his present situation of life. He became neither an atheist nor a deist but a more insistent searcher in quest of a true knowledge of God. He continued in this train in spite of the seeming silence of the heavens to his asking, knocking and seeking. Though he had inadequate perceptions concerning the nature of God’s interaction with his creatures, he knew that, in the end, nothing transpired in all of God’s creation apart from God’s purposeful involvement. James used that example in service of an admonition to “Be patient, therefore, brothers, until the coming of the Lord.” (James 5:7-11). We are not promised the gift of grace in the splendor of our temporal situation, but in the imperishable glories of heaven.
Dr. Tom Nettles is widely regarded as one of the foremost Baptist historians in America. He joined the faculty of Southern Baptist Theological Seminary after teaching at Trinity Evangelical Divinity School where he was professor of Church History and chairman of that department. Previously, he taught at Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary and Mid-America Baptist Theological Seminary. He received a B.A. from Mississippi College and an M.Div. and Ph.D. from Southwestern. In addition to writing numerous journal articles and scholarly papers, Dr. Nettles has authored or edited nine books including By His Grace and For His Glory, Baptists and the Bible, and Why I Am a Baptist.
Courses taught: Historical Theology of the Baptists, Historical Theology Overview, Jonathan Edwards & Andrew Fuller.
by Tom Nettles | Oct 7, 2024 | Old Testament, Practical Theology
Having shown Job his inability to comprehend the massive complexities, beauty, power, and interdependence of the natural world, the first part of chapter 40 (40:1-14) takes an interlude. God challenges Job to match him in extending his moral purpose into the world. God reprimands Job for the parts of his speeches in which he found fault with God for apparent injustices – e.g. 30:21 “You have become cruel to me; with the strength of your hand you oppose me; … You spoil my success” (NKJV). Despite all his previous bravado of being able to bring his case before God, he now simply recognizes his smallness and that he has nothing more to say. He can answer none of God’s questions, so why should he think that his questions will have any legitimate challenge to present to God? “I lay my hand upon my mouth, … and I will answer nothing more” (4, 5 NASB).
Now, instead of merely implying Job’s incompetence to the test for which he has been crying, God gives an immediate challenge for Job to govern the hearts of men. He repeats the earlier injunction, “Dress for action like a man (40:7 cf. 38:3). By his personal challenge, what does Job intend? Does he really think that God is unaware of his response, or his call for justice? Is Job seriously convinced that, if he just has the opportunity, he can convince God that his method of dealing with him has been misguided; that he has miscalculated what is best for him? Does Job think that he has a more effective and just idea of how he should be treated? “Will you really annul my judgment?” God asks; “Will you condemn me that you may be justified?” (8).
Job, cringing in a miserable condition, reeling under the events that have crushed him, and simmering in his emotion from the accusations of his friends, yet powerless to reverse anything about his condition or about their evaluation of his standing, now hears God say, “Adorn yourself with majesty and splendor, and array yourself with glory and beauty” (40:10 NKJV). These are completely stripped from him, and he can do nothing to alter the moment. Come now, Job, show the effectual power of your response to the events around you; let your anger seethe and bubble over, and by so doing bring the proud to humility. When God is angry, he fits the punishment perfectly to the crime; his dispensations of discipline humble the proud, deflate the arrogant, and scatter the wicked. So, “pour out the overflowings of your anger,” Job, and “look on everyone who is proud, and make him low” (11). Show that your judgments can halt the wicked in their destructive course. Show that you can judge and bring evildoers to naught in this world, bring them to death, and then bind them to eternal judgment. When you do this, Job, I will acknowledge that you have the wisdom and power to determine and perform the thing needed for your salvation (14).
Let us return to nature, and of a sort that shows the overwhelming power and mysterious strength that God has spoken into being in creatures. God continues the challenge to Job by pointing to two prodigies of creation, Behemoth and Leviathan (40:15-24 and 41). Various identities have been speculated for these two grand animals: hippopotamus, giant crocodile, or even a fire-breathing dragon that had been saved in the ark and would soon be extinct, but at this time was known. The point is that again, Job cannot cope with, or explain, the delicate balance of creative instincts in the animal kingdom or match its power. Lay your hand on Leviathan and “you will not do it again!” (8). How much less can he comprehend both the infinite rational wisdom and the inexhaustible power of the God that has made all these things and controls them from moment to moment.
The language used to describe these two amazing creatures provides a source for intense literary analysis. Metaphors, similes, startling images, rhetorical questions, analogies, and intense narrative can be set forth as models for elegance of style and variety of literary genre. Scripture not only is true propositionally, it is instructive in fitting communicative vehicles for the purpose of its content. The description of Leviathan, in addition to its pressing the power of images to the perimeter of perception, shows the moral purpose in a powerful lesser-to-greater comparison. “No one is so fierce that he dares to arouse him; Who then is he that can stand before Me? Who has given to Me that I should repay him? Whatever is under the whole heaven is Mine” (10, 11 NASB).
He shall return in power to reign
Heaven and earth will join to say
“O praise Him! Alleluia!”
Then who shall fall on bended knee?
All creatures of our God and King
O praise Him! O praise Him!
Dr. Tom Nettles is widely regarded as one of the foremost Baptist historians in America. He joined the faculty of Southern Baptist Theological Seminary after teaching at Trinity Evangelical Divinity School where he was professor of Church History and chairman of that department. Previously, he taught at Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary and Mid-America Baptist Theological Seminary. He received a B.A. from Mississippi College and an M.Div. and Ph.D. from Southwestern. In addition to writing numerous journal articles and scholarly papers, Dr. Nettles has authored or edited nine books including By His Grace and For His Glory, Baptists and the Bible, and Why I Am a Baptist.
Courses taught: Historical Theology of the Baptists, Historical Theology Overview, Jonathan Edwards & Andrew Fuller.
by Tom Nettles | Oct 7, 2024 | Old Testament, Practical Theology
God sets before Job an amazing array of mysteries of the created order and peppers him with questions. He confronts Job with the depth and power of the mighty seas of the world and asks if Job has any power to control them. As fierce and powerful as the oceans are during a storm and as daunting as they are in their vast expanse, God has set a limit to them—“enclosed the sea with doors” (8). At the shoreline their power is tame and fit for children and babes to wade in and build sand castles. “Thus far you shall come and no farther” (38:11). Unless God himself infuriates it with his winds, the shoreline tames the vast oceans. Can Job do any such thing as this? Can he understand and deal with this single created entity?
The next sixty verses lay an embarrassingly rapid-fire collection of questions and mysterious circumstances for Job to prove his metal for his right to engage God in a challenge to his ways. Who can read this and conclude that Job acquits himself well?
God challenges Job to give his knowledge of the mysteries of nature. Can he tell how God controls them and has designed them to accomplish their purpose? Often, God uses these things of nature for specific moral purposes (13, 15, 23). Job is challenged with darkness, light, snow, hail, rain, ice, dew, frost, the heavenly constellations, and lightning. Certainly, one of the most familiar things to any living person is the regular occurrence of morning. How did God arrange for that and can any man command its being or the time of its appearance? “Where is the way to the dwelling of light?” And conversely if there is light, how can it be limited so that there is also darkness, and “Where is its place?” (19). Surely these realities, so immediately and without intermission present in human experience, have yielded their mysteries to you, Job. For were you not there when I said, “Let there be light?”
God has placed the stars at such distances that we cannot reach them, and yet he upholds them for every moment of their existence. Though they are so far from each other they often appear to us as cunningly crafted images painted on the canvas of the sky (31, 32). The earth maintains its balance and its rhythm from day to day and season to season from its relation to these unreachable stars, so God poses this question: “Do you know the ordinances of heaven or fix their rule over the earth?” (38:33). Our planetary well-being and our individual well-being from a natural standpoint depend on this principle of gravitational equilibrium and yet all of the investigation of all generations since the creation has not exhausted the knowledge of its power or its possible applications. Failing to match the knowledge of God by empirical study of an observable phenomenon, shall we pretend to find intellectual and spiritual comprehension in his eternal purposes?
Can Job tell how God has put wisdom in the mind of man or how his intellect achieves understanding? (38:36). How does human language and the ability to communicate reflect the image of God? How do particular words in many different languages communicate universal ideas? How do memory and the reception of new ideas and arguments coalesce to form either an opinion or a conviction? Does Job know whence arise his questions and his own formulations of objections? Who taught him the technique of presenting a case? Who established the law of non-contradiction? Is it someone beyond the Lord? Is Job his own maker?
Who aligns the hunger of beasts with the provisions of nature? Both the lion and the raven, a ferocious beast and a bird, are carnivores (39-41). Does Job provide their prey for them? Does Job create the marvelous balance of predator and prey within nature?
In Chapter 39 God challenges Job to explain to him the peculiar characteristics of a wide variety of animals that all conduct themselves in different ways and yet all are provided for in their unique circumstances: mountain goats giving birth, deer calving and recovering, wild donkeys exploring the mountains for pasture, the wild ox and his rugged and dangerous independence, the stupid ostrich in her ignorant joy and invincible speed, the strong matchless horse both in nature and as trained for war, the soaring hawk flying with no knowledge of the principles of aerodynamics, and the rock-dwelling eagle with his magnificent eyesight and his uncanny instinct. If Job were able to discern how each of these creatures, so distinct, has its respective quality of strength and ability to cope, even thrive, in an exposed environment then God will consider consulting with Job about the wisdom of His moral purpose in the world. If we struggle to penetrate the secrets of the natural world and its irrational inhabitants, can we expect to grasp the eternal reasons and endless connections of purpose of the omniscient God?
Spurgeon preached words about a “Happy Christian” that should inform us in weal or woe. “The worldling blesses God while he gives him plenty, but the Christian blesses him when he smites him: he believes him to be too wise to err and too good to be unkind; he trusts him where he cannot trace him, looks up to him in the darkest hour, and believes that all is well.” We should be satisfied with this invitation to reason with God: “Though your sins are like scarlet, they shall be as white as snow; though they are red like crimson, they shall be as wool” (Isaiah 1:18).
Dr. Tom Nettles is widely regarded as one of the foremost Baptist historians in America. He joined the faculty of Southern Baptist Theological Seminary after teaching at Trinity Evangelical Divinity School where he was professor of Church History and chairman of that department. Previously, he taught at Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary and Mid-America Baptist Theological Seminary. He received a B.A. from Mississippi College and an M.Div. and Ph.D. from Southwestern. In addition to writing numerous journal articles and scholarly papers, Dr. Nettles has authored or edited nine books including By His Grace and For His Glory, Baptists and the Bible, and Why I Am a Baptist.
Courses taught: Historical Theology of the Baptists, Historical Theology Overview, Jonathan Edwards & Andrew Fuller.
by Tom Nettles | Oct 7, 2024 | Old Testament, Practical Theology
As a prelude to God’s sudden appearance to take up Job’s request for a personal audience with his Maker, Elihu gave an extended proclamation of the Majesty of God (chapter 37). God is mysterious and unpredictable but always just. Elihu skillfully employed lightning and thunder as an image of the unpredictable but precise purpose of God [“He covers his hands with the lightning and commands it to strike the mark. Its crashing declares his presence.” 36:32, 33.] As Jonathan Edwards, in his “Personal Narrative,” began his observations of the “majestic meekness” manifest in nature, he said, “Scarce anything, among all the works of nature, was so sweet to me as thunder and lightning.” In prior days when he saw a thunderstorm rising it would strike him with terror. After the time of his “new apprehensions” of Christ and redemption, the combination of lightning and thunder took on a new aspect. “I felt God at the first appearance of a thunderstorm, and used to take the opportunity at such times, to fix myself to view the clouds, and see the lightning play, and hear the majestic and awful voice of God’s thunder.” So infused was this majestic display of power and beauty that Edwards called it “exceeding entertaining,” and the entire experience led him to “sweet contemplations of my great and glorious God.”
Though to us this phenomenon of nature seems random and uncontrollable, yet God controls each of the flashes and consequent rolls of thunder as his servants to do his bidding. “They turn around and around by his guidance, to accomplish all that he commands them on the face of the habitable world. Whether for correction or for his land or for love, he causes it to happen” (37:12, 13). Because he uses these things for his purpose each aspect of “natural” activity serves the cause of justice and righteousness. “God is clothed with awesome majesty. The Almighty—we cannot find him; he is great in power; justice and abundant righteousness he will not violate” (37:23)
Now the encounter for which Job has yearned comes crashing in upon him—“Let the Almighty answer me … Like a prince I would approach Him.” (31:35-37). God tests Job as a competent witness and begins his own defense. And He is not subtle about it. Whereas later God came to Elijah in a still small voice and not in whirlwind or fire (1 Kings 19:12,13), to Job he arises with power and might out of a whirlwind (38:1). He challenges Job’s perception of the strength of his case before God and says that by his words he “darkens counsel” (2) and that his words themselves are “without knowledge.” In the final verse of chapter 37, Elihu has warned Job that the Almighty does not give high regard to those who appeal to their wisdom as instructive to God. So, if Job believes that he will stand before God like a prince, God himself challenges him to “Dress for action—gird up your loins—like a man” (3).
God challenges Job to show that he is qualified to stand toe-to-toe with God on the issue of his purpose in the world. “Where were you when I laid the foundation of the earth?” If you possess enough understanding to challenge my providential arrangements within this order, that means you were consulting with me at the point of creation and were privy to my purpose in all of its variety and the details of its inter-relationships. If Job is on parity with God for this, he will show his competence by demonstrating his knowledge of the created order. If Job believes that he can question the moral purposes of God, then, surely, he will be able to answer a few questions about the mysteries of the natural order.
After God asked Job the very basic question as to where he was when God laid the foundations of the earth, He asked about its dimensions or the reason for its specific measurements. How is it stable? On what were its bases sunk? This implies that the earth is sustained in its steadiness and equilibrium by some unseen forces, as it indeed is in its gravitational relationship with all other bodies. Apparently angelic beings were created before the creation of the earth and the universe. These intelligent beings witnessed God’s power in speaking and bringing into being the entire cosmos from nothing. It was sheer delight; as the stars and planets and all the wonders of the heavenly bodies appeared, these beings shouted for joy. Having seen the power, wisdom, beauty, logic, reason, and aseity of God in his decree and execution of creation, another wonder far beyond this will yet appear to angelic minds. They will marvel and worship at the birth of the Son of God, minister to him in his life, attend his grave at the resurrection, provide an avenue of glory at his ascension, and stand amazed at the application of the graces of forgiveness and justification through the covenant of redemption to fallen creatures (Hebrews 1:6, 13, 14; Luke 1:35; Luke 2:13, 14; Matthew 4:11; Luke 22:43; Luke 24:4-7; Acts 1:10, 11; 1 Peter 1:12).Even so early in this opportunity for dialogue with God, Job realizes that he is a non-entity for intellectual and moral sparring with the one who spoke the universe into existence. If the angels worship and shout for joy, who is he to do anything else?
Dr. Tom Nettles is widely regarded as one of the foremost Baptist historians in America. He joined the faculty of Southern Baptist Theological Seminary after teaching at Trinity Evangelical Divinity School where he was professor of Church History and chairman of that department. Previously, he taught at Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary and Mid-America Baptist Theological Seminary. He received a B.A. from Mississippi College and an M.Div. and Ph.D. from Southwestern. In addition to writing numerous journal articles and scholarly papers, Dr. Nettles has authored or edited nine books including By His Grace and For His Glory, Baptists and the Bible, and Why I Am a Baptist.
Courses taught: Historical Theology of the Baptists, Historical Theology Overview, Jonathan Edwards & Andrew Fuller.
