Elihu interacts with Job on the mystery of God’s ways with a sinful world, its sinful people, his wrath, and his way of bringing people to repentance and obedience.
The righteous are always under the protective eyes of God (7). In a prophetic word about the exalted position of the righteous, Elihu tells Job that they are exalted and seated with kings on the throne. Paul duplicated this image in his celebration of the efficacious, saving grace of God: God “made us alive together with Christ (by grace you have been saved) and raised us up together and made us sit together in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus” (Ephesians 2:5, 6).
How does God deal with those who have this king of exalted position. When calamity comes (“bound in fetters, … cords of affliction”) to those whom God has set in positions of privilege and authority, God shows them the character of their sin. “Then he declares to them their work and their transgressions, that they are behaving arrogantly.” As the NASB says, “They have magnified themselves.” God gives them instruction and requires that they turn from iniquity (10). God has never relinquished his moral authority over any portion of the world at any time. Every culture, and every person within that culture will be held accountable to God. When Paul preached that in times past God “winked” at the transgressions of the nations outside the messianic covenantal community, he did not mean that they were without any revelation of right and wrong and that God never inflicted judgment. He meant that in light of the coming redemption and the necessity of the continuation of the race, God did not enact a full measure of wrath on either the elect or the non-elect. From the woes pronounced by the Old Testament prophets against the nations (e.g. Ezekiel 25-32), it is clear that God frequently acted in a retributive manner. Here Elihu, keenly sensitive to manners in which God revealed elements of responsibility to all people, says that God “opens their ears to instruction.” He issues a call to repentance.
This call will be effectual to those who indeed are recipients of justifying mercy. Repentance will renew their standing in divine favor (11); a refusal to repent will result in righteous judgment. They will “die without knowledge,” (12) that is, without a saving knowledge of God, without the knowledge of the beauty of his holiness. This message of repentance was the fundamental message of John the Baptist in preparation for the Messiah and it was the initial message of Jesus Himself. It was a necessary element of the message that the apostles preached, “repentance and forgiveness of sin” (Luke 24:47); “repentance toward God and faith in our Lord Jesus Christ” (Acts 20:21). Jesus said, “I tell you nay, except you repent, you shall all likewise perish” (Luke 13: 3, 5).
Those who refuse to heed divine warnings in temporal discipline but scoff against God will end their lives among the godless and the grotesque violators of God’s righteous character (13, 14). Though they sense righteous anger against them (13), they refuse to repent but rather indulge in greater transgression. Their apparent standing in righteousness will be revealed as mere posturing in light of perceived privileges. Should they refuse this admonition and this opportunity for submission and increased sanctification, they reveal that true grace is not theirs and they put themselves in the precarious position of those described in Hebrews: “For if we sin willfully after we have received the knowledge of the truth, there no longer remains a sacrifice for sins, but a certain fearful expectation of judgment, and fiery indignation which will devour the adversaries” (Hebrews 10:26, 27). Is Job dangerously close to this end or will he endure God’s treatment of him with a view to justifying God in his work?
Job’s former condition of prosperity, though he could have been born to affliction, was a matter of divine grace toward him. Job revered God and had a desire to please God in all of his doings by virtue of God’s opening his ear. Verse 15 has happened in reverse for Job. He was sent to affliction while rich and his oppression has brought, not clarity, but confusion. God himself enticed Job from the distress that could have been his from the beginning. Instead of a life of distress as a sinner, God gave Job riches, possessions, family, influence, and abundance of daily provisions. Did Job think that these gifts from God were because of his righteousness? Did he fall into the trap of his earlier three advisors and believe that his life of thriving was a reward for goodness? True riches come to the contrite in heart (16).
In verses 17-18, Elihu warns Job that he is being led to despise the greatness of God’s grace toward him by being puzzled at the slight show of affliction. The present condign infliction of chastening should not puzzle Job but should heighten his gratitude for grace. “Beware that wrath does not entice you to scoffing” (18 NASB). Our due from God is immediate subjection to eternal wrath. As some portions of judgment begin to replace the privilege of grace, Job should not despise the reality that deliverance comes only from an infinitely righteous ransom and deliverer from judgment. Elihu has introduced this rescue by ransom in 33:23-30. It is too large for any man to pay but God in infinite wisdom and effectual aggressive grace has made a way for wrath-deservers to find riches—eternal riches—in the presence of God. To resist God’s right to judge in demonstration of the perfect holiness of his character and his sovereign prerogative to deal with human pollution as he sees fit is to minimize the infinite price of redemptive grace. “Do not let the greatness of the ransom turn you aside.” Theologians who deny substitutionary propitiation as central to Christ’s atoning work often argue that they magnify the grace of God by their denial—that he simply forgives apart from any ransom or manifestation of wrath. In reality they diminish both the immutable holiness of God and the infinite love and grace of God as demonstrated by his provision of the only way in which the grace of forgiveness could be ours (Romans 5:8; 1 John 4:10; John 3:16-18).
Elihu pressed Job, and presses us, to pursue a heart of gratitude for eternal riches, to take every moment of temporal distress and affliction as a reminder that he has rescued us from the wrath to come (1 Thessalonians 1:10).
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.
