Oil on Masonite 150cmx100cm, 2016
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JOB AND ELIHUJob was a rich and godly man who went through a period of severe testing. His health, his children, his possessions were all taken away from him. Job is robbed of every sign of God’s favor which agonizes him. His friends falsely accuse him of being sinful but Job remains faithful: “God gives and God takes away.” They accuse him that his godliness is self-serving because it pays off. In reply, Job had said many things trying to prove his righteousness.
Chapter 32 introduces a man named Elihu, who was undignified by Job’s friends’ merely condemning Job as being evil as well as by Job’s self-righteousness. Elihu rebukes Job for sayings such as: “I desire to dispute with God,” and “I will fill my mouth with rebukes to learn how he answers me.” He mentions that it is presumpteous for man to challenge God as if he is his equal, for “God is greater than man.” Elihu further points out Job’s contentious words when he says: “Behold, I will shout out violently in my suffering and no one will hear me.” Elihu reminds Job that: “God speaks once, sufficient for the instruction of man.” He does not have to answer each of man’s questions in turn. In Job’s suffering his faith was severely tested. At some level, we can identify with Job. We must persevere in the midst of life’s storms by holding on to God’s promise that “I will never leave you, nor forsake you” (Joshua 1:5). By trusting God eventually we will see his hand on all things. |
The Story behind the Painting
The book of Job can be viewed as a story of godly sufferers who like Job were struggling with the crisis of faith brought on by prolonged and bitter suffering. He listens to the “wisdom” of the theologians of his day about the ways of God and what brings on suffering. But he also knows what miserable comfort that so-called wisdom gives – that it only rubs salt in the wounds and creates a stumbling-block for faith. Against that wisdom he has no rational arguments.
When godly people suffer, the human spirit struggles to understand. Throughout history people have asked: If God is almighty and “holds the whole world in his hands” and if he is truly good, how can he allow such an outrage? This question leaves open three possibilities: 1) God is not almighty after all; 2) God is not wholly good (but has a demonic streak in him). 3) Humans may be innocent. In ancient Israel, however, it was indisputable that God is almighty; that he is perfectly just and that no human is pure in his sight. These three assumptions were also fundamental to the theology of Job and his friends. Simple logic then dictated the conclusion: Every person’s suffering is indicative of the measure of guilt in the eyes of God. But what thus appeared to be theologically self-evident and unassailable in the abstract was often in radical tension with actual human experience. There were those whose godliness was genuine, whose moral character was upright, but who nonetheless were made to suffer bitterly. For these, the self-evident theology brought no consolation and offered no guidance. It gave only rise to great enigma. This theology left innocent sufferers imprisoned in windowless cells to agonize over the crisis of their faith. Job friend’s theology had no helpful, encouraging or comforting word for a truly godly sufferer.
After the brief prologue, which describes Job and his relationship to God, the writer of the book of Job introduces God’s great adversary, who is bent on frustrating God’s creation, centered on God’s relationship with the creatures that bear his image. As tempter, he seeks to alienate humans from God; as accuser (Satan) he seeks to alienate God from humans. His all-consuming purpose is to drive an irremovable wedge between God and humans to effect an alienation that cannot be reconciled. True to one of his mode of operations, he accuses Job before God. He charges that Job’s godliness is evil. His godliness lacks all integrity; it is a terrible sin. Job’s godliness is merely self-serving; he is righteous only because it pays. If God will only let Satan tempt Job by breaking the link between righteousness and blessing, he will expose this man and all righteous people as the frauds they are. If he succeeds, if the godliness of the righteous in whom God delights can be shown to be evil, then a chasm of alienation stands between God and human beings that cannot be bridged. Then even the redemption of human beings is unthinkable, for the godliest among them would be shown to be the most ungodly. God’s whole creation and his plan of redemption would be shown to be radically flawed, and God can only sweep it all away in awful judgment. The accusation, once raised, cannot be ignored, and it cannot be silenced - not even by destroying the accuser; it strikes too deeply into the very structure of creation. So God let the adversary (Satan) have his way with Job so that God and righteous Job may be vindicated and the great accuser silenced.
God allows Satan to take away everything Job has; all his possessions, even his seven sons and three daughters. But Satan is not satisfied; he wants Job to suffer physically by afflicting him with painful sores “from the soles of his feet to the top of his head.”
Job greatly suffers, but remains faithful during all his afflictions. In the end the adversary is silenced. Job’s friends are silenced. And Job is silenced. But God is not. And when he speaks, it is to the godly Job that he speaks, bringing the silence of regret for hasty words in days of suffering and the silence of repose in the ways of the Almighty. Furthermore, as his heavenly friend, God hears Job’s intercessions for his friends, and at this point he restores Job’s life to beyond what he had lost.
The book of Job can be viewed as a story of godly sufferers who like Job were struggling with the crisis of faith brought on by prolonged and bitter suffering. He listens to the “wisdom” of the theologians of his day about the ways of God and what brings on suffering. But he also knows what miserable comfort that so-called wisdom gives – that it only rubs salt in the wounds and creates a stumbling-block for faith. Against that wisdom he has no rational arguments.
When godly people suffer, the human spirit struggles to understand. Throughout history people have asked: If God is almighty and “holds the whole world in his hands” and if he is truly good, how can he allow such an outrage? This question leaves open three possibilities: 1) God is not almighty after all; 2) God is not wholly good (but has a demonic streak in him). 3) Humans may be innocent. In ancient Israel, however, it was indisputable that God is almighty; that he is perfectly just and that no human is pure in his sight. These three assumptions were also fundamental to the theology of Job and his friends. Simple logic then dictated the conclusion: Every person’s suffering is indicative of the measure of guilt in the eyes of God. But what thus appeared to be theologically self-evident and unassailable in the abstract was often in radical tension with actual human experience. There were those whose godliness was genuine, whose moral character was upright, but who nonetheless were made to suffer bitterly. For these, the self-evident theology brought no consolation and offered no guidance. It gave only rise to great enigma. This theology left innocent sufferers imprisoned in windowless cells to agonize over the crisis of their faith. Job friend’s theology had no helpful, encouraging or comforting word for a truly godly sufferer.
After the brief prologue, which describes Job and his relationship to God, the writer of the book of Job introduces God’s great adversary, who is bent on frustrating God’s creation, centered on God’s relationship with the creatures that bear his image. As tempter, he seeks to alienate humans from God; as accuser (Satan) he seeks to alienate God from humans. His all-consuming purpose is to drive an irremovable wedge between God and humans to effect an alienation that cannot be reconciled. True to one of his mode of operations, he accuses Job before God. He charges that Job’s godliness is evil. His godliness lacks all integrity; it is a terrible sin. Job’s godliness is merely self-serving; he is righteous only because it pays. If God will only let Satan tempt Job by breaking the link between righteousness and blessing, he will expose this man and all righteous people as the frauds they are. If he succeeds, if the godliness of the righteous in whom God delights can be shown to be evil, then a chasm of alienation stands between God and human beings that cannot be bridged. Then even the redemption of human beings is unthinkable, for the godliest among them would be shown to be the most ungodly. God’s whole creation and his plan of redemption would be shown to be radically flawed, and God can only sweep it all away in awful judgment. The accusation, once raised, cannot be ignored, and it cannot be silenced - not even by destroying the accuser; it strikes too deeply into the very structure of creation. So God let the adversary (Satan) have his way with Job so that God and righteous Job may be vindicated and the great accuser silenced.
God allows Satan to take away everything Job has; all his possessions, even his seven sons and three daughters. But Satan is not satisfied; he wants Job to suffer physically by afflicting him with painful sores “from the soles of his feet to the top of his head.”
Job greatly suffers, but remains faithful during all his afflictions. In the end the adversary is silenced. Job’s friends are silenced. And Job is silenced. But God is not. And when he speaks, it is to the godly Job that he speaks, bringing the silence of regret for hasty words in days of suffering and the silence of repose in the ways of the Almighty. Furthermore, as his heavenly friend, God hears Job’s intercessions for his friends, and at this point he restores Job’s life to beyond what he had lost.