Daily Thought

Job is held up before us as an example of patience (endurance) in the face of extreme adversity, Jas. 5. 11. We might add that his endurance was the more remarkable because of the special circumstances that surrounded his testing, for he had no real inkling as to why he was allowed to suffer so.

We are told that Job was a God-fearing man; God describes him as ‘perfect’ (‘blameless’ NKJV), ‘upright’, and shunning evil, yet he was to be tested to the limit at the hand of Satan, 1. 1. Job’s sufferings from this quarter were allowed by God as a means of demonstrating to Satan, and all else, that the integrity of this man was authentic, and would survive the sternest of tests. But Job did not know he was on trial, neither did his friends who came to comfort him in his adversity.

As they sat with him they attempted to define the reason for all that had befallen him, arguing that in some way he must have offended God and that this was justifiable retribution from God. Job’s protestations were dismissed, for they argued that such sufferings as Job knew must indicate inherent latent sin, even though appearances seemed to contradict this conclusion.

In the various discourses that occur in this book, attempts are made by the participants to describe the greatness of almighty God, and to define His characteristics and His relationship with frail mortal man. We see this in chapter 9, Job’s answer to Bildad, commencing with the question, ‘how should man be just with God?’, v. 2. The prevailing thought upon Job’s mind at this time is the immensity of distance that must exist between a remote God of awesome greatness, and poor weak man. Any attempts by man to present his own case for blamelessness and acceptance before God must be rendered impossible by the obvious problems of communication involved in such a process. What is required is a ‘daysman’ (an ‘umpire’, a ‘go-between’), v. 33, someone capable of presenting with full understanding man’s case to God, and of speaking for God to man with full knowledge of God’s requirements. Such a daysman would have to be God and yet man in one person!

We know this was God’s provision in the person of His own dear Son -‘God was manifest in the flesh’, 1 Tim. 3. 16.