This Far, but no Farther

I am a seminary student and hope to get back to course work soon and even earn a Ph.D. in the near future. But for me, studying Scripture is not an academic pursuit. Scripture is supposed to reveal God to us. Its primary function is to reveal God’s character and from that we can learn what His will is for us. We can see our sin, our need for growth and change when we see God clearer. So, for me, I want to know what kind of God would allow, cause or permit my daughter to suffer the way she did. I want to know if He is cruel and capricious. Is He all-powerful? Is He really in control and if He is, why do we suffer? These philosophical and theological questions are not academic for me. These questions and their answers will shape the rest of my life. The answers to these questions will shape how I go on from here in the face of my daughter’s suffering.

There is an ancient story in the Old Testament about a man named Job. Many people have heard of Job and that he is somehow regarded as “patient.” Very few people actually take the time to read his story. Quite frankly, it is a tedious story to read. It starts with a very troubling narrative that raises all kinds of questions for us as modern readers. Unbeknownst to Job, God and Satan seem to be wagering over Job’s faithfulness and as a result, his suffering begins. From there the story seems to bog down for twenty-nine chapters as Job and his friends argue over his integrity and the source of his suffering. When you finally reach the end of the story, a new character shows up but offers little. God shows up and just when you think He is going to give us some answers, all He does is ask question after question. Job does end up with all of his losses replaced and then some, but as modern readers, we are left with our questions and little satisfaction.

The problem is not that Job’s story fails to answer any questions. The problem is that we are removed from the culture and time this story was written in. We have a hard time appreciating the nuances and implications of its expressions. But above that, our real struggle is we are not always ready for the answers it provides. We may avoid Job’s story out of more than just its tedious design. We often avoid it because it may fuel or confirm our worst fears about God. As C.S. Lewis stated in A Grief Observed, “Meanwhile, where is God?... Not that I am (I think) in much danger of ceasing to believe in God. The real danger is of coming to believe such dreadful things about Him. The conclusion I dread is not, ‘So there’s no God after all,’ but, ‘So this is what God’s really like. Deceive yourself no longer.’” But I have come to the conclusion that if God is all we think He is, then He can handle my questions. I will not be able to stump Him or catch Him in a true contradiction. If God is who He says He is, then I will often find I am just not ready for the answers to my questions. The contradictions will be found in my thinking, not in God.

One of the first lessons we learn from Job is that he was faithful in the midst of success. He was a wealthy man and he had many children. For many of us and our culture, prosperity and pleasure have driven us away from God, not toward Him. It’s easy to angrily ask God why in the midst of pain and suffering, but do we ever ask Him why when we are blessed? Why have You blessed me with a family, Lord? Why have you blessed me with a home and its amenities? I believe we fail to ask this question, because deep down we assume God is supposed to bless us. We assume we deserve it. We also may worry that if we ask why He has blessed us with opportunities and material wealth, He may answer that we are to use such blessings for His kingdom more than our own. We are not always keen on that. But Job’s faithfulness in blessings gave him a foundation to draw from in suffering.

The troubling part of Job’s story is the beginning. For some reason, Satan (the adversary) comes before the throne of God. God asks him from where he has come. Why would an all-knowing God need to ask from where Satan had come? It is like the time God asked Adam and Eve where they were after they sinned in Genesis 3. God knew, but in answering the question, Satan had to remind himself of the distance between him and God. Satan’s answer was that he came from roaming around on the earth. This exposes that Satan has no place in God’s court. When God asks us questions, our answers are meant to inform us of the truth He already knows. Then God brings up Job, “Have you considered my servant Job? There is no one like him on earth, a blameless and upright man, fearing God and turning away from evil.” As an audience, we want to ask, “God, why did You bring up Job? You know Satan is going to take the bait and go after him. Shush!”

It is here that Satan attacks as we might expect. He claims Job would stop being faithful if the blessings stop. So God gives all of Job’s blessings over to Satan’s power, but He does not allow Satan to strike Job directly. Satan struck Job’s vast wealth through raiding parties of foreigners who killed Job’s servants and stole his livestock. Lightening destroyed more servants and livestock. Then a strong wind, maybe a tornado, knocked down a house all of Job’s children were in and killed them. Job receives word of these disasters one after another. There is no time to breathe between the messages. Job tears his robe and puts ashes on his head to mourn. God turned Satan loose and people died! God, why did You bring up Job? But we turn our attention to Job and wonder if he will curse God now. Now that the blessings are gone, will Job do as Satan predicted? Job’s response was to worship and say, “Naked I came from my mother’s womb and naked I shall return there. The Lord gave and the Lord has taken away. Blessed be the name of the Lord.”

Let us pause and learn what Job’s statement meant. This statement has become cliché for many in the church. We use it as if to say, “Such is life, let us move on.” We miss the power of Job’s statement. The original audience would have gasped at this point of the story. That is why the writer had to clarify for us in 1:22 that Job did not sin nor blame God. Job’s statement would have sounded dangerously close to a curse of God. The Hebrew word for “blessed” in Job is the exact same Hebrew word used for “cursed.” It is an intentional play on words to keep us in suspense. Job also said the Lord gave and the Lord has taken away. He did not say Satan took away. Thus the writer had to clarify for us that Job did not blame God. But we want to. We know what Job did not know. We know God handed Job over to Satan. This is where we become deeply troubled.

But it gets worse. Satan goes back before God and God brings Job up again! Satan claims Job is still too blessed! So, God gives permission to strike Job physically but Satan is not permitted to kill Job. Now Job is worse off than before. His body is covered in boils. He is reduced to a shell of a man. Because of his skin condition, he was forced out of the community to sit in community dump where trash is burned. He was so bad off that his friends would not recognize him. His wife who has suffered these losses and is also in the throes of grief told him to curse God and die. We cannot blame her. Job rebukes her statement and says, “You speak as one of the foolish women speaks. Shall we indeed accept good from God and not accept adversity?” Again, the writer had to clarify that Job did not sin because this statement could sound like he is blaming God. But we want to blame God. He started all of this. We want to blame Him and we want to demand an answer from Him as to why this happened.

Satan loses his wager in the opening chapters and we never see him in the story again. But Job’s friends come to comfort him and end up playing the same role as Satan. They came to comfort Job but end up accusing him. This is where the story seems to bog down and go on endlessly as these friends and Job debate the cause of his suffering. Three big lessons can be learned from these tedious chapters. First, Job’s friends provided comfort in the beginning when they showed up and said nothing. It was when they spoke they brought more pain. Our presence offers greater comfort to those in grief more than any words can. Second, these chapters drag on and on and on because everyone in the debate is really unqualified to explain the situation. Only God can adequately do that. When we try to offer someone comfort by making theological statements about God or offer reasons for the suffering, we are really overstepping our bounds. We cannot know the ultimate reasons for someone’s suffering. We may see some results that flow out of it, but those are just circumstantial results, not necessarily the reason. God may use those results, but the over arching reasons for our specific suffering is known by Him, not us.

Third, throughout these chapters, Job’s friends claim it is some hidden sin that has brought on this suffering. Throughout the debate, we wonder if Job’s friends bring him to the point Satan wanted and curse God? Job inches closer and closer to it with many different statements. Slowly, Job seems to come to the same place we as an audience are at already. We want to blame God and demand that God give an explanation. Job begins to ask the same. He wants God to give a reason for all of this suffering.

The lesson here is that God is not aloof to our situation, even in his silence. Job declares he wants to take his case before God. Job logically deducts there is a need for a mediator between humans and God. We are in a fallen world where sin’s effects have impacted every aspect of our existence. God is perfect and holy. The distance between Him and us is infinite. Job points to the need for a mediator. This is the Gospel according to Job. Job’s story points us to Christ. Christ is the mediator who closes that infinite distance between God and us. God became flesh and dwelt among us in Christ Jesus. He lived a perfect life free of sin even though He was tempted in every way. He died on the cross to take the just wrath we deserve for our sin and rose again from the dead to defeat death and sin. It is by the work of Christ alone we can be restored in our relationship with God. Job’s story points us to the need of a mediator and Christ fulfills that need. In our suffering, since we are on this side of the cross, we know exactly who our mediator is. We can present our suffering, our sins, our struggles and our pain to God through Christ.

For those on Job’s side of the cross, Job’s demand to take his case before God sounded blasphemous. Who did Job think he was? After Job’s three friends try unsuccessfully to convince Job of his folly, a fourth friend, Elihu, shows up and tries the same. Elihu is a mysterious character but acts as a transition between the human debate and God’s counsel. Elihu’s function is highly debated, but suffice it to say he sets us up for the entrance of God into the story. Elihu becomes somewhat of a foil for what God is about to do. God shows up in a storm. God speaks to Job and asks:

Who is this that darkens counsel by words without knowledge? Now gird up your loins like a man, and I will ask you, and you instruct Me! Where were you when I laid the foundation of the earth? Tell Me, if you have understanding.

The audience and Job’s friends are bracing for what they think is Job’s demise. God’s speech lays out God’s sovereignty and transcendence Job’s friends have been arguing for the whole time. We expect that God is about to lay it to Job. As God takes Job on a tour of creation and God’s sovereignty over it, we can almost hear his friends saying, “Amen! Bring it Lord and let him have it! Show him we were right!”

But God’s speech is not simply a “might-makes-right” diatribe. He’s not simply saying, “Because I made all of this, you have no say in the matter.” In fact, God really deals with more than just the created items, but declares his ultimate control and knowledge of death, morality, human ingenuity and ability. When God speaks of the donkey, ox and horse, he speaks of them in terms of how humans have used them. We need not be too quick to credit ourselves with the ability to tame such animals and use them. God made it possible for such animals to be used as vehicles of work, war and pleasure. Think of our own technology. Where does the sand and silica come from we use to make microchips? Where do the metals come from we use to make circuits and wires? Where does the oil come from we use to make the plastic housings for our technology? God put it there and gave us the curiosity and ingenuity to use it. When we gain this perspective, we learn we are not the masters of our universe. All of our achievements are rooted in the common grace of God. The fact we can even ask such questions is an act of God’s grace.

But the common thread throughout God’s speech is that he may allow evil things to occur, but he puts limits on it. In 38:11 God declares he told the sea, “Thus far you shall come, but no farther; and here shall your proud waves stop.” Just as God put limits on Satan’s activity in the beginning of the story, God put limits on the forces of evil. He may allow suffering into our lives, but he prevents it from going any farther than it should. Our problem is that the point at which we would stop evil or suffering often does not match up with where God stops it. This angers us, but God demonstrates to Job, his friends and to us that we do not have a big enough perspective.

God could have never given humanity any moral choice and prevented evil, but then that would have prevented us from ever being able to choose or experience love as well. God could have left us in our sin or destroyed us, but instead he became flesh and died on the cross for that sin. God could have allowed not only Macayla to have Battens, but our son as well. Instead, he blessed us with nine years of a beautiful girl and a son who will not suffer from the disease. For our family, God told Battens disease, “Thus far you shall come, but no farther.” Do we wish he stopped it before it reached Macayla? Of course we do, but I know we do not have the whole picture yet. We cannot see the reasons and all of the results yet. But I guarantee that when we get to heaven, we will NOT look at God and say, “That was a terrible plan! What were you thinking?” No, we will be amazed how God weaved our lives, suffering and choices into his plan.

In the end, Job found comfort in two main things. First, Job found comfort in the presence of God. We often experience such comfort and presence when we are surrounded by His people. Second, Job had the promise of restoration and vindication. Our daughter is restored! She is whole now with Christ. Her life will be vindicated when we see the greater plan and how God used it. With that promise, we find comfort. We find we can actually trust God. We discover we can present our suffering and pain before Him because we have the mediator Job longed for. We have Christ!