Scripture Reading: Job 1:1; 10:2, 13; 13:3, 18-28; 19:25-26; 42:5
In this message I have the burden to say a word regarding God's answer to Job. This answer addresses a crucial question raised by the book of Job.
In their efforts to vindicate the authenticity of the book of Job, many readers of this book, especially among the fundamentalists and the Brethren, have emphasized certain "golden verses." One of these verses is 19:25: "I know that my Redeemer lives,/And at the last He will stand upon the earth." This verse conveys some amount of revelation concerning Christ, the Redeemer. Another golden verse is 42:5: "I had heard of You by the hearing of the ear,/But now my eye has seen You." This surely is an excellent verse. However, in spite of verses such as these, the forty-two chapters in Job leave us with a crucial question of two parts: What was the purpose of God in His creating of man, and what is the purpose of God in His dealing with His chosen people? To answer this question, we need the entire Bible. In particular, the New Testament is a long answer to Job's question.
Job said that he wanted to argue with God and even "litigate" with God in "court," making himself the plaintiff and God the defendant. But Job did not have the opportunity to do this, and his question concerning his suffering remained unanswered. The New Testament is God's answer to Job. We may say that it is a message "faxed" from God to Job. This "fax," this answer, reveals that God was not judging Job or punishing him but was stripping and consuming him so that Job could be rebuilt with the Triune God. Although millions of people have read the New Testament, not many understand the answer that it contains. Thus, it is extremely important that we consider the vital aspects of the answer to Job revealed in the New Testament.
If we read the Old Testament with its prophecies, types, and plain words from Genesis through Malachi, we will see that the Old Testament ends with the promise that One was coming (Mal. 4:5-6). The New Testament begins with God's incarnation (Matt. 1:18-25). The very God who was in eternity, who created the heavens and the earth and billions of items and man, and who did so many things with mankind, came as the promised One. He came in a mysterious way without advertisement and without public notification. He entered into a virgin's womb and, according to Matthew 1:20, was born in that womb. He remained there for nine months, and then He was born out of that womb. From this we see that the incarnation was God's coming out of eternity into time, to enter with His divinity into humanity. Prior to the incarnation, God was in eternity and man was in time. Through incarnation God brought the divine nature and the human nature together to make them one entity, even one wonderful person, named Jesus. Jesus, who is both God and man, is the totality of the result of the incarnation.
The Lord Jesus lived on earth for more than thirty years. Many Christians, paying their attention to the miracles done by the Lord Jesus, do not know the real, spiritual, and intrinsic significance of Christ's human living. Christ's human living was just man living God to express the attributes of God in the human virtues.
Eventually, the Lord Jesus went to the cross to be crucified there. According to the revelation of the New Testament, the death that Christ died on the cross was all-inclusive and also vicarious for us.
Christ entered into death and went into Hades to visit Hades. He stayed there for three days. Then He came out and entered into resurrection. In resurrection He was begotten of God to be God's firstborn (Acts 13:33). Not only so, in resurrection He was made the life-giving Spirit --not just a God-man but a Spirit that gives life (1 Cor. 15:45). Moreover, when He was resurrected to be begotten of God to be God's firstborn Son, He regenerated all His believers, making them the many sons of God and His many brothers as members of His Body (1 Pet. 1:3).
From this we see that through Christ's incarnation, human living, crucifixion, and resurrection, there is One who is the mingling of divinity with humanity. This One became the firstborn Son of God to express God. He also became the life-giving, life-imparting Spirit to germinate all those of the old creation who had been chosen by God to make them the new creation of God. Now, after the day of resurrection, there are four marvelous things in the universe: the mingling of God with man, the firstborn Son of God, the life-giving Spirit, and the organism of the Triune God.
The first four items in God's answer to the question concerning Job's suffering are Christ's incarnation, Christ's human living, Christ's crucifixion, and Christ's resurrection. The fifth item is Christ's ascension. After His resurrection the Lord Jesus appeared to His disciples during a period of forty days, and then He ascended to the heavens.
In His ascension Christ poured out Himself as the consummated Triune God and as the all-inclusive Spirit upon His members, to constitute all of them into one organic Body to be the organism of the processed and consummated Triune God. This is the church as the new man, as the Body of Christ, and as the organism of the Triune God, and this entity will consummate in the New Jerusalem. Thus, in God's long answer to Job's suffering there are ten main items: incarnation, human living, crucifixion, resurrection, ascension, the church, the new man, the Body of Christ, the organism of the Triune God, and the New Jerusalem.
The main contents of the New Testament are that the Triune God has an eternal economy according to His good pleasure to dispense Himself into His chosen and redeemed people in His life and in His nature, to make all of them the same as He is in life and nature, to make them His duplication that they may express Him. This corporate expression will consummate in the New Jerusalem. Thus, the New Jerusalem is simply the enlarged, the increased, incarnation consummated in full, that is, the fullness of the Triune God for Him to express Himself in His divinity mingled with humanity. These are the contents of the New Testament, and this is the answer that Job needed. This is God's answer concerning the purpose of Job's suffering.
