Chapters 21—31
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Scripture Reading: Job 29; Job 30
In this message we will continue to consider Job's final speaking to his three friends.
Chapter twenty-nine is a record of Job's dwelling on his excellent past. He recalled the days of his prime when the intimate counsel with God was over his tent, the Almighty was with him, and his children were around him. He remembered that he delivered the poor man who cried out and the orphan who had no one to help him. He also made the widow's heart shout for joy. Thus Job could declare, "I put on righteousness, and it clothed me;/My justice was like a robe and a turban" (v. 14). Job went on to say that, in his excellent past, he was eyes to the blind, feet to the lame, and a father to the needy. Others listened to his counsel, and after his words they did not speak again. Job chose the way for them and sat as chief, dwelling "as a king among the troops,/As one who comforts those who mourn" (v. 25).
After dwelling on his excellent past, Job in chapter thirty sighed over his miserable present. Job said that those who were younger than he held him in derision and that others made him a byword, abhorred him, and stood aloof from him, casting off restraint in his presence. Next, Job said that terrors had turned upon him, that his prosperity had passed away like a cloud, that his soul was poured out within him, and that days of affliction had taken hold of him. Job continued by saying that he cried to God, but God did not answer him. According to Job's feeling, God had turned to become cruel to him. Job said to Him, "I know that You will bring me into death,/And to the house appointed for all living" (v. 23). Job also sighed over the fact that when he expected good, evil came, and when he waited for light, darkness came. Job concluded by saying that his inward parts were in turmoil, that days of affliction had drawn near to him, and that his harp had become mourning and his pipe, the voice of those who weep. Here we see a picture of Job's sufferings.
Job did not understand the reason for his sufferings, but today we know the reason. It was true that Job suffered, but his suffering was allowed by God for a purpose. God wanted to take away all his successes. Job was very successful, both materially and ethically. He had attained to a very high degree of perfection and uprightness. That was his integrity, and he was proud of it. Job considered his perfection and integrity as a robe to cover him and as a turban to glorify him (29:14). However, God took these away in order that Job would pursue God Himself instead of other things, yet Job did not understand. He thought that he was right and that God had done something wrong toward him. Therefore, he was hoping to have an opportunity to present his case before God. From this we can see that Job was altogether in another realm, one which was contrary to God's desire.
Eventually, Job recognized that he had known God only "by the hearing of the ear" (42:5a). He had heard about God and he had believed in God, but he had never seen God. However, through all the strippings and consumings, the time came when Job saw God (42:5b).
Matthew 5:8 says, "Blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God." Here, seeing God is a great reward in the kingdom. According to the clear view in the New Testament, to see God is to receive God into us. If seeing God is merely an objective seeing of God and nothing else, that means very little. But seeing God is to receive God, and this means that God comes into us as our element to renew us, to transform us, because God's coming in adds the divine element into our being. This divine element works on us and in us to renew us, discharging all our old element. Eventually, our entire being becomes new. This is transformation.
Second Corinthians 3:18 says, "We all with unveiled face, beholding and reflecting like a mirror the glory of the Lord, are being transformed into the same image from glory to glory, even as from the Lord Spirit." First we behold God, that is, see God; then we reflect Him and are transformed. In our seeing God we are being transformed into His glorious image, from one degree of glory to another. This is from the Lord Spirit.
The God whom Job saw was also the Spirit, but at that time God was still in His original state. God had His divine element with His divine attributes, but He did not have anything related to incarnation, humanity, and human living. According to 2 Corinthians 3:18, the God whom we are looking at today is different, for He is much richer in His ingredients. Hence, the more we look at Him, the more we receive His ingredients into our being as our inner supply to work on us, to discharge the old, and to make us new. This is to transform us into God's image.
Seeing God should issue in the transformation of our being into God's image. I do not believe Job had such a realization when he saw God. It is a fact that his sufferings did issue in one thing — he saw God. It is hard to say, however, in what way Job saw God, whether in a physical way or in the way of a spiritual revelation.
Our way of looking at God today is altogether a matter in the spirit. The God whom we may look at is the consummated Spirit, and we can look at Him in our spirit. Sometimes we are too busy or too careless to take the opportunity to look at the Lord. In our morning watch, even if only for fifteen or twenty minutes, we have time to be with the Lord, time to remain in the Spirit. At such a time we may pray-read His word, talk to Him, or pray to Him with short prayers. Then we will have the sense that we are receiving something of God's element, that we are absorbing the riches of God into our being. In this way we are under the divine transformation day by day.
Our Christian life is a life not of changing outwardly but of being transformed from within by having the divine element added into our inner being to replace our old element. This is altogether by our looking at the processed and consummated God, who is the all-inclusive Spirit.
By reading Job's final word in chapter thirty, we can realize that Job and his friends were walking on the way of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. They were not in the realm of endeavoring to see God in order to learn of Him and especially to receive Him so that they could be transformed with His element and essence to be made the same as God in life and in nature. We all need to see a clear comparison between the way taken by Job and his friends and the way revealed in the New Testament.
