Scripture Reading: 1 Tim. 2:4; 1 Pet. 2:2; 2 Pet. 3:18; Eph. 4:13
In this message we will consider the significance in the sequence of Job and the Psalms.
The sequence of the two books — Job and the Psalms — is very significant spiritually. Since the book of Psalms shows progress beyond the book of Job concerning the divine revelation and concerning our seeking after God, it would not be fitting for the Psalms to come before Job. Spiritually speaking, it is significant that, in the sequence of books in the Scriptures, the Psalms comes after Job.
The book of Job, preceding the Psalms, is a record of human views based on human concepts concerning the relationship between God and man.
The book of Job bears no divine revelation except the divine revelation concerning God's redemption through the burnt offering (1:5), God's judgment on man's evil (9:19b), and some of God's attributes.
The book of Job does not indicate whether Job or his three friends or Elihu sought to gain God as their attainment and enjoyment. Rather, this book tells us only that Job was a perfect and upright man who feared God (1:1).
The contents of the book of Job are the expressions of the human sentiments of Job, of his three friends, and of Elihu in their natural views and concepts. In this book there is no prayer or praise offered to God. Furthermore, there is no hint that Job, his three friends, and Elihu had any kind of thirst for God. In contrast to the psalmists, they did not seek God, pant after God, pray to God, or wait on God.
The Psalms is a book of mixtures. Some of the prayers in this book are high, but other prayers are quite low.
In Psalm 1 there is a certain amount of seeking after God, but it is a seeking after God in His law. In Psalm 2, on the contrary, we have the praise of Christ and the unveiling of Christ. In Psalm 1 the psalmist was seeking after God, yet he did not seek God directly, but made the law of God the goal of his seeking. However, in Psalms 2, 8, and 16 the psalmists were directly seeking God Himself. In Psalm 36 the psalmist was clear that the object of his seeking should be God Himself in His house. Such a seeking cannot be found in the book of Job.
In a great part the book of the Psalms is mixed with the psalmists' expressions of their mixed sentiments according to their natural concepts concerning the psalmists' relationship with God, with men, and with their enemies. This part corresponds with the record of Job and may be considered a continuation of Job in the style of human expressions of human sentiments in human views and concepts. In this matter, Job and the Psalms are like two brothers who closely resemble each other.
In a significant part the book of Psalms is mixed with the divine revelations of Christ with God in His house (temple) and in His city (Jerusalem). This part should be taken as the highest divine revelation in the Old Testament concerning Christ as the centrality and universality of God's economy, which is strongly stressed by Christ Himself in Luke 24:44 and by the apostle Paul in Hebrews 1:5-13 and 10:5-7.
Although the book of Job contains very little of the divine revelation, this book nevertheless has a particular function in the Scriptures. This function has several aspects.
First, the book of Job ministers to its readers a picture of man's concept concerning God's dealing with His holy people. Such a picture is clearly presented.
Second, the function of this book is to expose the deficiency of the divine revelation in Job's age, which was quite primitive in knowing God. There was some divine revelation, but it was in a primitive stage.
Third, in its function in the Scriptures, the book of Job serves the Bible readers with a negative background so that they will proceed further from what they can receive in the book of Job and seek the divine and spiritual truths as the progression of the divine revelation shown in the Psalms. For example, the divine revelation in Psalm 45 concerning Christ as the King is very high.
The book of Job also functions to stir up the Bible readers' hunger and thirst for knowing Christ as the centrality and universality of God's eternal economy and to urge them to get out of their contentment in their present attainment in knowing God. Our contentment with what we know of God is a hindrance to our progressing in the understanding of the divine revelation.
In addition, the book of Job functions to empty the Bible readers' spirit that they may have more room in their spirit to gain God in His riches more and more, to gain God more than anything else.
Finally, the book of Job functions to serve the Bible readers with a capacity to understand the secrets of the next book, the Psalms. If we come to the Psalms without reading the book of Job, we will be lacking part of the background necessary for understanding the secrets in the Psalms.
We have seen that our principle in this study of Job is to study this book according to what is revealed in the Bible as a whole. If we come to the book of Job without the proper understanding of the divine revelation in the entire Scriptures, this book will not mean very much to us, and we will not understand the goal of God's dealing with Job.
Some readers of Job know about his patience and endurance (James 5:10-11) and about the material blessing Job received at the end, but they do not know either what it means to see God or what God's intention was in His appearing to Job. Regarding God's dealing with Job, there were certain mysterious things, and these things are to some extent unveiled in the Psalms. For a complete unveiling we need to come to the New Testament to see the revelation concerning Christ's incarnation, human living, crucifixion, resurrection, ascension, and descension to produce the church as the Body of Christ, which will consummate in the New Jerusalem.
The function of the Psalms also has several aspects.
A large gap is left at the end of the book of Job, and the first function of the Psalms is to fill this gap.
The Psalms also functions to show the Bible readers how the Holy Spirit turned the psalmists from the law, which they loved and tried to keep, to Christ, of whom they did not have any idea. The psalmists were right in seeking after God, but they were not right in making the law of God the goal of their seeking. They needed to be turned in their seeking from the law to Christ. Whereas the law is a side line in the Scriptures, Christ, the tree of life, is the main line.
Next, the Psalms ministers to the Bible readers, in their ignorant seeking of God, the all-inclusive Christ in God's economy. It is not adequate for us to be turned from the law to Christ; we also need to know that Christ is the center and the circumference, the hub and the rim, of God's eternal economy. This means that in God's eternal economy Christ is everything. He is the centrality and He is also the universality. We need to study the Psalms in order to learn the details concerning this all-inclusive Christ in God's eternal economy.
Furthermore, the Psalms helps the Bible readers to know that the divine revelation is progressive, going higher and higher, deeper and deeper, richer and richer, not only from the book of Job to the Psalms but also from the Psalms to all the following books in the Old Testament and to those in the New Testament, until it reaches the high peak of the New Jerusalem in the new heaven and new earth as the consummation and ending of the divine revelation according to God's eternal economy.
