In God’s appearing to Job (vv. 1-3; 40:1-14), His intention was to show Job that he was nothing and that God is unlimited, unsearchable, and untraceable. God’s appearing also implied that He wanted to help Job to know that he was in the wrong realm, the realm of building up himself as a man in the old creation in his perfection, uprightness, and integrity. Job glorified himself in these things, but God considered them frustrations to be stripped away so that Job might receive God in His nature, life, element, and essence and thus be metabolically transformed to be a God-man, a man in the new creation who expresses God and dispenses Him to others.
God’s dealing with Job in all the disasters and His stripping him of all that he was, were to take away his contentment in his godly attainments and obtainments and to remove all the barriers and coverings so that he could be emptied for some further seeking after God and could realize that what he was short of in his human life was God Himself. At the end of the book of Job, God came in to reveal Himself to Job, indicating that He Himself was what Job should pursue, gain, and express. In all God’s dealings with Job, God’s intention was to reduce Job to nothing, yet to maintain his existence (Job 2:6) so that He might have time to impart Himself into Job.