Dear Trinity Family,
I love a good courtroom drama. Nothing gets better than Law and Order and the iconic bum bum sound. Law and Order gives you a prologue, the events leading up to the trial, it gives you an investigation, the searching for evidence, and lastly it gives you the trial itself.
The book of Job feels like Law and Order. It begins with the prologue and the Accuser, Satan, questioning the faith of Job in God. Job lives too good of a life, of course he won't curse you. But remove your favor from him and he'll surprise you. This leads to the suffering Job is afflicted with. He loses everything. He suffers.
From then on it's a courtroom trial. Job is suing God. But the three friends who show up — Eliphaz, Bildad, and Zophar — along with one whippersnapper named Elihu, don't argue Job's case. They argue against him. Each has his own incomplete reason for why this has happened, and every one of them circles back to the same verdict: Job must have done something to deserve this. Job's own friends turn out to be witnesses for the other side.
The tension throughout the book of Job is why this is happening to Job. Is Job wrong in pursuing answers? As David Clines observes, asking why unmerited suffering happens isn't wrong — demanding that God justify everything he does is. God's ways are beyond our comprehension, and it stands to reason that we will struggle to understand God's plan. But in all this, Job never once doubts God is just. Job is allowed to pour out his complaint to God, and this isn't Job venting into an unknowable void. What we find in Job is that we are allowed to pour out our complaint to God. What we find there is not a God who explains himself, but rather a God who loves us.
But the surprise witness that steps forward (not in Job, but in redemptive history) is Jesus. He is the definitive witness. He's kept the law perfectly and he's truly righteous, yet he has truly suffered unjustly — but for us! He's the perfect advocate: he knows what it means to hurt and suffer, but he can also stand in places Job can't stand. God asks Job questions he can't answer, like "Have you commanded the morning?" Jesus the advocate answers, "Yes." And he's the better redeemer. Job says "I know that my Redeemer lives" (Job 19:25), trusting that God in his grace and mercy would provide what he needed. Christ is the redeemer Job needed and the redeemer that was provided. By faith in Christ we are given righteousness that doesn't belong to us and yet can never be taken away from us.
Though Job never gets the answers he's looking for at the end of the trial, what he does receive is God himself. A God who invites us to draw near to him. We are allowed to enter into honest dispute with God, and what we find is the assurance of Christ, who promises never to leave us or forsake us, even in times of trial.
Peace, Ben