(by Dave, 30-35 min)
Scripture:
Job 30:16-26
“And now my life ebbs away; days of suffering grip me. Night pierces my bones; my gnawing pains never rest. In his great power God becomes like clothing to me; he binds me like the neck of my garment. He throws me into the mud, and I am reduced to dust and ashes. I cry out to you, God, but you do not answer; I stand up, but you merely look at me. You turn on me ruthlessly; with the might of your hand you attack me. You snatch me up and drive me before the wind; you toss me about in the storm. I know you will bring me down to death, to the place appointed for all the living. Surely, no one lays a hand on a broken man when he cries for help in his distress. Have I not wept for those in trouble? Has not my soul grieved for the poor? Yet when I hoped for good, evil came; when I looked for light, then came darkness.
Job 38:1-3
Then the LORD spoke to Job out of the storm. He said: “ Who is this that obscures my plans with words without knowledge? Brace yourself like a man; I will question you, and you shall answer me.
The story
A husband and wife had a deeply satisfying marriage. They did not have children and depended on each other for the love and community we all so desperately need. Let’s call the wife Margaret. Margaret was an enormously gifted teacher of the deaf. She devoted her professional life to starting several school-based educational programs which eventually grew to an entire curriculum for students in the public school system. Each year she was the primary teacher for the entire class.
Her students adored her because she understood and taught sign language and thoroughly understood the full culture of the deaf community. Her rich cultural competence and outstanding educational strategies graduated students who were fully educated in the state-mandated curriculum and all skills needed to flourish in a hearing world. Margaret’s gifts were so extraordinary that people moved to the school district solely to enroll their kids in her classroom. Another reason for her popularity was the rigor she brought to her teaching. She balanced a high expectation that everyone could reach her standards with a loving, kind heart that inspired her students to reach them.
The successful, godly personal attributes she brought to the classroom were likewise applied to all aspects of her life. She served as an interpreter for religious services and the couple were faithful, serving members of their Catholic parish. She helped her sister through some difficult marital troubles, was always there for her father as he began to fail and was a central figure in supporting her extended family and husband.
Like her students, Margaret’s husband adored her and knew her presence centered him. Her goodness was like a gravitational field pulling everyone to a better place. Even the people who came to work on the couple’s house would in no time at all love Margaret. Truly this woman was remarkable in her gifts, capacity to love, gentleness, and perseverance. She was emblematic of what a Christian should be.
As she was approaching the latter part of her career, Margaret was struck down by a disease that robbed her movement. Left unable to sign, it prematurely ended her career. Everyone the couple knew offered their prayers and condolences, but the disease steadfastly progressed. As they struggled to find a diagnosis and treatment for her paralysis, she was diagnosed with cancer. She went through the miserable cancer treatments many of you probably know of or have experienced. After several years of medical care, she passed away in her home under the loving care of her husband who witnessed his beloved suffer. His last days with her created vivid, terrible memories of her deterioration and utter dependence on him. The end of her life was truly brutal. Even now years later if he engages those memories, he will struggle to control his emotions.
Why?
Job’s words may well express the heart of Margaret or her now lonely husband:
“In his great power God becomes like clothing to me; he binds me like the neck of my garment. He throws me into the mud, and I am reduced to dust and ashes. I cry out to you, God, but you do not answer; I stand up, but you merely look at me. You turn on me ruthlessly; with the might of your hand you attack me.”
Job’s story begins with God smiling on his faithful servant. Then Satan declares: Job is only righteous because you shower him with blessings. Remove them and he will turn on you. God permits Satan to remove Job’s blessings leaving him emotionally and physically devastated, his family in tatters, and expressing his grievance in the Scripture verses above. At this point it would be nice to pause and blame Satan for Job’s demise, but Job’s words make it clear this was certainly not his attitude.
Job holds God accountable for what’s happening to him. It is God who has grabbed the neck of his garment and threw him in the mud, reducing him to dust and ashes. God is ignoring his pleas and then turning the might of his hand to attack. Because Job knows nothing about Satan’s role in all of this, it’s tempting to see Job’s outrage as misplaced, but is it?
Had God said no to Satan’s challenge, Job would have been left alone. Ultimately, isn’t God responsible? If our God is truly as sovereign as we believe he is, then Job’s suffering could have been prevented with a single “no”, and Margaret’s suffering could’ve been halted by a single healing thought. Rather than misplaced, Job’s words: “I cry out to you, God, but you do not answer; I stand up, but you merely look at me.” respect the sovereignty of God over everything including Satan. In modern vernacular, Job believes the buck stops with God.
Reasons for suffering
Faithful Christians are uncomfortable with this position. I know I am, but discomfort should not dissuade us from pursuing understanding for in that pursuit we may discover a deeper truth. Still, this is the Almighty, and the apparent tone of God’s response to Job makes it clear that accusations may not be wise. Consequently, we have conceived many reasons why God allows bad things to happen to good people. Because these reasons are based on our strongly held beliefs, creeds, and principles, they are based on truth. But do they satisfy our need to understand or simply excuse a sovereign God we don’t want to challenge?
God’s plan works for good
(see Predestination and Free Will: A Matter of Perspective for a broader perspective on God’s plan)
Paul tackles the issue of suffering in Romans 8 (see all of Romans 8). At the end of his discussion (versus 28-30) he says this:
And we know that in all things God works for the good of those who love him, who have been called according to his purpose. For those God foreknew he also predestined to be conformed to the image of his Son, that he might be the firstborn among many brothers and sisters. And those he predestined, he also called; those he called, he also justified; those he justified, he also glorified.
This passage reflects a very deeply held Christian belief that God works for the good of those who love him. Certainly, Margaret’s story conformed with this in the end. She was predestined, called, justified, and is now glorified in heaven with God. God did indeed work for the good of Margaret who lived conformed to the image of his son. God has now welcomed her home and prepared a seat for her at the table.
This message of hope is profound and is truly the ultimate resolution for anyone who is suffering and believes. For believers, suffering in this world is finite and will end when we begin our time with God in heaven. Even in suffering, God completed work for the good of those who love him.
But why does suffering have to occur at all? Most Christians can understand why Christ had to suffer because our sins were so egregious and plentiful that only God’s son could pay for them. We may also understand why prior to Christ, sin would be punished by God. But why did Margaret have to suffer for God to work for good in all things?
This question is sometimes answered by “be patient and you will see good come from Margaret’s suffering”. Margaret’s husband grew in his faith after initially questioning it severely, and he now supports a foundation fighting against the disease that paralyzed his wife. But is this the way growth must occur? If you asked Margaret’s husband: would you impose that suffering on your wife so you could draw closer to God and support a foundation, he would unequivocally say no.
Although it is true that God’s plans will always turn out good for believers, in some cases bad happens first. Moreover, suffering is frequently not curtailed in this world. Job was rescued by God while still living, but Margaret was not. She began a pathway of suffering and it only concluded at her death.
At least in this life then, it’s hard to spin off from Margaret’s suffering an argument that God’s plans always work out for good. Job also rejected this reasoning: “Surely, no one lays a hand on a broken man when he cries for help in his distress.” Job does not believe God’s plans in this life will work out for good, and although for him they did, for many others like Margaret they did not. At least not this side of heaven.
Why does a loving God, who has created relief for believers at death, permit unremitting suffering in life? For people like Margaret, it’s a hard question to answer and Job avoids it. Instead, he simply concludes that the God who could relieve him does not act when he cries for help.
God is not involved in bad things at all
In 2004 Harold S Kushner authored a very popular book entitled When Bad Things Happen to Good People (see summary). If you read it, you know the book is sensitive and thoughtful. A quote captures a bit of the essence of Kushner’s case:
“God does not cause our misfortunes. Some are caused by bad luck, some are caused by bad people, and some are simply an inevitable consequence of our being human and being mortal, living in a world of inflexible natural laws. The painful things that happen to us are not punishments for our misbehavior, nor are they in any way part of some grand design on God’s part. Because the tragedy is not God’s will, we need not feel hurt or betrayed by God when tragedy strikes. We can turn to Him for help in overcoming it, precisely because we can tell ourselves that God is as outraged by it as we are.”
In this paragraph Kushner believes God does not cause our misfortune, so we do not need to feel betrayed when tragedy strikes. Instead, bad people, the consequences of being human and mortal, and inflexible natural laws are to blame. This seems consistent with the just God we see in the Bible. For those who follow God, unwarranted suffering is not at his hand. On the contrary, great mercy is given through the sacrifice of Christ for our wrongdoings. Because the God of the Bible is both just and merciful, Kushner’s belief is very reasonable.
But is God sovereign or not? If he is sovereign, then regardless of the source of suffering, our misfortune could be prevented by a single thought from the Almighty. Indeed, Job’s suffering was reversed as the book draws to a close:
Job 42: 10 After Job had prayed for his friends, the LORD restored his fortunes and gave him twice as much as he had before.
The New Testament is peppered with Christ’s healing of suffering, indicating that God is sovereign and does have the ability to intervene in suffering regardless of its source. Therefore, the belief that a just and merciful God didn’t cause Job or Margaret’s suffering is true, but incomplete. The sovereign Lord while not causing their suffering, could have prevented it. Kushner’s quote says nothing about that possibility.
Because Job never denies the sovereignty of God, his belief rejects that of Kushner. A sovereign God could end suffering, has ended suffering for many including Job, but did not end suffering for Margaret and many others during their lives. Job was right, the buck stops with God even if God did not produce the misfortune. Indeed, his accusation to a sovereign God is in part unanswered by Kushner’s paragraph.
Sin is at fault for bad things in the world
Many Christians hold sin accountable for what happened to Job and Margaret. This is the foundation of the comments of Bildad one of Job’s friends who believes he must’ve done something wrong.
Job8:1-4 Then Bildad the Shuhite replied: “ How long will you say such things? Your words are a blustering wind. Does God pervert justice? Does the Almighty pervert what is right? When your children sinned against him, he gave them over to the penalty of their sin (see all of Job 8).
Job and Margaret sinned, the argument goes, and their suffering is the consequence of it. Because no one is free from sin, suffering is part of everyone’s world. But there are some problems with this line of thinking worth considering.
As Christians, we believe that Christ’s suffering, death and resurrection saves us from sin. Christ is sufficient for all sins; present, past and future. The sacrifice made by God is so great no further payment is needed for the repentant sinner who accepts the grace of God through Christ.
Romans 8:1-3 “Therefore, there is now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus, because through Christ Jesus the law of the Spirit who gives life has set you free from the law of sin and death. For what the law was powerless to do because it was weakened by the flesh, God did by sending his own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh to be a sin offering.
Margaret is a person like Paul describes. A devoted and spirit filled Catholic, she was in Christ. Therefore, the sins she committed were forgiven when the disease struck her down. It is difficult to say that Margaret’s condition was punishment for her own personal sin. That sin was forgiven before she was born by a merciful God’s sacrifice.
Admittedly, there are consequences for sin in our earthly lives. Things tend to go poorly when breaking the 10 Commandments. If you lie, people don’t trust you anymore. If you covet things, you tend to be ruled by them. But to say that Margaret’s condition was a punishment from God suggests Christ is insufficient and is antithetical to the core of Christianity.
Even if Margaret’s condition was not a punishment from God, sin is still present in the world, and many believe that it ruined paradise giving rise to disease conditions such as Margaret’s. You could say that the suffering of an individual is not punishment for their sin, but a consequence of sin being present in the world. Margaret did not commit a particular sin unaccounted for by Christ’s sacrifice warranting a paralyzing disease and cancer, but the fact that the world is corrupted by sin produces a landscape of suffering.
This perspective is well supported by Genesis:
Genesis 1: 17-19 “Because you listened to your wife and ate fruit from the tree about which I commanded you, ‘You must not eat from it,’ “Cursed is the ground because of you; through painful toil you will eat food from it all the days of your life It will produce thorns and thistles for you, and you will eat the plants of the field. By the sweat of your brow you will eat your food until you return to the ground, since from it you were taken; for dust you are and to dust you will return.”
Cursing of the ground because of sin is reasonably interpreted to mean more than just difficulty growing things. The earth is now a place of sorrow. The word for word translation from the original Hebrew in the interlinear Bible reads this way:
“Because you have listened to the voice of your wife and eaten of the tree about which I commanded you, saying, you shall not eat from it, the ground shall be cursed because of you: you shall eat of it in sorrow all the days of your life.
It seems quite reasonable to conclude that Margaret’s suffering is part of that sorrow and a direct consequence of original sin.
Even so, it is God who set the punishment for original sin. Did it have to be so severe that even people like Margaret had to suffer? As sovereign, God could have set any punishment. Was there no punishment that was more just to the less guilty? This is surely something a nonbeliever would wonder, and something Job wondered:
“Surely, no one lays a hand on a broken man when he cries for help in his distress. Have I not wept for those in trouble? Has not my soul grieved for the poor? Yet when I hoped for good, evil came; when I looked for light, then came darkness.”
Job’s words persistently embrace the sovereignty of God even as he expresses his lack of understanding. He never makes an excuse for God by somehow diminishing his sovereignty. In Job’s eyes, God is all-powerful and therefore can fix the injustice he believes he’s experiencing.
For Job, the belief that sin corrupted the world producing a landscape of suffering is still in God’s hands. Genesis agrees as God did indeed set the punishment. Therefore, to say that individual suffering is because of that person’s sin runs counter to the sufficiency of Christ for all sins. The belief that Original Sin produces an unavoidable landscape of suffering is true, but is also a punishment delivered by the Almighty who could have delivered another that was perhaps more sensitive to the faith and life differences present in people. Once again, Job is right, and the buck stops with God.
Just trust
In this argument the question to God about why suffering occurs is simply eliminated. It doesn’t matter that there is suffering because we have a good God and we know we are saved. This is an immutable truth for believers and something we must learn to do whether we want to wrestle with understanding suffering or not. It was Job’s conclusion as well:
Job 42:1-4 Then Job replied to the LORD: “I know that you can do all things; no purpose of yours can be thwarted. You asked, ‘Who is this that obscures my plans without knowledge?’ Surely, I spoke of things I did not understand, things too wonderful for me to know. “ You said, ‘Listen now, and I will speak; I will question you, and you shall answer me. ’My ears had heard of you but now my eyes have seen you. Therefore, I despise myself and repent in dust and ashes.”
Job realizes all he can really do is supplicate himself to God and trust. When we worship a truly sovereign God, it is ultimately entirely in his hands, and we must trust. Fortunately, for Christians we have even more reason to trust God then Job did.
Suffering and the God of no excuses
Job’s complaint and supplication conform to his belief that God is sovereign and arguably would accept none of the explanations above for suffering except just trust which is where he concludes. Job does not take the position that his suffering will work out for his or someone else’s good. He does not believe that God had nothing to do with his suffering. On the contrary, he believes God has everything to do with it. None of Job’s words indicate he believes sin or Satan were responsible for his misfortunes. Job lays his sufferings and his blessings at the feet of an Almighty, sovereign.
How about God? Nowhere in God’s answer does he defer responsibility for Job’s suffering to Satan, sin, happenstance, natural law or anything else. God does not deny responsibility for Job’s condition. In other words, God addresses Job from exactly the perspective his servant has addressed him; as absolute sovereign, Almighty God. What is God’s position?
God’s response opens with what appears to be a rebuke of the created from the creator. But the rest of God’s response indicates a far deeper meaning in his opening words. From the Interlinear Bible the direct translation from Hebrew to English of God’s opening remarks to Job reads:
Then Jehovah answered to Job out of the Tempest and said: “who is this that darkens counsel by words without knowledge. Gird up now like a man your loins for I will question you and you teach me.”
To what counsel and knowledge is God referring in his response to Job? Has God given counsel to Job? We don’t see that in the story. Instead, we see interactions between God and Satan and then interactions between Job and his friends. There are no words from God that Job can darken with his own opinion until this passage. Yet God is behaving as if his counsel is known by Job and that Job has offered his own poor advice.
The rest of God’s response details the counsel that Job and we have likely missed. Counsel that is readily evident but taken for granted. After his opening remarks to Job, God details the intricacy of creation. His examples stretch far and are quite inclusive. A summary of them includes:
The sun and the heavens
The sun in the sky (Job 39:12).
The physics of the heavens and the source for that physics. The direct command of that physics (38:31-33).
The earth physical
The Earth’s foundation while the morning stars sang together and all the angels shouted for joy.
The limits, sources and place of water.
The full vastness of all portions of the earth.
Full understanding of the climate and the necessity for drought and rain (38:25-26).
The necessity of cold
The intricacy of life and the climate (38:32).
The ultimate source of lightning and wind (38:24).
The chaos that governs weather.
The earth spiritual
The wicked of the earth are condemned to darkness. (38:13-15).
Seen the gates of the deepest darkness, seen the gates of death (38: 17).
How does one find the abode of light and know it from the residence of darkness (38:19).
The provision of all life, it cycles, and its sustenance from the earth (38:39-41, 39:1-4) its specific habitats.
Human roles
Why do you think the most powerful of animals will yield to you (38:9-12)?
Who gave the animals for you subdue their attributes (38:22-29)?
Animals do not have wisdom (38:17).
Do you discredit my justice to justify yourself (39:8-14)?
Can you dispense justice rightly?
The counsel to which God refers is the counsel of creation that testifies to us all. God has patiently laid out how intricately created and interdependent all of creation is. It is a marvel that it exists at all. His point to Job is: my counsel to you is evident all around you and no one has the knowledge to do this but me.
What is Job saying that is darkening God’s counsel? In his/our hubris, Job declares there must be another way where I don’t have to suffer. Writ large, where no suffering happens. Aren’t we all in Job’s boat? Those who have suffered like Margaret may reasonably declare: why did this have to happen? or: “if this is what God permits, I want nothing to do with him.” The implication is clearly there must be another way because God is sovereign. We make this assumption with no knowledge of what it takes to create and sustain. We make it without adding the complication of designing perfection, and then permitting our crowning creation to choose whether or not to follow their creator.
In our hubris we fail to ask the simple question: what if this is the only way the world can be? It is so easy for us who have created nothing to stand back and say: “God could you do a better job?” Maybe God’s creation is perfect because it is the only creation possible where all of his goals are accomplished. Maybe there is no other way.
If we accept this idea, we can say that all things work for good for those who believe. Indeed, they do for we are saved. But as for here, bad things sometimes happen to good people because there is no other way to have our intricate world and our ability to choose to follow or not follow God. Does Satan produce the sin in the world and a landscape of suffering? Yes, but trusting God means we understand that also had to be. There is only one way, and it apparently includes the presence of Satan. Is God at fault when bad things happen to people because he withholds intervention? Perhaps yes. There is no other way if you want to be free to choose to follow God or not and have the intricacy of creation sustain you. If that is to be part of creation, then sometimes bad things are going to happen to good people.
You’ll notice that the explanations which survive scrutiny in the previous section are trust and the presence of sin in the world. For sin, the only challenge was why is the punishment so great? What if the answer is, it can be no other way if we are to be free to choose. Evidence of this is most clear in the sacrifice of Christ. Why couldn’t Almighty God come up with another way to save us from our sins? Surely if he could, he would’ve done so. But he did not, even though the suffering was his own. The logical conclusion to this act by God is that there is no other way to right our relationship with him in the perfect creation he made. So even the creator in his mercy must suffer because the only way to build a world perfectly woven together where humans can choose required even him to suffer for the presence of sin.
Perhaps in this position we can understand God’s irritation with the created offering their counsel to the creator. It would be like me telling a contractor working on my house isn’t there another way to hold the house up without a foundation. I don’t want all this mud in my yard. I state this in complete ignorance having built nothing, yet the contractor knows there is no other way. Establish the footer or the house will fall. Maybe what God is saying to Job and all of us is the same. It has to be the way it is because it’s the only way.
If this is true, then the only resolution to suffering we have is to trust God and pray for its relief. The faithful know there are times when prayers for healing are answered with healing and other times when they are not. Perhaps sustaining the created order will not permit every single prayer to be answered as we wish or the perfection of creation including our ability to choose will crumble. Indeed, if God answered every single prayer, Jesus would not have been crucified for Christ himself asked for the cup to be taken away, yet for God’s will to be done. The created order could not endure removing the cup, and so God’s will was done and the first part of Jesus’s prayer could not be satisfied.
Let’s give God His Due
I think Job and God reveal a devotion to no excuses. God is absolutely sovereign, and both characters in the story reveal their conviction to this reality. Close to the end of God’s summary to Job he makes a point through his discussion of Leviathan, a mighty beast none can subdue.
Job 41:9-11 Any hope of subduing it is false; the mere sight of it is overpowering. No one is fierce enough to rouse it. Who then is able to stand against me? Who has a claim against me that I must pay? Everything under heaven belongs to me (see all of Job 41)
No one has a claim against God. The story of Job simply paints a perimeter around the scope of trust we should embrace when looking at the evidence of God’s counsel everywhere around us. Trust not only that we will be saved, but that the world in which we live was built by the creator in the only way it could possibly be built. Because it includes our ability to choose sin, we must suffer. No excuses, no letting God off the hook, no gerrymandering the word to convey something it does not.
We have no claim against perfection and should rest easy knowing that we are saved despite the suffering present in this world. Only in our arrogance do we dare raise our voice to the creator of perfection and darken his so evident counsel by saying it should be another way. Job captures it perfectly in his final comments to God:
Job 42:1- 1Then Job replied to the LORD: “I know that you can do all things; no purpose of yours can be thwarted. You asked, ‘Who is this that obscures my plans without knowledge?’ Surely I spoke of things I did not understand, things too wonderful for me to know.
Indeed, let’s give God his due and remember he suffered too and continues to when anyone of us turns from him.
Grace and blessings to you all,
Dave
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