Job’s Despair and Perseverance: Becoming a Knight of Faith (Job 22-27)

Call to Worship

We are called tonight to worship from the words of James, brother of Jesus. Let us be reminded of the most merciful Judge, who, without being compelled by fallen creature, but his own volition and power, took on the form of a man to act as Intercessor, Mediator, and King—as such James writes,

James 5:9–11 “Do not complain, brethren, against one another, so that you yourselves may not be judged; behold, the Judge is standing right at the door. As an example, brethren, of suffering and patience, take the prophets who spoke in the name of the Lord. We count those blessed who endured. You have heard of the endurance of Job and have seen the outcome of the Lord’s dealings, that the Lord is full of compassion and is merciful.”

Lord’s Prayer and Absolution

Let us pray:

Our Father who is in heaven, Hallowed be Your name. Your kingdom come. Your will be done, On earth as it is in heaven. Give us this day our daily bread. And forgive us our debts, as we also have forgiven our debtors. And do not lead us into temptation, but deliver us from evil. Most merciful God, we confess that we have sinned against you in thought, word, and deed, by what we have done, and by what we have left undone. We have not loved you with our whole heart; we have not loved our neighbors as ourselves. We are truly sorry and we humbly repent. For the sake of your Son Jesus Christ, have mercy on us and forgive us; that we may delight in your will, and walk in your ways, to the glory of your Name. And when the assembly confesses, its appointed leader says, Almighty God have mercy on us, forgive us all your sins through our Lord Jesus Christ, strengthen us in all goodness, and by the power of the Holy Spirit keep us in eternal life. For yours is the kingdom and the power and the glory and the wisdom forever. In the name of the Father, who creates, and of the Son, who redeems, and of the Holy Spirit, who sanctifies and purifies us before You, Amen.

Sermon

In order to prepare for this week’s sermon, I watched the film The Seventh Seal, a 1957 Swedish black & white set in the midst of Medieval war and pestilence (The Black Death). The main character, Antonius Block, a literal knight, finds himself struggling with the reality and question of death, yet ultimately resigning himself triumphantly to God. Between scenes, a secondary plot centers around a symbolic chess game Antonius plays against the personification of Death. Near the beginning of the film, passing through a small town, Antonius stops by a church and offers confession, unknowing to the fact that Death is the confessor behind the veiled window. Here, we find a similar sense of doubt many of us might have felt at some point in our lives when things go awry—a plea for answers… a tasting, moreso, a lusting for knowledge. Thus, Antonius admits to Death himself,

I want knowledge! Not faith, not assumptions, but knowledge. I want God to stretch out His hand, uncover His face and speak to me… I call out to Him in the darkness. But it's as if no one was there.

Death then responds

Perhaps there isn't anyone.

Antonius, baffled, still unknowing of whom he is speaking to, proclaims

Then life is a preposterous horror. No man can live faced with Death, knowing everything's nothingness.

The themes we’ve covered so far in our series on the Middle Job (poetic sections) have been that of fashioning God into our image and of the question of justice—human and divine. Today, we seek to delve more, and into the final cycle, of Job’s cacophonous “Others” and his triumphant (but not imperfect) rebuttals to these two men. As such, I hope to add one more sermon to an otherwise four-sermon series, as we analyze only Job’s concluding speeches (that aren’t rebuttals) next week before unpacking Elihu’s. But for today, chapters 21—27, in synthesizing the ideas set forth from the first two cycles of speeches (my first two sermons), we end on this Kierkegaardian maxim to life’s absurdity: “Life is not a problem to be solved, but a reality to be experienced.” Or, rephrased reflectively, “Life can only be understood backwards; but it must be lived forwards.”

Eliphaz: Embitterment to the Irrational

We turn again, for the last time, to Eliphaz the Temanite, this man who increasingly relies on his reason at the expense of faith. In this final diatribe of his, we see both his arguments come into vicious fruition, and a rather lack of intellectual growth. Again, these men, unknowing of the divine drama determining Job’s situation, discuss, and discuss, and discuss. As will be seen, Job’s demeanor begins to shift throughout these monologues. His friends, or dare I say the “Others,” by contrast, remain stuck to their ways. They are the ways of the mind or of the eye or of the carnal desire, but not the soul.

Eliphaz begins by seemingly denying theism for deism, or arguing that God has no effect in our world, that God is distant:

Job 22:3 “Is there any pleasure to the Almighty if you are righteous, / Or profit if you make your ways perfect?”

To an extent, most of Eliphaz’s arguments are sound, but due to their relentless Sophistry—ironically meaning faulty reasoning—they fail to be true. For example, here, it is true that God does not need us, that He is self-sufficient, that we are rather in all-need of Him. To Eliphaz, the argument goes: God has nothing to gain from men; therefore Job’s sufferings cannot be traced to any self-seeking motive in God. They must be traced, then, to something in Job; and, since it would be absurd to trace it to his piety, it must be traced to sin in him.” But as in Eliphaz’s other two speeches, his conclusions seem to take too much liberty and cannot be simply deduced from its premise(s). What we end up with, in truth, is a great example of God’s justice outside our concept of time, i.e., our limited notion of temporality and finality. God is self-serving in that moment, in that Job is God’s prized servant to whom Satan’s verbal attacks will be quelled, yet, in finality—far outside the closemindedness of Job’s “friends” and the reality of the “present”—Job strives not only in his faith and is rewarded tenfold but embodies in that a type (figure of what is to come) of Christ Jesus in his alien righteousness, i.e., righteousness outside himself, or righteousness before and from the Lord.

Next, We find said righteousness challenged by Eliphaz,

Job 22:5-9 “Is not your wickedness great, / And your iniquities without end?” / “For you have taken pledges of your brothers without cause, / And stripped men naked. / “To the weary you have given no water to drink, / And from the hungry you have withheld bread. / “But the earth belongs to the mighty man, / And the honorable man dwells in it. / “You have sent widows away empty, / And the strength of the orphans has been crushed.”

Eliphaz has become so embittered at Job’s inability to cede to his reason (human wisdom) causes him to snap and list out what he believed Job’s iniquities are. Again, if Job is truly “pure and blameless” as we are told in prose, according to Eliphaz’s logic, destruction of himself would be imminent. He would rather hold to a self-righteousness that elevates his status over Job comparing “works” over grace. He refuses to hold to that dictum reconstituted by the Son of God, that “by grace you have been saved through faith; and that not of yourselves, it is the gift of God...” Eph. 2:9.

Job 22:12, 14 “Is not God in the height of heaven? / Look also at the distant stars, how high they are!… Clouds are a hiding place for Him, so that He cannot see; / And He walks on the vault of heaven.’”

Eliphaz offers a brief point here, that will be expounded upon in full in Bildad’s upcoming short ballad, of God’s distance from man. It can then be asked, as he does at the start of this speech: Can we be just before God? Is righteousness relative according to his difference. I think we should approach this carefully, and will unwrap with Bildad, but let these questions linger in your head.

Job 22:21–22 “Yield now and be at peace with Him; / Thereby good will come to you. / “Please receive instruction from His mouth / And establish His words in your heart.”

Eliphaz here encapsulates well those “fire and brimstone” teachers who substitute God’s grace and love for a strict view of God’s wrath, but do so on their own motives. As we saw earlier, both today and in Eliphaz’s first two cycles of speeches, Eliphaz warns Job that his destruction being warranted means he “deserves” it. Yet, here we view his true hermeneutic, i.e., method of interpretation, as himself. Or, summarily put, Eliphaz reads revelation (for us today that would be Scripture) as if he had written it. This is that Eliphazian God who grants peace blindly and with a scale. But imagine that disgrace of an idea of God being true, if we all were guaranteed equal punishment for our wrongdoing, like many prison complexes in today’s world, there would be no room for growth or change or another chance.

You see, Job has no way of “winning” to Eliphaz. For Eliphaz suffers the same sin as Eve did when she ate from the tree, i.e., the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. In truth, God is morality, not man, this is that truth that must be resigned to to become a man of great faith. Contrasting, Eliphaz has continued to claim he has sole authority over what is good and evil, and ends his diatribe by vainly declaring it as coming from God instead. Think of this like those preachers who deny the humble state of the preacher, who refuse to orient themselves as Paul does in his first letter to Timothy, that he is the greatest sinner of them all. In doing so, we see in his last statement a rephrasing of his original beliefs, suggesting that Eliphaz has and will continue to perish in his own preconceptions or inventions on the propositions of God:

Job 22:30 “He will deliver [the] innocent, And he will be delivered through the cleanness of your hands.”

In sum, for Eliphaz the essential elements in religion and the sure foundation for good fortune are both within the capacity of humans to achieve.… Theology (study of God) then makes salvation dependent on the deeds of humans, religion on the heart of God. This is not the New Testament message, or the biblical message dare I say. Rather, it is humans, totally depraved and in need of God in all things, who “obtain an inheritance… who are protected by the power of God [and wisdom of God i.e., Jesus] through faith for a salvation… even though now for a little while, if necessary, you have been distressed by various trials...” 1 Pet. 1:4-6.

Bildad: Gott und Mann

Now, last week I spoke of Bildad as having the shortest homily. It is true that Bildad speaks the briefest of them, preferring imagery over declaration, and we see that especially here with the true shortest dialogue, which I now read in full—only five verses:

Job 25:2–6 “Dominion and awe belong to Him Who establishes peace in His heights. / “Is there any number to His troops? / And upon whom does His light not rise? / “How then can a man be just with God? / Or how can he be clean who is born of woman? / “If even the moon has no brightness / And the stars are not pure in His sight, / How much less man, that maggot, / And the son of man, that worm!”

Bildad continues the quick reasoning from Eliphaz that God being separate from man, means almost that God is blind to our righteousness. But, as previously formulated, He is our righteousness. We are not saved because of our own merit, lest we boast, but by Him working through us for our salvation and reconciliation. There must be a median between the extreme of God being uncaring towards us (for if that were true and the world were also to be indifferent what would be left?) and every action being personally directed by Him. In this, we find the response of the apophatic theologian, who allows God to only speak as He’s spoken. Meaning, on one end, like the Lisbon Earthquake mentioned in my last sermon, God has personally condemned one, and on the other, that God is unknowing of our affairs. We should not try to uphold ourselves with vain analogies of God’s propositions with us, nor treat God as Creator alone. God is in Heaven, Man is on Earth, but God came on earth, took our form, suffered our fate too (we deserve death, not Him), so that we could partake in Him once more.

Focus also on the Christophany (figure of Christ), who is called the Son of man repeatedly throughout Paul, referred to as a worm by Bildad. If there is any indication of Bildad’s God being no God at all, this would be it. Job is the only to recognize God’s redemptive plan in epochs, rather than in front of him. Everyone wants to be special, every generation has their supposed doomsday “prophets,” their supposed miracles, their supposed healings. When the greatest proof of the Lord is in living, in fact, striving, sharing the gospel and not expecting anything in return. Do not look for God in things where he does not embody and allow God to be God.

Job's Responses to the Others

In response, Job speaks for a rather lengthy segment, in fact, he will do so after Bildad’s final speech as well, reflecting that he has processed and formulated ideas based on faith rather than algorithm. We are seeing this man, Job, develop himself into a knight of faith, realizing the absurdity of his situation but staying resigned to God. In one sense, Kierkegaard refers to this deep faith—in reference to Abraham’s binding of his son Isaac—that “faith begins precisely where thought stops.” Now, this does not entail that man ought to not think, nor not think about God. But that there will remain a proper sense of distinction between man and god (not properly addressed by either Eliphaz or Bildad in their final speeches) in what requires a “leap of faith” to surpass, to ascend.

He begins similar to Antonius Block, the man offering his pleas to Death itself (seemingly like Job), who longs for that same knowledge of presence before God,

“Oh that I knew where I might find Him, / That I might come to His seat! / “I would present my case before Him / And fill my mouth with arguments.

Through Christ, and his self-emptying, i.e. taking on the form of a man and suffering the greatest injustice of all on the Cross (for injustice is all that can be said for a man pure and blameless like Job, but also pure and blameless in his human nature unlike Job), we have now become “partakers of the divine nature, having escaped the corruption that is in the world” 2 Pet. 1:4. Yet, for Job, this reality is not yet promised. And so, his questioning continues, not of any of the “Others,” his “friends,” but of that which is ultimate wisdom,

Job 23:8-14 “Behold, I go forward but He is not there, / And backward, but I cannot perceive Him; / When He acts on the left, I cannot behold Him; / He turns on the right, I cannot see Him. / “But He knows the way I take; / When He has tried me, I shall come forth as gold. / “My foot has held fast to His path; / I have kept His way and not turned aside. / “I have not departed from the command of His lips; / I have treasured the words of His mouth more than my necessary food. / “But He is unique and who can turn Him? / And what His soul desires, that He does. / “For He performs what is appointed for me, / And many such decrees are with Him.”

Previously I have spoken of Gustavo Gutierrez’s brilliant insight into Job’s seeming questioning of God as such, “[it is] not a rejection of God. In fact, it might well be claimed that this manifestation of irrepressible feeling expresses, even if in an unconventional form, a profound act of self-surrender and hope in God.” Are we not seeing a prototype of the gospel? Of Christ and His message? A message of self-surrender or infinite resignation akin to Kierkegaard himself. Job, as the knight of faith, offers his hope in god in spite of the absurdity of the world. He, as anyone, desires for answers, but leaves his hope in the Lord for all to come into fruition. Unlike the intent of his “friends,” God is not boxed-in, God is not required to answer, God is given his power and might and glory. Remember that even the name of Abraham’s grandson, Jacob, became Israel after he wrestled with the divine, Israel meaning “one who wrestles with God.” In such a way, this wresting or questioning is crucial to our relationship with Him, to realize our utter depravity and resignation to hope in Him. It reminds me of the sermon from Cardinal Lawrence in the recent film Conclave, “Our faith is a living thing precisely because it walks hand-in-hand with doubt. If there was only certainty and no doubt, there would be no mystery. And therefore no need for faith”

Job finishes by providing this same truth that has pervaded throughout this good man during these speeches, that God’s will, God’s plan, though unknowable, must be trusted. Think about that personified Death in The Seventh Seal, who embodies the inevitable. Yet, in defiance of Death, rather than simple complicity, the character Antonius remains and even deepens his faith. In doing so, he describes how difficult but fulfilling life is when he is finds himself encircled by a couple, exemplifying love, and music, exemplifying art, filling Antonius with emotion and allowing him to thrive in despite of the absurdity:

“Faith is a torment, did you know that? It is like loving someone who is out there in the darkness but never appears, no matter how loudly you call.”

Now, this is still the attitude of Job, his faith torments him, yet he remains in it. This may seem paradoxical, stupid to most, like Job’s wife who tells him to curse God and die. But, again, Job triumphs in his suffering, focusing on the what is to come rather than the now of his interlocutors,

Job 24:1, 23-24 “Why are times not stored up by the Almighty / And why do those who know Him not see His days?… [in truth] he provides them with security, and they are supported… for [Wicked men] are exalted a little while, then they are gone.”

Similarly, Job begins his response to the ignorant Bildad with a brief insult,

Job 26:3 “What counsel you have given to one without wisdom”

But he’s speaking of a truth, a truth of wisdom coming solely from the Lord. Christ is that “wisdom of God” literally as described by Paul in his first letter to the church in Corinth. That wisdom is for us to follow, not those without. Similar as to how Paul attacks the false preachers—who also teach without wisdom—in Phillipians or Jude as preached, so does Job. ‘How dare you give counsel or act wise?’ says Job. These counselors have turned out to be the ones in need of counsel.

Job then turns to exalt the Lord,

Job 26:13-14 “By His breath the heavens are cleared; / His hand has pierced the fleeing serpent. / “Behold, these are the fringes of His ways; / And how faint a word we hear of Him! / But His mighty thunder, who can understand?”

Think of these magnificent ways the Lord is described, similar to Paul’s notion that salvation comes from those that can acknowledge his glory (bow their knees, proclaim with their tongues that Christ is Lord), as a proper response to the notion that God is ever-distant. He is both distant and near, distant in his quality, near in his desire. Job makes this clear, who can understand his ways? We see by his glory the clearing of heaven, the piercing of the serpent (cf. Genesis narrative), his ways are mysterious but effective. That is, Job, in the acknowledgment of God’s seeming distance in counsel, describes him more personally than any of Job’s interlouctors. Finally, Job ends his responses to Bildad similarly to Eliphaz,

Job 27:13-14 This is the portion of a wicked man from God, / And the inheritance which tyrants receive from the Almighty. / “Though his sons are many, they are destined for the sword...”

With the recognition that God’s plan, his outside of time reflection throughout history—that which we can look back on but must live forward—is, in the moment, scary, in the long run, so very hopeful. It is almost as if Eliphaz is correct in his theory of retributive justice, but it is just working on the Lord’s time rather than his. These wicked men are destined for the sword, but if one lives in the now, without acknowledgment of it, they are destined themselves to miss this very fact. Like a knight of faith, Job is willing to forego comfort, take on opposition, resign himself to faith, and finally, make a move towards it. Hence, Job’s protests should be understood, as Gutierrez, as hopeful in the Lord. He doesn’t doubt, just wonders, doesn’t need answers, but asks.

Conclusion

In conclusion I turn again to Camus’ masterful book, possibly his magnum opus, The Fall, the story of a beaten-down but persevering ex-lawyer who realizes his past ego was no match for the absurdities and horrors of the world, but finds meaning regardless. This character, Clamence, critiques these idolators of the mind, these men who have made an idol out of their fear and made it God; who, in their self-righteousness, blaspheme and bow to that which is not God: “They have hoisted [God] onto a judge’s bench, in the secret of their hearts, and they smite, they judge above all, they judge in his name. He spoke softly to the adulteress: ‘Neither do I condemn thee!’ but that doesn’t matter; they condemn without absolving anyone.” This has been Eliphaz’s message to Job, this has been Bildad’s message to Job, this has even been Zophar’s message to Job. These so-called “friends,” these “Others,” hoist up a dead God (meaning no God at all) condemned by their human wills and desires, and condemn all despite the grace offered by our true God. They condemn, and they condemn again. They masterfully demonstrate the words of Qoheleth when he says “in many words there is emptiness. Rather, revere God.” Job is the only rightful one to call God “judge,” to revere Him, for in order to be a judge one must have full power over fate. Only Job’s God is not stunted by the limits of man. Only Job’s God, who can only be understood through self-revelation (as is clear in the concluding chapters/prose), prevails. These other men will soon die along with their God. The God of Abraham, Isaac, Israel, Job, Peter, Paul, and the assembly convened perseveres and unites all to Him.

In Job’s responses to these men, these “Others” who tarnish his name for their own self-righteousness, we are reminded of his character. Kierkegaard writes, “To [Job] every human interpretation is only a misconception, and to him in relation to God all his troubles are but a sophism that he, to be sure, cannot solve, but he trusts that God can do it.” This key, “in relation to God” fulfills most of the critique Job gives the “Others.” That is, in relation to God, we are always in the wrong. But, take delight in such things. For with someone you love or deeply admire/respect, when they do you wrong you tend to blame yourself before admitting you were betrayed. But, in relation to God, we ultimately betrayed and continue to betray Him. He is so good (omnibenevolent) that we can have re-assurance that his redemptive plan for us—reconciliation with what has fallen—will ultimately work out for our benefit. Think of Paul’s words up for capital punishment for sharing the good news (gospel). Or think of Christ’s message that His kingdom has come to re-establish earth under a New Covenant, a covenant of grace designed to instill in us an alien righteousness. Such that, not by our own merit, but by our imbibing in Him, we can be restored... purified… sanctified.

Throughout their torment, Antonius with his questioning of Death and Job questioning God, a natural dialectic seems to form. Both need faith in order to abandon reason, but in order to have faith he must abandon reason. As when Kierkegaard spoke of life only being able to be lived forward, faith is a movement too. As when he describes the “leap of faith,” it is always in action, experience. It is expressed in the continued pursuit of itself, not in the knowledge of itself. Job’s friends have been pursuing the knowledge of faith, Job has questioned their motives and fallen a bit himself, but continues to pursue nonetheless. We find why pure intellectual assent (reason) as one’s response to faith is similar folly when James, brother of Jesus, writes, James 2:14–18 “What use is it, my brethren, if someone says he has faith but he has no works? Can that faith save him?… Even so faith, if it has no works, is dead, being by itself. But someone may well say, “You have faith and I have works; show me your faith without the works, and I will show you my faith by my works.” This is the same man who writes of Job’s endurance in chapter 5. Similarly, Kierkegaard writes that by faith alone, love to God may bring the knight of faith: i.e., to love one’s neighbor. May we continually reflect on Job’s love of God, defense of God, and trust in God. Matters of faith must be addressed with fear and trembling, it is a lifelong movement, action, experience. Truly, life isn’t a problem to be solved, but a reality to be experienced. We must recognize the very truth of existence (and where it comes) and remain hopeful in our Savior, despite and in spite of our finitude. C’est la vie, that’s life.

Magnificat

Let us now end with a prayer, the song of Mary, called the Magnificat, let us pray in accordance with God’s redemptive plan through His Son so that we may be reconciled to Him and find eternal life,

Luke 1:46–55 “My soul exalts the Lord, And my spirit has rejoiced in God my Savior. “For He has had regard for the humble state of His [lowly servant]; For behold, from this time on all generations will count me blessed. “For the Mighty One has done great things for me; And holy is His name. “And His mercy is upon generation after generation Toward those who fear Him. “He has done mighty deeds with His arm; He has scattered those who were proud in the thoughts of their heart. “He has brought down rulers from their thrones, And has exalted those who were humble. “He has filled the hungry with good things; And sent away the rich empty-handed. “He has given help to Israel His servant, In remembrance of His mercy, As He spoke to our fathers, To Abraham and his descendants forever.””

Benediction

Thank you all. We will turn in-depth into Job’s long ending soliloquy next week.

But as you depart tonight, as the Lord wills, count yourself blessed now before Him,

The Lord bless you, and keep you;

The Lord make His face shine on you,

And be gracious to you;

The Lord lift up His countenance on you,

And give you peace.’ Num. 6:24-26