IS IT EASY BEING GOD?

THE DISCOVERY OF GOD

"I had heard of Thee by the hearing of the ear; But now mine eye seeth Thee, Wherefore I abhor myself, and repent In dust and ashes." —JOB 42:5-6

"From that time began Jesus to preach, and to say, Repent ye; for the Kingdom of Heaven is at hand."—MATTHEW 4:17

Our last article was concerned with the cry of Job which revealed his discovery of him­self. We now come to consider the cry which resulted from his fuller discovery of God.

After he had come to consciousness of him­self by comparison with the universe, and consequently by comparison with the God of the universe, that he was of small account, then Jehovah continued, for He had more to say to His servant.

This second movement in the speech of God to Job began exactly as the first did:

"Gird up thy loins now like a man,

I will demand of thee, and declare thou unto Me."

Job had said, "I am of small account." The reply of God was started by reminding him that he was a man, and calling upon him to behave like one. This method of approach on each occasion was recognition of the dignity of man. Every man is driven to say, "I am of small account," when he stands in the presence of the God of the universe. That is a natural and inevitable consciousness: and it might lead almost to a sense of despair. It is then as though God would remind him of the truth revealed in the account of the creation of man, in the words:

"Let us make man in Our image, after Our likeness."

Again it is as though God would say to him, There is none other in the earthly order to whom I can tell My secrets, or who can talk to Me. Thus even though we see Job in the midst of desolation, stripped of his belongings, his loved ones, and his wealth, misunderstood by his friends, we are looking at a being who, in God's estimate, is greater than all the crea­tion, the glories of which had been made to pass before the afflicted man.

The argument and the appeal of this second address of God dealt with the one thing in which Job had indeed been foolish. That fact emerges in the words of God:

"Wilt thou even disannul My judgment? Wilt thou condemn Me, that thou mayest be justified?"

In many ways it is true that Job had done no wrong, and said no wrong. He had not charged God foolishly, but he had questioned the justice of God, the government of God, the wisdom of God. These questionings had emerged time after time, in the magnificent and audacious honesty of the things he had said in his agony.

Here then he was sharply pulled up, as God asked whether he would disannul the judgment of God, whether Job intended to condemn God, that he might himself be justified.

In the stately beauty of the following address God is heard calling upon Job to assume the government. He did this with a satire as gentle as the kiss of a mother, when she laughs at a child. It is impossible to read it without feeling that it is full of that kind of tender laughter with which fathers and mothers often laugh at their children. There was no bitter­ness in it, no unkindness. With all the vision of the rhythmic order of the universe before Job, and while Job in his heart had been, and perhaps still was, questioning the government of God, he was asked if he was prepared to assume the government of the universe. Obviously the suggested deduction was that if he were unequal to that, did he not at least find evidences in God's government which denied the fears that filled his heart?

It is arresting that this was the method of God with Job. He did not attempt to explain His method, but sought to create confidence therein, despite its mystery. He was thus bringing the man face to face with himself, and so face to face with his own personal disability.

God first asked Job if he were able to assume the government of affairs in the moral realm:

"Deck thyself now with excellency and dignity:

And array thyself with honor and majesty.

Pour forth the overflowing’s of thine anger;

And look upon every one that is proud, and abase him.

Look on every one that is proud, and bring him low:

And tread down the wicked where they stand.

Hide them in the dust together:

Bind their faces in the hidden place,

Then will I also confess of thee

That thine own right hand can save thee."

The reading of that is sufficient, revealing the fact that God was calling this man to face the moral problem which had vexed him all the way through, and to consider whether he would be able to deal with such a problem.

No solution was offered, but in the method of questioning tremendous suggestions were made. In effect God was saying to His servant, there are things which must be allowed to work themselves out: while still all these matters are under the Divine control, and are moving towards the fulfillment of purpose, processional, by the necessities of the case, God is Himself limited.

When Job exclaimed, "Now mine eye seeth Thee," it always seems to me that he had caught a vision, in the light of this moral problem, of God as a God of might, but of holiness also: and there had come to him the realization of what in certain senses we may reverently describe as the difficulties of God. It ain’t easy being God!

Then once more for the sake of illustration, the speech of God moved out of the moral realm into that of the non-moral, that of the beasts and the animals. He called upon Job to look at two beasts, Behemoth, and Leviathan. I am aware that there are those who interpret these words as being pictorial or parabolic references to Satan and the under­world. Job knew of these two huge creatures in God's creation. A study of the passage will show how remarkable is the accuracy of the description of these monsters. Now God asks Job if he is able to capture them, to domesticate them, to bring them under control. With regard to leviathan He says:

"Lay thine hand upon him:

Remember the battle, and do so no more."

Surely it is impossible to read that without recognizing the humor of it.

Thus Job, having been compelled to face his own incompetence in the moral realm, is asked to face the fact of his equal incompetence in this realm of non-moral force.

After this speech of God to Job, he uttered the great cry that we are considering:

"I had heard of Thee by the hearing of the ear:

But now mine eye seeth Thee,

Wherefore I abhor myself, and repent In dust and ashes."

There had come to Job a new consciousness of God, revealing to him his own impotence. All the knowledge he had had of God, which had been revealed in his arguments with his philosopher friends, fell short of true apprehension. But now he had seen Him. The vision of God in the presence of moral delinquency had brought him to two definite conclusions, ex­pressed in the words:

"Thou canst do all things,"

And

"No purpose of Thine can be restrained."

There came to him in the midst of his desola­tion, when all the props upon which he had leaned had gone, and when the voices of his friends had been silenced, a vision of God which brought conviction, not finally of difficulty, but of power: a conviction, therefore, that in the long issue no purpose of God could be frustrated.

This new vision of God brought a new vision of himself. This was expressed in a statement which our translators have rendered, "I abhor myself." The revisers have substituted in the margin, "I loathe my words." Without any hesitation I say that neither rendering expresses the true thought. The word "myself" is not in the Hebrew, neither is the expression "my words." Moreover, the Hebrew word does not signify a state of mind which can accurately be described either by the word "abhor" or "loathe." The Hebrew word literally means, from the standpoint of etymology, to disappear: from the standpoint of usage, to retract, to repudiate. As a matter of fact, Job at this point went beyond what he had previously said when he declared, "I am of small account," and declared that he practically cancelled himself entirely. I disappear, I retract all that has been said: I repudiate the position I have taken up. Then, restoring the sense of person­ality, he continued:

"I repent in dust and ashes."

The word here rendered "repent" is not the one that suggests a change of mind, but one that indicates sorrow.

Thus the language of Job was that of com­plete submission to God, and in that submis­sion his own greatness was revealed and realized as nowhere else.

To go back for a moment, we call to mind Eliphaz's advice to him:

"Acquaint now thyself with Him, and be at peace."

The reply of Job to that had revealed his diffi­culty at the moment:

"Oh that I knew where I might find Him!"

Eliphaz, continuing to emphasize his advice, had urged him:

"Lay thy treasure in the dust,

And the gold of Ophir among the stones of the brooks."

Now Job said, not as the result of Eliphaz's appeal, but as the result of the unveiling of God before his astonished soul, I cancel myself, I am filled with sorrow. I lay all my treasure in the dust and in that moment Job rose to the ultimate dignity of his manhood. Tennyson's lines almost inevitably occur:

"Our wills are ours, we know not how, Our wills are ours to make them Thine."

Man rises to the ultimate dignity, grandeur, splendor of his own life when he recognizes that, and yields himself in complete submission to that will.

When we turn to ask what Jesus has to say to that cry of Job, we find the answer in the keynote of His ministry as declared in the words, that He "began . . . to preach, and to say, Repent ye: for the Kingdom of heaven is at hand," as Matthew records. Mark recording the same fact uses slightly different language, saying that "Jesus came into Galilee preaching the Gospel of God, and saying, The time is fulfilled, and the Kingdom of God is at hand: repent ye, and believe in the Gospel." In these two accounts we have two phrases, Matthew using "the Kingdom of heaven," and Mark, "the Kingdom of God." Matthew's phrase suggests an order of life, while Mark's indicates the authority producing the order. In that sense the phrases are synonymous. The fundamental fact, then, of the message of Jesus was that of recognition of Divine authority, and of the order resulting from sub­mission thereto. The way of entrance to the experience of the Kingdom of heaven is that of repentance: and repentance in that sense includes all that Job had said, the cancelling of self in the presence of the consciousness of the Divine authority:

When Paul wrote:

"I have been crucified with Christ: yet I live: and yet no longer I, but Christ liveth in me: and that life which I now live in the flesh I live in faith, the faith which is in the Son of God, Who loved me, and gave Himself up for me,"

He was revealing the fact that Christ had brought him to the exact place that Job had reached, with the difference that Job at the moment only realized the negative, and waited for the light of the positive.

God has many ways of breaking in upon the consciousness of the human soul. We have seen how He did so with Job. He comes in other ways to other men. The result is always the same that the man thus brought face to face with Him has to say, I disappear, and am filled with sorrow. When man reaches that place, God lifts him from the dust to the place of fullness of life and experience.

The sense of peace which fills the soul as the result of taking this place, and being brought by God in understanding of himself, was simply but finely expressed by Horatius Bonar

"Thy way, not mine, O Lord,
However dark it be:

Lead me by Thine own hand, Choose out the path for me.

Smooth let it be or rough,

It will be still the best: Winding or straight, it leads

Right onward to Thy rest.

I dare not choose my lot:

I would not, if I might:

Choose Thou for me, my God:

So shall I walk aright.

Take Thou my cup, and it

With joy or sorrow fill. As best to Thee may seem:

Choose Thou my good and ill:

Choose Thou for me my friends,

My sickness or my health: Choose Thou my cares for me,

My poverty or wealth.

Not mine, not mine the choice,

In things or great or small:

Be Thou my guide, my strength,

My wisdom and my all."

That is indeed the language of the human soul when it has come to full realization of the glory and dignity of life in the vision of God.