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The story of who God is and how he deals with his creation is told throughout scripture. Many facets of God are shown in the different books of the Bible. God the creator, of course, is introduced in the Book of Genesis. God also appears as the destroyer in the stories of Noah and Sodom. He reaches down and lifts up certain people as leaders, such as, David and Moses. He anoints His prophets, as He did with Elijah and Isaiah. He can be a judge and an advisor for His people. The same God is in all these stories but there are many different faces or aspects to Him.
In Job, we see a God who is pleased with one of His creatures - Job. He is pleased enough with Job to allow the satan to challenge Him into showing His trust or faith in Job. This seems a simple challenge on the surface of the story but in reality, accepting the challenge is an important faith statement by God. Into this challenge comes the gift which He gave man called free will. This is the gift Adam and Eve used when they decided to eat from the tree of knowledge. If there was no free will operating in mankind, this story would be a simple manipulation of puppets. If free will were not a part of creation, God could make all His creatures do anything He wanted them to do, therefore, the satan would always lose his challenges and there would be no reason for him to make a challenge such as we find in the Book of Job. Instead, God created us with so much love and He loves us so much that we can go to Hell if we will to. He has given us the freedom to choose to love Him and obey Him or to turn our backs on Him and follow our own wills to destruction. It is our choice. God works through our cooperation with Him. This is true unconditional love or agape in action. He loves us with open hands, hoping we will turn to Him in the end but giving us the freedom to choose not to. He is a God of love.
In God's trust of Job, we see a God of faith. When God accepted the satan's challenge for Job, God needed to have faith in him. God's faith, many times has not been repaid with faithful actions by man. Adam and Eve are just one example. Moses, lost out on the promised land because he did not act as a faithful believer of God and disobeyed Him (Nos. 27:13), and David lost his child and the honour of his household because he stepped away from God's ways (2 Sam. 12:11-18). When God puts His faith in us, He stands up to the challenge that we might fail Him at any time. Job did not fail God so God's faith in Job paid off. Genesis (1:27) stated that man was created in God's image. When man fell, God did not take away those things that made us like him, He just took away our immortality and paradise. What were those things which man and God have in common and make us the image of God? What are the qualities of a good or godly man or woman? We must first look at the loving aspects of man. There are different kinds of love. Some are godly and some, I believe, are for our enjoyment. Eros, or physical love, is the main example of enjoyable love. This form of love is linked directly to the physical body. Since God is not a physical being, this is not a quality of His but is, instead, a gift from Him created especially for us. Brotherly love or philos is the form of love that is found in friendship and grows through shared interests and experiences. There is also the love of things which helps to make people collectors and aficionados. These three loves all are loves involved with the physical senses and can also turn from love to lust, idolatry, and greed. The fourth kind of love is the one that is an aspect of God and is known as agape. Agape is unconditional and open-handed love and is a non-possessive love, unlike the other three loves, and it cannot be twisted. If it changes, it becomes one of the other loves and is no longer itself. This is the kind of love Jesus talks about when He speaks of laying down your life for others. It is other-oriented instead of self-oriented. That is what God and Job show in the story. When this love is developed for others then the image of God shows through the human form. This is the kind of love that the satan challenged. God's openness about Job and His sacrifice of Job, one he loved very much, is an example of agape. Did God realize, when He expressed His approbation of Job the satan would try to snatch Job away from Him? The sacrifice of Job to suffering came directly from God lifting up Job to the satan. Job, on the other hand, bowed to whatever the Lord did to him. The willingness to risk a relationship and the willingness to love, no matter what the other party in the relationship does are both instances of agape. This, then, is one of the qualities man can strengthen in himself if he wants to be more like God's image.
The next Godlike quality to be addressed is faith. Faith is a total trust for someone or something which says one is sure they will behave in a certain manner. Those who can hold on to that trust in the midst of devastation have cultivated another facet of God. Godlike faith is faith that stands strong no matter what is used to try and break it. The faith which says God would not do things the way his friends said He would is the kind of faith Job had. He knew no matter what happened, God was in charge of the situation and no matter what the situation looked like or what anyone said, God would do what was right. God had the faith in Job's goodness and integrity which He knew would not break down under any pressure and that it wasn't based on the material world but on the heavenly realm, and he knew Job's heart. His faith said Job loved Him and obeyed Him because He was God and not because of the rewards He gave Job.
The courage to do what is right without counting the cost is another Godly trait. This is the kind of courage wherein God gave up His only son to suffering and death so man could be reconciled to Him once more and have everlasting life. It is the acting against fear and the doing of, not what you want to do but what you have to do. There are many stories of heroes who had the courage to do what had to be done to save others. Tales of Christian Martyrs show this quality as well as the quality of great faith. Stories of war contain many tales of bravery which show this kind of courage. God enacted this kind of courage when He sacrificed His son and when He accepted the satan's challenge for Job. Job showed his courage by not cursing God and by not giving up and dying. His courage was so strong that he was willing to face God for an explanation rather than to bow down to the opinions of those around him. He fought through his suffering instead of lying down and giving up or running away from it. Courage carries a person beyond the impossible and opens up a whole new range of possibilities.
Being created in the image of God is not meant in the physical sense. We don't need to worry about whether God had a belly button or not. We were created in the spiritual likeness of God. We have the abilities in us to become more and more like God. We have the choice to reach for the qualities of God or to reach for the qualities of the world. The qualities of God are the better qualities but they are harder to achieve and one of the ways we begin to achieve them is by obedience to God's will and not our own wills and Job is an example of this.
God wants us to put Him first and let the rest of our lives flow from that source. This is another theme to be found in Job. Job put God first in his life. His life was good because it flowed from God, not from himself. In the natural world people tend to put themselves, their jobs, or money first and fit God in only when it's convenient. The image of God that comes out of those lifestyles tends to be one of their own making rather than one based on a knowledge of God. Job's friends based God on themselves and how they did things instead of basing themselves and their lives on God. This is why God said Job spoke correctly about Him and Job's friends did not.
Many times men create their image of God based on their own behaviour, likes, and dislikes rather than remaining open to finding out who God really is. The God they create fits within the narrow confines of their five senses and their narrow belief systems. Many men like to feel they control their world and their lives and they tend to create an image of God they can also control.
What happens if life is suddenly out of control for a man or for someone he knows? Some men ignore the reality of the situation and continue to try to force the god they invented to fit the situation even though proof of the falseness of the god they have created is right in front of their eyes. They continue to insist that God be under their control and they hang on to their old, worn-out belief systems to their own spiritual detriment. This is what all four of Job’s friends did. This creates a wall between them and God because God cannot be controlled by men. If they continue to fool themselves about who is really running things they move further and further away from God. This then becomes a situation of worshipping a false god. This incorrect belief system leads to incorrect behaviour and in a time of suffering can bring more burdens to the one who is suffering by establishing a false sense of guilt without hope of redemption. It becomes an evil in itself.
A good example of this locked in image of God is seen in the story of Job. The supposed wise friends of Job insist that God always rewards those who follow His ways and are righteous and God always punishes those who deserve punishment (4:7-11, 5:11-16, 15:20-35, 18:5-21, 20:5-29, 22:15-20, 34:18-20, 34:24-28). Since Job is suffering, God must be punishing him for something he did, some sin he committed. We, the readers know that this is not true from the beginning of the story and anyone who has lived life at all knows the reality is that the good can suffer and evil men often seem to get all the rewards. The friends of Job, however, insist on hanging on to the belief that God always behaves in the ways they have decided He behaves even though Job's situation clearly points out that they have an incorrect image of God. They rigidly hold on to their viewpoints which leave no room for them to learn who God really is.
When a person or a religion (sect) sets a limit on who God is by a too rigid doctrine or theology, they make no room for God to be a part of their lives. They decide those who question the false god they have created when the rules surrounding that belief no longer fit the situation are sinners and heretics. They cannot admit their belief system might be limited or wrong. The more frightened they are of having their beliefs questioned, the more they have to control everyone else's image of God and the longer their list of rules is. They tend to be more violent in the ways they choose to hush anyone who would disagree with them.
Often, the acceptable vision of God is like the emperor's new clothes, you can see right through it. That is the way the situation was in Job. His friends continued, throughout their arguments, to try and force their image of God on Job. It did not fit the circumstances surrounding Job's suffering. He refused to agree with them and they turned on him like a pack of wolves, rending his heart even more and they became his accusers and charged him with deeds Job and they knew he did not do (5:1-4, chap. 22 & 34:7 & 8.)
All of Job's "friends" spoke of their wisdom, and their knowledge of God (5:27, 15:17-35, 20:3-29, 22:1-30, 32:10-37:24) but with all of their legalisms and rhetoric the image of God and what God was doing to Job was still wrong. God even protested this at the end of the story saying that what they had said about Him was wrong.
Left to themselves, human beings will always try to make God in the image of man because it is easier than trying to remake themselves into God's image. It saves them from having to face the ordeal of changing and growing.
In order to know someone, you must spend time with him and you must make an effort to listen to him so he has a chance to reveal himself to you. The same principle applies to God. The mistake many people make and which Job's friends made is they did not take the time to get to know who God is. Job's friends had designed God as they wanted Him to be and refused to look beyond that image. When Job questioned that image and demanded to see God face to face and hear his explanation, he hit right at the centre of their belief system. They refused to see the fallacies born in their theology and did not admit questions. Job was attacked by them unjustly because he questioned. It is this behaviour the Lord speaks about when He tells them he will accept Job's prayers instead of dealing with them as they deserve. Two birds will be killed with one stone in this if Job does it, they will be redeemed and Job has forgiven them.
God accepts questions, though He may answer with another question. He listens to complaints (Moses is a case in point.) A soon as someone forms a fixed theory about God, He will find a way to show him the error of his ways and it is up to that person whether he wants to listen or not. God cannot be put into a box and in Job, He shows He does not find fault in complaining or questioning but He does not countenance wrong teachings about Him.
God saw a man, tested in every way possible and broken, questioning, but still faithful. Job had lost everything and when his wife told him to curse God he refused. In his deep pain, he called out, asking why? Why was he being punished in such a way. He had tried in every way to live as God would want him to and yet he was not being blessed. His life was cursed. His friends were not helpful either, they, in their fear and confusion, blamed Job for his condition, not understanding that Job was being put to the test. Not for anything he had done wrong, but for all the things he had done right. He had lived the hesed, the Godly way. I think the words of Zophar, Bildad, Eliphaz and Elihu are a way of trying to explain what the people of that time could not understand. The myth says, “If you live in a Godly way, your life will be blessed, but if you are not being blessed you must be doing something wrong.” The truth is, those who love God and follow Him as closely as they can, quite often have troubles just like anyone else. The differences is in the way they deal with the pain and the fear. Job did not blame God, he still tried to stay faithful to God. He just wanted to know why all this evil had happened to him. This is a question we all ask when turmoil enters our lives. Why?
Many interpretations say that Job erred by questioning God and that he repents for questioning God. He does repent in ashes but I think these chapters, the ones where God asks if Job can do all the things God can, might be seen as God, finally revealing himself completely to Job. Job had not broken nor lost his trust in God no matter what he lost. He remained faithful to God and I think God decided to take the relationship deeper. God understood Job and now he wanted Job to understand Him. He became vulnerable to Job and revealed himself by showing what he could do. He opened himself to Job and showed Job what He was capable of and what he had done. All the majesty and mystery was revealed to Job and it humbled Job. When a man falls in love and becomes vulnerable to the woman he loves, it can be very humbling for the woman. The same happens when friendship deepens. Receiving the gift of revealing vulnerability is a humbling experience and one of the greatest gifts one person can give to another. But it takes immense trust to do this. God trusted Job with the knowledge of him and drew Job closer to him.
I think this is what God tries to do with each one of us. He lets us be tested and then as his trust in us grows he reveals himself more and more to us each day.