Job: The Great Wager

When sociologist Christian Smith researched religious beliefs of American teenagers, he discovered a faith described as “Moralistic Therapeutic Deism with five tenets: 

1. “A god exists who created and ordered the world and watches over human life on earth.” 

2. “God wants people to be good, nice, and fair to each other, as taught in the Bible and most world religions.” 

3. “The central goal of life is to be happy and feel good about oneself.” 

4. “God does not need to be particularly involved in one’s life except when needed to resolve a problem.” 

5. “Good people go to heaven when they die.”

They have obviously not considered God’s treatment of his servant Job. The God they would find here will not fit their design for a good life. Just the opposite. The God in the book of Job is unlike any other we meet in all of Scripture. 

Martin Luther, while disputing the books of James, Jude and Hebrews as belonging to the Canon, was unenthusiastic as well about the book of Job. For Luther, “It is understood only by those who also experience and feel what it is to suffer the wrath and judgment of God, and to have His grace hidden…” Like Luther, Job makes me unsettled as well.

Voltaire said, “If God did not exist, it would be necessary to invent him.” But would this be that God? I doubt it. Instead, God would be a more perfect version of ourselves with no contradictions or inconsistencies like the Greek and Roman gods. Our God, like our theology, would be systematic. We would not make him the one unpredictable and impossible to understand as he is here in Job. He would be great and just but absolutely good. Our custom-crafted God would never make bets with Satan or play havoc with our lives and loved ones. If he did, we could take him back to the shop and recalibrate him.

Only Abraham in the offering of Isaac and Job are tested like this in all of Scripture. They are not tempted like Jesus - but tested.  There is a difference. A temptation is working to take someone out of a relationship with God while a test is to examine the depth of that relationship. Temptation is the snare for leading someone to make bad choices. A test comes at a pause in learning. Think about tests in school. Did they come at the beginning or in the middle and end of the course? The purpose of a test is to see how successfully you have learned. The purpose of a temptation is to keep you from learning in the first place – to skip the class entirely. 

This is God’s big bet. Is Job’s faith real? Can God trust what he has created? Can Job survive a hidden grace? The test comes not at the beginning or end of his life but here at the midterm and prime of life. It is not God teaching Job through hardship or tribulation but his proving what Job has learned. Tests don’t teach. They examine…and often our most difficult tests come in the middle of life. It is not only God seeing what we’ve learned but our seeing it as well. 

Jewish perseverance is shaped by this story through history. It is their story. This is not a God most are prepared to meet or understand. Our God will not make such demands nor are we anxious to prove such trust. We want abundant life and a God asking for such sacrifice could not love us or deserve our love. This is more than singing, “I’d rather have Jesus than anything.” It is a glance at God reserved for a very few. It is the part of God’s fearsome holiness that no one in their right mind can desire. 

Finally, there is something even more serious here. Do not ask to see God unless you are prepared for the repercussions. Seeing exacts an awful price. Seeing means you are drawn into the suffering as well as the amazement.  Faith is tested and great faith is tested greatly. Don’t ask to see unless realizing that, like Jacob, you will be marked for the rest of your life. Like Paul, you will be afflicted. Like Moses, you will be saddled with burdens and responsibilities you would not have chosen for yourself. Like Job, you will realize what it means to have heard about him but now to see him in his glory.

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Art by Nagui Achamallah. 

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