Year 2, Day 110: Job 16

Repentance And Grace

As we begin Job 16, we get a large dose of what good Christian fellowship should be all about.  As with most things, there are two extremes to Christian fellowship – and I believe that true fellowship needs to ride the path right down the center.

Let me explain.  There are some people that live out their faith believing that the best Christian is the person who comes over and just makes the other person feel better.  This is the coddling Christian.  This is the person who only says, “I know how you feel” or “I can really understand how you can feel that way.”

Then there is the other kind of Christian.  This is the Christian who doesn’t believe in any kind of comfort but only believes in telling the truth.  This is the tactless Christian.  This is the Christian who always has advice on every subject and the advice usually sounds like, “Well, if you would turn to God more…” or “If you would have less sin in your life…”

The reality in life is that repentance must come before grace.  Repentance must even come before forgiveness!  So there is a correct time and place for being upfront with other people.  However, we cannot often get a person to the point of understanding - or welcoming – a perspective of needing to repent without first establishing rapport! 

Yet, if we get too comfortable in the “rapport” stage, we never move beyond it into accountability.  If we do get to accountability, we must learn to not dwell there constantly or else we will never move into grace.  True Christian fellowship is a balance between rapport, accountability, and grace.  Remove any one stage completely and the productiveness of fellowship breaks down completely.

I think this is what I am hearing Job say in reflection to his friends as we open this chapter.  They have skipped the rapport stage completely.  They have dug in their heels in the accountability stage and are convinced that Job has to change his mind and see himself as the problem and repent.  Because of this, they will also not move into the grace phase of fellowship.  Not only have they ignored one of the levels, they’ve ignored two of them!  As we can read in the opening of this passage, Job is not responding well to their approach.  As Christians, we should take note of this and realize that when we ignore any one stage we will experience similar results.

Lie: God Is At Fault

I do need to take issue with the middle portion of Job’s speech in this chapter.  Job points a number of accusations against God here, and I don’t believe that God deserves to be the brunt of most of them.  Sure, it is God who does bring Satan’s attention upon Job initially.  But I don’t believe that having a perspective of God as one who hates people or who tears them up with His wrath is really a legitimate perspective.  I could have used more examples from this chapter, but these suffice. 

Yes, God has set up Job and pointed Satan in Job’s general direction.  But I think that picturing God as a divine being who enjoys seeing His creation suffer is not a correct picture of God.  God knows we suffer – often at our own hands or the hands of others – but He does not enjoy it.

Never Lose The Faith

Yet, I will give Job credit.  Although Job does speak in a fairly adversarial manner against God, he never does lose his faith.  He never denounces God nor denies Him.  He wrestles with God – he wrestles hard, even!  While Job may go astray a bit in His perspective of God, he never loses His faith.  He never does denounce his faith and die as his wife advised him to do so many chapters prior.

Truth: We Need A Witness Before God

I do want to pay a bit of attention to the last few verses in this chapter.  Here again we find the same beautiful foreshadowing of Christ that we found seven chapters ago.  Here we have a very clear perspective on how Job envisions justification actually occurring.  It is in these verses that we have proof that Job has not turned his back on God but is actually just wrestling with what is going on and how God is involved.

Here we have evidence of Job’s belief that his advocate is already in heaven before God.  Job has a belief that there is already someone testifying on his behalf before God.  And I’ve got to tell you. For a man who likely lived a millennia and a half before Jesus Christ, I find more faith in these few verses that end this chapter than I find in many who live a few millennia after Jesus Christ.  I am completely blown away by Job’s faith here as this chapter ends.

After His resurrection, Jesus tells Thomas, “You believe because you have seen?  Blessed is the one who believes while not seeing!”  So often we hear that expression and think Jesus is speaking about those of us who never got a chance to see Jesus in the flesh.  But today I have to sit back in awe at Job.  We at least have the benefit of being able to hear about Jesus.  If the one who believes without seeing are blessed then the one like Job who believes without seeing or hearing should be blessed even more!

I am forced to once again be humbled by Job’s witness.  Yes, he stumbles occasionally and speaks unfairly in God’s direction.  We all stumble and fall.  But here is a man who believes in God and also believes in a personal advocate before God before he had any real reason to believe at all.  Here is a true believer.  To quote the title of a pretty cool song from Thousand Foot Krutch: “Make me a believer.”  After hearing those inspiring words from Job, this is my humble prayer today.

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