Circumstance Three: Restricted Revelation
The revelation that we call Scripture was not available to Job. This is a great distinction. It is a circumstance that we do not face. We will see how this restriction affected him. But first, what revelation was available to, and acknowledged by, Job?
Job had, for his instruction and benefit, the revelation of creation, the revelation of power, and the revelation of conscience. These forms of revelation are available to all men, as Romans 1 and 2 amply demonstrate. The revelation of conscience is particularly noticeable in view of the fact that the debate between Job and his friends bubbled up from their perception of moral right and wrong. There were also revelations through dreams and visions in those days (Job 33.15.) And Job and his friends had the benefit of oral knowledge passed down through antecedent generations—divine knowledge possessed by Adam, and passed down to the postdiluvian world through Noah and his descendents.
Here is some of what Job knew. He knew enough to be able to say that he had received ‘the words of the Holy One’ and the ‘commandment of his lips’ (Job 6.10; 23.12.) How could this reception be, since the word of God had not been written yet? It is probable that certain commandments mentioned in Genesis were passed down from Adam to Noah, and then down from Noah to men living in the days of Job. For example, the eating of blood is proscribed in Noah’s day in Genesis 9.4, and capital punishment is instated for the crime of murder two verses later. Job attributed the existence of the universe to God, and he knew some astronomical details: “Which maketh Arcturus, Orion, and Pleiades, and the chambers of the south” (Job 9.9.) He attributed earthquakes and perhaps even eclipses to God (9.6, 7.) It is evident that Job and his four friends were God-centered about everything that happens to man, whether good or bad. Job believed that he was created by God and he knew that he was a carbon-based life form and that God was the Preserver of his spirit (10.8, 9, 12.) He anticipated a Redeemer and he believed in a future resurrection (19.25, 26.) Job knew about Adam (31.33.) Since Job knew about Adam, it is likely that he knew about Satan. The devil, though, is never mentioned, neither by Job nor his four friends, though Eliphaz does mention rebellious angels (4.18.)
There might not have been rampant faith in a saving God in the centuries leading up to God’s revelation to Moses. But the book of Job discloses the existence of, not atheism, but theism and polytheism during this time, the latter of which was nascent. Theism preceded irreligion and polytheism, not vice versa. This has been confirmed in research of peoples and tribes throughout the world. What has been discovered is that the theological subjects that are discussed in the book of Job engaged people generally in these ancient times. Maybe the best extra-biblical example of this is the content of The Epic of Gilgamesh. The epic is a mixture of biography, history, superstition, and theology, roughly in that order with respect to coverage. The epic’s principal character lived at such at time as to believe that a survivor of the Flood still walked the earth, which would be roughly akin to when Job is believed to have lived. Like in the book of Job, the subjects discussed include, not only misery and blessing, but sin, sacrifice, immortality, and judgment. Gilgamesh, like Job, sought a wise mediator in his desire to defy death, which was the reason for his quest to find Uta-napishti, the survivor of the Deluge. Given the subject matter that both the books of Job and Gilgamesh contain, it is improbable that men lived like wild animals during this time, as the editor of my edition of the epic suggests. No matter how far back into history we reach, we are likely to discover civilization as much as anything else. “Now, in Egypt, it is notorious that there is no indication of any early period of savagery or barbarism” (George Rawlinson, The Origin of Nations, p. 13.)
Job and his friends discussed many of the chief subjects that we find in Scripture, such as righteousness, wickedness, death, and immortality. But it is without question that none of what Job knew came from Scripture and that Job had no written Revelation to guide him, to encourage him, and to comfort him. The epoch during which Job lived is proof enough of this assertion, while Job’s great age is proof enough of what epoch he lived in. Job lived 140 years after his fortunes were restored (Job 42.16.) Before he was afflicted he had grown children (1.18.) To account for these many years and for some time for Job to go through his trial, he had to have lived to the age of 180 at least. This lifespan is comparable to the lifespan of men in Abraham’s day or before, but not comparable to the lifespan of men in Moses’ day, when the Pentateuch was written (Exodus 6.) The lapse of time between the life of Abraham and the life of Moses amounts to several hundred years. It is unlikely, then, that Job had any written record from God for his instruction and comfort.
Job had no written Revelation to cling to during his sufferings, while we have sixty-six portions of God’s word. The encouragement that may be derived from the study of this word has never been fully experienced. And yet with this inexhaustible resource of strength we still do not measure up to the patience of a man who persevered without it. Because of Scripture we have, literally at our fingertips, the answers to the greatest philosophical questions; we have all the heroes in the Holy Bible to pull us along; we have their sins recorded to show us that ordinary persons may become religious heroes; and we have centuries of meticulous expository treatment to turn to whenever we please. Because of Scripture we can understand, and thus take courage from, the lives and trials of missionaries and martyrs who persevered and died for the Truth. We rejoice to read about the ‘little people of God’ who supported them. Because of Scripture we know that angels work to assist us in our pilgrimage (Hebrews 1.14.) We know that there is a spiritual battle going on for the souls of men (Ephesians 6.12.) Knowledge of this fact alone, no doubt, would have prevented Job from murmuring. We know that our trials are for the testing of our faith (James 1.2, 3.) We know that we have Jesus praying for us and God the Holy Spirit to console us and that through these Divine Agents we may be enabled to abide in God (John 14.16, 17; 1 John 4.13.) We look back on the completed mission of Jesus Christ, the Mediator between God and men (Timothy 2.5.) We look forward to the promise of eternal life that has been both described and ratified. What a joyous expectation we have! We have the Holy Spirit to impress the revelation of Jesus Christ on us via the written word, Jesus being the moral image of the Father that Job craved a meeting with. Compared with us, assuming that we know what the Bible contains, Job was largely in the dark. He yearned for the instruction that is now contained in the written word of God: “Oh that one would hear me! behold, my desire is, that the Almighty would answer me, and that mine adversary had written a book. Surely I would carry it upon my shoulder, and bind it as a crown to me” (Job 31.35, 36.)
Job’s only hero was God his Saviour; and he knew much less about God than what is revealed to us in the Bible. Yet he was so God-centered that he was certain that his tribulations came from God exclusively and directly, in spite of the report that marauders had plundered his possessions. Job did not know that the LORD was testing him through the temptations of Satan. I say that Job’s ignorance on this matter was the determining factor in the torment that he endured. Because of this ignorance, Job kept coming back to the idea that he must, for some reason, have become the enemy of God: “Wherefore hidest thou thy face, and holdest me for thine enemy?...For the arrows of the Almighty are within me…Then thou scarest me with dreams, and terrifiest me through visions” (Job 13.24; 6.4; 7.14.)
Feeling deserted by God, it was understandable for Job to desire a Mediator: “For he [God] is not a man, as I am, that I should answer him, and we should come together in judgment. Neither is there any daysman betwixt us, that might lay his hand upon us both.” (Job 9.32, 33.) Compare this verse to a verse in the New Testament: “For there is one God, and one mediator between God and men, the man Christ Jesus” (1 Timothy 2.5.) Job wanted the mediation that we, through faith in the person, obedience, and sacrifice of Christ, have. Job wanted from a mediator what Jesus Christ accomplished for us; that is, peace with God: “Let him [God] take his rod away from me, and let not his fear terrify me” (Job 9.34.) Interestingly, because of his integrity and perseverance, Job later became a mediator between his friends and the LORD. I think the point of the book would have been lost if Job had had Scripture and knowledge about Jesus Christ for his abutment. The point was for Job to trust God ‘in the dark,’ as we say. The lesson of the book is clearly perseverance, or patience. The book of Job might fittingly be called, The Perseverance of Job.
Job was thrust into harsh tribulation with no written Revelation to rely on in order to become a ground-breaking hero in Revelation for us. Job had so little; we have so much. Nearly all of us today are aware of, and have access to, the Old and New Testaments: God’s written Revelation to man.
The Revelation that Job wished for may be summed up as the Revelation of Jesus Christ because that is what Scripture is (Revelation 1.1.) We have the revelation of Jesus Christ prophetically and historically, by types and ceremonies, by allegory and plain speech, and by the words of Jesus himself. Jesus Christ is the very Word of God (John 1; Revelation 19.13.) So it follows that the whole Bible is the Revelation of Jesus Christ. It is obvious that the New Testament is about Jesus Christ. But so is the Old Testament, for Jesus asserted as much when he spoke of the Old Testament as that which testifies of him (John 5.39.) Jesus Christ is both foreshadowed and revealed in the word of God; Jesus Christ is the word of God; and the word of God goes out from his mouth (Revelation 19.13, 15.) The sword that proceeds from the mouth of Jesus Christ (Revelation 19.15) is the word of God (Ephesians 6.17.) This sword is the ‘revelation of the righteous judgment of God’ (Romans 2.5.) It may be that Zophar alluded to this judgment in the words, ‘day of his wrath’ (Job 20.28), which would be the day that Jesus Christ will judge (2 Timothy 4.1.) Jesus Christ is involved in all of God’s Revelation, including the general revelation of God in nature (Colossians 1.16.)
The tension that Job felt toward God would have been relieved by the revelation that, because of Job’s faith, there was, in fact, a Mediator between him and his Maker, not only at some distance in the future, but effectual even in Job’s day because this Mediator is from the eternal past. The ‘blood of the everlasting covenant’ (Hebrews 13.20)—the covenant of grace—was made before the foundation of the world, is effectual for every sinner who comes under grace through faith, and covered Job even though he lived so many centuries before Jesus of Nazareth fulfilled the stipulations of it. A covenant was made in the Garden of Eden; that one was made in time and it was broken. The covenant of grace was made before that, and could not fail because God himself, in the person of Jesus Christ, contracted to fulfill it. Job did not know all of this, nor could he have. We should know all of this; and what a comfort it is if we do. If we do not know it; that is to say, if we face the circumstance of restricted revelation, this ignorance is our own fault; it is a needless restriction, which restriction may be a sufferer’s undoing. Ignorance of God’s written Revelation is one reason—maybe the chief reason—for all our murmuring when our schemes are knocked askew.
