Closing arguments were
concluded, just the way it would happen in a human court. The judge having
silently heard every witness, every argument and counter-argument, then addresses
the court.
God speaks to Job. The
witnesses have cleared the room, leaving only the jury, the witness of history
and all who have read Job’s story. They sit silently as the verdict is handed
down.
The opening remarks of
the great judge are a rebuke. He asks, “who is this that darkens my counsel
without knowledge?” Then he tells Job to stand and receive the court’s
judgment.
“Where were you when I laid the foundations of the
earth?” (38:4)
What follows is as
revealing as Job’s own evidence before his three friends. The gloves comes off,
all is disclosed. Job stands naked before his creator.
“Who laid the measures
thereof and who stretched a line over it, whereon are the foundations laid and
who set the corner stone?” (vs5). One of the most compelling defensive
arguments of creation-science apologists, lies in the fine-tuning debate.
It argues that had the
world been more than 2% nearer or closer to the sun, orbiting faster or slower,
with a rotation speed off by a similar %, or had the amount of hydrogen in the
universe been any less or had gravity been off by a fraction of a %, the earth
would not be.
That started with a
few factors and grew to over 250 life-critical variables, resulting in the odds
of the world ever happening (1:10130) exceeding all the atoms in the
known universe (1080). How could it have spontaneously evolved into
its current state?
The creator, here ascribed
as God, but in the New Testament more specifically ascribed to Jesus, applied
great precision to the creation. He shut up the seas with doors as it burst
from the womb and wrapped the earth in clouds, like a swaddling blanket.
That all correlates
with the original creation story, which speaks of a mist watering the earth as
high greenhouse conditions existed in the neonatal earth. That, as for any
newborn, ensured rapid growth and, in that sense, was aptly described as “swaddling
clothes”.
God poses many deep questions
Those include the dimensions
of the earth, the depths of the seas, the separation of the dead from the living,
or light from darkness, and the limits of day and night.
He alludes to the
intricacies of snow and hail, which are reserved for a time of great trouble – was
He thinking of Napoleon or Hitler’s disastrous campaigns against a frigid
Russia?
He also marked out the
river courses and the ways that those rivers would be fed by the storms that
lightning and thunder would summons.
He alludes to the
Pleiades and Orion, Mazzaroth and Arcturus. Acturus, a red giant, is also in the Bootes Constellation referred to earlier when referring to the supe-rvoid to our north. Acturus has a unique normal motion that cuts across the universe at over 500,000 kilometers per hour, immense for a celestial body that is 25 times the size of our sun. It is a great mystery.
The order of animals
and how they exist according to their species, how they bear young, their
gestation periods and diets, are also touched on – clearly God sees even the remotest
of things. He even speaks of the unicorn, which remains a mystery to modern
man.
A creature we do know
is the ostrich. She is not bright, lays her eggs where people walk and rejects
her young, yet she runs like the wind to the scorn of horses.
He follows with vivid
pictures of the armored grasshopper, which fearlessly devours the earth, and the
eagle on its thermals or in her lofty mountain nest.
In Chapter 40 God
again rebukes Job for daring to instruct or reprove Him, for presuming to disannul
God’s judgments and for condemning the almighty? Elihu, the court “stenographer”,
shivers as he faithfully records it all
for our ears.
God uses a metaphor to describe His power
What follows in chapters 41 and 42, is a description of two
mighty creatures, Behemoth and Leviathan. Many commentators see them as the
hippopotamus and crocodile. They might be something else or symbolic allusions
to prehistoric giants and mighty demons.
However, the broader
description of the habitats of the two creatures fits with classic descriptions
of the hippo and croc. Certainly the allusion to its bite strength, as in a
mouth that cannot be opened, alludes to the croc’s advantage, which contrasts a
weak opening force.
As for his armor, the
scaled skin, the impenetrable hide and the ferocity of its attack, the descriptions
are powerful. I am not sure Job ever saw one, as the region he lived in has
neither beast on its menu, but God still used them as metaphors for His own
power.
The storm passes
In Chapter 42, Job voices
his humble contrition. His eyes are opened. He knows he was wrong to challenge divine
authority, but tactfully avoids taking advantage of God’s presence. God’s justice,
intervenes swiftly and surely. He corrects Job’s antagonists, but not Elihu.
Finally, the trial was
over and God gave him double all he had lost, because in God we fall forward.
It’s like falling on an escalator, which carries us forward and up in spite of
ourselves. God is redemptive, habitually so. He always restores.
Trouble and sorry may
endure for a season, but joy always comes in the morning and the latter state
of the righteous always overtakes their former state. I so thank God for the hope
that gives.
The themes of Job relate to our world
The book explores the
three major themes of human rebellion and the tensions that, if in the right
balance, will keep us centered in the sweet spot of God’s will.
They are to fear God
and know our place, the way the yarmulke reminds the Jew that God is above Him.
The second describes our material instincts and the need to balance that
against spiritual priorities, as in “not by bread alone, but by every truth”.
The third, which was
Job’s undoing, is to stay within our tracks. What are we called to do or be?
Husbands, wives, parents. What are we called to do? Be stewards of the life He
entrusted to you and the talents with which you are endowed. However, stay away
from the edge and do not test moral or ethical boundaries. Fear God and it
will be well with your soul.
(c) Peter Missing @ bethelstone.com
