Does Job fear God for nothing?

There was a man in the land of Uz, whose name was Job; and that man was blameless and upright, and one who feared God and shunned evil... Now there was a day when the sons of God came to present themselves before the LORD, and the Satan also came among them. And the LORD said to the Satan, "From where do you come?" ... Then the LORD said to the Satan, "Have you considered My servant Job, that there is none like him on the earth, a blameless and upright man, one who fears God and shuns evil?" So the Satan answered the LORD and said, "Does Job fear God for nothing?..." (Job 1)

God asks, "Have you considered My servant Job?"—and the question of whether Job fears God for nothing is a question for us all.

Why Consider Job?

If ever there was a fascinating story, this is certainly one. I have been thinking about the book of Job and considering a short series on it for quite some time. We won't go verse by verse through every chapter, but there are several reasons this passage has stayed with me.

First, there are some very significant things in the story we just read that I think we might get wrong—we might interpret them just a little bit off. Second, the book addresses issues very important for those of us living today, even though some believe this is one of the oldest stories in the Bible, perhaps four thousand years old. Third, some beliefs Christians carry in our day have no real basis in Scripture, and this book deals with them. Fourth, one of the biggest problems Westerners have with God, Christianity, and the Bible is the issue of suffering—pain and the reality of God.

Where Job Sits in the Bible

We've spent most of the last eleven years in the New Testament, so it's good to remember where we are. The Bible is a book of books—66 books written by 40 authors in 3 languages on 3 continents over 1,500 to 2,000 years, yet with one cohesive message of God from Genesis to the end.

The last 27 books are the New Testament, the New Covenant—the agreement God made with man through Jesus Christ. Most churches spend most of their time there, and for good reason. But the first 39 books, the Old Testament, are also very important. They deal primarily with a people descended from a man who began to follow God.

In Genesis 12, God met Abram and said, "Come and follow me, and I will make you a great nation, and through you all the nations of the earth shall be blessed." Abram was 75 with no children, but God gave him a son, Isaac, and the promise extended to Isaac, then to Jacob, whose name God changed to Israel. Through Israel the promise would come to the world, and Jesus would descend through Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, and Judah.

The Old Testament has five sections: the Law (the first five books), history (the next twelve), poetry (five books of Hebrew poetry), the major prophets (five), and the minor prophets (twelve). Job sits among the Hebrew poetry. Hebrew poetry doesn't rhyme words like Western poetry; it rhymes thoughts, ideas, and concepts. Job is one of the most interesting poems you could ever find.

There is little agreement among scholars about when Job was written, who wrote it, whether Job was a historic or fictional character, or even what its exact purpose is. So why go through it? Because we believe this is Scripture, and all Scripture is given by inspiration of God, profitable for doctrine, reproof, correction, and instruction in righteousness, so that the people of God may be thoroughly equipped. I encourage you to read through the whole book over the next several weeks, even if Bildad, Eliphaz, and Elihu make it a challenging book to follow.

A Wrong Understanding May Color Our View of God

As we step into the story, I want to address what I think may be a major issue—a part that some teachers and commentators get just a little off, and which sets the stage for the whole story. You may feel free to disagree, but I believe it's supported by both Scripture and scholarship.

Point number one: a wrong understanding of this text may color one's understanding of God. That's true of the whole Bible. If you misunderstand the text, you may end up with a wrong view of God Himself, so we must be diligent to rightly divide the word of truth.

Many people we interact with—neighbors, coworkers, family—have a wrong understanding of God. They say things like, "I could never believe in a God who hates gays." To be candid, I don't believe in that God either. "I could never believe in a God who would create cancer." I don't believe in that God either. Give me the God you don't believe in, and it's highly likely I don't believe in him either, because he's probably not the God revealed in Scripture.

We live in a culture filled with people who have a wrong understanding of who God is and how He works. As a result, many are not so much atheists as "hate-theists"—they hate God. A growing number have rejected or walked away from Christianity, and when you talk with them, you find it's not that they don't believe in God; they just don't like Him. That's why I think we need to consider Job.

The Greatest Man of the East

"There was a man in the land of Uz whose name was Job; and that man was blameless and upright, one who feared God and shunned evil."

Point number two: Job was the most righteous man of his day. You may want to argue, "Paul says there is none righteous, no, not one." But I can say it because God said it. In verse 8 the Lord says, "Have you considered My servant Job, that there is none like him on the earth, a blameless and upright man?" This is not to say Job was perfect compared to a holy God, but he was upright and blameless—nothing could be brought against him among those on the earth.

Point number three: Job was the most wealthy man of his day—seven thousand sheep, three thousand camels, five hundred yoke of oxen, five hundred female donkeys, and a very large household, so that he was the greatest of all the people of the East. He was the Jeff Bezos of four thousand years ago. And verse 9 tells us this came according to the blessing of God: "You have blessed the work of his hands." Notice that his wealth is counted in livestock, not silver and gold, which suggests this story takes place in the second millennium BC.

Point number four: Job was the most pious man of his day. His sons would feast, and afterward Job would sanctify them, rise early, and offer burnt offerings for each of them, "for Job said, it may be that my sons have sinned and cursed God in their hearts." He was the priest of his family, and he did this regularly. The most righteous, the most wealthy, the most blessed, the most devout.

Who Is "the Satan"?

Then the plot thickens. "Now there was a day when the sons of God"—angels, messengers—"came to present themselves before the LORD, and the Satan also came among them." The Lord asks where he came from, and he answers, "From going to and fro on the earth, and walking back and forth on it." Then the Lord says, "Have you considered My servant Job?"

This is where I take an alternate view, and it's a passage I've wrestled with for years. The image is a heavenly court—a royal court. God the sovereign sits with His counselors and advisers, and among them comes this figure our English Bibles capitalize as "Satan." Immediately every one of us, schooled in Western culture, pictures him—red, horns, a tail with a point, a pitchfork. Where is that in the Bible? Nowhere. That image is more influenced by Renaissance art than by a Semitic writing some 3,500 years old.

So did God just offer up Job to the devil? That's challenging. Just this morning someone told me, "I kind of skip the book of Job, because I'm afraid something like what happened to Job might happen to me." There's a fear that God might say, "Have you considered My servant Greg?" Did God hand Job over to the devil with the horns and the fangs? Here is where I say: no, I don't think He did. The Satan you see in your mind's eye is not, I believe, the Satan of this passage.

The Accuser, Not the Devil

Better the devil you know than the devil you don't—but I want to suggest this is the devil you don't know. Why does it matter? Because, as we said, a wrong understanding of the text may color our understanding of God.

The scholar David Clines, an expert in ancient Semitic languages, points out that all eleven times the word appears in Job 1 and 2, it comes with the definite article: "the Satan." It is not a name but a designation. The closest English rendering is the New Living Translation's "the accuser, Satan," but even that implies a personal name where the text gives a title.

Clines writes that this definite article "prevents us from identifying the figure of the Satan with Satan of later Jewish and Christian theology. We need to be shy of typecasting the Satan pictured here as the archenemy of mankind, the adversary, the devil who prowls around like a roaring lion." Instead, he says, "the Satan in Job is remarkably analogous to the functionary known as the devil's advocate, whose task is to raise objections to the canonization of a saint... to ensure that no potential criticism of the candidate remains unheard and unanswered." Is there anything at all that can be said against the exceptional piety of Job? The Satan answers: yes, his piety may be conditioned by self-interest.

The scene is a royal court of the ancient Near East. A sovereign sends out advisers to assess how things are going in his kingdom, and they return with news. It is as if God sent this functionary to investigate the piety of the most blessed, most righteous man in the kingdom—to see whether he is as he appears. So the Satan answers, "Does Job fear God for nothing? Have You not made a hedge around him on every side? You have blessed the work of his hands. But now stretch out Your hand and touch all that he has, and surely he will curse You to Your face."

In other words: "I looked into him as You asked, and there may be a problem. He may serve You only for what You give him. Job appears pious and faithful, but take everything away, and maybe he wouldn't."

Point number five: the Satan of Job is not the devil you know, but a messenger of God to test the motivation of His servant. I'm not saying there is no devil—I believe there is a very real spiritual entity opposed to God, though not His equal opposite. I just don't know that this is that individual here. And I'll grant another challenging feature: in this text God seems to wait to see how Job will respond. Many struggle with that. I've wrestled with it a long time, and now I hand it to you to wrestle with too.

Does Job Fear God for Nothing?

Here is the test, personalized: Am I faithful to God because of who God is, or only because of what I can get from Him? If we are faithful only for what we can get, then when things go awry—when we lose our health, a child, our livelihood, our wealth—we'll have every reason to curse God and die.

Pew Research released its 2018 findings this week, and for the tenth year in a row there is a sharp decline in Christianity in the United States—a growing number of "nones," the religiously unaffiliated. Many of them would have called themselves Christians ten or fifteen years ago. One striking thing some of them say about losing their faith is: "I did not get what I expected to get from Christianity." They were faithful only for what they could get, it didn't go their way, and so they left.

That is perfectly in line with the false teaching exported from America for the better part of sixty years—prosperity theology. Come to Jesus and get health, wealth, prosperity; then if you don't get it, forget it. And this is exactly the question raised against Job four thousand years ago: does he serve You out of sincerity, or only because You bless him?

What does God say? His answer is, I think, another proof that this figure is not the devil we assume. If this were truly the accuser of the brethren, you would expect God to rebuke the challenger. He does not. Instead He grants permission: "Behold, all that he has is in your power; only do not lay your hand on his person."

Job's Response to Suffering

Then disaster falls in waves. A messenger reports the oxen and donkeys raided by the Sabeans and the servants killed. While he is speaking, another reports fire from heaven burning up the sheep and servants. While he speaks, another reports the Chaldeans raiding the camels and killing the servants. And while he speaks, another reports a great wind that struck the house where Job's sons and daughters were feasting, and they are dead. Each time: "I alone have escaped to tell you."

How would you respond? Note this carefully: your response to suffering says more about what you believe than your statements of faith. It says more than your church attendance, your tithe, or your service. How you respond to suffering says everything about your relationship to God.

How did Job respond? "Then Job arose, and tore his robe, and shaved his head"—signs of mourning—"and he fell to the ground and worshiped. And he said, 'Naked I came from my mother's womb, and naked shall I return there. The LORD gave, and the LORD has taken away; blessed be the name of the LORD.' In all this Job did not sin nor charge God with wrong." He did not say, "How dare You? I sacrificed for You every morning." The story isn't over—it gets worse—but this is his first response.

Mad at the God They Don't Believe In

I'll never forget a conversation as a fire department chaplain. I was running on a treadmill next to an outspoken atheist on a stationary bike. One day he told me why he was an atheist: "My dad was diagnosed with lung cancer, and I prayed, and God didn't heal him, so God doesn't exist." He wasn't an atheist because of Darwin or Dawkins or Hitchens or some scientific proof. He was an atheist because he was mad at God.

I want to suggest that most people who say they don't believe in God are actually just really angry at the God they don't believe in. That has been my experience most of the time. I call them hate-theists, not atheists. Even Richard Dawkins does not want there to be a God, because he does not want to be accountable to one. How we respond to suffering says a great deal about what we really believe.

Blessed Be the Name of the Lord

Verses 21 and 22 may remind you of a song: "Blessed be the name of the LORD." We had a former worship leader named Rich Gary who loved that song. He always started it off-key—he could never find that first note—but he loved it. When Rich was diagnosed with pancreatic cancer, we went to his house to pray, and I remember him singing it: "Blessed be the name of the LORD." Having watched him walk through that, I can tell you he responded to suffering like a righteous man.

Suffering in the life of a believer does one of two things: it either pushes you to be angry at God and walk away, or it draws you near to Him to say, "Blessed be the name of the LORD." "The sufferings of this present world are not worthy to be compared with the glory that shall be revealed in us." "When I am weak, then He is strong." "I will most gladly boast in my sufferings, that the power of Christ may be evident in me."

So we have the story of Job, which we'll continue next week in chapter two. It presents us with a question every one of us must wrestle with: do I serve God for who He is—King of kings, Lord of lords, Maker of all things, enthroned in heaven and worthy to be praised—or do I serve Him only for what I can get from Him?

Every single one of you will go through this test, because we live in a broken, fallen world. We will all suffer to some extent. Some have already; some are going through it now. And in the person in whom God has worked His righteousness, you will see them praising God: "The LORD gives, and the LORD takes away; blessed be His name—because I know that my Redeemer lives, and I will one day stand with Him." That is what Job will ultimately say.

Closing Prayer

God, thank You for Your word. It is challenging; it cuts deep. It is a sword sharper than any two-edged sword, dividing joint and marrow, soul and spirit, a discerner of the thoughts and intents of our heart, and it reveals us for who we really are. So when we come to Your word today, I pray that You would examine our hearts. When we are tried, may we come to see that we are pure gold before You. Do that work in us. And may it be that whatever trial, suffering, or difficulty we face would ultimately bring glory to You, that people would see Your hand working in us, and that we would say, "Blessed be the name of the LORD." We praise You, Jesus. It's in Your name we pray. Amen.