Job 23:7

The blow came from God, yet Job did not know where He was or how to find Him. If only he could find Him and lay out his case before Him, he was sure relief would come and he would be set free. Verse 7 has been translated, "There would an upright man reason with Him; and I should be delivered for ever from my Judge." So once again Job assumed his own uprightness. His complaint was that the Almighty was troubling him, and that he could not reach Him or come into His presence.

So he would be rid of his judge, instead of putting up with the lingering suspicion of men who judged by how things looked from the outside, without a single fact to back it up. Nothing is harder to disprove than a suspicion whose only root — a deep one — lies in the minds of opponents who claim to know God's mind, and who commit themselves completely to saying so.

"I would know the words which he would answer me, and understand what he would say to me." That is what he wanted. He was not afraid of what God would say. God was sure to be good, because He loved, and because of what Job knew Him to be. "Will he plead against me with his power?" That is what his friends thought. "No," said he; nothing of the sort; "but he would put [strength] in me." "Strength" goes a little too far. It is rather, "he would give heed to me." "There the righteous might dispute with him; so should I be delivered for ever from my judge." I knew it would be all right if I could only get a hearing. If I could come close to Him, then He would listen.

Right here, when his almost insane defiance of God is at its height, a glimpse of that confidence in God breaks out, which we have already noticed. … These are certainly not the words of an unbeliever. He doubts God's ways and accuses Him, yet he is sure that if he could only see Him, everything would be cleared up. … But what a strange thing — the righteous man arguing with Him, and set free by the Judge Himself from His unjust severity! It is all a strange contradiction. Yet it is far better to long to go before God like this than to have the pride that says to Him, "Depart from us! We do not desire the knowledge of Your ways." It is always better to bring even our doubts about God to Him, if we have nothing else to bring.

Their spirit was judicial from beginning to end, and such a spirit is always wrong. There may be a measure of truth, but a judicial spirit, as it never saves a soul from death, so it profits least those who indulge in it: it does not suit a saint in such a world as this. But there was exactly where they were. They did not know God as Job did.

He speaks of the upright reasoning with God (v.7). But an upright man should realise that he must never dare to reason with God as though he could talk God into changing His mind. Still, Job thinks that in this way he would be set free forever from what he feels as God's judgment. It was not judgment at all, but discipline. Thank God, we know today that our arguments and reasonings have nothing to do with deliverance from judgment. Only the value of the sufferings and death of the Lord Jesus brings that wonderful result, and it comes to anyone who receives Him by faith.

The people of Israel had no boldness in their dealings with God. There was both distance and dread (Exodus 20:18-19). It is completely different in Christianity. As we have seen, we can approach the throne of grace with boldness, for the death of Christ has made God's throne for us a throne of grace.