Job 33:12

In verse 8, Elihu began to challenge Job directly. He had heard what Job argued, and he summed it all up as a denial of any charge against him of transgression and iniquity, which necessarily involved, either directly or indirectly, an accusation against God of hard dealing, if not injustice. In summing up the whole position this way, we think we can see that Elihu was not far wrong. The world being as it is and what it is, if perfection is claimed for man, then obviously all the wrong that exists must be blamed on God.

Here is a clear contradiction. How could a holy, just, and righteous Being count a pure and innocent man His enemy? Impossible. Either Job was self-deceived, or God was unrighteous. Elihu, as the minister of truth, is not slow to give a judgment and tell us which is which.

There were two great faults in what Job had said. He thought too well of himself, and he found fault with God... He had completely fallen short of the reverence due to God. He had completely forgotten the infinite distance between God and man, and the majesty of God... He did not fully understand His ways. Now he ought to have trusted them, even though he did not understand them.

How then will Elihu answer? Will he copy the friends by making elaborate statements? Will he apologise for the apparent discrepancy in God's ways and try to explain it away? No; in one brief sentence he sets aside all human reasoning — "God is greater than man." In other words, God is God. If we are going to reason, let it not be from the lesser to the greater, but from the greater to the lesser. Let us ask, how could the Almighty, all-perfect Being commit an unrighteous act? "Shall not the Judge of all the earth do what is just?" (Gen. 18:25).

What a simple truth! And yet how little it is understood! If God is greater than man, then clearly He, and not man, must be the Judge of what is right. The unbelieving heart refuses this. So there is the constant tendency to sit in judgment on the works and ways and word of God — on God Himself. In his irreverent and unbelieving folly, man takes it on himself to pronounce judgment on what is and is not worthy of God. He decides what God ought and ought not to say and do.

As long as a soul raises a question against the character of God, he is in no state to have his difficulties met. Let the broken pieces of pottery on the earth strive with one another; God will not stoop to such a conflict... A slightly different translation reads, "God is too exalted for man." He is too exalted to enter into controversy with man — and the word used here means frail man. The soul must find its rest in God, not in our reasonings.

In answer to Job, Elihu's first point is the supreme greatness of God. So striving against Him is futile. It is man who is accountable to God, not God accountable to man. Let us in our day never forget this.

God is infinitely above man and beyond his understanding. Yet He is not indifferent to His frail creatures, and He is not arbitrary in His dealings with them... As soon as the soul is ready to admit that God has some wise purpose in view, He will show this: affliction is only one of His methods of dealing with men, and it has a definite object... As long as Job accuses, he gets no answer; let him submit and God will make everything plain.

The real secret of all Job's false reasoning is this: he did not understand the character of God, or the purpose of all His dealings. He did not see that God was testing him... God was dealing with Job. He was testing him to instruct him, to turn him back from his own purpose, and to hide pride from him. Had Job grasped this great point, it would have saved him a world of strife and contention.