Job 33:9

Elihu refers to many of Job's own statements as proof of the dishonour done to God. Some of these he quotes exactly; for others he gives the substance of much that Job had said. He quotes him as saying, "I am pure, without transgression; I am clean, and there is no iniquity in me" (v. 9). Compare statements like these: "You know that I am not guilty" (Job 10:7). Job said, "although there is no violence in my hands, and my prayer is pure" (Job 16:17). Job said, "till I die I will not put away my integrity from me. I hold fast my righteousness and will not let it go" (Job 27:5-6).

He does not question how Job had lived, but deals rather with what Job had clearly spoken. Job's friends had heard this, and Elihu also… Of course Job could not deny saying it. So Elihu had a firm basis for his message to Job.

What words for any poor sinful mortal to utter!… And yet, notice what follows. He was so clean, so innocent, so free from iniquity. And yet he says of God, "He finds occasions against me, He counts me as His enemy." Here is an obvious 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 long in giving his verdict and telling us which is which.

So the insult against divine majesty becomes glaring — Job is pure, but God treats him as impure!

Elihu's chief concern throughout is the defence of God's character from the slurs cast upon it by Job. He is not so much occupied with what Job had done or what he was, and he holds no unworthy suspicions about him. But Job had spoken things in his hearing which he could not let pass without rebuke. This is as it should be. God must always be first, and His honour the chief concern of those who know Him.

Job found it an easy matter to refute them. He seems to have taken considerable pleasure in reducing the three, one after another, to total silence. Yet even Job had not got to the root of the matter. The root was a little complacency in himself — a most subtle evil, one learned only in the presence of God.

Truth puts everyone in his right place. And because it does, it cannot hand out flattering titles to a poor guilty mortal, however much that mortal might enjoy them. Man must be brought to know himself, to see his true condition, to confess what he really is. This was precisely what Job needed. He did not know himself, and his friends could not give him that knowledge. He needed self-judgment; but his friends were wholly unable to produce it.

Now what is all this but your best effort to justify yourself? God says that you are a sinner. You are doing your utmost to prove it is not so; and the discovery that you really are a sinner fills you with confusion. Of all the millions who have walked this earth, only One could stand before God the Judge, and that One was the blessed Lord Jesus. Now God, in divine righteousness, is calling poor sinners to stand before Him not as the Judge, but as the Justifier.