Job 35:3

Do you think this is right? Do you say, "My righteousness is more than God's"? (v.2). That is clearly what Job's words implied. He had said he was righteous, and that God was failing to recognise it. How careful we should be when we feel tempted to complain! In effect we are saying that God is not treating us rightly. Job had asked whether being righteous brought him any advantage or profit over sinning (v.3). He thought, "What is the use of being righteous if the results are not what I imagined they should be?" How can a believer hold such unbelieving thoughts?

Verses 2 and 3 seem to repeat and expand something said earlier, in Job 34:9. Job had declared that his claim was more righteous than God's, because (verse 3) God took no notice at all of whatever he did. There was no advantage in righteousness any more than in sin! Imagine an upright, God-fearing man bringing himself to such a conclusion! It leads to, "Let us eat and drink, for tomorrow we die."

So he shows that the question is not whether man profits God, but whether God profits man. Besides what is due to Him — will, love, and glory — no man can walk in His ways without the richest reward of blessing. In every possible sense it is God who gives the increase… So the wickedness of man does not lower the majesty of God; it ruins the one who walks in it. In the same way, the obedience of man brings no profit to God, but it secures exceedingly real and rich blessedness for the one who is led in it.

Elihu charged Job with keeping company with evildoers and walking with wicked men, because Job had said that it did not profit a man to delight himself in God — he might just as well have been a sinner. Elihu's answer is to ask him who it does profit: "If you have sinned, what do you accomplish against him?" "If you are righteous, what do you give to him?" "Your wickedness concerns a man like yourself, and your righteousness a son of man" (Job 35:6-8). A man may make his neighbour suffer through his sin, or do him good by his righteousness. But the one who suffers most from sin is the one who commits it, and the one who gains most from righteousness is the one who practises it. In this world that is hard to see, because the ways of God in His government cannot be traced.

"Look at the heavens, and see; and behold the clouds, which are higher than you." In the face of that, can you bear to speak against Him who is above them all? For man cannot look the sun in the face; who then is he to look God in the face? "If you have sinned, what do you accomplish against him?" (verses 6-16). So that whether it was running God down, or pushing himself forward, Job was wrong on both counts.

Elihu now speaks to those who have an ear to hear. He shows where Job had gone so seriously wrong. First, in saying, "I am righteous"; and then in saying it was no use serving God. So self-righteousness leads to unbelief and the deepest spiritual wickedness.