job's theology and the character of God - quote from "Cries of the Heart"

“By taking our place upon the cross and bridging the chasm between God, who offered life, and humanity, which deserved death, Christ spanned the greatest gulf. Our thirst for a mediator before God is a very genuine cry that has been expressed in virtually every theistic religion. But for most, the God who is out there is treated as still being out there. For others, the quest to bring God near without humanizing Him has been a particular struggle. Thus in Greek mythology, heroes and the personification of ideals proliferate. In pantheism, avatars, or incarnations, form the bulk of revelation. But in the Christian faith, the fact that God comes close while remaining transcendent is very unique. To what degree Job understood this will always remain moot, but that he cried out even in his primitive understanding of redemption that a Savior would understand his suffering, plead his cause, and vindicate him is remarkable.

In short, this discovery affirmed one of Job’s convictions but shattered one aspect of his theology. Job had repeatedly said that as far as he knew he had lived an honorable life. But he had assumed all along that if one walked the straight and narrow and lived a life of purity, prosperity and freedom from pain would naturally follow. This was a false conclusion.

Over the years of history we have seen this unfortunate deduction made time and again. We may even recall that when John the Baptist was put into prison he wondered if Jesus was indeed who He claimed to be. The implication was, ‘If He is the Messiah, then why am I in prison?’ The apostle Peter could not for a moment conceive of the Son of God going to a cross. As hard as it is to accept, suffering is not always because of one’s personal sin, but suffering will always have to be dealt with personally. Our Lord Himself bore the pain of that which was not His own doing, but the Captain of our salvation was made perfect, that is, complete, through suffering. Life must never be viewed from the isolated instances of one’s personal struggle. There is a big picture and a complete picture into which our personal struggle fits. That picture is in the mind of God. The closer we draw to Him the clearer that picture becomes. And part of that picture is pain and desolation.

But if Job had his theology shattered and if the picture told him that even the righteous could suffer pain and hurt, what was the one thing he would need to know more than anything else? That is where we find the answer that Job needed most, as much as we do when walking through deep waters. I can best answer this by an illustration.

Some years ago while I had the privilege of speaking at Moody Bible Institute we had the extraordinary blessing of listening to a talk by Professor Charles Cooper, who taught there. He sat in a chair as he told his story that was still so fresh in his memory and in the memories of those who knew him. He spoke of the thrill he’d felt of being newly married and of the delight of a young love. Yet only four months into his marriage, tragedy struck.

His wife was returning from a trip, and he and his mother-in-law went to the airport to pick her up. As the plane pulled up to the jet-way, they saw ambulances and police cars closing in on the back of the aircraft and personnel from those vehicles running up the back stairway. But Charles’s focus was on the front of the plane from where his wife would disembark. All of a sudden, his mother-in-law clasped his arm and pointed to a stretcher that was being removed from the back door of the airplane. On the stretcher was obviously a body, covered by a white sheet. But that is not all. Hanging from the stretcher was a purse that they recognized as his wife’s.

A few moments later their names were called over the loudspeaker and in shock, they were informed that shortly before landing, without any previous history of such a condition, his young wife had suffered a fatal heart attack.

How does one respond to news so debilitating? Charles Cooper walked us through his own journey of pain. His closing comment will forever ring in my ears. He said that the cards, the letters, the phone calls, the embraces, and the love of friends all played part in helping him to survive. ‘But what kept me going more than anything else was my confidence in the character of God.’ That was the bottom line.

This is the adjustment Job needed. Constantly focusing on his own character and purity, he had lost sight of the character of God Himself. Those who have walked this path hold on to that truth with all the strength they have. God is not only all-powerful. He is perfect in goodness. We must trust Him even when the times are grim.

At the end, Job discovered that this God who was his Creator and Designer, his Revealer and Comforter, his Mediator and Savior, was also his Strengthener and Restorer.”

- Ravi Zacharias

from Cries of the Heart pgs 85-87

and in case you might want to read the book of Job:http://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Job%201&version=NASB