A Letter Exchange: Sequel
From: Ben, March 3, 1982
To: Good News
Although the following questions may sound emotionally heated, John. I was pursuing some stray ends in my own mind to see where they might logically lead. It might appear that I have deliberately made God the villain of this piece (I don't believe He is that) but because these impressions have been floating around in my thoughts, would it be possible to get rid of them by venting them? Many times I have tried to suppress them but they resurface. Would you be willing to consider and comment on them? In part this letter was sparked by your response to my inquiry concerning God and love. You wrote, "Job showed adamant love and loyalty for God under extreme conditions. Later the devil pierced through Job's logic and 'challenges' ensued". God goaded Satan into action; Satan then went to work on Job. Using algebraic notation, this can be depicted as G (S) : (S) J. Now it is permissible to remove equal values (terms) from both sides of the equation so that we are left with G : J, or God "acting upon" Job. So in effect, God set Job up and He "pierced through Job's logic".
It was God who blocked any quick and easy resolution of the "problems" Satan postulated. He caused Satan to formulate the problem in its entirety and had him unravel its logic and ramifications step by step. Had Satan not articulated the problem, neither heaven nor Job would have been aware of the questions or to use my algebraic example (the law of transposition), neither heaven nor Job would have been aware of "Satan's questions" had not God given them a voice and a mouth. To top it off, God did not let Job easily put an end to the questions (and Satan's exploits) when Job responded virtuously at the beginning. God "disregarded" Job's righteousness to continue with the procedure until it reached the conclusion He wanted. In a sense it was irrelevant that Job answered the first questions correctly because God was going to push Satan's allowable frontiers further and further.
Now, Satan was given a "court" (Job 2:1) and a hearing/ audience (Job 1:6). So obviously God wanted this out in the open. He was not going to let Job curtail it at any point. In fact, all Job had to do was repeat Job 1:21 to everything Satan did to him. But God would not allow Job to "escape" with this one summary phrase. I also note that God did not speak to Job while Job was justifying God, but He did let him have it when Job said, "This is crazy". However, Job would never have reached this stage unless God had not dragged him to this step and precipitated the crisis (a good clinical term).
My questions:
1. Wasn't Job inevitably going to get the knockout blow no matter how good he was at any stage? If he was good for ten minutes, God would let the act go on for 15. If Job was going to be good for 45 minutes, God would have extended the thing for an hour. God was not going to let Job stop the proceedings with "correct" answers. Job's early responses were general enough to cover any situation Satan ensnared him in.
2. I do not believe God wanted heaven to see one particular man, in this case Job, tie himself up in knots. So what was God doing in eliciting Job's responses by virtue of Satan's inquisition? I mean, you do not sit down one of your kids and lead them through a series of questions just to see where he will trip up. For instance, if you ask your son what one plus one is, you don't do it in the expectation that he will eventually tell you that 4 + 4 = 17. But it did appear that Job did tell God that 1 + 1 = 2 (Job 1:21), 2 + 2 = 4 (Job 2:10) until he got to 4 + 4. When he said 17, God jumped all over him (Job 40:1-2). It did not matter how many right answers Job had gotten up to that point.
3. You have 10 kids. Let's say, you as a father decide that one of them will be used in a test case. You turn the screws on him and he hollers. The other 9 don't know why you are doing this. The "scapegoat" or victim says, "Hey dad, why are you picking on me... why are you stomping all over me?!"
One brother no doubt will say, "well brother, you must have done something to deserve this licking. Another brother will declare, "It doesn't matter why you're getting it now -you're no good anyway". A sister will plead, "Listen, forget who is right or wrong, just say you're sorry and dad will go easy on you". Another sister will play it safe, "Well whatever dad is doing it must be for a good reason" (which might be difficult to swallow if dad is coming at you, not sis, with a baseball bat). Then there is the other group of kids who are watching all this. Can you tell me what this silent group was doing in heaven as the drama was unfolding?
After feeling his bruises and splintered shins, don't you think the child might wonder whether dad had it all together? Expecially if dad jumped all over his son for crying in helplessness.
I'm aware of exaggerating the case against God, but it does not help me to hold it in. The one thing that haunts me was what the court audience was feeling during Job's trial? I hear all the other voices in the book but theirs. How did they feel when God confronted Job and examined (exposed) his qualifications to serve as God's critic? Job only became critical when God placed him in that situation. God had steered Job into that position. Up to that point Job was un-willing to "judge" God's actions. So in effect God was pushing Job to evaluate and weigh God's work, but did not show him the blueprints. Could not one of the heavenly students have wondered about the '"fairness" of this whole thing?
Thanks, Ben
P.S. It does occur to me that everything I have said can be invalidated by Jesus who was shown the master plan and had the screws clamped on him. There is always someone in the class who gets 100% on the exam, the "know-it-all" type.
Response, March 16, 1982
Dear Ben,
You and I are aware that God is a teacher. Earthly men are "setup" in educational psychodramas and God is both playwrite and director. We do not deny that He planned the "script". The important thing is that those heavenly students learned what He wanted from Job's "sacrifice". "The chastisement of their peace was upon him and by his stripes they were healed" (Isaiah 53:5). Let us face facts: God reads hearts (and also implants thoughts). Many are rising daily. They learn that there is a God. They have questions for Him which some will ask while some are afraid to ask them. Nevertheless all need to be answered. Therefore psychodramas are tools to evoke and provoke questions, supply answers, and lay to rest other questions. Men like you and I are used for implanting such questions, which rising students might entertain in their hearts, or which Satan might force on the agenda. God is not afraid of Satan, nor is He taken aback by his provokative questions whose purpose is to slander Him and kindle wrath in the children of God against Him. All must live and all must learn.
Now Job had to speak according to script. Man has no power to direct his steps, Job 36:7-12; Psalm 90:3; Jeremiah 10:23. God regulates what we hear and how much we hear, even from the devil. We are saying by those texts that God has the controls. And in answer to your first question, Job was certainly going to get a verbal slap in the face, because that was part of the original plan for his role. All this was to benefit that "watching" audience of heavenly students at that time. They had heard provokative questions and accusations devils leveled against them, God, and men on earth prior to Job's case. They had questions in their hearts. They needed answers. Chapters 2, 38:1-40:1 in the Book of Job were more for them than it was for Job. Remember what Abel's spirit was doing in Enoch 22:5-7 (Apocrypha and Pseudepigrapha of the O.T. by R.H. Charles). He was protesting his death at Cain's hands because he lacked knowledge of what really was going on. So how many of those new deficient students needed to see and hear the Job "experience" to make them perfect? How many of them had "darkened counsel by words without knowledge" floating around in their hearts prior to the Job case? Consider the various mental states men are in when they arise, 2 Esdras 13:12 (Oxford Annotated Apocrypha).
Right responses serve as guides for proper thinking in God's real "student body" above. Wrong responses need correction. When they occurred, God pounced on them. God has no place for pride and ego. All Job's righteousness he thought he had was God in him doing the works! So why "strut before Him like a prince and demand" that He give an account of His actions? Job and his three friends denounced those in chains of sin although they did not know they were play-acting negative roles as vessels for unclean use. You and I know they all spoke "words without knowledge" by our greater understanding of the love and work of God. So if Job knew he deserved no punishment in areas where he knew he was faultless, some may yet view his "exercise" as a form of chastisement for faults (we have or had as in the case of the higher students) in an area of ignorance which was not charged to his account. Job did not love "sinners" like he did himself. He exercised the First Great Command perfectly (?) until God "made" him botch it. But he was severely lacking in the Second Great Command which God blended in equivalence with the First. What does Job 30:1 tell you about what was in the deep crevices of Job's heart? Here on earth the wisdom of man says, "Ignorance of the law is no excuse", but with God "ignorance is winked at" as a major excuse. In other words, He shuts His eye at it as though He does not see sins of ignorance (and has no intention of charging us with fault even for presumptuous sins)! But our ignorance shows our Teacher areas where we need a good lesson. Questions serve to point out where our deficiencies are in many instances.
You read the case exactly regarding the advice and various mental positions our brethren take in evaluating our difficulties. How often do we hear "christians" give identical responses to observations of the suffering or punishment of others! Our heavenly audience is always changing. Consider God's words to the angels when they hesitated from driving Adam from the Garden according to God's orders, Apocalypse of Moses XXVII, (R.H. Charles). He asked, "Is it I who have done wrong? Or is my judgment badly judged?" He read every word that crossed their minds at that moment! So you see what He did with Adam was more for their education than for his. They hesitated because of "counsel in their hearts due to words without knowledge" but for a different reason. God was testing them with The Second Great Command; what God read in their hearts by their hesitation showed they all passed with flying colors. They also learned not to make snap and instant evaluations of God's works, because He always "hides" His hand until "trump" time. From III (R.H. Charles), we find that many of the "watching" angels desired to get away from those bound in sins whom they had to "oversee". But Michael refused their requests, thank God!! They had their reasons for wanting to escape from men. Another group you called "the silent majority" might have been confused watching Job's case, not knowing what to make of the matter. They too might have had questions they were afraid to ask. Enter two guys like you and I. These very questions you and I vocalize and write are some of the same questions they entertained in their "silent" hearts, Malachi 3:18; I Corinthians 4:9; I Peter 1:12. We are not prompted by angels all the time. Devils also want some answers. God will not answer them directly, but if they can put us up to asking questions of their interest, they will get an answer when God responds to us.
I would expect a son to wonder about God, if he thought Dad was doing him wrong. Job did just that. But our Father will not leave us in ignorance. Thus Job learned about his earthly plight, that Isaiah 53 was written about him too! It was written about you and I as well as Jesus! "The Lord laid on him (and his three friends) the iniquity of us all (meaning those "Watching"), Isaiah 53:6. "For the transgression of my people (those newly risen who are being made perfect) was he (Job) stricken", Isaiah 53:8. "Yet it pleased the Lord to bruise him (so that those "Watcher" might be educated); He hath put him to grief: when thou shalt make his soul an offering for sin (no longer a living sacrifice on the day you shall rise), he (you) shall see his seed (the Hosts), he shall prolong his days (eternal life)," Isaiah 53:10. All this happened for Job and Jesus and shall happen again for you and I.
Ben, recall what is written in the Apocalypse of Moses XXXV, XXXVI, (R.H. Charles), the
vision Eve and Seth saw, wherein the sun and moon appeared dark in the presence of the superior
wisdom of God. Those students who knew of this would have been too wary to entertain hasty
thoughts about Job's case. Those first veterans who were involved with Adam's expulsion knew
what to expect. So the only ones who might have thought God was unfair (if at all possible)
would have been among the "rookies", the most recent arrivers. But all learned their proper
lessons from Job's case. The promise received, "they with us shall be made perfect," Hebrews 11:40.