Morning Nourishment
Phil. 3:13-14 Brothers, I do not account of myself to have laid hold; but one thing I do: Forgetting the things which are behind and stretching forward to the things which are before, I pursue toward the goal for the prize to which God in Christ Jesus has called me upward.Psa. 73:26 My flesh and my heart fail, but God is the rock of my heart and my portion forever.
Job’s three friends could not speak anything because they had no knowledge, no understanding, concerning the purpose of what had happened to Job. The scene here indicates that Job and his friends were ignorant concerning that most painful and most terrifying occurrence, and were puzzled in their godliness, unable to discern what the reason was, what the purpose was, and what the result would be. Actually, Job’s experience was a step taken by God in His divine economy to carry out the consuming and stripping of the contented Job in order to usher Job into a deeper seeking after God, that he might gain God instead of His blessings and his attainments in his perfection and integrity. God’s stripping and consuming were exercised over Job to tear Job down that God might have a base and a way to rebuild him with God Himself that he might become a God-man, the same as God in His life and nature but not in His Godhead, in order to express God. (Job 2:13, footnote 1)
Today’s Reading
The divine revelation in the Bible is progressive. Up to Job’s time the progression of the divine revelation had reached only the level of Abraham’s time, that is, that sinners need God’s redemption with the shedding of the blood of the burnt offering (Job 1:5; 42:8). The divine truths regarding such matters as regeneration (John 3:6; 1 Pet. 1:23), renewing (2 Cor. 4:16…), transformation (Rom. 12:2…), conformation (8:29), and glorification (vv. 23, 30…) were not explicitly revealed to man in God’s Old Testament economy. God could not speak such things to Job and his friends because they were in a primitive stage of the divine revelation (cf. John 3:7-12; 16:12-13). These things were not revealed in completion until the apostle Paul’s time. Paul received a full and explicit revelation of things concerning which Job and his friends had no understanding (Eph. 3:3-6, 9-11; Col. 1:25-27). Without the Epistles of Paul it would be difficult to understand the book of Job, because the conclusion of Job does not give us an explicit view concerning the purpose of God’s dealing with His people. However, in the view of the New Testament it is very clear that God’s purpose in dealing with His holy people is that they would be emptied of everything and receive only God as their gain (Phil. 3:8; cf. Psa. 73:25-26). The desire of God’s heart is that we would gain Him in full as life, as the life supply, and as everything to our being. (Job 2:13, footnote 1)In God’s sanctuary the psalmist was instructed to take only God Himself as his portion, not anything other than God. The one who does not care for God may gain many things and seem to prosper. However, the one who cares for God will be restricted by God and even stripped by God of many things, as was the case with Job (Job 1:6—2:10) and the apostle Paul (Phil. 3:7-8). God’s intention with His seekers is that they may find everything in Him and not be distracted from the absolute enjoyment of Himself. It is not a matter of keeping the law, as in Psalm 1, or of being right or wrong, but of gaining God and keeping God as everything. (Psa. 73:26, footnote 1)
The book of Job, written early in the progression of the divine revelation…, does not contain a clear revelation of God’s purpose in dealing with His people. This revelation was given not to Job but to Paul. As unveiled in Paul’s Epistles, God’s purpose in dealing with us is to strip us of all things and to consume us so that we may gain God more and more (Phil. 3:8; 2 Cor. 4:16). (Job 1:1, footnote 1)
Further Reading: Life-study of Job, msgs. 30-31