Outline

«　WEEK 4　DAY 3　»

　　Rev. 22:1-2 And he showed me a river of water of life, bright as crystal, proceeding out of the throne of God and of the Lamb in the middle of its street. And on this side and on that side of the river was the tree of life…

　　The destination of God’s way of life is a city of water of life, the New Jerusalem, God’s eternal dwelling (Rev. 21:2, 11, 23; 22:1-2, 14), as the best and most glorious goal for all the men who walk in the way of life according to God’s desire and for God’s pleasure, that they may participate with God in all the blessings of God as the eternal life for eternity.

　　The destination of the way of death and of good and evil is a lake of fire of brimstone, the Gehenna of fire (Matt. 5:22), Satan’s eternal prison, as the worst and most miserable end for all the men who take the way of death according to Satan’s evil device, that they may share with Satan the eternal judgment and eternal perdition (John 16:11; Matt. 25:41; Rev. 21:8, 27; 22:15). (Life-study of Job, p. 197)

　　The New Jerusalem, as the best and most glorious end of God’s way of life, is a dynamic incentive for us to seek God until we gain Him to the fullest extent according to His love and grace; and the lake of fire, as the worst and most miserable end of Satan’s way of death and of good and evil, should be a solemn warning to the men who follow Satan in his way against God’s economy, to turn from his way of death to God’s way of life that they may escape Satan’s eternal judgment and eternal perdition, according to God’s righteousness and justice.

　　God’s intention with Job was to consume this “perfect and upright” person and to strip him of his attainments, his achievements, in the highest standard of ethics in perfection and uprightness (Job 1:1).

　　God’s intention was also to tear down the natural Job in his perfection and uprightness that He might build up a renewed Job in God’s nature and attributes. God’s intention was not to have a Job in the line of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil but a Job in the line of the tree of life (Gen. 2:9).

　　God’s purpose in dealing with Job severely was to adjust his logic concerning his relationship with God from the principle of good and evil according to ethics to the principle of life according to God, that he might be one who gained God and participated in God for the fulfillment of God’s eternal economy.

　　Job, like his friends, was halted in the knowledge of right and wrong, not knowing God’s economy, not realizing in an adequate way the purpose for which God created man. He and his friends were devoid of the divine revelation and of the experience of the divine life. He had no idea that God had no intention to increase his perfection, uprightness, righteousness, and integrity. Rather, God’s intention was to strip all these human virtues which he had as his contentment, so that he could seek and gain only God Himself. Neither his friends nor he were in the line of the tree of life as God ordained man to be.

　　God put the book of Job into the Bible as a black background. The speaking of Job and his friends indicated that although they apparently were godly men, they were short of God, and they did not express God. Job and his friends came together to debate, not to fellowship. They had nothing of God to fellowship with one another.

　　Job and his three friends, Eliphaz, Bildad, and Zophar, were in the realm of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil…God was trying to rescue them from that realm and put them into the realm of the tree of life. The first thing God had to do was to strip Job, consume him, and tear him down so that he would become nothing as a person under suffering. This became the base for God to rebuild Job with the Divine Trinity, that Job could be a new man, a part of God’s new creation, to fulfill God’s eternal economy for God’s expression. (Life-study of Job, pp. 197, 29, 196, 39-40, 57)

　　Further Reading: Life-study of Job, msgs. 4—5, 9