Outline
Ⅲ
God's intention was that Job would become a God-man, expressing God in His attributes—22:24-25; 38:1-3:
A
God ushered Job into another realm, the realm of God, that Job might gain God instead of his attainments in his perfection, righteousness, and integrity—42:5-6.
B
God's intention with Job was to consume him and to strip him of his attainments, his achievements, in the highest standard of ethics in perfection and uprightness—31:6.
C
God's intention was 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—1:6-8; 2:3-6.
Morning Nourishment
Job 42:5-6 I had heard of You by the hearing of the ear, but now my eye has seen You; therefore I abhor myself, and I repent in dust and ashes.Job was in the realm of building up something that was wrong. He was building up himself in his perfection, uprightness, and integrity. He thought that he was absolutely right. He was proud of what he had built up, and he trusted in that and glorified himself in that.
God in His eternal economy has no desire to build up these things. Rather, He considers all these things as frustrations and intends to strip them away from us…When everything is stripped away, then you will see God, and He will attract you to receive Him. Then you will have God’s nature, life, element, essence, and even His being. This will cause a metabolic change within you to transform you from the present form of your human being to another form, the form of the divine being. As a result of this transformation, you will be a person reflecting God, that is, expressing Him and dispensing Him to others.
This was God’s intention with Job, and this is His intention with us today. Now you and God may be in two different realms. But God wants to transfer you from your present realm into His realm, not only to make you one with Him but even to make you a part of Him. (Life-study of Job, pp. 156-157)
Today’s Reading
Suppose someone had tried to talk to Job about all these things. If someone had done this, Job might have said, “What are you talking about? I have learned a lot about God from my forefathers, and I have been paying attention to what I have learned. Yet you say that I am in the wrong realm and that God intends to build up something of Himself in me. You speak to me about incarnation, regeneration, and transformation, but I do not know what any of these things mean.” Job simply did not have the capacity to receive such a revelation. He did not have these terms in his spiritual dictionary.In principle, the situation is the same with many Christians today. The divine revelation has been given, it has been written, and it has been interpreted. Nevertheless, many believers have no understanding of the economy of God or of the divine dispensing according to the divine economy. They may think that being a Christian is simply a matter of believing that Jesus Christ, the Son of God, is our Savior, who shed His blood for our sins and who has saved us through His death; that the Holy Spirit is now with us to help us to behave ourselves well and to do good that God may be glorified; and that we will go to heaven when we die. Those who hold this concept of the Christian life may not realize that being a Christian also involves sanctification, transformation, conformation, the divine dispensing of the divine economy, and the New Jerusalem as the enlargement of the processed and consummated Triune God.
We all need to realize that today there are two different realms—the realm of the old creation and the realm of the new creation. The realm of the old creation is the realm of natural things, and the realm of the new creation is the realm of divine things. We were born into the old creation, into the natural sphere, yet God wants us to be divine. For this, we need a great transfer: We need to be transferred out of Adam into Christ. The first aspect of this transfer is regeneration. We need to be regenerated, and then we need to be renewed. As we are renewed, certain parts of our being will be “peeled off” and replaced by a new element that will cause us to be transformed and eventually conformed to the image of Christ, who is the firstborn Son of God (Rom. 8:29).
We also need to learn how to talk to others about the spiritual things in the new creation…Suppose that you speak to a believer about being transformed into the image of Christ as the firstborn Son of God. That believer might say, “I have heard about the only begotten Son of God but not about the firstborn Son. Who is the firstborn Son of God?” I am concerned that you may not be able to explain this. (Life-study of Job, pp. 157-158)
Further Reading: Life-study of Job, msg. 31