Scripture Reading: Job 1:1; 2:3, 9; 27:5; 31:6; 42:1-6
Ⅰ
The Bible of sixty-six books is for only one thing—for God in Christ as the Spirit to dispense Himself into us to be our life, our nature, and our everything that we may live Christ and express Christ—Eph. 3:16-17a; Phil. 1:21a:
A
This should be the principle that governs our life—John 6:57.
B
In a practical way, this should be today's tree of life for our enjoyment— Rev. 22:14.
Ⅱ
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:
A
The logic of Job and his friends was according to the line of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil—Job 2:11—32:1.
B
Job, like his friends, was halted in the knowledge of right and wrong, not knowing God's economy—4:7-8.
C
Job and his friends 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—1:1; 2:3; 19:10.
D
God's purpose in dealing with Job was to turn him from the way of good and evil to the way of life so that he might gain God to the fullest extent— 42:1-6.
Ⅲ
Job was a good man, expressing himself in his perfection, upright-ness, and integrity—27:5; 31:6; 32:1:
A
Job was a man of integrity; integrity is the totality of being perfect and upright—2:3, 9; 27:5; 31:6:
１
With respect to Job, integrity is the total expression of what he was.
２
In character Job was perfect and upright, and in his ethics he had a high standard of integrity.
B
Job feared God positively and turned away from evil negatively—1:1:
１
God did not create man merely to fear Him and not do anything wrong; rather, God created man in His own image and according to His likeness that man may express God—Gen. 1:26.
２
To express God is higher than fearing God and turning away from evil.
C
What Job had attained in his perfection, uprightness, and integrity was altogether vanity; it neither fulfilled God's purpose nor satisfied His desire, and thus, He was lovingly concerned for Job—Job 1:6-8; 2:1-3.
D
Only God knew that Job had a need—he did not have God within him; therefore, God wanted Job to gain Him in order to express Him for the fulfillment of His purpose—42:5-6.
Ⅳ
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, so 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.
D
God's intention was to make Job a man of God, filled with Christ, the embodiment of God, to be the fullness of God for the expression of God in Christ—1 Tim. 6:11; 2 Tim. 3:17.
E
God's stripping and consuming were exercised over Job to tear him down so that God might have 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—Eph. 3:16-21.
Ⅴ
In God's appearing to him, Job saw God, gaining God in his personal experience and abhorring himself—Job 38:1-3; 42:1-6:
A
In all God's dealing with Job, God's intention was to reduce Job to nothing, yet to maintain his existence (2:6) so that He might have time to impart Himself into Job; God cares for only one thing—for being worked into us.
B
God's purpose in dealing with His people is that He wants His people to gain Him, partake of Him, possess Him, and enjoy Him more and more, rather than all other things, until their enjoyment reaches the fullest extent for them to become the New Jerusalem—Phil. 3:8-9; Rev. 21:2.
C
Seeing God equals gaining God to be transformed by God; to gain God is to receive God in His element, His life, and His nature—2 Cor. 3:16, 18.
Ⅵ
When we were regenerated, Christ planted Himself into us as the tree of life—John 1:12-13; 3:3, 5-6, 15; 11:25; 15:1, 5:
A
Job pursued something in the realm of ethics, but we, the believers in Christ, should pursue something in the realm of God in Christ as the tree of life—1 Cor. 15:28; Eph. 3:16-21.
B
In our daily living, we should not be in the realm of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil but in the realm of the tree of life, the realm of the life-giving Spirit—1 Cor. 15:45b; Rom. 8:2, 4.
Ⅰ
"He has stripped my glory from me / And taken away the crown on my head. / He has broken me all around, and I am gone; / And my hope is plucked up like a tree"—Job 19:9-10.
Ⅱ
"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"—42:5-6.
Ⅲ
What Job had attained in his perfection, uprightness, and integrity was altogether vanity; it neither fulfilled God's purpose nor satisfied His desire—1:6-8; 2:1-3; 27:5; 31:6; 32:1.
Ⅳ
God's intention with Job was to consume him and to strip him of his attain-ments, his achievements, in the highest standard of ethics in perfection and uprightness—19:9-10:
A
God's intention was to tear down the natural Job in his perfection and upright-ness that He might build up a renewed Job in God's nature and attributes— 1:6-8; 2:3-6.
B
God's stripping and consuming were exercised over Job to tear him down that God might have a base and a way to rebuild him with God Himself so 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—Eph. 3:16-21.
C
How much of Christ we have gained is according to how much stripping and consuming we have suffered—2 Cor. 4:16.
D
It is through His stripping and consuming that God dispenses Himself into those who love Him and seek after Him—1:8-9; 13:14.
E
God's purpose in dealing with those who love Him, even in the way of loss, is that they may gain Him and that He may be expressed through them for the fulfillment of His purpose in His creation of man—Gen. 1:26.
Ⅴ
After we have been stripped and consumed by God, we will see God—Job 42:5; 2 Cor. 3:18; Heb. 12:14; Rev. 22:4:
A
We see God so that we may be constituted with God to be the same as God in life and nature, yet we do not have any share in the Godhead—John 1:12-13; 2 Pet. 1:4.
B
When we see God, we receive God and have His nature, life, element, essence, and being—Matt. 5:8.
C
To see God is to be transformed into the glorious image of God; this makes us not only one with God but also a part of God that we may express God in His life and represent Him in His authority—2 Cor. 3:18.
D
Eventually, Job saw God; however, the God whom Job saw was the "raw" God, not the processed God, the God who has passed through the steps of His process— incarnation, human living, crucifixion, resurrection, and ascension—Job 42:5.
E
In contrast to Job, we have the "cooked" God, the God who has been processed so that we may eat Him, drink Him, and breathe Him—John 6:57; 4:14; 20:22.
F
Our God is the processed and consummated Triune God, who is the consum-mated life-giving Spirit—7:39; 1 Cor. 15:45b.
G
The Triune God as the all-inclusive Spirit dwells in our regenerated spirit to be our life, our nature, our essence, and our everything so that we may be con-stituted with Him for His expression—6:17; 12:12.
H
We need to see the eternal economy of God, which is God's intention with His heart's desire to dispense Himself in His Divine Trinity—as the Father in the Son by the Spirit—into His chosen and redeemed people so that they may be the same as He is in life and nature for His corporate expression—the Body of Christ consummating in the New Jerusalem—Eph. 4:4-6, 16; Rev. 21:2, 10-11.