Job: The Great Experiment

A historical prologue (chs. 1–3) raises the key issues of the book, especially in the challenge issued by Satan. The book begins with a description of Job. He was not only a very wealthy man, “the greatest of all the children of the east” (1:3), but a very pious man to boot. According to Jehovah’s own testimony he was the best man on earth; “there is none like him in the earth” (1:8). But Satan challenged Jehovah’s description. He only serves you because you pay him to do it. Take away his possessions and he will turn on you (1:9–12). It is a challenge to Job’s piety. Job only serves God for the reward, says Satan; so it is not genuine piety, but actually a serving of self. Even the best man on earth only serves God for the reward. So Satan seems to doubt that genuine piety exists on earth.

But it was not only a challenge of Job’s piety; it was an insult to God. Even the best man on earth will not serve you unless you pay him to do it. “So the experiment will test whether God is worthy of service for his own sake. Is God so great that a person ought to worship and serve him even though it may not be profitable to himself. This book does not deal with the answer ‘everyman’ might give to this question, but it does disclose the answer that comes from the best man on earth” (from Thinking Through Job).

So the test is permitted and the accumulation of a lifetime is stripped away all in one day and Job learns about it all in a single hour. But Job does not turn on God, and to this point he would certainly hold that Jehovah is worthy of worship without regard to any advantage or profit to himself. But the trial was not over.

“A man might serve God for the reward. When the reward is taken away, will he then serve God? Job has met this test. One might assume that the genuineness of his piety has been established beyond question. But another reason a man might serve God is out of fear of what God might do to him if he does not. But let him be struck such a blow that he feels nothing more could be done—i. e., that even death or hell could be no worse. Will he then serve God? In that case piety is stripped down to its bare essence, with no possibility of ulterior motives left to becloud the issue. If man then serves God it will be simply and solely because God is God, i. e., out of a genuine reverence for God, an acknowledgment of who God is” (Thinking Through Job).

That is the point that is tested in the second stage of this great experiment. When the reward was taken away and now when such a blow has been struck that nothing worse could be done, Job still holds on to God.

But the patience of Job which James puts before us as a model (5:11) does not consist of total sinlessness. In fact Job committed some terrible sins against God as the debate with the friends goes on. The trial has exposed some weaknesses or defects in the piety of Job, and once these things had been exposed they could be dealt with and Job would end up an even better man at the end than he had been at the beginning. That explains why Jehovah permitted Satan to bring this terrible trial upon Job. It was not that he could not take Satan’s taunts and had to prove that he was right. Satan had an evil purpose, but Jehovah had a purpose of his own in allowing the trials, a merciful purpose that would work for Job’s good.

But what about the other point, the insult to Jehovah that was involved in Satan’s challenge? Job would commit some grievous sins against Jehovah, and would have to be humbled and to repent at the end, but he would never abandon God. He would lose confidence in the friends, but not in God. Through it all his faith would grow and he would continue to trust God finally to do right. God being who he is, Job knew that he could trust God finally to do the right thing by him.

At the end, and even before his restoration, Job continued to hold to this trust in Jehovah. In the event he proved Satan to be a liar and a slanderer, and the best man on earth gave his testimony to the glory of God; his testimony was that Jehovah God was worthy to be worshipped and served without regard to any reward, and even if he were afflicted so much that he felt it could not be worse. So this book will finally show us that we may have our greatest opportunity to give glory to God when we suffer, for we give testimony that God is worthy of trust and worship, regardless of any consideration of rewards and punishments.

Get Thinking Through Job for the full elaboration of these themes, and much more besides.