Can We Find the Gospel Message amidst Job’s Suffering?

Though it is 42 chapters long, the book of Job is best read in one sitting. In some ways the book of Job is all about asking the same question we are in this article, “How do I find good news here?” 

Job is about suffering. And specifically innocent suffering. Job, the stories protagonist, endures wave upon wave of personal suffering. He loses everything around him and then his health begins to fail. He’s left wondering where God is in the midst of all his pain. The book is Job’s attempt at getting a hearing with the God of the Universe. Along the way, we hear from all of Job’s friends who wax eloquent about their views of suffering. But there is no gospel in their words. 

But where is the gospel in Job? 

How Do You Find the Gospel in the Old Testament? 

I suppose before understanding how to find the gospel in the OT, it’d be helpful for us to define the gospel. The simplest definition is one given by JI Packer: God saves sinners. If you’d like to put a bit more meat on your gospel presentation, I use two different frameworks with four points each. The first is God—Man—Christ—Response. The second is more of a story: Creation—Fall—Redemption—Glory. 

The first presentation centers upon God’s character and how humanity fails to meet God’s holy standard, as such the judgment of God is upon us. But the good news is that Jesus Christ fixes this by fulfilling what is required through his life, death and resurrection. Our only fitting response, then, is to respond to Him in repentance and faith. When this happens, we are united to Christ and his record becomes our record. 

The second presentation centers upon the overarching story of the Bible. God lovingly created us to love Him and enjoy Him forever. We were made for rest, rule, and relationship. But we made shipwreck of this, and so rather than having the blessings of obedience we are under the curse of disobedience. Rather than having peace (rest), purpose (ruling), and healthy relationship we often experience the opposite. Ultimately, we are alienated from God. But thankfully God sent His Son, Jesus Christ, to bear our curse and to fulfill what God intended for humanity. As such we now experience the blessings of Jesus’ obedience in our place. He restores the rest, rule, and relationship we were created to enjoy. Someday everything will be ultimately restored and we will live in a new heaven and a new earth. 

We could write entire books focusing on these various themes of the gospel. But every gospel story follows this basic skeleton. No matter where you find yourself in the Old Testament (or the New Testament) you can find one of these various threads. Every place in Scripture is either telling you something about God, something about our rebellion, something about His rescue, or something about our future restoration. If you can spot this, then you can fill out the rest of the story. 

How Do We Find the Gospel in Job? 

Job is one of those books in the Old Testament that cries out for a redeemer. Not only is Job overcome with the pain and anguish of his suffering, but he also is wrestling with one of the deepest human questions – “why?” 

The book of Job doesn’t belong in Eden, its setting is outside Eden. There aren’t evil caravans in Eden. There aren’t natural disasters that crush your whole family. There weren’t loathsome sores on bodies. And there weren’t all these questions. 

But outside of Eden, after the Fall, all of these questions abound. And there are plenty of miserable helpers like Job’s friends. There are voices of despair and accusation like that of Job’s wife. And we see also another appearance of the serpent — this time accusing Job of not really being righteous. The serpent’s voice is picked up by Job’s “religious” friends who, believing they have all the answers, actually have none. 

We like to think about suffering in a consequential way. If I do something bad, then something bad will happen to me. If I do good things, then good things should happen to me. When someone looks at the trainwreck of Job’s life, the only conclusion is to ask, “what was his sin?” It’s the same thing we see in the gospel of John when they came upon a blind man and the question was asked, “who sinned, this man or his parents?” 

But the gospel tells a different story. In reality we all, in some sense, deserve what happened to Job. We don’t deserve covenant blessings because we are covenant breakers. We deserve covenant curses. But God’s common grace is so far-reaching that we are shocked at times when covenant curses fall upon us. We’re shocked when the “innocent” suffers. 

Yet, that’s really not the message of Job. Job was innocent. Not in the same way we might think of the total and complete righteousness of Christ, but innocent in as much as a human can be innocent. To attribute Job’s suffering to sin is to follow the path of Job’s friends. If we come to Job’s case with easy answers, we end up missing the beautiful picture which God is painting. 

So, what we have in Job is that an “innocent” man is suffering. The consequentialist view of suffering cannot fit in the story of Job. And that’s because the gospel doesn’t fit with this view of suffering and evil. The gospel is that the only One who didn’t deserve suffering, suffers more than all of humanity because He takes upon Himself the sin of the world. He bears in Himself the wrath of God. And he does this on behalf of those who truly deserved the suffering. He became a curse. 

Jesus is the answer to Job’s prayer in Job 9. He is crying out to God because Job knows that as a finite sinful human being, he cannot actually stand before Almighty God. But he also feels like he does have a valid case. He wishes he had someone who could plead his case, be a mediator, and not be swallowed up by the consuming fire of a holy God. So, he laments: 

“There is no arbiter between us, who might lay his hand on us both” (Job 9:33).

Jesus is that arbiter. He is that mediator. He is fully God and as such He is self-existent. He is fully righteous, He is eternal, and so He can “lay his hand” on God. But He is also fully human. As such He can identify with Job. He can also lay his hand on Job, without Job being overcome. 

I don’t think Job really understood what he was saying in Job 19:25-27, but this too was fulfilled by Jesus. 

^“For I know that my Redeemer lives, and at the last he will stand upon the earth. And after my skin has been thus destroyed, yet in my flesh I shall see God, whom I shall see for myself, and my eyes shall behold, and not another. My heart faints within me!”

At the end of the book, Job is silent. He simply must admit that he does not know all that God is doing. He cannot grasp the mind of God. In God there are often more questions than there are answers. But it is also in this God that our redemption is found. He is the answer to all these questions.

“My Redeemer lives.” That is gospel. And that is the answer to all our questions. 

How Do We Find the Gospel in Job 23? 

There are a few obvious places in Job where the gospel shines forth. Job 9 and 19 cry out for a gospel proclamation and application. They are screaming for Messiah. These are relatively simple to proclaim Jesus from. But what do we do with the less obvious passages? If it is all pointing to Jesus, how do we take a passage like Job 23, which does not have an obvious gospel connection? 

First, we place the passage in its original context. Here in Job 23, our title character feels entirely abandoned by God. He feels like God is hidden from him. He wants an audience with God but he feels like he cannot get an answer. And he’s not even certain if he wants God to answer. We see how Job is wrestling in verse 13-17.

“But he is unchangeable, and who can turn him back? What he desires, that he does. For he will complete what he appoints for me, and many such things are in his mind. Therefore I am terrified at his presence; when I consider, I am in dread of him. God has made my heart faint; the Almighty has terrified me; yet I am not silenced because of the darkness, nor because thick darkness covers my face.

Job knows that God doesn’t change, but rather than this being a comfort to him, it is a terror. He is terrified in his presence. This can help us build a bridge to the gospel. Why would humanity be terrified in the presence of God? We can trace this all the way back to Genesis 3 when the first couple made fig leaves and found themselves hiding behind the bush. 

The dilemma that Job faces is the one that all humanity faces. God has set eternity on our hearts. As such there is still a longing to be accepted in His presence. Yet, there is also this terror which Job faces. Humanity finds ourselves in a position of both loving God and hating God at the same time. We want intimacy and we want to run. This all comes from the fall. This is all part of our brokenness and our rebellion. 

In reality, we should be terrified in His presence. We have sinned. We are not holy. Thankfully, this is where Jesus comes into the story. It is also good news that “what he desires, that he does.” Because Luke 12:32 is also true: “Fear not little flock, for it is your Father’s good pleasure to give you the Kingdom.” And we are “given the kingdom” through the finished work of Jesus Christ. We ought to be terrified in His presence, but because of what Christ has accomplished on our behalf, we are now told, “Let us then approach God’s throne of grace with confidence, so that we may receive mercy and find grace to help us in our time of need.” 

He who was hidden for Job is now made visible for us in Christ. And the gospel now has been made clear. Our only fitting response is faith and repentance. If we want to be in God’s presence, He has graciously shown us the way. Will we live in terror or walk in grace? The answer is found in whether or not we are united to Jesus Christ.

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