Did God Hand Job Over to Satan? (Job 2:6)
God good; Satan bad. That’s deep revelation, yet many don’t know it. They think a good God does bad things and that he sometimes employs the devil to do his dirty work.
Take the subject of sickness, for instance. When we get sick it’s natural to ask, how did this happen? Did I catch a bug? Did I eat something bad? Is God punishing me for some sin?
That last question is nuts, yet many think that’s how God operates. When sickness comes, they figure God sent it. Why am I sick? God must be trying to teach me something. Hallelujah.
It’s absolutely bonkers. Jesus made nobody sick; he healed people, both good and bad. If you must blame someone for your afflictions, blame the devil (see Acts 10:38).
“But didn’t God hand Job over to Satan? Didn’t God give Satan permission to afflict Job with sickness?”
From where does this scandalous notion come? It comes from this scripture:
“Skin for skin!” Satan replied. “A man will give all he has for his own life. But now stretch out your hand and strike his flesh and bones, and he will surely curse you to your face.” The Lord said to Satan, “Very well, then, he is in your hands; but you must spare his life.” (Job 2:4-6)
This intriguing passage leads to two questions:
1. Who afflicted Job?
Not God, but Satan. We know this because the next verse says, “Satan … afflicted Job with painful sores from the soles of his feet to the crown of his head” (Job 2:7). Satan made Job sick. Satan is not God.
This is kiddy-level theology, yet many grown-ups don’t get it. They stop reading at verse six and conclude that God robbed Job and made him sick. They say, “God gives and takes away.” No he doesn’t. Satan is the thief. He’s also a cunning schemer. His perfect crime is to rob us and have us blame God for our loss.
Look at what Satan dared to say to the Almighty. “Stretch out your hand and strike him.” Did Satan really think he could manipulate the Lord into doing his dirty work? I doubt it. His motive was to deceive us. Satan is the father of lies. He tells us that God is afflicting us and look, there’s a verse in the Bible that seems to suggest it!
“Stretch out your hand and afflict him.” These are not the life-giving words of Jesus. They are the death-dealing words of the devil. If you think God is behind your sickness you are agreeing with Satan. You are empowering a defeated foe.
Sidebar: Go through Job highlighting everything the devil says and you will end up with a demonic theology that is pretty much identical to what many believe about healing.
“Okay, so God didn’t make Job sick, but he did give permission, right?” This leads to our second question.
2. Did God hand Job over to Satan?
No, no and a thousand times no! Satan is not God’s sheepdog sent to keep us in line. He is a schemer who can only succeed when we fall for his lies.
When the Lord says, “Behold, he is in your power,” he is not giving permission but stating a fact. On account of Adam, “the whole world lies under the power of the evil one” (1 John 5:19). God gave us a good earth, full of life and blessing. But Adam heeded the lies of the devil opening the door to sickness and death.
God did not hand Job over to the devil; he saved his life! Then he blessed him superabundantly. And then he put Job’s story in the Bible so that we might not be unaware of the devil’s schemes.
How not to read the Story of Job
The devil wants you to think that Job was a blameless man that God struck down for no apparent reason. But the truth is Job was a flawed man who went through tough times – just like the rest of us.
In his trials, Job lost his way. He yielded to the devil’s lies by believing that God was out to get him. This evil thought made Job bitter and suicidal, and for a while Satan seemed to have won the day.
The same thing can happen to us whenever we succumb to the devil’s lies. If you think God is behind your sickness, this lie will make you sicker. If you think God is out to get you, you’ll end up wretched and bitter like Job.
But Job’s story ended well. What Satan meant for evil God used for good because that’s what our heavenly Father does. He saves and redeems us. He intervenes in our life and pours out his favor on us because he loves us and will not let us go quietly into that dark night.
Yet there’s even more to this story than a happy ending. There is a new man. Have you ever noticed how God looked at flawed and whiney Job and called him “a perfect and upright man”? That’s grace. God does not judge us as we are. Instead, he calls out our eternal destiny and invites us to walk in the identity that he provides.
You may be broken, but God calls you whole. You may be a sinner, but God calls you righteous. You may be rejected, but God calls you “Mine.”
So here’s the choice: You can listen to the devil’s lies and think that God is out to get you. Or you can heed the voice of your Father who desires to give you a new name and a new life.
It took Job a while to learn this. But the sooner we get it – the sooner we realize that God is for us and not against us – the sooner we will rise up as conquerors in whatever trial we face.
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Escape to Reality 
Thanks a lot for this wonderful exposition. More of God’s grace upon your Ministry Paul.
Pastor Paul am amazed and dazzled by your teachings. I have always wandered why would God permit the devil to inflict us but now its all cleared. Pls how can get revelation of the word like you do?
It’s not difficult – learn to read the Bible through the lens of Jesus. Interpret the written word through the Living Word. More here and here.
If I give someone free will to choose for themselves, then what right do I have to punish them if they make a wrong choice. We are born sinners so we have no choice there. But to be saved we have to accept God’s grace which again falls under the free will. The whole humanity is suffering the consequences of one wrong choice. No free will there. But to be saved and accept grace “THE FREE WILL”. We can’t question God because He is our Creator. We got nothing in our tiny brains compared to His vast wisdom. For being what we are, without even choosing to be so, we will face consequences. There dwells no good thing in us, therefore if we look to ourselves we will only find death and decay. So as believers we look to God and receive His grace. We are to know ourselves as good for nothing and must come to the end of ourselves so that grace can flow. But God sees as beloved. How is one supposed to look at oneself….?????
I never asked to be born sinful , I never wanted to hurt God or His standards but sinner I was. GOD IS GOOD. No doubt. He loves us and wants our best. But we can’t look at us like that. We have to see ourselves as complete failure to receive the grace He offers. The moment we don’t we are self-righteous. But then we have to see ourselves as beloved as God says,to not fall for the devil’s lies and live the life that God promises. I’m done…
I.wondered these things too until o raised many of those statements were taught by religion and not by God’s word. Well meaning pastors and theologians taught those things and we doubted God’s goodnessas revealed through Jesus. Keep seeking the truth.
Himanshi, To your question on “how is one supposed to look at oneself??”, Truly get to know who God is, His heart, his love, through the word and through intimacy. You are not a good for nothing, God would never call you that or say that to you. He would never belittle you, talk down or purposefully hurt you. Yes we are sinful and it is in our nature due to the Fall but thankfully through Love and Jesus we are given Grace which provides a way to be with God forever as we have always intended. We are not failures, we may fail but that does not define who we are. Once we accept Christ failures, sin, wrongful actions do not define us or shape our destiny. God has a greater plan for you and I. God does not define us as failures but as conquerors. I can see your confusion but Pray that the Holy Spirit would give you the Lord’s wisdom on this topic. That HE would be the one to reveal His truth to you. Self-righteousness is being more than god or not needing him, prideful and etc. When we have a healthy relationship with God there is balance of knowing your worth but not exceeding it to be more than others or the Lord himself. I hope this gives you some clarity and Pray that the Lord speaks His truth/ understanding to you.
Shared your excellent article with Facebook friends. God uses your words to bless more people than you can imagine! God bless you in your work of spreading his love.
Hi Paul Love you mate !! I agree with what your saying here ,a terrible false theology exists in a lot of the church over Job that basically blames God for Job and his family calamities and cursing but as you state it is simple not true and is a Lie from Satan that misrepresents the Father heart of care ,love and good intent towards us here some insight i have that might help your readers Ecc 10:8 says whosoever breaks a hedge a serpent shall bite him Jobs hedge was broken and a serpent (satan bit him) Satan has the power of Death which we see stretched against Job and His family This was a Curse from Satan not God !! Job is the story of God as HIS REDEEMER job 19.25 i know my redeemer lives ..who also turned the Captivity of Job in 41:10 here scripture describes what happen to Job as Captivity ie the hand and work of Satan Heb 2:14 Jesus as Jobs redeemer is destroying him who had the power of death (Satan) our God is a Good God Absolute !! Hallelujah !! we can Trust God and be Confident in His Good Hand upon our lives always in every situation as every good thing comes down from our Father of lights in whom there is no hint of evil .. our God changes not !! James 1:17 Mal 3:6
If Satan has power over the whole world and God refused to let Satan kill Job how come God couldn’t refuse Satan from making him sick?
Hi Linda, when I read your comment my first reaction was like, “Yeah, why didn’t he!”
On reflection (lol) i think its probably a lot to do with the author of Jobs intent. In the story Satan seeks to do more and more harm to Job in an attempt to prove that Job is only faithful to God because of all the good things he has in his life. If Satan had struck down Job too early on in the story (and he wanted to! Job 2:4) then we wouldn’t have had much of a story haha and so never learnt how God brings good even out of the worst of suffering.
I hope that is a helpful response 🙂
Obviously, Satan doesn’t have complete power over the whole world or he wouldn’t need permission from God to smite Job. That is old testament. Now, being in Christ, I believe sickness is still from the enemy but is still being allowed by God. Would you say that is correct?
I think we skate on thin ice when we disagree with scripture. If 1 John 5:19 says, “the whole (fallen) world lies under the power of the evil one” I’m not inclined to disagree. The thief doesn’t ask for permission. If he had permission, he wouldn’t be a thief.
My gathering is that “the whole world lies under the power of the evil one” is akin to saying the whole world is subject to his manipulative influence. The only power he has is what we give over to him. I think this is well illustrated in the temptation and fall of Adam and Eve. As far as authority goes, I think humans outrank him and his gang. Jesus exemplified this. He lived as a human and Satan couldn’t touch him. He certainly tried to manipulate Jesus, but it didn’t work. Jesus knew better – He knew foolish talk when He heard it. You could say that He rendered Satan powerless, and so can we. Jesus came to lead humanity back to our rightful place in His creation. I see that reflected in the book of Job. Perhaps if the book was called REDEMPTION, instead of Job, we would see easier what the story is really about.
Well said, Jason.
I asked my wife this same question, and she replied “So that we would learn something from this.”
Paul
Glad you wrote this article. There are a few Gracer-teachers on FB that are saying there is NO Devil, demons etc.
Pastor Tommy
And yet, Job 1:8 shows us something interesting:
Then the Lord said to Satan, “Have you considered my servant Job? There is no one on earth like him; he is blameless and upright, a man who fears God and shuns evil.”
Did God set up Job? Satan wasn’t the one that brought him up, God did. Did Job have flaws? Surely, and yet God said he was “blameless and upright” and God can’t lie.
I suspect God set Job up. He knew Satan would ask, and since Job was blameless, I think God gave permission for Satan to attack Job? Why? So he could bless him even more. Look at the end, Job had twice as much as he started. I’m sure there is so many more reasons ( along with being lessons for us ) for this trail to come. Job sinned along the way, the conversation with God at the end makes that clear, but nothing here tells us the trial began because of his sin.
God did not give permission because permission was not required. The takeaway from this is that God is a gracious redeemer. He takes our broken lives and heals and blesses us. The story of Job’s grace encounter with the Redeemer is one of the great untold stories of the Bible.
And yet Romans tells us that all have sinned and fallen short of His glory.
I suspect that Job’s blamelessness is why Satan could not harm him. Satan tried to mess with Job but could not. Of course, Satan thinks God is protecting Job, since how could a mere human prevent the attacks Satan unleashed.
The takeaway for me on this comment is that our righteousness is worth something when it comes to this world, but the most blameless man on the face of the Earth still falls short.
Yeah, I didn’t mean to say that Job was without sin. Blameless and righteous I suspect are two different things, possibly based on context. Forgiveness takes a part in there for sure. We can sin and be forgiven and maybe that makes us blameless then. I just look at it as no outstanding issues that God has with Job if he considers him blameless. Not going to dig into the Hebrew, just making my point that I don’t feel like sin let the devil in, since God considered him blameless at this point.
Why did God bring up Job in the conversation? I think because God knew exactly everywhere Satan had been, and Satan had clearly been checking out Job because he knew all about Job’s wealth and blessings and the supposed hedge around him. Just like when God spoke to Adam and Eve after they ate the fruit, He asked them where are you? What have you done? Even though he knew exactly where they were and what they did. God didn’t need to goad satan, satan already had it in for Job, he was just trying to make God complicit in it.
Well said! Abiding in the Vine produces the fruit of life. So the devil’s only chance is to spend his time trying to get us away from abiding in Jesus.
Other translations make it clearer. God said behold he is in your hands. All God did was acknowledge Job was in Satan’s hands already. If we go back a few passages earlier God asked satan have you considered my servant Job? Or better translated from Hebrew have you set your heart upon my servant Job? Like you said satan just wanted to attack and tried to make it look like it was God’s doing
Amen and Amen!
Can u tell us which version to which you refer? Thank you.
This is AWESOME!!! You put is so succinctly. Every church should hear this message because way too many of them are blaming God for their problems. My husband once wanted to go out and pray for people. I said, “Well, let’s go to church! There are ALWAYS sick people there!” It shouldn’t be that way.
So true
Thank you Paul, I enjoy very much reading your posts….God bless ….
I understand the heart of what you are saying, but reading Job 1 & 2 it seems very clear to me that while Satan did it to Job, God not only suggested Job but released His hand of protection and favor over Job, therefore releasing Satan to do his work. I get the whole “he was blessed in the end” but that, to me, would be small consolation to offer someone who lost their wife and children. It is a theological truth, but I struggle to see that it is a comfort for someone in that loss—“Hey, don’t worry about losing your wife and kids, you’ll get more.” Just some thoughts I am struggling through. Yes, Satan had authority (we are in his power), but Satan clearly recognized that God was blocking his work. No, God didn’t literally cause what Satan did, but it strikes me that He allowed it and even, in some way, encouraged it. I don’t like to think of that, and it doesn’t mesh with other things I believe about God’s love and goodness, but I don’t see a consistent way to read Job 1& 2 any other way without ignoring some key passages (1:8, 10; 2:3 (all of it) and 2:6). I’d value any thoughts.
Space precludes me from addressing more than one scripture in each article, but I have written articles on all the scriptures you asked about. You can find them in the Archives > Scripture Index.
Thanks, Paul. I’ll check them out. God bless you.
Let me throw my 2 cents in on this.
Jesus calls Satan a liar, right? So let’s assume that everything Satan says to God is a lie. “The truth is not in him”, so when Satan says God is protecting Job, we should understand that is not true.
Believing Satan tells the truth seems to me to line up perfectly with getting doctrine from demons, which we were warned about in 1 Timothy 4:1.
My suggestion (for what it is worth) is to reread Job 1 & 2 knowing that everything Satan says is a lie.
Wow! I’ve never thought of that! Very intriguing point.
I believe God knew the heart of His servant, and knew he wouldn’t slander Him. (Although he felt understandably quite sorry for himself afterwards, being corrected by God) Any chance to make The adversary look bad gives glory to God. Do we have the right to complain what the pottery maker uses His pottery for? No. We must not forget Jobs real rewards are not on this earth. If he suffered a while in this life, so be it, he is suffering no longer in the vapor of life now.
As curses go, the only curse that I see is the curse of the law (curse that comes when you willingly break it or don’t have it): please consider John 7:49, Deuteronomy 4, Leviticus 26, duet 28, Deuteronomy 32:26. For example the antiChrist is given one attribute over and over, lawlessness. Two other very interesting curses are, cursed is every man that is hung from a tree, and the curse of the earth (thorns) that Jesus took away on the cross (the crown of thorns). Just my insight! Great article! I often have wondered about the book of Job. It is an interesting book!
Lawlessness is definitely anti-Christ, but did you know that the main clause of the new covenant is found in Hebrews 10:16, 17 : “And their sins and lawless deeds I will remember no more!” All because of Jesus and what he finished on the cross. “It is finished.” God’s heart is for everyone. But that’s just my two cents.
It sound like satan was bulling God in ur prospective idea.
Didnt God gave satan access to satan to test Adam, Job, the 400 Prophets, Jesus etc…find the verses your self?
Isnt it why he gave his own life to save us cause he gave access to the devil to test us? Isnt it why he took the blame for us. God is almighty God he knows the present the past and the future . Even when he created us he knew we are failers as most people say he did not created us as perfect thats why Adam and Eve failed , if they would be as perfect as knowing christ they would not fail.
I think God is not done making Man perfect yet untill the coming of Christ in power and kingship.
God bless.
God didn’t put Satan in the garden with Adam and Eve to test them. God created Lucifer, a beautiful angelic being. It was Lucifer who chose to exalt himself above God at the moment he tempted Eve in the garden. God is not playing a game with his creation to see who has what it takes to take on the tactics He would throw at them.
Jesus gave his own life to reconcile us back to our loving Father who has always yearned for us just to trust Him. As you say He did create us with the choice to not love Him, but He always knew He would pay for that lack of trust with His very own life, if we chose not to trust.
He created us in the image of Himself and said that it was very good. I wouldn’t call that a failure in any way. In order to experience love in a relationship, there must be some sort of free will and choice. God has been chasing us for a relationship since our first wrong choice.
Once you realize that Jesus has made it possible to be back in that beautiful relationship with our Father again, (by wiping our conscience clean and giving His very own Spirit to us to live within us) you know your spirit has been made perfect. The Holy Spirit bears witness with our spirit that this is true. We now only await our resurrected bodies.
Paul,
I really appreciate your writings; very well done and quite revolutionary in opposition to the main stream “Christian” philosophy. And this article is eye opening to many of those as well. It is well written, but for a correction or two, if I may be so bold. You may have just overlooked this important truth. Let me explain.
This “new man” (you mention) is just that. Our Identity changed when we became that new man at the “new birth”. We are no longer sinners; we are saints. We are no longer unrighteous; we are righteous. We no longer have a wicked heart; we have been given a new heart. Etc, etc, etc. That is literally who we became after we died, were burried and rose with Christ to newness of life. God doesn’t just call us righteous, we are righteous now.
Oh, but how about our sinning? We must keep the two, our identity and our performance separate. They are not the same. We still sin because we live in a world that influences us all the time; desiring us to conform to it’s ways. Daily we need to allow the Holy Spirit to help us in the process of renewing our minds (Rom. 12:2).
I certainly do not want to offend, but just to point out more clearly who we are in Christ. Knowing this truth and living with that freedom is so liberating. Ken
Hi Ken, I agree with everything you say and have written whole books on our new identity, so not sure how this is a correction. Did I miss something?
I truly enjoyed reading this article and every comment. Amazing how the story of Job and his “undeserved” sufferings draw such a line in the sand among believers.
I personally have never been comfortable with this book; too much gratuitous suffering without a straightforward conclusion as to why. But this post and commentary has led me to look again, through the lens of grace and what I see is a lesson in Grace itself.
We are all Jobs, which is to say, people trying to do their best to please God in order to stave off suffering and calamity. This is, of course, a pre-grace condition. It is a condition born of fear (Satan’s weapon) and a lack of trust in God’s good will toward us. I accept the notion that Satan did not need God’s permission to touch Job. So why did he seek it and why did God grant it? Two possibilities: Satan is a broker of fear because he himself is full of fear. Satan fears God and wanted to get an official ok…OR perhaps he wanted God to say “No” and then do it anyway, proving, at last, that he is equal to God. Knowing this, God gave the green light, not because Satan is equal, but because He God has deemed earth to be under the evil one for now.
Job’s good works and virtues were never his saving grace. Though he kept trying to secure his amazing blessings through his good deeds, he could not. Eventually he came to realize this. How fortunate we are to live by Grace in the Age of Grace and know that our countless, unseen, unacknowledged and undeserved blessings are free gifts to us from a loving Creator Father God! The blessings were always there but Grace (Jesus) has given us the eyes to see and embrace them.
Was Satan not defeated on the cross. Why do you credit him with so much power to afflict us?
This article is about Job’s afflictions. Many people believe God was complicit in Job’s suffering, but the scriptures clearly state “Satan … afflicted Job” (Job 2:7).
I agree with Paul 100%. He clearly talks about the new man in Christ in nearly all his topics and books, and is not accrediting “power” to satan in any way. Satan has always had the ability to temp people in their free will.. and by God’s sovereignty, allows it. Wow, see what I just did there? No pun intended.
God bless!
Paul, I love this article. It is so rich. (In fact, anyone reading this comment, I recommend stopping and going back and reading Paul’s post again instead – there is so much there, one quick read through is just robbing yourself of living water.) As you pointed out, it’s about the simplest of theological concepts, yet at the same time the most profoundly damaging when we get it wrong. When we misjudge what we are being shown in Job’s story, as tradition has done, we conclude the setting for humanities existence to be something that it isn’t. We literally get the roles of God and Satan switched in our heads. Exactly what the evil one wants. Satan is always trying to convince us that God doesn’t really love us. It’s been that way from day one. This article highlights how crafty evil is at its trade. It also highlight how hindered we become when we buy into the lies of the thief. Job is a wonderful story of how God is for us and is involved in our lives. Satan has stolen this view from our perspective. Thank you, Paul, for bringing it back out into the open…. I see it, brother. I see it! Thank you!
Thank you, Jason.
Paul I am with you 100% that God is a healer and not the one who is going around putting sickness on people. But I cannot deny the narrative in Job story. You said that when God said to satan “behold all that he hath is in thy power” that God was not giving permission but was making a statement. If that was true then the whole narrative is nonsense. How satan had already power to afflict Job since Job was protected and blessed by God? Also if it was a statement then the “only upon himself put not forth thine hand” what was it? Of course was a clear prohibition not statement. Obviously God took away the hedge of protection on all he had except the hedge of protection from sickness. Which was took away after the second encounter of God and satan…
A quick question for you – who mentions the hedge of protection in the story?
Satan. Do you think that was not true?
I question everything said by the father of lies. His aim is to deceive and mislead.
The scriptures tell us about an enemy whose desire is to afflict people (Acts 10:38, 1 John 5:19), yet the deceiver wants us to think that our heavenly Father is somehow complicit in his schemes.
He was lying to God? For what? His accusation was that Job feared God because of God’s protection and blessings.
Does this surprise you? Jesus said of Satan, “There is no truth in him. When he lies, he speaks his native language, for he is a liar and the father of lies” (John 8:44). Whether there is a hedge or not, is not the point. The point is, don’t base your understanding on God’s good character on anything the Liar says. “There is no truth in him.” And if Satan says something that is contrary to scripture, then you can be doubly assured that he’s trying to deceive us. “We are not unaware of his schemes.”
Yes, it surprise me. First all Job as a fact was protected and blessed by God. Second he had nothing to gain by saying such a lie to the One who knows everything. Third if it was a lie, God should had answered differently.
If there is a hedge is the whole issue in Job story. I am not basing my understanding on God’s good character on anything the liar says but if he says that I am protected and blessed by God I have to agree because is true.
There are layers to the story being told to us in Job. I’m 44 years old and I used to really like movies. I got hooked on them as a kid. Growing in grace enormously over the past several years (by grace, not works – no boasting here) has rendered that longing to be entertained by movies and TV… well, dead. Curiosity occasionally causes me to check to see what people are viewing, and when I visit my Mom we’ll watch TV cause that’s what she likes. She likes to re-watch the older movies, the ones from when I was young that stuck with me and made an impression. Here’s the thing – I’m amazed at what I “see” now in these stories that I didn’t and couldn’t see just a few years ago. Grace opens your eyes and heart to see. Nothing has changed in these movies. They are exactly as I saw them time and again in the past. But my spirit has been risen to new life and I’m privileged to be working from REVELATION now. It’s as if God has pulled back the thick facade that disguises how things really are. Revelation isn’t what you get from your brain interacting with the bible. Revelation is what happens when God’s Spirit imparts something to your spirit. THEN your brain can see it in the bible. Don’t get stuck on the surface layer of the Job story. Our reasoning is faulty, we can’t trust it. Listen to what Paul is saying. This world has conditioned us to see things a certain way. Jesus came to show us otherwise.
….there is something in the book of job and most people of today who call themselves as “Christians”, are all missing the message of the whole poem….the entire bible is all about “Christ Jesus” from Genesis to Revelation…..know the characters of the book of job and you will find one that points to Christ Jesus Himself…..
And that would be this guy.
Paul, I am sure that you agree with pertru odiref that Jesus is the subject of the entire Bible. But you miss to see Jesus in Job’s book. I know from where you’re coming from. You know God’s will always is healing. He doesn’t put sickness on people to teach them. Jesus is the perfect image/will of God and He never denied healing to anybody. Sickness is a curse not a blessing in disguise etc. I know that all they that are believing otherwise their favorite stories in the Bible are Job’s suffering and Paul’s thorns.In your effort to point to God’s truth on healing( in which I agree too) you are misapplying it in the book of Job. This is a mistake that I saw been happening by most people who believe on healing as we do.
Job was like none else, suffered like no one else without cause and he points to Jesus probably a lot more from many others great figures in the Old Testament. Job’s story is full of similarities with Jesus. I believe we miss to rightly interpret scriptures when we forget Whom they are talking about.
I have written dozens of articles on Job and in each one I have tried to reveal a God who is just like Jesus. (In contrast, religion portrays a God who is much like Satan.)
As I have explained elsewhere, the story of redemption is wonderfully portrayed in the Job Story, but Job does not represent the Savior. Job is nothing like Jesus. Job represents us, fallen humanity, bound by fear and wondering “why me?” His three useless friends represent DIY religion. Their focus is on sin and what Job needs to do about it. Elihu is the hero of this tale for he, like Jesus, preaches the good news while revealing the true character of God.
You are trying to fit your beliefs in Job story. Your beliefs are not wrong. The three friends of Job did something similar . What they said are some powerful truths but misapplied on Job case because they didn’t know what happened in the first two chapters. Two chapters that if they have in mind I believe their approach would had been totally different. You can read them but your approach to Job suffering is like they are not written . In order Job to represents us you are calling him superstitious and a fearful whiner and not a giant of faith. Tell me, if I will ask you to call me the giant of patience in the Bible, who is going be? I hope you have the right answer. If is Job then tell me can you have patience without faith? Proportional these two goes together. Whatever is your opinion of the “unrighteous” and “faithless” Job, you should have the same opinion of Noah and Daniel. For God these two are in the same status with Job.
You may be interested in this article on the patience of Job. For your other concerns, I would encourage you to check out the archives. In the interest of keeping the discussion focused, I would encourage you to comment on the question at hand, which is “Did God hand Job over to Satan?”
It amazes me that none of the above comments pick up on Job’s fear.The bible clearly makes a connection between fear and torment.God included a lot of principles in His creation and encouraged us to .”fear not”. One revelation I got about Job was around God’s use of “behold”.The first use of “behold” occurs in the creation account, where God tells Adam,”Behold I have given you every herb bearing seed…” for food
In other words, Adam didn’t know this fact…check out other instances of behold, and you’ll see the same pattern..what follows behold is info the hearer didn’t know!Notice when God used this word with Satan, IMMEDIATELY the conversation ends, and Satan is gone! God honours “seek and you shall find “, even coming from Satan.So Satan leaves immediately upon discovering this fact of God ‘s creation. It occurs again in Satan’s 2nd encounter with GOD…Satan didn’t know of this Principle in Creation
Neil in Canada
To say God was a bystander and had nothing to do with Job’s plight seems a bit odd considering a true and actual reading of the scripture. Satan did not have full reign to do whatever he wanted. God had a hedge around Job that protected him from evil. God told Satan that he could touch his possessions but not Job’s person. Later he said Satan could touch his person but not Job’s life. God was intricately involved in Job’s calamity. Was God out to get Job? NO!, He was out to test him. God gave permission and Satan acted, Job2:3 has God admitting his part in it all.
Indeed, I wish those who think God was complicit in Satan’s scheme actually would read the scripture because the scripture seems very clear to me. ‘Then God said to Satan, “You tried to trick me into destroying him, but it didn’t work”’ (Job 2:3, MSG). Yes, it’s a paraphrase translation, but it comes closer to the literal meaning of the words than some Bibles.
You cannot say that God was not involved, He set the rules . . . touch his property but not his person and then touch his person but not his life. God was “complicit” to use your word not mine, in allowing Satan to move on Job. The translation you offered is nothing close to the original. If my university students read their text books the way this passage is being interpreted they would all fail. To make God a bystander in these event renders the narrative nonsensical. However, let’s take your “translation”. Then God said to Satan, “You tried to trick me into destroying him, but it didn’t work”’ What didn’t work? What Satan wanted to do happened, but it didn’t work because Job kept his integrity. I’m not sure what trickery Satan tried to play, but I do know that what Satan wanted to do to Job God allowed him to do it to no avail.
And if my university students read your comments, they’d think God was complicit in the murder of Job’s kids.
Talk about nonsensical. “ If my university students read their text books the way this passage is being interpreted they would all fail.” Surely, David my friend, you see that therein lies the problem. Conformity to the world at the expense of being transformed by the renewing of our minds… and all to gain a passing grade.
We are all still learning. Our brother, Paul, is looking past the ink on the page. And then looking back on it from the other side. The truth is much clearer from there – I bet you’ve discovered that yourself.
To me, these age-old debates about this verse of scripture against that verse of scripture to figure out what’s what are so unnecessary. Jesus is the revelation of God in this final age. We are meant to go back and reinterpret scripture with this new revelation of Jesus, the perfect representation of God, and see things differently than even the Old Testament writers did. Jesus to Philip: “If you have seen me, you have seen the Father. How can you say show us the Father.” Jesus shows us the nature and character of God clearer than Job or Satan or any of the Old Testament storys ever could. I love my bible, don’t get me wrong, but it is worth considering that Jesus said I’m leaving so that I can send the Holy Spirit, not the Holy bible. In this day of fast paced, abundant information, we all have to be meticulously attentive concerning what well we are drinking from, don’t we?
Brill stuff Paul! 😊
It would be nice if you addressed my argument rather than my quips. I will therefore abstain from using them. God set the rules. Touch everything around him but do not touch his person – Touch his person but do not take his life. How can you say God was not involved at all? The text seems clear. When David counted the Israelites, God asked him to choose the punishment for his sin. David chose the plague which killed thousands (Those killed had nothing to do with David’s sin). Was God not involved there either? When Ahab wanted to go to war, God allowed a spirt to take on the role as a lying spirit to deceive Ahab. Was God not Involved there? The examples are plentiful. I am not making a conclusion concerning God’s character or motives, I am simply saying that the text states, with no ambiguity, that God was very much involved in the trials of Job.
I have written articles covering numerous scriptures from Job. You can find my response to your arguments in the Archives > Scripture Index.
Nothing personal about your quip. It just stuck out to me as something a Pharisee would have said to Jesus. And that’s not meant to be a stab. We all have stinking thinking to get rid of, myself certainly included. We just have to be willing to let the Holy Spirit get in the way of what we think and what we have been taught. That’s really the only path to freedom. One thing that life has made abundantly clear to me is that knowing what the text states and being taught by God what it means are two totally different levels of “knowing”.
Job was better off at the end of the story, not because he had better stuff, but because he had a deeper knowledge and awareness of God. His religion had been replaced with “knowing” God. God flipped Satan’s plan and wicked scheme on its head. Satan is wise and crafty, but God is infinitely more so. It was a trap all along. That’s why we are given the behind the scenes peek at Satan dialoging with God. So that we can see that, yes, GOD WAS INVOLVED! But not in the way tradition is promoting. God is the redeemer. Satan is the destroyer. In Job, God ultimately made a fool out of Satan. Just like he did at the cross!
The book of Job is about Job, not God foiling Satan’s plan…
How did Job foil Satan’s plan?
To answer your first question, I never said that Job foiled Satan’s plan -. I said the book of Job isn’t about God foiling Satan’s plan. The book is about Job. Above you posted only a part of a statement I made and omitted the part where I said that after chapter two, the book is about Job attempting to reconcile the events that happened to him with his loyalty to God (You disallowed my entire response to Jason and only picked out this one partial statement). I think you are being a little disingenuous. That surprises me.
Apologies – I misunderstood. I deleted my response, but then the comments under it disappeared. I restored my response but edited it.
If that were the case the book would end with Job moaning and groaning over his misery. End of story. But it doesn’t end with that. It ends with God first rebuking and then blessing and giving. satan wanted to punish Job into cursing God. he almost gets his way but then God(whom the story is actually about) steps in speak light and truth and then pours out the blessings on Job.
God does not cause or permit evil, rather He removes evil and restores the victim. We’ve seen the full character of God expressed through His son Jesus. Satan the father of all lies said to God, “haven’t you built an hedge around Job, and around all that he has?” I doubt his words because there’s no truth in him. But if actually there was a hedge, it could be the reason Satan could not destroy job when on his to and fro movement. The destroyer must have attempted to destroy but failed. That’s why he said, “haven’t you built an hedge around him”. So how come he succeeded now? The hedge must have been broken. So who broke it? Certainly not God. Mr Job, the complainer did. How? This ignorant figure not knowing there’s life and death in the power of the tongue; —- that with your mouth you can tear down a wall, he did not also know that it is what comes our of the mouth of a person that defiles him. Besides this self righteous Mr. Job was living in fear Job 3:25, and we know fear has torments 1John4:18. He said all what he was afraid of has now happened to him. He said he was so afraid that he was always talking his fears but yet the trouble he was afraid of still came Job 3:25-26. I think this man used his words to scatter the hedge. And that was what God saw—- the broken hedge; when God said, ” BEHOLD all he has is now in your power….” Formerly it was not but now it is. Job messed up. God simply said, “SEE…..” not “I send you now..”
I think Job 2:3, reveals the limitations of the revelation of whoever wrote the book of Job. He did not see to the extend he was suppose to. Besides at that time they were living in darkness, until Jesus brought the true light. I trust more in Jesus than the bible.
Thanks Kavin. . . interesting perspective.
I too trust and worship Jesus, I don’t worship the bible or its prophets, I interpret them through the reality of the Word made flesh.
I think the Fathers glowing report of Job shows his default position towards men in the absence of the accuser. The story of Job shows life without a covenant and the inevitable confusion for men trying to understanding of the true nature of God. Even as the accuser tries to prove his primary accusation(“these humans are purely driven by their senses, they’re entirely carnal”) God schools up Job to the point where Job takes a faith position and disqualifies Satan’s access.
God is limited himself by our faith.
Abraham by contrast is a story of a man with a covenant. . .a covenant which disqualifies any accusation and maintained Abrahams righteousness regardless of his ability.(it’s way too gracious, it can’t be right . . .can it?) The only condition is that Abraham relies on Gods ability to maintain the covenant. Again, God has limited himself by our faith
Israel chose to back their own ability to walk in their own righteousness by agreeing to be measured by their law based performance criteria. This is another example of forcing the hedge to be dismantled.
God has limited himself by the faith of man.
You’re right brother
Thanks Paul, I appriciate that. Blessings to you and the word of grace you share!
This teaching is false, as is much of these teachings. G-d tests us, that is apparent right through Scripture. Moses called G-d, a “G-d of War”. You can re-invent him, if you want, but do not mislead others .
Moses was disqualified from entering into the promised land because he misrepresented God as angry with his people, he struck the rock in front of Gods people pronouncing them to be rebels who God was angry with.
I would say you are the one re-inventing God. After Jesus men have no excuse for making God in their own image. I would say you and many others are angry, wrathful, retributive and you have made God in your image. Jesus said, “all the old guys who taught you to hate your enemies where wrong, I say Love your enemies”. Who in the O.T said kill your enemies? most of them!!
Get This and it will change your life.
Regard Jesus more highly than any Prophet. Up until Jesus men where on a trajectory towards knowing the true nature of God. When we saw Jesus we saw God, heard his exact words, saw his exact nature, experienced the true nature of God for the first time all in one place. Previously, there was a volcano, men said “the gods were angry”, they lost a war, men said “god is against us”, they won a war, men said, “god is for us”. lost a food crop,”god needs child sacrifices”, these are the gods of mans own making. . .from their own natures,own imagination. Jesus came and set the record straight, he clarified the work of the enemy as sharing no common ground with the Father of light, life and restoration.
Jesus destroyed the work of the enemy and you seem to be disciplined to restore it.
It is only apparent if you have been taught to read through that filter. Not reinventing but seeing Him through the filter of Jesus instead of tradition. Jesus said if you have seen Him you have seen the Father. Testing, at least the kind I was taught about, is cruel and most often pointless. It makes God a bully at best and a child abuser at worst. We say that the God of perfect goodness, love and holiness treats His children in ways that we put human parents in jail for or at least socially condemn. Are we sinful, flawed human beings better parents than God? OR Are our views about God messed up?
Amen!
I really don’t think that a ‘false teacher’ would have allowed your comment; do you? All the term ‘false teacher’ means, is that you don’t agree with him. For all anyone knows, it could be you who’s the false teacher, or me, or anyone else who comments here. None of us have it all correct, and it’s foolish to assume that we do.
“You may be a sinner, but God calls you righteous” That is pure gold, right there. Thank you.
Love never lets go of you even when you are cursing at it.
Paul, I deeply apologize for my bitter comment here on this post.After reading through almost every post on your blog I’ve my sanity restored.For the past few months I had completely lost my mind to confusion,pain and sorrow. I lost sight of His love and ended up bitter and without any strength. But now I realize what path I was walking. Again my deep apologies..
Himanshi, thank you for taking the time to write back with that. Us commenters can say a lot about what the story of Job is telling us and throw concepts back and forth, but it would appear you just lived it out. God never let’s go! Outstanding! Beautiful. Thanks for sharing.
To quote from the end of Paul’s article – “So here’s the choice: You can listen to the devil’s lies and think that God is out to get you. Or you can heed the voice of your Father who desires to give you a new name and a new life.” Just like gravity, the lies don’t stop, rest, or take a brake. They are built into the world system all around us. GAINING (or regaining) sight of His love, as you have Himanshi, takes the teeth out of the lies and they have nothing to grab on with. When the gospel has a home in our heart, we are FREE.
You’re right Jason. I’ve indeed been through it all.Years ago at the age of 17,watching a Joseph Prince broadcast on tv, I gave my life to Christ.Born in a Hindu family and not knowing anything about Christianity I was completely naive to the new world I had stepped into. But what grace it was.His spirit was communicating with my spirit all the time. Taking baby steps I was learning to see what life actually is all about.I didn’t have a bible nor any Christian acquaintance. It was only the Lord’s voice alone teaching me new things about His world. I had a companion so amazing I was bursting with joy and telling all my mates about His love and care. But I had no idea that there is a god(devil) of this world too. Unlike Job,I wasn’t fearful, I was not careful. The assault against my mind began in such a subtle manner that I never realized that the thoughts in my mind were not mine. I was wrestling and trying very hard to get my peace back. (Didn’t know I only had to believe right). And therefore it wasn’t long before my world started to collapse. I suffered unimaginable pain and huge losses. But now when I look back I see Who had my breath in His hand.If LOVE had not held me I wouldn’t have survived. HE was there with my every breath,every step and in every tear I cried. The Voice never left me,no,not for a second.Going through it all I believed God will surely rescue me and restore. But lately I was starting to give up.Shouting and screaming at Him and asking a bucket load of stupid questions. But The Voice kept drawing me closer and closer. That’s the power of love. It will love you and only love you until you learn to love yourself.
There is much more to the book of Job, it is a compressed narrative that addresses a whole range of issues. Perhaps Satan’s boast was that all humanity would become like Cain if only the Lord withdraw His blessing, that suffering would destroy the “illusion” of Gods love. What we see is a process of Job going from a state of semi consciousness to a state of far more enlightened consciousness as a result of suffering. God is not the author of suffering, but He can and does allow it to bring us to a deeper understanding of the truth. Why else would Paul want to embrace “the fellowship of His sufferings”? Why did Paul talk of a suffering that the Lord allowed “to keep me from exalting myself!” Paul even begged for Him to remove it and the reply was “my grace is sufficient for you”. One thing we can not do is picture reality as if we have a right NOT to suffer, we have no such rights, we are on a pilgrimage to another world, a holy city, a new heaven and earth, suffering is part of the journey.
This world is broken and we will experience that brokenness in many ways, what the Lord promises us is that our suffering will not be meaningless and he will never leave us or forsake us. Perhaps this revelation allows us to enter into the fellowship of His sufferings and still love regardless of the circumstances we are in.
Daniel, if I had a kind, loving, wonderful earthly father who would rather die than cause any of his cherished children to suffer…then it would upset me to hear someone say that my dad allowed me to suffer so I would gain a ‘deep understanding’ of something. I would say, respectfully, that you don’t know my father, your understanding of him is flawed.
Our loving heavenly Father has given us a true picture of Himself in the person of His Son. Jesus never gave sickness or suffering to anyone, so that means God doesn’t either. God comforts His children, speaks tenderly to them…as any true father would.
Paul’s thorn in the flesh were law preachers who followed him around, and told Paul’s new believers in Jesus that they needed to obey the Law as well….thus putting them under bondage and cutting them off from God’s Grace. Paul’s response to the Law preachers can be read in Galatians.
God telling Paul that His grace was sufficient for him, was to greatly encourage him . Read Jechariah 4:7, God’s grace is powerful!
When the church understands what a wonderful, kind, loving God we have, and starts to preach that Gospel…imagine the shouts of Grace Grace that will resound through the earth! Glory to God.
I see the standard passive aggressive arrogance in your reply that I get a lot from inclusionists and others that have made a law out of grace. So I don’t know the Father? Well I will tell you my interpretation of what you said, you have embraced wishful thinking and blotted out the stark reality of the world we live in. I never said God was the author of suffering, but He most definitely allows it and He leads us through it. If God did not allow suffering then this universe would not exist.
I have suffered in my life and it was in the midst of it that I met God in a very real way, as a consequence I never felt compelled to rewrite scripture like you have in order to assuage my insecurity. The traveling troupe of legalists afflicting Paul is a lie that has become popular among formula oriented Christianity that likes to use the Holy Spirit like a cheap magic trick that we are in control of.
It is all just the knowledge of good and evil, and it NEVER leads to life.
I want to know the fellowship of His sufferings, if you don’t then I would respectfully suggest it is your understanding that is flawed.
I’m not fully understanding how God does not “allow” or even author our sufferings? He authored Christ’s, did he not? I’m a little confused about Gods dealings in our sufferings, and it started this morning when I read Deut 28:63, “Just as it pleases the Lord to make you prosper and increase in number, so it will please Him to ruin and destroy you.”
It PLEASED Him? Can someone try to explain? Thanks.
I’ll try to explain part of it.
What is happening within much of contemporary Christianity is an adoption of the prevailing attitudes and whims of the world. There is a fundamental insecurity among a lot of Christians that causes them to adopt what is trendy in the prevailing culture, whether this is a conscious decision or not is irrelevant, insecurity is a powerful driver of human behavior. Christian music more often mimics worldly trends rather than lead them, and it is always a tacky version of whatever it mimics. Christian self help philosophies mimic the Oprah Winfrey approach to self realization. The growing narcissism in society is embraced by this idea in the church that Gods duty toward us is to be a cosmic sugar daddy that provides us with everything we desire whenever we desire it. Scripture then gets bent and twisted to accommodate these trends rather than leading us into a confrontation of our wrong thinking, a good example being Paul’s thorn in the flesh issue mentioned in my above post.
Ultimately it means that Christians are encouraged to “live their best life now” (to quote the venerable Joel Osteen) and not focus on the fact that we are on a pilgrimage to a better reality. Not much need to seek the new Jerusalem if people are quite happy in the the most affluent, comfortable culture the human race has ever known.
Coty- the scripture in Deuteronomy is the Old Covenant, which we are redeemed from under the blood of Jesus. The curses listed were broken for us at the cross. So we no longer have to fear the curses of the Old Covenant. If Jesus already paid for our sins and took our curses, who are we to pick them back up again? Who are we to try to keep paying for sins Jesus already paid for? It’s an insult to the grace of God and the free gift he gave us. God punished Jesus for every single sin already, and he doesn’t punish the same sin twice. Its important to separate the Old Covenant from the New Covenant. The difference is life and death. The New Testament warns of putting yourself under the law and curses again. It says the law is the ministry of death. We’ve been redeemed. But we forget to act like it, and go back to the law over and over.
When people talk about “well if Jesus suffered so should we,” I can’t help but notice the contradiction. Jesus didn’t suffer so we could too. He suffered in our place so we could walk away free people. I’ve heard people say Jesus died in my place. Then say, if God wanted Jesus to suffer, he must want me to also. Those two things contradict each other. And that’s the opposite of the gospel. That’s the opposite of good news. If God wanted Jesus to die in your place, and to take our suffering and curse away from us, then why would he want to put it back on us. Jesus paid it all. I learned a long time ago to stop paying for things the Bible tells me Jesus already paid for.
Great comment Amber. I enjoyed reading that. There are several regular commenters I always like to read on E2R. E2R is a great blessing!
Coty Desiring an answer that you can live with is not worldly. Believers have wrestled with this questions since the beginning. No sin in questioning a concept when it seems out of place with the other information we have about God.
Christ knew he was going to suffer, how long and what the purpose was. God did not do it to Him, Jesus chose to go through it. Which is very different from our sufferings.
If we look at all the references to and about God’s character we see that the few passages such as the one you mention stand out as odd when compared to the whole picture. When on doubt go with the majority until the isolated pieces become understandable.
Many of the common views about God and the suffering remind me strongly of a child abuser. If a teaching makes God appear to not be good, holy, just, righteous, pure and/or love then question and question deeply.
The best answer is Jesus. He said that if we have seen Him we have seen the Father. In questions like this the best option is to cling to what we know of Jesus and how He acted while on Earth. It may not be enough of an answer for those who are satisfied with a gleefully, abusive deity but it is enough for the rest of us.
We can soothe ourselves with the knowledge of good and evil that we gained in Eden, (and is available to us now, Jesus died for our sins, not to revoke our free will) but to do so will inevitably result in a form of law regardless of whether we call it “grace”.
A lot of modern grace teaching is in fact legalism, it encourages us to decide what a good God can or can’t do and then holds Him to the standards we created through our own assessment of good and evil, inclusionists express this legalism particularly vigorously. There is of course no objective basis for these standards, so it inevitably becomes a hodge podge of human wishful thinking and blind optimism.
All of the great men and women in the bible suffered, ESPECIALLY in the new testament, all the apostles were martyred except John who suffered in exile, John the Baptist was said to be the greatest prophet by Jesus, but he lost his head while Jesus was ministering, Mary had to watch her son die an excruciating death, Paul was beaten, imprisoned, stoned, shipwrecked, and executed. The church then suffered incredibly for the next 300 years.
God clearly allows suffering of His beloved, that does not mean He is the author of suffering in the world, but He most definitely allows it. For those that have more investment in the comforts of this life, such a reality is deeply troubling, but it is the reality.
Great reply momzilla76, loved it all.
Coty we are all in the process of having our hearts and minds washed with God’s grace and truth, and seeing what a wonderful God we have. The Gospel is all good news.
Coty I wonder what led you to find this site? You may find answers to your questions in Paul’s Posts, they are a treasure trove of God’s grace.
I have a rather shy daughter that loves gymnastics. Her and her best friend joined the local club.
About the third meeting her friend could not attend, my daughter entered into a state of panic. She begged not to go, crying and under a tremendous amount of stress, I mean she was really terrified. I had compassion for her, considered calling it quits to alleviate her suffering. Then I considered what was best for her long term, she needed to confront this crippling shyness. So I said that she needs to do this, I would be there with her. She sobbed and pleaded all the way to the venue. Before we arrived I said “this is what is going to happen, you are going to feel terrified about walking in that door, you are afraid and that is ok. But once you walk in the fear will rapidly leave you, then you will enjoy training like usual, after training you are going to feel the best you have ever felt, and on the way home you are going to tell me how good you feel and that you are glad that we did it, do you trust me?” she said “ok”.
Everything happened as I had predicted, that stronghold of shyness left her and she has been a different girl ever since. That is how our Father in heaven treats us, He sees the big picture, and He is with us in the midst of our confusion and suffering.
Daniel- I personally have a problem with the “God allows” concept regarding suffering. Standing by while someone else abuses your child is no morally different than actively doing it yourself. Allowed is just another way to say gave permission for.
I understand that many dearly held beliefs about suffering are not intended to be cruel but to find answers for broken hearts about why horrible things happen. By suffering I mean the big stuff like death, major loss, rejection, debilitating illness, etc.
While the story of your daughters shyness explains some lesser events that we feel cause us suffering like as a loss of relationship which we later learn would not have been good for us. The analogy falls short for the big uglies of life.
You seem to think that because some people struggle with the traditional Christian answer(s) for suffering that there is something worldly going on. Walk their road in their shoes before you dismiss their struggles as weak and fleshly.
I personally struggle with the suffering issue not because I am trying to legalistically create my own view of what God can/can’t do. It is because I discovered a contradiction between what tradition says(or in how in interprets scripture) and how God describes Himself in the bible. If God says He is this….then how can He do/allow that….?
Are my answers perfect? No but neither is tradition’s because it creates a two-faced deity who wields/gives permission for good and evil while claiming to be perfectly good without a shadow of bad. It is my own life experiences combined with the seeming scriptural incongruities that caused me to seek answers outside of the traditional view. It is deeply troubling to think that the One who describes Himself as goodness, Light and perfect Love also orchestrated your own personal earthly hell or at least said “Sure go ahead and do it!”
Momzilla, you’re arguing with a caricature of a legalist, not anything I have actually said. However, while Paul is allowing you to exceed the word count in response to me, I have not been afforded the same grace, so can’t really address this in detail.
I do not hold to a traditional view of Christianity that you accuse me of, I am part of no movement, church, or organization that preaches anything that aligns with the caricature you have used.
The irony is that rather than my approach leaving people in a state of despair, it has exactly the opposite effect, and these are people that have been abused by the “grace movement” in one form or another. I came to understand grace through a period of prolonged suffering, God did not author the suffering, but He surely used it for my good just as His word promises me, that’s where the love of God becomes more real than the air we breathe.
God created a universe where His created beings have free will which = potential for suffering and evil, God has allowed this because without free will no love or relationship is possible.
Most Christians have no idea what the knowledge of good and evil is or what it does, yet this is central to understanding the finished work of the cross and understanding suffering.
Much of contemporary Christianity is rooted more in the tree of knowledge than the tree of life, including much of the grace movement.
It is hard to know someone’s background or complete theology on impersonal comment sections. I was not intentionally trying to argue a caricature of a legalist just having trouble seeing exactly where you stand. To clarify by Christian tradition I mean the average(sadly far too common) view that says one of two things 1) that God causes events that make us suffer or 2)the general “allows” where God gave a direct “yes” so that the suffering event could happen. If you hold neither view, Great! You are miles ahead in helping people when they go through hardship. One does not need to belong to any organized anything in order to believe the traditional view. It is rather hard to escape it a it is so prevalent.
I’m not sure what issue regarding suffering you have run into from real grace teachers. There are some overly fluffy types out there but they are a minority.
There is evidence now to suggest that Job was written after the second exile. Job is a play/poem that perhaps describes the life of the exiles. THEY were Job. They lost everything. Family, jobs, position, homes, health. We should not take a play/poetry literally. It says elsewhere that Satan does not have access to heaven, so perhaps we should look at what the author/authors were trying to show writing this. It makes a lot more sense in this historical picture, not trying to look at it through our 21st C eyes. We would not read Songs of Solomon literally, and nor should we read Job in this way.
It’s an intriguing possibility. What evidence are you referring to?
I have read that the book of Job was intentionally written as fiction, for the purpose of showing that affliction is not always because of the sins of the afflicted! Is that true?
You would have to ask the person who said that.
Thank you! Unfortunately I can’t remember who it was! ☺️
Job tribulations and rewards may also fore shadow the future. Mt 5:5; Jo 17:3, 5:25-30. What greater reward than having the everlasting life that was available to Adam. Remember Job said he will wait. He believed there would be that reward. To get that reward we must realize that Satan’s influences are all around us. He doesn’t care if you worship him as many believe. He does not want you to be following God and Jesus when Matt 24:44 is fulfilled!
Man, this is good! Thank you, Paul!
Wow all the commentaries…I have scriptures that should be thought of when analyzing and interpreting the story of Job;
Job 5:18, Hosea 6:1, Deut. 13:1-3, Hebrews 6:8,12:4-11, Prov. 3:11-13
Satan may be the ruler of this age and world, as well as the prince of the power of the air, but God is still sovereign, God still overrides, God is still omnipotent, omniscient, and omnipresent…Satan’s rule is still subject to God’s sovereign universal rule. So, yes, he had to ask for access into Job’s life. God granted it, yet He also gave Job the grace to overcome everything and anything the enemy would try to throw his way. I like your thought process Paul, but it is a slight stitch off.
Satan is a rebel. A rebel, by definition is not subject to any sovereign. I have written elsewhere on the sovereignty of God.
Let’s say that a man in today’s society is approached by an enemy. The enemy makes the exact same request as Satan and the man removes all protection from his child and allows the enemy to do the same things to him that Satan did to Job.
Now think about this! NO ONE would accept this challenge and would condemn anyone else who did. This is exactly what God did to Job; he removed the protective shroud and turned Job over to Satan. Period! There is no other explanation to be given.
The story of Job shows that God doesn’t view death, pain, and suffering on the same plain we do. He wants to know if we will bear up under tribulation and do his will.
Little know fact – everything the Bible says about the so-called hedge of protection comes from the father of lies. Thankfully, our good Father is NOTHING like the devil and loves us even more than we love our own kids.
I own EVERYTHING to GOD (Father, Son & Holy Spirit) ! ~ PLEASE answer my question on Job. ~ Yes, we live in a world handed over to satan by Adam, but doesn’t it say in the Book of Job——> God speaking ” You (satan) can do whatever to Job, but you cannot kill him” ~ (paraphrarsed) ~ So, God could have not even answered the devil at all . Why didn’t God just ignore satan and protect Job ? and how can having more children replace the ones (TEN) satan killed ? ~ Very confused and ONLY with this book of The Bible.
As any parent can tell you, nothing can replace a lost child. But another child can bring comfort to a home that is grieving. The story of Job raises many questions: How did Satan get into the presence of God? Who was there to record their exchange? Does the devil control the weather? These are such good questions that many people believe the story was made up or that it was an ancient play.
All I can say for certain is that whoever wrote it did so without a revelation of Jesus and the new covenant of grace. Certainly Job had no such revelation, not at first. His story was not written to create confusion and fear about what the devil can and can’t do. It was written to show you that no matter how bad your life is, the grace of God can rewrite your story. Grace can bring healing where there has been hurt, and restoration where there has been loss.
Great answer!
if you do not believe Job 1:12, that power from God was delivered to Satan. Common sense would dictate, how elese cid he get power?
If you do not believe or accept that. then you are not doing God a favor. you are harming yourself. God can take care of himself.
Mark 8:33, and Matthew 16:23 tells us, we have the mind of Satan, if you believe you know better than God in these matters.
You also are rebuking God.
I think I’d rather have the mind of Christ in these matters. I discuss Job 1:12 here.
When you interpret this ‘story’ in light of Genesis 3, you clearly see that God had no choice. Would be too long to expound on this here. But .. Satan had every legal right to afflict Job. The Old Testament is full of examples. It is only the ‘traditional’ doctrines, namely that of sovereignty and Hamartiology, that ‘blinds’ the explanation – as to make them ‘fit’, some viewpoints simply can not be accepted.