Redeemed By And Through Affliction

The holiday season is meant to be a time of joy and happiness in the year. Unfortunately, depression often can strike hardest this time of year, as well. And tragedies don’t automatically put on hold just because it’s supposed to be a “joyous time of year.” Dealing with the sadness and tragedies of life is difficult any time of the year, but perhaps even more pronounced during a festive season.

Of course, one of the books of the Bible that deals much with tragedy and the existential aftermath of tragedy is the Book of Job. We just finished a class on Job in the auditorium, and as is the case in the preparation of a class, the teacher often ends up having learned more than can actually be taught in the class. So I want to share with you some of what I consider to be the “key” verses of the Book of Job to understand it better, and to begin to piece together what some of its answers to the tragedies of life might be.

I believe we are all familiar with the basic story of Job: A righteous and wealthy man is struck by tragedy, one after the other, and ultimately loses his wealth, his children, his health, and (as we find out in later discourses) his reputation among the people he once served. Job reacts to these tragedies with a magnanimous attitude. In 1:20-21 we are told: “Then Job arose and tore his robe and shaved his head, and he fell to the ground and worshiped. He said, ‘Naked I came from my mother’s womb, And naked I shall return there. The LORD gave and the LORD has taken away. Blessed be the name of the LORD.’” And then later he rebukes his wife saying, “Shall we indeed accept good from God and not accept adversity?” (2:10). In the immediate aftermath of events, Job humbly accepts what has happened to him. He reasons that one cannot only accept good from God, but also adversity. But this attitude falters and does not last.

As time progresses on (from 7:3 it seems Job has been suffering for months before the speeches begin) and Job’s state does not improve, Job becomes less magnanimous and more depressed, angry, frustrated and confused by his situation. His friends, who had originally come to comfort their friend in his time of sorrow and need, also do not help matters much when they begin to insinuate that Job’s sorry condition is a result of sin and abandonment from God on Job’s part. Job, maintaining his spiritual integrity, rather feels like he’s been abandoned and attacked by God. Job’s speeches throughout the book reveal a man trying to grapple with his emotions and trying to understand the seemingly uncaring and irrational actions of God. Job is so miserable that, at various points, he contemplates and wishes for death, but during one of these contemplations he says: “If a man dies, will he live again? All the days of my struggle I will wait until my change comes. You will call, and I will answer You; You will long for the work of Your hands.” (14:14-15)

Here, Job expresses a desire he has that he feels is missing at this point in his life. God feels far away, and not only that, but hostile toward Job. And Job longs for a time, perhaps in the life after the life on earth, when God will “long for the work of [his] hands,” namely Job. What Job really longs for is a connection and relationship with God that now seems severed. Tragedy and affliction in Job’s life makes it hard (if not impossible) to see the love God has for Job.

At other points in Job’s meandering speeches, he contemplates an intercessory figure that could perhaps bridge the gap in understanding that has separated Job and God. At various times, Job sees this figure as a referee or umpire (9:33), a witness in Heaven who advocates on Job’s behalf before God (16:19), but this figure prominently comes into focus as a Redeemer in 19:25-27: “As for me, I know that my Redeemer lives, and at the last He will take His stand on the earth. Even after my skin is destroyed, yet from my flesh I shall see God; Whom I myself shall behold, and whom my eyes will see and not another. My heart faints within me!”

Again, Job longs for a relationship with God (“I shall see God”) and he knows there must be a Redeemer who will rectify and repair the broken relationship between Job and God. Though, even with this knowledge of a Redeemer, Job still does not understand his suffering and affliction. He ends his series of speeches essentially declaring his innocence, and declaring God to either be wrong (or at the very least mistaken) in allowing (or causing) Job to suffer.

Then there is a set of speeches by a young man, Elihu, who is notoriously hard to deal with, and you’ll find as many varied views on him as there are commentaries. But I believe, Elihu attempts to bridge this gap of a broken relationship between man and God, and the role affliction plays in it. In 36:15-16 Elihu says: “[God] delivers the afflicted in their affliction, and opens their ear in time of oppression. Then indeed, He enticed you from the mouth of distress, Instead of it, a broad place with no constraint; And that which was set on your table was full of fatness.”

The translation of that passage could just as easily say, “God delivers the afflicted BY their affliction.” Elihu sees the affliction that man goes through on earth as a means by which God repairs His relationship with man. It is perhaps similar to the sentiment found in Hebrews 12:7-11, “It is for discipline that you endure; God deals with you as with sons… All discipline for the moment seems not to be joyful, but sorrowful; yet to those who have been trained by it, afterwards it yields the peaceful fruit of righteousness.”

But even going further, and tying these various ideas together, Job knows there is a Redeemer who lives and will restore the broken relationship between man and God. Job is talking about (prophesying perhaps?) Jesus Christ. Jesus Christ is that intercessor that comes in between man and God and restores the broken bonds between them. And Jesus Christ solved this affliction by going through affliction himself: namely, death on the cross. So, through the words of Job and Elihu we see Jesus’ work predicted and proclaimed. God saves the afflicted through the affliction of Jesus Christ, and it is by that same Jesus Christ, spanning heaven and earth, divinity and humanity, that we can be reconciled to God and find relationship with Him.

At the end of Job’s ordeal, he said of God: “I have heard of You by the hearing of the ear; But now my eye sees You” (42:5). Through his affliction, he came to a greater and deeper understanding of God, and a more profound relationship with God. If you are dealing with affliction in your own life, I pray you find the same profound understanding that Job did. And know that Jesus Christ too was afflicted, and understands the suffering you are experiencing. Through His affliction, He redeemed the sinful world, and made straight the path back to a relationship with God. Praise God for that.