BLOG––Encouraged by Faith

Job is a Martyr

Posted by Scott Kenney on

The story of Job begins with a scene in God's courtroom. God talks to a prosecutor who has accused Job of duplicitous falsehood. "Job doesn't actually love you," the prosecutor says to God. "He just knows better than to bite the hand that feeds." By accusing Job as God’s faithful servant, the adversary accuses God of coddling humans and not knowing them very well. God agrees to the test. Job doesn't know it, but he and God are on the same team. When the adversary loses the first round to God and Job, he does not admit that he is wrong. Instead, in his pride, he asks for a rematch. To reprove the prosecutor for his insult, and to prove to Job the true worth of his faith, God puts Job into the adversary's hands and gives Job the honor of answering the call. In this way, Job becomes a type of faithful martyr from whom we can learn valuable lessons about suffering for God's sake.

As a consequence of God's confidence in Job, the adversary takes everything from Job except for his life – which Job eventually doesn’t want, either. In a similar way, the adversary humiliates and punishes Jesus, but then he finishes the job with the crucifixion. “Surely on the cross, Jesus will curse God and die!” Instead, the opposite happens. Jesus and Job experience what so many humans experience: the myopic tunnel of hopelessness. The difference is that Jesus sees the part he plays in God’s story and thus follows the light out of the tunnel, and by doing so, his humble example during intense pain and suffering now serves as the golden standard for everyone.

God answers Job’s essential question through Jesus Christ. Jesus suffers because the world hates him. We needn’t feel surprised when we suffer; the world hates us too – and I’m not talking only about human enemies. When we find ourselves attacked not by humans but by misfortune, we can look at Scripture to see how the flaming arrows of the adversary, including cancer and car crashes, are attacks upon our faith and our witness because of our role in God’s battle. Each time that this world's evil forces attack us, we can take the larger perspective (God's perspective at the beginning and end of Job) to see that God has put us into a position to achieve the world's greatest victory – to declare that God is love and Jesus is the master of this world.

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