This is Spoken Gospel.

We’re dedicated to seeing
Jesus in all of scripture.

In each episode, we see what’s
happening in a Biblical text,

and how it sheds light
on Jesus and his gospel.

Let’s jump in.

Job and his friends have been arguing
with each other since chapter three.

And these chapters, chapters 22-27, contain the
last cycle of speeches between the three of them.

It’s the most intense and the shortest cycle.

The escalating tension and the shortening speeches
clue us in that the Accuser’s challenge to God,

from chapters one and two,
is about to be resolved.

Eliphaz doubts that Job’s desire for a court
case will be of any use to him.

Since Eliphaz believes Job lacks
humility or respect for God,

he tells Job that the verdict in his
case is guaranteed to be guilty.

He lists Job’s supposed crimes and then
describes the fate of wicked people like him.

Eliphaz promises that if Job humbles himself,
though, God’s wealth will become his

and he then will be in a better position
to influence God through his prayers.

Job refuses this temptation.

Instead, he holds out hope that God
will hear his case and rule in his favor.

Job counters Eliphaz’s description of the wicked and their
punishments by describing all the ways the wicked prosper.

And Bildad at this
point has had enough.

He resorts to platitudes about God’s majesty
and man’s unworthiness by comparison.

With no subtlety at all, he calls
Job a worm and a maggot.

To Bildad, God’s majesty is proof enough that Job
is rightfully suffering for something he did wrong.

Job responds with a hymn
about God’s cosmic power.

And he points out that God’s incomprehensible majesty
doesn’t prove his guilt, it proves we have barely
scratched the surface of how God orders his universe.

To Job, Bildad’s worldview is too
small in light of the vastness of God.

Job refuses to deny his integrity or
repent for sins he never committed.

Job then calls his friends his enemies and pronounces
a long curse, predicting they will suffer just like him.

These speeches represent an end
to the Accuser’s challenge to God.

Remember, Job isn’t on trial; God is.

And more specifically, the Accuser's accusation
is against the way God runs his universe.

If Job had admitted his guilt in order to be rewarded,
both his friends and the Accuser would be proven right.

You can imagine his friends saying, “See,
we knew you were hiding something!”

And then, the Accuser would have then turned to God
and said, “See, your management of the universe is flawed."

"Job was just obeying you for your rewards.”

But since Job both refused to curse God and refused to
repent of things he didn’t do in an attempt to get God’s
rewards, the arguments of the Accuser are defeated.

Innocent suffering doesn’t
lead Job to curse God.

God’s rewards don't
undermine Job’s integrity.

Because of Job, the Accuser’s
arguments are totally disarmed.

Like Job, Jesus refuses to repent
in the face of false accusations.

The religious elite accused Jesus
of wrongly claiming to be God.

And their framing of Jesus as a rival
king to the emperor was unfounded.

Like Job, Jesus refuses to curse
God because of his innocent suffering.

When Jesus refuses to recant in his suffering,
he breaks the accusations of his enemies.

He disarms their condemnation because
Jesus is God, and he was King of the Jews.

When he rises from the grave, he shames their accusations
because his resurrection is proof that he truly is both God and King.

If we refuse to curse God and instead insist that we are innocent
because of Jesus’ cross, our accusers are silenced, as well.

Because of Jesus’ death and resurrection,
we have irrefutable proof that we are not

who our accusers say we are, but
we are who God declares us to be.

May the Holy Spirit open your eyes to
see that God rewards those who seek him.

And may you see Jesus as the innocent sufferer,
who disarms every accusation of our enemies.