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 has sat in silence for seven
days surrounded by his friends.

And when he finally speaks, he doesn’t curse God
like the Accuser from chapter one predicted.

Instead, he curses the day that he was born.

The fact that Job understands that God can both give and
take away doesn’t diminish the painfulness of his suffering.

So, Job wails and wishes he had never been born.

Job’s lament deepens even further.

Job believes death would be a
sweet relief from his brutal suffering.

If he was doomed to be born, he
wishes he would have died in childbirth.

Job wonders why God extends
his life if all that’s left is misery.

He even says that the hedge that God used to
protect him with has become like a prison of misery.

This veiled accusation against God causes
Job’s friend Elpihaz to speak.

Eliphaz believes that God
doesn’t allow the innocent to suffer.

He believes suffering is only
caused by someone’s sin.

Compared to God’s
purity, everyone is guilty.

So Elpihaz accuses Job of dishonesty.
He must have done something wrong.

If Job would just admit it, God would
then restore everything that he'd lost.

But Job is insulted.

He doesn’t want a lecture about God rewarding
good people and punishing bad people.

Job wants an explanation for his own suffering and
demands that his friends produce specific examples
of how he's sinned.

Job isn’t interested in admitting
wrongs he didn’t commit.

And he doesn’t want everything to go back
to normal. Job wants his name to be cleared.

Job wants both his friends and God
to know that he has done nothing wrong.

Whenever the innocent suffer there are
always people who offer quick explanations.

They say things like “he deserved
it” and “serves him right.”

Jesus’ disciples thought the same way
about suffering when they saw a blind man.

But both Job and Jesus reject this
as an explanation for all of our suffering.

Remember, the book of Job puts our ideas about good and bad,
reward and suffering on trial. And this book is inching

us toward the verdict that a version of karma does
not run the universe—God does.

And God does not believe that
everyone who suffers deserves it.

God knows the victim can’t always be blamed.

Eliphaz is wrong.
Job is right.

There is such a thing as truly innocent
suffering, and God will prove it.

In Jesus, God came and
innocently suffered for us.

This was not simply to prove that innocent
suffering exists as a philosophical idea,

but to clear our names when
people blame us for our suffering.

Remember, Jesus’ name was
dragged through the mud.

He was a victim falsely blamed.

On the cross, Jesus becomes the
curses we’ve all heard about us.

At his death, any suffering our friends, family, Satan,
and our minds blame us for is nailed to the cross.

Jesus disarms weaponized philosophies that blame
the victim and shames them for the shame they cause us.

In Jesus, Job’s hope for
a cleared name is secured.

When we trust Jesus' innocent
death, our shame is taken away.

And when we hope in Jesus'
resurrection, our blame is cancelled.

May the Holy Spirit open your eyes
to see the God who innocently suffers.

And may you see Jesus as the one who doesn’t blame
us for our innocent suffering, but dies to end our shame.