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.

God finally speaks to
Job in an angry storm.

Remember, Job put God on trial
for mismanaging his universe.

Job wants God to explain how his innocent suffering makes
sense given his understanding of God’s justice and goodness.

But instead of addressing his justice or explaining
his actions, God asks Job a long list of rhetorical

questions that reveal Job’s limited
knowledge and his limited power.

At first, God interrogates
Job as it relates to the cosmos.

Job wasn’t there when the world was
made. Job can’t measure the sea.

He doesn’t know how to order a solar
system, much less design its constellations.

And then God interrogates Job’s
lack of control over wild animals.

Job can’t tame wild oxen.

He didn’t contribute to the
power or the speed of mustangs.

And Job’s wisdom didn’t
give hawks the ability to fly.

Job cannot compete with the knowledge
and power of God on any scale.

So, Job remains silent as
God issues a challenge to him.

God invites Job to act
like God for a moment.

Job has accused him of injustice and managing
his universe incorrectly, so God tells him

to do a better job; to enact justice the
way he thinks it should be carried out.

If Job can build a cosmic system that operates according
to his ideas of justice where the innocent never suffers,
God is happy to admit that Job is right and he is in the wrong.

The point is, Job can’t build that system.

Clearly Job doesn’t have enough information or
power to blame God for organizing his world unfairly.

Like Job, we believe our understanding of justice is
enough to blame God when people innocently suffer.

But that assumes we have an accurate picture of justice, and
that justice is actually the best way to govern the universe.

In one of God’s questions to Job, he points
out that he waters uninhabited land with rain.

But justice doesn’t apply to grasslands.

Deserts don’t deserve rewards.

It’s God’s way of saying that justice isn’t the most
important virtue in governing the world—wisdom is.

True, a world ruled according to justice
would have no innocent sufferers.

But a world of perfect justice wouldn’t have room for
mistakes either, much less the grace of rain on desert flowers.

Even a universe ruled by love
and mercy would have problems.

Truly evil people would prosper and probably take
advantage of both the system and the innocent.

So that means we need a universe with
both love and justice, both mercy and suffering.

But to God’s point, how would
you choose who gets what?

What laws and fundamental truths would govern?

How would you build a universe where the
innocent never suffer and the wicked never prosper?

The point is, you’re not wise enough.
But God is.

God is inviting us to humble ourselves and
to admit we don’t know better than he does.

And to admit that if we knew everything God does,
we would build the world the way it is right now.

And when we trust God’s wisdom, it frees
us to realize the wisdom of Jesus’ cross.

In Jesus both love and justice kiss.

Jesus dies as an innocent sufferer so that
even those who don’t deserve it can be forgiven.

In Job’s world of justice, Jesus’ self-sacrificial
love would not be possible. In Job’s world of
justice, we would only ever get only what we deserve.

But when we trust God and his wise world where love
and justice meet, it's true, we might unjustly suffer

but we will always experience
love we don’t deserve.

May the Holy Spirit open your eyes to
see the God who governs with wisdom.

And may you see Jesus as the one who innocently
suffers so that we can experience undeserved love.