Job Replies: I Am a Laughing-stock

12Then Job answered:
² ‘No doubt you are the people,
   and wisdom will die with you.
³ But I have understanding as well as you;
   I am not inferior to you.
   Who does not know such things as these?
⁴ I am a laughing-stock to my friends;
   I, who called upon God and he answered me,
   a just and blameless man, I am a laughing-stock.
⁵ Those at ease have contempt for misfortune,^*
   but it is ready for those whose feet are unstable.
⁶ The tents of robbers are at peace,
   and those who provoke God are secure,
   who bring their god in their hands.^*
13 ‘With God^* are wisdom and strength;
   he has counsel and understanding.
¹⁴ If he tears down, no one can rebuild;
   if he shuts someone in, no one can open up.
¹⁵ If he withholds the waters, they dry up;
   if he sends them out, they overwhelm the land.
¹⁶ With him are strength and wisdom;
   the deceived and the deceiver are his.
¹⁷ He leads counsellors away stripped,
   and makes fools of judges.
¹⁸ He looses the sash of kings,
   and binds a waistcloth on their loins.
¹⁹ He leads priests away stripped,
   and overthrows the mighty.
²⁰ He deprives of speech those who are trusted,
   and takes away the discernment of the elders.
²¹ He pours contempt on princes,
   and looses the belt of the strong.
²² He uncovers the deeps out of darkness,
   and brings deep darkness to light.
²³ He makes nations great, then destroys them;
   he enlarges nations, then leads them away.
²⁴ He strips understanding from the leaders^* of the earth,
   and makes them wander in a pathless waste.
²⁵ They grope in the dark without light;
   he makes them stagger like a drunkard

God responsible for every event?

At first we get Job’s cynical and angry view  of a God who pays no attention to merit as the world understands it: people of integrity are cast down while rogues remain secure. Then his discourse deepens and without denying his cynicism hhe depicts a God whose motives cannot be discerned; who gives favour and retracts it; advances fortunes and destroys them with an equally incomprehensible power.

Job is rigorous: if theology is going to attribute the events of the world to God’s will, then the theologians cannot be selective: all events must be considered in this light;  and when this is done consistently we end up with the bleak character sketch of God which Job supplies in this speech.

My own view is to see all events in the universe as taking place by God’s permission rather than his will. God’s permssion extends from the unpredictable movement of a single subatomic particle to the freedom of the human will. This still leaves God responsible for all that happens but it does not mean that all events are a direct expression of divine will. God has left room within creation for the operation of chance and the exercise of choices other than his. This may seem to some an almost irresponsible permissiveness on God’s part, but that’s how I see it and I interpret it as motivated by love.

John 8:21-32

Jesus Foretells His Death

21 Again he said to them, ‘I am going away, and you will search for me, but you will die in your sin. Where I am going, you cannot come.’ ²²Then the Jews said, ‘Is he going to kill himself? Is that what he means by saying, “Where I am going, you cannot come”?’ ²³He said to them, ‘You are from below, I am from above; you are of this world, I am not of this world. ²⁴I told you that you would die in your sins, for you will die in your sins unless you believe that I am he.’^{* 25}They said to him, ‘Who are you?’ Jesus said to them, ‘Why do I speak to you at all?^{* 26}I have much to say about you and much to condemn; but the one who sent me is true, and I declare to the world what I have heard from him.’ ²⁷They did not understand that he was speaking to them about the Father. ²⁸So Jesus said, ‘When you have lifted up the Son of Man, then you will realize that I am he,^* and that I do nothing on my own, but I speak these things as the Father instructed me. ²⁹And the one who sent me is with me; he has not left me alone, for I always do what is pleasing to him.’ ³⁰As he was saying these things, many believed in him. <!– 31 –>

True Disciples

31 Then Jesus said to the Jews who had believed in him, ‘If you continue in my word, you are truly my disciples; ³²and you will know the truth, and the truth will make you free.

when the son of man is lifted up…

John depicts Jesus as the direct expression of God’s will, not just in his teaching, but in every aspect of his life. All that Jesus does is the truth of God. In the immense flux of events that happen by God’s permission here is one “event” which happens by God’s will: the life of Jesus. Only when that life is completed by what Jesus ironically calls his “lifting up” , that is, by his death and resurrection, will his opponents know “who he is” his identity as God’s living truth. In Jesus believers see that evolution is a process of love and entrust their lives to that truth.