M-G: 10.7.12 // Something Secular Reason Could Never Do, Job 1:21b


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In understanding God there are inherent difficulties in that undertaking, two pertaining to man and the other to God. Not only are we hampered by our own finiteness and by our sin nature, but God has also imposed a limit on Divine revelation. In other words, we do not have all there is to know about God in the Bible, but all we need to know has been given to us (Deut 29:29). Therefore, God is incapable of being understood in the absolute sense of the word; this is known as the incomprehensibility of God, our inability to comprehend the infinite nature of the Almighty (cf. Psa 139:6; 145:3; Isa 40:27-28; 55:8-9; Rom 11:33-36; Eph 3:19; Php 4:7).

However, these challenges do not give ignorance an entrance for an excuse or secular reason the right to reject God due to insufficient data concerning Him. Yahweh is fully aware of the constraints and expects to be known and understood by what has been revealed to man through general revelation (creation) and more specifically by special revelation (the Bible). For some examples that God is capable of being understood in relation to Divine revelation, see Jeremiah 9:23, 24; Daniel 11:32; John 17:3; 20:30-31; 1 John 4:6-8; 5:20.

Understanding God is further frustrated or exacerbated by either disregarding what has been revealed (willful ignorance, Eph 4:17-18; 1 Pet 1:14) or going beyond what has been written (willful arrogance, cf. 1 Cor 4:6) which leads to endless philosophical speculations (“words without knowledge,” Job 38:2; cf. 1 Cor 1:18-21) and the manufacturing of ideas concerning God that are contrary to the teaching of biblical revelation (Genesis – Revelation). 

The Bible is one coherent, unified body of truth concerning the progressive revelation of God to man. Only from the Bible do we learn of God, His ideas, His ways, and His expectations of man. Our thoughts and our ways are to be in alignment with the principles of Scripture. The problem is that our experiences rarely align with our theology, and we unwisely interpret our theology by our experiences rather than the other way around, resulting in wrong ideas of God and promoting ungodliness. 

This is a similar approach of secular or religious humanism that only sees man as the measure of all things because things aren't lining up on the so called God-side of things! Humanism sees all the experiences of injustice, destruction, suffering, and death in the world and challenges the theology that teaches that God is love, totally dismissing the truth of Rom 5:8. God did not quit loving us after the cross because His love is infinite, eternal, and unchanging (cf. Heb 13:8).

Along with dismissing the demonstration of His love at the cross for all of mankind, humanism is clueless of the great spiritual warfare being waged on planet earth; as with any war on a global scale, collateral damage is inevitable. Humanism will always evaluate the validity of theology by experience, choosing reason over revelation which leads to spiritual error and erroneous ideas about God and His followers.

Even though Job didn't have the privilege of inscripturated (or written) revelation as we enjoy to day, we know that he understood and embraced the incomprehensibility of God by faith (Job 5:9; 9:10-12; 11:7-11; 38:1-5) which is amazing in and of itself. There are countless believers ignorant of God's attributes though they have several Bibles in their homes! Job recognized the sovereignty of God and was fully aware that He had ordered these crises in his life, and yet Job did not attempt to hold God accountable for the devastation in his life, another incredible thing. Reason would argue to curse God for He was sovereign and could have prevented his children, wealth, and health being taken away. Job, however, reacted contrary to reason which is what made him a giant in the faith! 

Instead of cursing God he worshiped the LORD, blessed Him, and did not sin or charge God with any wrong doing (Job 1:20-22). He could have thrown in the towel, cursed God, and turned his back on Him, but he didn’t. So how do we explain Job’s response to a major calamity in his life? Job’s faith was not based upon reason but divine revelation based on the oral traditions of his ancestors passed down from Noah. Again, he didn't have the luxury of the completed revelation of God in written form as we enjoy today. So his faith response to personal catastrophe was not only aligned with what he was taught but also in alignment with the Scriptures we have today!

Faith is only viewed as irrational or illogical by humanism (cf.1 Cor 2:14). Faith moves beyond the boundaries of reason to find the answers to life’s questions in Divine revelation especially during those times when our world is turned completely upside down! Job accepted this great antinomy (cf. Job 1:21 with Job 13:15, supplier versus slayer) of God being sovereign and yet unaccountable for the evil in the sense of being its author or agent. 

This can only be explained by Job’s deep seated belief in the incomprehensibility of God that looks at the seemingly contradictory doctrines of faith (antinomies) and accepting both teachings as being true without genuine contradiction or explanation. Job was willing to take his trust in the incomprehensibility of God as far as he could take it, even if it meant the loss of his life (Job 13:15).

Humanism on the other hand ditches faith for reason demanding an either/or explanation and refusing to accept faith as an answer for any of the antinomies of Scripture because both teachings would be considered contradictory, and the answer is one or the other. For example, God is love and the suffering of mankind. Since the suffering of mankind is evident by all, the proposition that God is love is called into question for these two statements cannot coincide as both being true according to secular reasoning.

Job was fully aware in all of the darkness that descended upon him, his family, and everything that he owned that it was God (a God of love) who allowed for all of these evils to happen to him and stated as much (Job 12:9)! He saw the LORD as sovereign (“fell to the ground and worshiped,” Job 1:20), supplier (the LORD gave,” Job 1:21b), stripper (“the LORD has taken away,” Job 1:21b), and slayer (Job 13:15). This is an inescapable conclusion. 

The best approach in dealing with the problems of evil in the world as it relates to God is to trust in God, giving Him the benefit of the doubt, and recognizing that God is incomprehensible, and we are finite or limited in our understanding of God and the suffering in the world because of evil. We can drown in unbelief or trust the God of the Bible for our salvation knowing that all things work together for good (Rom 8:28). We may not see the good in the immediate, but it will eventually surface either here or in eternity. There is more going on in the world than we realize, and only God has the big picture; we must learn to rely on revelation other than our reason to make sense of things. Nothing enters our lives unless God approves of it, but regardless of what that may entail, God is in us and with us with its entrance for His glory and our good.

Even though Job was “the greatest of all the people of the East” (Job 1:3), he was confronted with a far greater greatness then he could ever imagine when he had the distinct privilege to experience a vision of the greatness of the power and sovereignty of God. Amidst that experience he was confronted with his own finiteness with a razor-sharp clarity before an incomprehensible, awe-inspiring God of the Universe. Job repented of those questions and answers that revealed his incapacity to understand either the question or the answer concerning God (Job 42:3).

If a great man of faith like Job could venture into the realm of the incomprehensibility of God and be rebuked, what does that say for us who drag God down to the level of humanity through our reasoning and speculations, that we are greater than Job? We must recognize our limitations that we are finite, but God Almighty is infinite in nature and not go beyond what God has revealed in the Scriptures concerning Himself.  

In the opening verse in the book of Job, Job is called “blameless and upright” (Job 1:1), but by the end of the book, Job abhors himself by his vision of the Divine (Job 42:5-6). This kind of response only happens to those who fear God and see Him for who He really is and is transformed by the experience according to biblical revelation; something secular reason could never do – lead someone to accept God’s revelation by faith. <><