Job 37:23 Touching the Almighty, we cannot find him out: he is excellent in power, and in judgment, and in plenty of justice… "He is excellent...in judgment." Is there any judgment displayed in the distribution of things? Is the globe ill-made? Are all things in chaos? Is there anywhere the sign of a plummet line, a measuring tape? Are things apportioned as if by a wise administrator? How do things fit one another? Who has hesitated to say that the economy of nature, so far as we know it, is a wondrous economy? Explain it as men may, we all come to a common conclusion, that there is a marvellous fitness of things, a subtle relation and interrelation, a harmony quite musical, an adaptation which though it could never have been invented by our reason, instantly secures the sanction of our understanding as being good, fit, and wholly wise. "And in plenty of justice." Now Elihu touches the moral chord. It is most noticeable that throughout the whole of the Bible the highest revelations are sustained by the strongest moral appeals. If the Bible dealt only in ecstatic contemplations, in religious musings, in poetical romances, we might rank it with other sacred books, and pay it what tribute might be due to fine literary inventiveness and expression; but whatever there may be in the Bible super. natural, transcendental, mysterious, there is also judgment, right, justice: everywhere evil is burned with unquenchable fire, and right is commended and honoured as being of the quality of God. The moral discipline of Christianity sustains its highest imaginings. Let there be no divorce between what is spiritual in Christianity and what is ethical, — between the revelation sublime and the justice concrete, social, as between man and man; let the student keep within his purview all the parts and elements of this intricate revelation, and then let him say how the one balances the other, and what cooperation and harmony result from the interrelation of metaphysics, spiritual revelations, high imaginings, and simple duty, and personal sacrifice, industry as of stewardship, of trusteeship. This is the view which Elihu takes. God to him was "excellent in power, and in judgment, and in plenty of justice; He will not afflict." A curious expression this, and differently rendered. Some render it, He will not answer; or, He will not be called upon to answer for His ways; He will give an account of Himself to none; there is a point beyond which He will not permit approach. Yet the words as they stand in the Authorised Version are supported by many collateral passages, and therefore may be taken as literal in this instance. He will not willingly afflict; He is no tyrant; He is not a despot who drinks the wine of blood, and thrives on the miseries of His creation: when He chastens it is that He may purify and ennoble the character, and bring before the vision of man lights and promises which otherwise would escape his attention. Affliction as administered by God is good; sorrow has its refining and enriching uses. The children of God are indeed bowed down, sorely chastened, visited by disappointments; oftentimes they lay their weary heads upon pillows of thorns. Nowhere is that denied in the Bible; everywhere is it patent in our own open history; and yet Christianity has so wrought within us, as to its very spirit and purpose, that we can accept affliction as a veiled angel, and sorrow as one of God's night angels, coming to us in cloud and gloom, and yet in the darkest sevenfold midnight of loneliness whispering to us Gospel words, and singing to us in tender, minor tones as no other voice ever sang to the orphaned heart. Christians can say this; Christians do say this. They say it not the less distinctly because there are men who mock them. They must take one of two courses; they must follow out their own impressions and realisations of spiritual ministry within the heart; or they must, forsooth, listen to men who do not know them, and allow their piety to be sneered away, and their deepest spiritual realisations to be mocked out of them, or carried away by some wind of fool's laughter. They have made up their minds to be more rational; they have resolved to construe the events of their own experience, and to accept the sacred conclusion, and that conclusion is that God does not willingly afflict the children of men, that the rod is in a Father's hand, that no chastening for the present seemeth to be joyous, but grievous, nevertheless, afterward it worketh out the peaceable fruit of righteousness unto them which are exercised thereby. Believe me, they are not to be laughed out of that position. They are reasonable men, men of great sagacity, men of affairs, men who can deal with questions of state and empire; and they, coming into the sanctuary — the inmost, sacred sanctuary — are not ashamed to pray. This is the strength of Christian faith. When the Christian is ashamed of his Lord the argument for Christianity is practically, and temporarily, at least, dead. Why do we not speak more distinctly as to the results of our own observation and experience? Great abstract truths admit of being accented by personal testimony. "Come and hear, all ye that fear God," said one, "and I will declare what He hath done for my soul." If a witness will confine himself to what he himself has known, felt and handled of the Word of Life, then in order to destroy the argument you must first destroy his character. (Joseph Parker, D. D.) Parallel Verses KJV: Touching the Almighty, we cannot find him out: he is excellent in power, and in judgment, and in plenty of justice: he will not afflict. |
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