I have been on this one social blogging website for about a decade, which seems kind of ridiculous when I say it out loud. But in that time, I have seen the Christian community on that site break into factions a few times over theological matters. The current movement is an opposition to the prosperity gospel.

What I find especially notable about it is that the condemnation of the prosperity gospel is happening alongside posts, rarely even on the same blog, that talk about 'claiming' miracles by the end of February or changes in the coming year. There doesn't seem to be a full recognition of the relationship between these things. The thing is, the prosperity gospel doesn't come out of nowhere. There are promises in scripture that, read without hearing the message the Bible actually contains, sound an awful lot like the prosperity gospel. There are stories about servants of God receiving great blessings. Why should we assume these don't apply to us?

The people of Jeremiah's day had good reason to believe what the false prophets were saying. It wasn't just comfortable for them to hear, it sounded like it made sense. God had said He would establish the throne of David forever, He had protected Judah many times in the past, He had made promises of protection and wealth and success. In light of that history, it certainly sounded like God wouldn't let the kingdom fall. The problem with the interpretation, like so many other false reads of scripture, is that they do not include a knowledge of God Himself.

The Word of God is a higher authority than our interpretation or our experiences. We have to hear what God is actually saying to us and our situation. We need to constantly go back to the scripture, and seek to truly know the God behind it, if we are ever going to make sense of the claims being made within it.

Job is a type of Christ, in that we see in him a picture of some aspect of who Jesus would be and how He would fulfill the promises of God. This is nowhere more apparent than in chapter 42.

​Job has gone through a great trial. A massive affliction that he did not deserve was laid on his head, costing him all of his wealth and family (except his wife, who turned against him) and drawing others to point to it as evidence of evil in his heart. He bore the marks of condemnation on his very body. He was raised up for them as a symbolic curse, a lesson for those who oppose God, though he never had and those who made the accusation did so based on a misunderstanding of who God is. Job is the essence of the suffering servant, the righteous one who endures great trial. But the imagery that ties Job to Christ does not end at his suffering. In chapter 42, we get some more very important details. 

There are a few things here worth noting. One, Eliphaz is probably a descendant of Abraham. Genesis 36:10-11 tells us that Esau had a son named Eliphaz to his wife Adah, and Eliphaz had a son named Teman. If he is not to be read as an archetype, then, Eliphaz the Temanite is likely from the clan of Teman and bearing a family name. Bildad the Shuhite may also be descended from Abraham, a member of the clan of Shuah, a son of Abraham by his second wife, Keturah, from Genesis 25. What we have in Job 42, then, is a descendant of Abraham who lives outside the promise made to Abraham receiving direct word from God that the only way he and his companions (another descendant of Abraham outside the promise, and a man likely unrelated to Abraham at all) can be made right before God is to go to the man they had scorned as cursed by God and welcome the sacrifice that he would make on their behalf. Through this, God did not directly promise to accept them, but did accept Job because of his sacrifice and, near as we can tell, accept the others on Job's behalf.

Why did Job have so much blessing at the end of his life? The end of the book records a massive amount of wealth and a broad family coming to Job, and I have heard it preached as though God was repaying Job for all that had been taken away from him. But the verse above seems to indicate another angle: God did not reward Job as a direct result of his suffering, but as a result of his sacrifice and prayer offered on behalf of the people who had condemned him.

Let's tie this all together. Job points forward to Christ not only as the suffering servant, but as the only way to find restoration to God for both the blood of Abraham and the gentile, especially because both parties have rejected and condemned him due to a misunderstanding of who God is. As a result of interceding and making sacrifice on their behalf, God not only accepts them but glorifies him. All of this is true of Christ.

We, by being born of the spirit and turning to the Christ that the world has rejected, are welcomed by God while Christ, who was perfect but suffered and offered his own life as sacrifice on our behalf, is glorified for His work to save us. The whole gospel is imaged in the Old Testament, if only we will allow ourselves to see it.

How many times have we heard atheists, when asked about what they would do if they actually met God, explain that they would demand answers about how the world is. "How dare you," general thrust of these questions tends to go, "how dare you allow a world that has these things in it?"​

When God finally addresses Job, starting in chapter 38 of the book named for him, He challenges Job to stand up and raise charges. He charges Job multiple times to "gird up your loins and stand up like a man" and lay out his case against God in the midst of his trials. Job, for his part, answers very briefly in chapter 40.

The theme of the day's reading is God's supreme power, but beyond that, God's supreme right to judge. God is the very foundation of the concept of justice, He is the cornerstone upon which everything we know and value rests. We cannot hold Him to a standard because He is the one true standard, and we can never know either His creation or the proper application of His law better than He does. He creates, He sustains, He tames the most powerful wild forces and humbles the most exalted mortal soul. Confronted with His glory, none may stand and lay a charge. If we allow ourselves for even a moment to believe that we have something to condemn in Him, then our idea of God is a pale comparison to the One revealed in scripture.

We must remember that this God we serve is so much greater than we can even imagine, and His methods are perfect on a scale we cannot comprehend. When we get lost in our concerns about the troubles we face in this life, we can come back to confidence in the knowledge that God has things under control, God knows what He is doing and what He is allowing, and that His promise that those in Him shall be glorified with Him will not be interrupted by momentary muck and mire. And we can look forward to the completion of His perfect plan and justice, and say with Abraham,