October 1931
T h e
K i n g ’ s
B u s i n e s s
442
SAINTS THAT SUFFER . . . By LEWIS SPERRY CHAFER, Dallas, Texas
Then his three wholly sincere friends came to comfort him—“miserable comforters,” Job termed them. The major part of this great drama is given in three cycles of argument between Job and his three friends. Each cycle is measured by an address by one of the three friends and an answer from Job. In the first cycle the friends cautiously intimate their belief that Job is suffering because of evil which he has done. In the second cycle, they are more outspoken in this opinion; and in the third cycle,
J c J oth the scriptures and hu man experience have been witnessing throughout past mil lenniums to the fact that, in the present life, the godly often suffer, while the wicked continue in prosperity and comfort. The problem is as old as the race, for in all generations, the human mind has been perplexed, since it naturally entertains the notion that suffering is a direct penalty for wrongdoing. The psalmist turns often to the contemplation of this question, and its solution is the cen
they disregard Job’s feelings, abandon the more gentle speech that characterized their talk at first, and directly accuse Job of evil. But Job maintains his integrity in all this discussion; that is, he refuses to acknowl edge sin which he knows he has not commit ted. His admissions of imperfection are sin cere; but he will not play the hypocrite to the extent of confessing wrong which he has not done.
tral theme of the oldest book in the Bible. In the relationship which exists be- tweeh Christ and the believer, there are, broadly speaking, three classifications of suffering: (1) the sufferings of Christ upon the cross and at the hand of His own Fa ther, and in this suffering none may share, except to appropriate the eternal value which His sufferings secured; (2) the suf ferings of Christ which He receives at the hands of men, in which the Christian is privileged to share; and (3) the sufferings of the believer under the chastening hand of the Father, in which Christ has no share, though His sympathy and love toward His own are never withdrawn. The problem as to why the godly suffer,
Thus the theory that the godly suffer because of evil they have wrought does not solve the problem created by the sufferings of Job; nor does it answer the question as it arises today. The one who suffers as a pun ishment for sin will be conscious of the sin for which he is suffering, and those who suffer without a consciousness of an issue between themselves and God will do well to look for another reason for their afflictions. II. S uffering on the P art of the C hild of G od M ay be a D eveloping D iscipline When Job’s three friends cease their contention, the discussion is taken up by a young man named Elihu. It it probable that this young man had been present and lis tened, with growing unrest, to all that Job’s three friends had said. It is possible that, through intimate observa tions, he may have known that Job was no less a perfect character than Jehovah had declared him to be. Elihu advances the theory that suffering on the part of righteous people is a developing discipline both in the knowledge of God and in the forming of personal character. This is expressed particularly in the closing words of Elihu’s ad dress (Job 37:19-24). Likewise, Job himself, when his sufferings are ended, testifies to this same conception as a true estimation of the value of his own sufferings. It is then that he says to Jehovah: “I know that thou canst do everything, and that no thought can be withholden from thee. Who is he that hideth counsel without knowl edge? therefore have I uttered that I understood not; things too wonderful for me, which I knew not. Hear, I beseech thee, and I will speak: I will demand of thee, and declare thou unto me. I have heard of thee by the hearing of the ear: but now mine eye seeth thee. Wherefore I abhor myself, and repent in dust and ashes” (Job 42 :2-6). Without a Bible or a written message, Job is reaching out to the apprehension of a truth which later it pleased
DR. CHAFER
though considered in various portions of the Bible, is given its complete and final solution in the book of Job, and in that book, three reasons are advanced. I. S uffering on the P art of a C hild of G od M ay be P un ishment for W rongdoing This is the solution of the problem of Job’s suffering, which was offered by his three friends, and it is also the solution of all commentators who insist that Job was a self-righteous, unspiritual man who justly merited the crushing penalty which fell upon him. Such conceptions ignore the fact that, within the first two chapters of the book of Job, Jehovah declares three times that Job was “perfect and upright, and one that feared God, and es chewed evil.” Twice Jehovah speaks of him as “my servant Job,” and twice He states that “there is none like him in the earth.” To ignore this unqualified, final, unim peachable estimation of Job, as one must do in order to es tablish the theory that Jehovah’s penalties were falling upon a sinning saint, is to classify one with Job’s three friends against whom Jehovah’s wrath was finally kindled, when He said: “Ye have not spoken of me the thing that is right.” They were required to go to Job' with multi plied sacrifices to cover their own wicked untruthfulness, and their only hope was that righteous Job would pray for them. Job’s afflictions had reached their final degree of in tensity when his children, his property, his health, and his personal comfort had been swept away, and when his wife had solemnly counseled him to “curse God and die.”
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