Power With God

Exemplified In Job

Read: Job 1:6-11; 2:9, 10; 42:7, 8, 10

Job's Spiritual History

Job is introduced to us as a man in great fullness: fullness of possessions and of wealth, fullness of good works and of personal righteousness, and standing before God in acceptance. Then there begins a course in his experience, the meaning and the secret occasion of which is altogether hidden from him. He knows not the why nor the wherefore, but he finds himself suddenly in the course of being stripped of everything. One thing after another is stripped from him - all his possessions, all his relations, all his friends and all his righteousness which is of works - and with it all come to investing, the encompassing, the onrushing of those hostile forces with their suggestions of accusation, condemnation, judgment. There is an encompassing of spiritual antagonism and of a spirit of death, with God hidden, withdrawn behind the clouds, and Job is left stark, bare, apparently alone, a stripped and afflicted men, oppressed in spirit, bewildered in soul and in anguish of body. The circle of all his relationships narrows to the closest, the nearest - his own wife - who bids him renounce God and, in so doing, surrender his life, for that is what is meant. The man has come right down from a great height and a great fullness to a very deep depth of utter emptiness, weakness, helplessness, and is as good as dead.

In the course of that history a transition takes place. You an hardly perceive it, but it does take place. It is a transition from a righteousness which is of works to the righteousness which is of faith. Whereas earlier he pleads his own cause on the basis of his own righteousness and his own works, you find him being stripped of all that and at the end of it all he is saying, "Wherefore I abhor myself (Job 42:6). And yet he is still holding on to God, but this is  righteousness which has no foundation in his own goodness and works now. It is a righteousness which is by faith in the mercy of God. With that transition, that change from one basis to another, something else has happened. satan has gradually been edged out of court. At the beginning satan is there in full power - or almost so - with a great deal of liberty, doing pretty much as he likes. Then there is an almost imperceptible point at which satan has stepped out of the scene and Job is left alone with God. satan has had all his ground taken away, he has had to withdraw and give up the fight, he is completely worsted. Then comes resurrection from the dead into a place of new spiritual power, opening the door for God to come in in a new way, investing Job with a new fullness which is not now the fullness of his own works, but the fullness of Divine grace; not the fruit of his own labors, but the gift of God; not what he himself has brought about, but what God has given him. That is Job's spiritual history in a few words.

Christ's Humiliation and Exaltation

In saying that, we are able to look further and discern Another, a greater than Job, standing in His own fullness and in all His own rights, accepted with God, of whom God  could say "There is not another - not only in the earth, but in the universe - like Him." And then, because there is something in the universe that is evil, something that has to be undone, to be robbed of its power and put out of court, that One in all His fullness is steadily stripped and laid bare in the vortex of this terrific controversy. Picturesque words are used in the vortex of this terrific controversy. Picturesque words are used to describe these forces of evil: "They compassed me about like bees" (Psalm 118:12). The whole scene is set in a spiritual realm where the forces of evil are rampant, accusing,condemning, judging, appraising. It is an atmosphere of terrible antagonism and terrible spiritual death. He is brought right down, "crucified through weakness" (2 Corinthians 13;4), stripped stark naked, emptied, with God's face hidden behind the cloud. "Thou hast forsaken Me!" You can almost hear that in Job from time to time, "Thou hast forsaken me!" How much more real was that in the case of this greater One. "Having put off from Himself the principalities and the powers, He made a show of them openly, triumphing over them in it" (Col. 2:15). They are ruled out of court, the great spiritual opposition has been brought low. And up from the grave He arose, back to a place of new power, opening the door for God to come in in a new way and make Him a minister to His own brethren with a new significance, investing Him with all the heavenly fullness. It is in principle the same as Job's experience.

Paul's Stripping and Filling

The principle is repeated in limited, much more limited, ways. Read that little Letter to the Philippians and hear the Apostle speaking about the fullness which was his, the righteousness of works. He could speak about being full,about the time when he had all things, things which were gain to him. And then this man was stripped of it all. There is no man in the New Testament who speaks more of his own unrighteousness and unworthiness and of the worthlessness of the righteousness by works than does Paul. He was stripped of it all, everything in this life, everything natural, his own ability to accomplish anything, to achieve anything. And yet, with all the suffering and all the terrific assaults of evil powers upon this man, we see him living in the power of a resurrection, of an ascension union with Christ which says, "I have all" (Phil. 4:18); "All things are yours" (1 Cor. 3:21). All things are ours. You see, this is the same principle.

Through Suffering To Glory

In saying that, you have got to the heart of this whole matter of what is power with God, what is the ground upon which God comes in. It is just contained in that phrase, through suffering to glory. Job suffered for the rights of God, that is the point. He did not know it, but that is what it meant.

~T. Austin-Sparks~

(continued with # 2)