penetrating light back on Israel's history, and especially on the
glowing pictures of prosperity in Solomon's time, compelling all to look
to the foundation and motives of their faith, marks a most important era
in Hebrew thought. It is, we may say, the first note of a piercing
strain which thrills on to the present time. Taking rise here, the
spirit of inquiry and self-examination has already sifted religious
belief and separated much of the chaff from the wheat. Yet not all. The
comfort and hope of believers are not yet lifted above the reach of
Satan's javelin. While salvation is thought of mainly as self-enjoyment,
can we say that the purity of religion is assured? When happiness is
promised as the result of faith, whether happiness now, or hereafter in
heavenly glory, the whole fabric of religion is built on a foundation
insecure, because it may be apart from truth, holiness, and virtue. It
does not avail to say that holiness is happiness, and so introduce
personal craving under cover of the finest spiritual idea. To grant that
happiness is in any sense the distinctive issue of faith and
faithfulness, to keep happiness in view in submitting to the restraints
and bearing the burdens of religion, is to build the highest and best on
the shifting sand of personal taste and craving. Make happiness that for
which the believer is to endure and strive, allow the sense of personal
comfort and immunity from change to enter into his picture of the reward
he may expect, and the question returns, Doth this man serve God for
nought? Life is not happiness, and the gift of God is everlasting life.
Only when we keep to this supreme word in the teaching of Christ, and
seek the fulness and liberty and purity of life, apart from that
happiness which is at bottom the satisfaction of predominant desires,
shall we escape from the constantly recurring doubt that threatens to
undermine and destroy our faith.
If we look further, we find that the very error which has so long
impoverished religion prevails in philanthropy and politics, prevails
there at the present time to an alarming extent. The favourite aim of
social meliorists is to secure happiness for all. While life is the
main thing, everywhere and always, strength and breadth and nobleness
of life, their dream is to make the warfare and service of man upon
the earth so easy that he shall have no need for earnest personal
endeavour. He is to serve for happiness, and have no service to do
that may even in the time of his probation interfere with happiness.
The pity bestowed on those who toil and endure in great cities and on
bleak hillsides is that they fail of happiness. Persons who have no
conception that vigour and endurance are spiritually profitable, and
others who once knew but have forgotten the benefits of vigour and the
gains of endurance, would undo the very order and discipline of God.
Are human beings to be encouraged to seek happiness, taught to doubt
God because they have little pleasure, given to understand that those
who enjoy have the best of the universe, and that they must be lifted
up to this level or lose all? Then the sweeping condemnation will hang
over the world that it is following a new god and has said farewell to
the stern Lord of Providence.
Much may be justly said in condemnation of the jealous, critical
spirit of the Adversary. Yet it remains true that his criticism
expresses what would be a fair charge against men who passed this
stage of existence without full trial. And the Almighty is represented
as confirming this when He puts Job into the hands of Satan. He has
challenged the Adversary, opening the question of man's fidelity and
sincerity. He knows what will result. It is not the will of some
eternal Satan that is the motive, but the will of God. The Adversary's
scornful question is woven into God's wise ordinance, and made to
subserve a purpose which completely transcends the base hope involved
in it. The life of Job has not yet had the difficult and strenuous
probation necessary to assured faith, or rather to the consciousness
of a faith immovably rooted in God. It would be utterly inconsistent
with the Divine wisdom to suppose God led on and beguiled by the sneer
of His own creature to do what was needless or unfair, or indeed in
any sense opposed to His own plan for His creation. And we shall find
that throughout the book it is assumed by Job, implied by the author,
that what is done is really the doing of God Himself. The Satan of
this Divine poem remains altogether subsidiary as an agent. He may
propose, but God disposes. He may pride himself on the keenness of his
intellect; but wisdom, compared to which his subtlety is mere
blundering, orders the movement of events for good and holy ends.
The Adversary makes his proposal: "Put forth now Thine hand, and touch
all that he hath, and he will bid Thee farewell." He does not propose to
make use of sensual temptation. The only method of trial he ventures to
suggest is deprivation of the prosperity for which he believes Job has
served God. He takes on him to indicate what the Almighty may do,
acknowledging that the Divine power, and not his, must bring into Job's
life those losses and troubles that are to test his faith.
After all some may ask, Is not Satan endeavouring to tempt the Almighty?
And if it were true that the prosperous condition of Job, or any man,
implies God's entire satisfaction with his faith and dutifulness and
with his character as a man, if, further, it must be taken as true that
sorrow and loss are evil, then this proposal of the Satan is a
temptation. It is not so in reality, for "God cannot be tempted to
evil." No creature could approach His holiness with a temptation. But
Satan's intention is to move God. He considers success and happiness to
be intrinsically good, and poverty and bereavement to be intrinsically
evil. That is to say, we have here the spirit of unfaith endeavouring to
destroy God as well as man. For the sake of truth professedly, for his
own pride of will really, he would arrest the righteousness and grace of
the Divine. He would unmake God and orphan man. The scheme is futile of
course. God can allow his proposal, and be no less the Infinitely
generous, wise, and true. The Satan shall have his desire; but not a
shadow shall fall on the ineffable glory.
At this point, however, we must pause. The question that has just
arisen can only be answered after a survey of human life in its
relation to God, and especially after an examination of the meaning of
the term _evil_ as applied to our experiences. We have certain clear
principles to begin with: that "God cannot be tempted with evil, and
He Himself tempteth no man"; that all God does must show not less
beneficence, not less love, but more as the days go by. These
principles will have to be vindicated when we proceed to consider the
losses, what may be called the disasters that follow each other in
quick succession and threaten to crush the life they try.
Meanwhile, casting a glance at those happy dwellings in the land of Uz,
we see all going on as before, no mind darkened by the shadow that is
gathering, or in the least aware of the controversy in heaven so full of
moment to the family circle. The pathetic ignorance, the blessed
ignorance in which a man may live hangs upon the picture. The cheerful
bustle of the homestead goes on, the feasts and sacrifices, diligent
labour rewarded with the produce of fields, the wine and oil of
vineyards and olive gardens, fleeces of the flock and milk of the kine.
IV.
_THE SHADOW OF GOD'S HAND._
CHAP. i. 13-22.
Coming now to the sudden and terrible changes which are to prove the
faithfulness of the servant of God, we must not fail to observe that
in the development of the drama the trial of Job personally is the
sole consideration. No account is taken of the character of those who,
being connected with his fortunes and happiness, are now to be swept
away that he may suffer. To trace their history and vindicate Divine
righteousness in reference to each of them is not within the scope of
the poem. A typical man is taken as hero, and we may say the
discussion covers the fate of all who suffer, although attention is
fixed on him alone.
The writer is dealing with a story of patriarchal life, and himself is
touched with the Semitic way of thinking. A certain disregard of the
subordinate human characters must not be reckoned strange. His
thoughts, far-reaching as they are, run in a channel very different
from ours. The world of his book is that of family and clan ideas. The
author saw more than any man of his time; but he could not see all
that engages modern speculation. Besides, the glory of God is the
dominant idea of the poem; not men's right to joy, or peace, or even
life; but God's right to be wholly Himself and greatly true. In the
light of this high thought we must be content to have the story of one
soul traced with such fulness as might be compassed, the others left
practically untouched. If the sufferings of the man whom God approves
can be explained in harmony with the glory of Divine justice, then
the sudden calamities that fall upon his servants and children will
also be explained. For, although death is in a sense an ultimate
thing, and loss and affliction, however great, do not mean so much as
death; yet, on the other hand, to die is the common lot, and the quick
stroke appears merciful in comparison with Job's dreadful experiences.
Those who are killed by lightning or by the sword do but swiftly and
without protracted pain fall into the hands of God. We need not
conclude that the writer means us to regard the sons and daughters of
Job and his servants as mere chattels, like the camels and sheep,
although the people of the desert would have so regarded them. But the
main question presses; the range of the discussion must be limited;
and the tradition which forms the basis of the poem is followed by the
author whenever it supplies the elements of his inquiry.
We have entirely refused the supposition that the Almighty forgot His
righteousness and grace in putting the wealth and happiness of Job
into the hands of Satan. The trials we now see falling one after the
other are not sent because the Adversary has suggested them, but
because it is right and wise, for the glory of God and for the
perfecting of faith, that Job should suffer them. What is God's doing
is not in this case nor in any case evil. He cannot wrong His servant
that glory may come to Himself.
And just here arises a problem which enters into all religious
thought, the wrong solution of which depraves many a philosophy, while
the right understanding of it sheds a flood of light on our life in
this world. A thousand tongues, Christian, non-Christian, and
neo-Christian, affirm that life is for enjoyment. What gives enjoyment
is declared to be good, what gives most enjoyment is reckoned best,
and all that makes for pain and suffering is held to be evil. It is
allowed that pain endured now may bring pleasure hereafter, and that
for the sake of future gain a little discomfort may be chosen. But it
is evil nevertheless. One doing his best for men would be expected to
give them happiness at once and, throughout life, as much of it as
possible. If he inflicted pain in order to enhance pleasure by and by,
he would have to do so within the strictest limits. Whatever reduces
the strength of the body, the capacity of the body for enjoyment and
the delight of the mind accompanying the body's vigour, is declared
bad, and to do anything which has this effect is to do evil or wrong.
Such is the ethic of the philosophy finally and powerfully stated by
Mr. Spencer. It has penetrated as widely as he could wish; it
underlies volumes of Christian sermons and semi-Christian schemes. If
it be true, then the Almighty of the Book of Job, bringing affliction,
sorrow, and pain upon His servant, is a cruel enemy of man, to be
hated, not revered. This matter needs to be considered at some length.
The notion that pain is evil, that he who suffers is placed at moral
disadvantage, appears very plainly in the old belief that those
conditions and surroundings of our life which minister to enjoyment
are the proofs of the goodness of God on which reliance must be placed
so far as nature and providence testify of Him. Pain and sorrow, it
was held, need to be accounted for by human sin or otherwise; but we
know that God is good because there is enjoyment in the life He gives.
Paley, for example, says that the proof of the Divine _goodness_ rests
upon contrivances everywhere to be seen for the purpose of giving us
pleasure. He tells us that, when God created the human species,
"either He wished them happiness, or He wished them misery, or He was
indifferent and unconcerned about either"; and he goes on to prove
that it must be our happiness He desired, for, otherwise, wishing our
misery, "He might have made everything we tasted, bitter; everything
we saw, loathsome; everything we touched, a sting; every smell, a
stench; and every sound, a discord:" while, if He had been indifferent
about our happiness we must impute all enjoyment we have "to our good
fortune," that is, to bare chance, an impossible supposition. Paley's
further survey of life leads to the conclusion that God has it as His
chief aim to make His creatures happy and, in the circumstances, does
the best He can for them, better far than they are commonly disposed
to think. The agreement of this position with that of Spencer lies in
the presupposition that goodness can be proved only by arrangements
for giving pleasure. If God is good for this reason, what follows when
He appoints pain, especially pain that brings no enjoyment in the long
run? Either He is not altogether "good" or He is not all-powerful.
The author of the Book of Job does not enter into the problem of pain
and affliction with the same deliberate attempt to exhaust the subject
as Paley has made; but he has the problem before him. And in
considering the trial of Job as an example of the suffering and sorrow
of man in this world of change, we find a strong ray of light thrown
upon the darkness. The picture is a Rembrandt; and where the radiance
falls all is sharp and bright. But the shadows are deep; and we must
seek, if possible, to make out what lies in those shadows. We shall
not understand the Book of Job, nor form a just opinion of the
author's inspiration, nor shall we understand the Bible as a whole,
unless we reach a point of view clear of the mistakes that stultify
the reasoning of Paley and plunge the mind of Spencer, who refuses to
be called a materialist, into the utter darkness of materialism.
* * * * *
Now, as to enjoyment, we have the capacity for it, and it flows to us
from many external objects as well as from the operation of our own
minds and the putting forth of energy. It is in the scheme of things
ordained by God that His creatures shall enjoy. On the other hand,
trouble, sorrow, loss, bodily and mental pain, are also in the scheme
of things. They are provided for in numberless ways--in the play of
natural forces causing injuries, dangers from which we cannot escape;
in the limitations of our power; in the antagonisms and
disappointments of existence; in disease and death. They are provided
for by the very laws that bring pleasure, made inevitable under the
same Divine ordinance. Some say it detracts from the goodness of God
to admit that as He appoints means of enjoyment so He also provides
for pain and sorrow and makes these inseparable from life. And this
opinion runs into the extreme dogmatic assertion that "good," by which
we are to understand _happiness_,
"Shall fall
At last far off, at last to all."
Many hold this to be necessary to the vindication of God's goodness.
But the source of the whole confusion lies here, that we prejudge the
question by calling pain evil. The light-giving truth for modern
perplexity is that pain and loss are not _evil_, are in no sense
_evil_.
Because we desire happiness and dislike pain, we must not conclude
that pain is bad and that, when any one suffers, it is because he or
another has done wrong. There is the mistake that vitiates theological
thought, making men run to the extreme either of denying God
altogether because there is suffering in the world, or of framing a
rose-water eschatology. Pain is one thing, moral evil is quite another
thing. He who suffers is not necessarily a wrong-doer; and when,
through the laws of nature, God inflicts pain, there is no evil nor
anything approaching wrong. In Scripture, indeed, pain and evil are
apparently identified. "Shall we receive good at the hands of God, and
shall we not receive evil?" "Is there evil in the city, and the Lord
hath not done it?" "Thus saith the Lord, Behold I will bring upon
Judah, and upon all the inhabitants of Jerusalem, all the evil that I
have pronounced against them." In these and many other passages the
very thing seems to be meant which has just been denied, for evil and
suffering appear to be made identical. But human language is not a
perfect instrument of thought, any more than thought is a perfect
channel of truth. One word has to do duty in different senses. Moral
evil, wrongness, on the one hand; bodily pain, the misery of loss and
defeat, on the other hand--both are represented by one Hebrew word
[רַע--root meaning, _displeased_]. In the following passages, where
moral evil is clearly meant, it occurs just as in those previously
quoted: "Wash you, make you clean, cease to do evil, learn to do
well"; "The face of the Lord is against them that do evil." The
different meanings which one Hebrew word may bear are not generally
confused in translation. In this case, however, the confusion has
entered into the most modern language. From a highly esteemed thinker
the following sentence may be quoted by way of example: "The other
religions did not feel evil like Israel; it did not stand in such
complete antagonism to their idea of the Supreme, the Creator and
Sovereign of man, nor in such absolute contradiction to their notion
of what ought to be; and so they either reconciled themselves as best
they could to the evil that was necessary, or invented means by which
men could escape from it by escaping from existence." The singular
misapprehension of Divine providence which underlies a statement like
this can only be got rid of by recognising that enjoyment and
suffering are not the good and evil of life, that both of them stand
quite apart from what is intrinsically good and bad in a moral sense,
and that they are simply means to an end in the providence of God.
It is not difficult, of course, to see how the idea of pain and the idea
of moral evil have been linked together. It is by the thought that
suffering is punishment for evil done; and that the suffering is
therefore itself evil. Pain was simply penalty inflicted by an offended
heavenly power. The evil of a man's doings came back to him, made itself
felt in his suffering. This was the explanation of all that was
unpleasant, disastrous and vexing in the lot of man. He would enjoy
always, it was conceived, if wrong-doing or failure in duty to the
higher powers did not kindle divine anger against him. True, the
wrong-doing might not be his own. The son might suffer for the parent's
fault. Iniquity might be remembered to children's children and fall
terribly on those who had not themselves transgressed. The fates pursued
the descendants of an impious man. But wrong done somewhere, rebellion
of some one against a divinity, was always the antecedent of pain and
sorrow and disaster. And as the other religions thought, so, in this
matter, did that of Israel. To the Hebrew the deep conviction of this,
as Dr. Fairbairn has said, made poverty and disease peculiarly
abhorrent. In Psalm lxxxix. the prosperity of David is depicted, and
Jehovah speaks of the covenant that must be kept: "If his children
forsake my law, and walk not in my judgments; ... then will I visit
their transgression with the rod, and their iniquity with stripes." The
trouble has fallen, and out of the depth of it, attributing to past sin
all defeat and disaster from which the people suffer--the breaking down
of the hedges, curtailment of the vigour of youth, overthrow in war--the
psalmist cries, "How long, O Lord, wilt Thou hide Thyself for ever? How
long shall Thy wrath burn like fire? O remember how short my time is:
for what vanity hast Thou created all the children of men?" There is
here no thought that anything painful or afflictive could manifest the
fatherhood of God; it must proceed from His anger, and force the mind
back upon the memory of sin, some transgression that has caused the
Almighty to suspend His kindness for a time.
Here it was the author of Job found the thought of his people. With
this he had to harmonise the other beliefs--peculiarly theirs--that
the lovingkindness of the Lord is over all His works, that God who is
supremely good cannot inflict moral injury on any of His covenanted
servants. And the difficulty he felt survives. The questions are still
urged: Is not pain bound up with wrong-doing? Is not suffering the
mark of God's displeasure? Are they not evil, therefore? And, on the
other hand, Is not enjoyment appointed to him who does right? Does not
the whole scheme of Divine providence, as the Bible sets it forth,
including the prospect it opens into the eternal future, associate
happiness with well-doing and pain with evil-doing? We desire
enjoyment, and cannot help desiring it. We dislike pain, disease, and
all that limits our capacity for pleasure. Is it not in accordance
with this that Christ appears as the Giver of light and peace and joy
to the race of men?
These questions look difficult enough. Let us attempt to answer them.
Pleasure and pain, happiness and suffering, are elements of creaturely
experience appointed by God. The right use of them makes life, the wrong
use of them mars it. They are ordained, all of them in equal degree, to
a good end; for all that God does is done in perfect love as well as in
perfect justice. It is no more wonderful that a good man should suffer
than that a bad man should suffer; for the good man, the man who
believes in God and therefore in goodness, making a right use of
suffering, will gain by it in the true sense; he will reach a deeper and
nobler life. It is no more wonderful that a bad man, one who disbelieves
in God and therefore in goodness, should be happy than that a good man
should be happy, the happiness being God's appointed means for both to
reach a higher life. The main element of this higher life is vigour, but
not of the body. The Divine purpose is _spiritual_ evolution. That
gratification of the sensuous side of our nature for which physical
health and a well-knit organism are indispensable--paramount in the
pleasure-philosophy--is not neglected, but is made subordinate in the
Divine culture of life. The grace of God aims at the life of the
spirit--power to love, to follow righteousness, to dare for justice'
sake, to seek and grasp the true, to sympathise with men and bear with
them, to bless them that curse, to suffer and be strong. To promote this
vitality all God appoints is fitted--pain as well as pleasure, adversity
as well as prosperity, sorrow as well as joy, defeat as well as success.
We wonder that suffering is so often the result of imprudence. On the
ordinary theory the fact is inexplicable, for imprudence has no dark
colour of ethical faultiness. He who by an error of judgment plunges
himself and his family into what appears irretrievable disaster, may, by
all reckoning, be almost blameless in character. If suffering is held to
be penal, no reference to the general sin of humanity will account for
the result. But the reason is plain. The suffering is disciplinary. The
nobler life at which Divine providence aims must be sagacious no less
than pure, guided by sound reason no less than right feeling.