a reading: delighting the father's heart

(From the book „The Gospel According to Job“ by Mike Mason, 1994)

Then Job replied: „Indeed, I know that this is true.
But how can a mortal be righteous before God?“ (Job 9,1–2)

Job now launches into the very heart of his argument as he poses the central riddle of this book: „How can a mortal be righteous before
God?“ It seems odd to hear this question from Job, whose entire case
against his friends rests upon his confidence in his own righteousness.
But while the friends ask this question ironically, not believing there
can be any answer (see 4:17, 15:14), Job asks it in deadly earnest,
implying not just that there must be an answer, but that without an
answer all is lost. In taking this position Job commits himself to
doing exactly what the gospel does – that is, he sets about to redefine
the very meaning of the word „righteous“.
In essence Job’s reply to Bildad might be paraphrased as follows: „What you say is true, Bildad, but it ist not helpful, because it does not go far enough. The exacting God you describe is a God whom no human being could ever satisfy. How could a mere mortal even begin to be righteous before such a God? No, there must be more to Him than that. There must be something more to the mystery of godliness than cold, mathematical justice. There are more things in Heaven and earth, Bildad, than are dreamt of in your philosophy.“
In some ways „philosophy“ really is a better term than „theology“ for the friends’ relentlessly logical way of thinking. The God whose ways can be neatly comprehended by human reason, Job argues, is not the same God who „overturns mountains in his anger“ (v. 5). It es easy enough to sit in an armchair and make true statements about „God“ – but what are you going to do when the living God „shakes the earth from its place“ (v. 6) and your armchair with it? Trying to defend oneself or argue against such a God, says Job, is more hopeless than trying to win a game of chess against the most sophisticated of computers: „Though one wished to dispute with him, he could not answer him one time out of a thousand“ (v. 3). Later in the chapter Job expresses the same truth in exquisite paradoxes: „Though I were innocent, I could not answer him“ (v. 15); „Even if I were blameless, my mouth would condemn me“ (v. 20).
Job is valiantly seeking to expand his friend’s vision of God (and his own too) so that together they can stop clinging to pat answers.
Without really foreseeing the full implications of his own line of argument, Job is proceeding exactly as any preacher of the gospel must proceed. That is, he is establishing the fact that the chasm between man’s sin and God’s holiness is so impossilby wide that all human attempts to bridge it are exposed as utterly useless. All efforts at philosophy, spirituality, or good moral living become meaningless before the all-surpassing holiness of such an awesome God. Yet for this very reason, Job contends, there must exist something else, something besides virtue or sacrifice or even correct theology, that will be
acceptable to this God as righteousness. Job’s faith, in fact, consists precisely in this – that as unapproachable and enigmatic as this Deity is, he knows there must be some way to approach Him and to stand before Him. Just because He is so great and wonderful, there must be some means of gaining His approval and of having Him say to us, „Well done, good and faithful servant“…Come and share your master’s happiness!“ (Matt. 25:21).
Job is right. There is a way to delight our Father’s heart – but it is not through bending over backward to be good. In his prophetic soul Job knows that is it not our business to try to make ourselves perfect, but rather to have fath in the perfection of the son of Man, who alone is „full of grace and truth“ (John 1:14). God’s delight is not in a life lived in undeviating virtue, but rather in seeing the most twisted and chaotic life turned in humble expectation towards Him. The truly righteous person, it turns out, is the one who places no expectaions upon himself. From God he expects everything, but from himself he expects nothing, because he knows he is but dust. The freedom of the gospel is the freedom to make no demands upon oneself. This is the freedom Job has, and it is this that so perplexes his friends. The friends are like those whom Paul warns of who „spy on the freedom we have in Christ“ (Gal, 2:4). Nothing is more maddening to such people than to pour all of their energy into doing all the right things, only to end up hopelessly entangled in them, and then to be confronted by someone who is doing it all wrong, yet who is free.