‘There is no such thing as a creed, a definite form of religion’, he says. ‘That is a very elementary form of religion.’ It suits the liberal to have a vague religion – you can do what you like. It gives us a licence to express any view we like and do what we like. Everybody’s opinion is as good as anyone else’s view.
It is remarkable that he can take such a line of argument and yet mean something so different to what God means, for in chapters 38 and 39 the Lord presses on Job the limits of his knowledge, and yet he condemns Eliphaz, Bildad and Zophar for their false doctrine. Are God and Zophar saying the same thing? Clearly not! How careful we have to be in argument, and how discerning of what others say! Satan used all his skill to confuse Job and put arguments in the mouths of the three friends which appeared to be right but were really an attack on the truth. Here the impossibility of man searching the depths of God are used as a way of beating Job down. Because he cannot search out the depths of God, he must be mistaken in asserting his evangelical doctrine. Zophar is trying to take him out of his depth, and so shatter his confidence. But what does Zophar know? If God is unsearchable, how does he know that God will show favour to him? His confidence is based only on the very fragile foundation that he is not himself suffering severe trials like Job. Later in the book when God uses the same reasoning with Job, it is for a very different purpose. It is to show that Job has no good grounds to doubt God’s providence and wisdom. Job is a believer; he is right to be certain that he is accepted by God, but he cannot question the way God works in his life. He must not doubt that he is loved by God and he must not doubt that even his trials were designed for his sanctification. Above all he must not doubt the goodness of God and his righteousness in all his ways.