Job 15:3 Commentary - Dr Peter Masters | Metropolitan Tabernacle

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Job 15:3

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By now a deep prejudice has developed in Eliphaz against anything that Job had to say. He answers Job simply by dismissing all that he said as unprofitable. To his thinking, all that argued against his own doctrinal position was unprofitable, and this was what Job was doing in denying that he was a wicked hypocrite. Job did indeed have errors in what he said, but it would take someone of more balanced judgment than Eliphaz to correctly assess Job and to see the fault in his words without dismissing his relationship with God entirely.Eliphaz accuses Job of casting off fear or reverence for God, and certainly these are two vital aspects of our approach to God. But he did not understand what was happening. What he heard was Job addressing God directly and saying things that Eliphaz thought no man should ever say to God, questioning the wisdom and conduct of God to his face. All this did not however mean that Job had thrown off the fear of the Lord in the way that Eliphaz suggested. Job had indeed spoken words that he would later be ashamed of, but he still maintained a core reverence for God though he dared to ask such questions. Eliphaz failed to take proper account of the effect of Job’s sufferings, and in his simplistic explanation he had written Job off as a hypocrite, he was not facing the conundrum that Job was facing. His formula was, ‘God is always right’ and this was correct, but he had not truly placed himself in Job’s situation.Job was fully aware that he was saying things to God which in time past he would not have thought it fit to say, but it was just because he cared so much about the character of God that he was so upset by what he saw as the confusing way in which God dealt with him. He wanted answers just because he wanted to believe in the goodness and integrity of the Lord. This was very different from someone who destroys or frustrates he fear the Lord, and ceases to care about the Lord’s approval of his conduct.

Application

‘If the fear of God reign in us, we must acknowledge that he has not put us into the world to live in such liberty as we please ourselves, but reserves his whole right over us, so that we must obey him. See what this word fear means, that is to say, that we should learn to direct our whole life to the will of God. We have his law by which he guides us, and shows us how to discern between good and evil. Then if we are not to be utterly confounded, we must begin at that point. And yet, for all that, what cannot advance in the fear of God, without the ruling of his Holy Spirit, for we are [by nature] void of all goodness, and are given to nothing but evil. And if we apply God’s law to the lives of men, we find a deadly conflict between the two, as between fire and water, yes, even their whole nature: and that there is nothing more contrary to God’s righteousness than all the affections of our flesh. For as Saint Paul says in the Romans 8 they are all enemies to God. Seeing this is the case we must think of prayer, and since we are drawn entirely to evil, yes and are wholly caried away and caught up with fury, we must plead with God to lay his hands on us and to guide us, and to make his Holy Spirit to rule over us in such a way that we freely and with a single heart stick to his righteousness and to all that he has ever called us to: and also that he does not allow the temptations of Satan and of the world to turn us from doing good: and that it may please him to forgive us our sins, and to be ever merciful and loving towards us. So you see how prayer ought to be joined with the fear of God. For it is not enough for us to be shown what we ought to do … but we must also be encouraged to go to him .. to seek the thing that is lacking in ourselves, so that he relieves our need and remedies it as the great Physician’ (Calvin – English updated).

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Job 15:3 Commentary and Bible Study