Job 35:6 Commentary - Dr Peter Masters | Metropolitan Tabernacle

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Job 35:6

Comments

Man who lives below the clouds and conducts his life for the most part on the surface of the earth and who is restricted to a very narrow sphere, is utterly unable to affect God by his actions. The Lord can be neither disadvantaged nor advantaged by anything that we do; we cannot add to him or increase his pleasure, neither can we take away from him by our disobedience and sin. He is forever perfectly content and sufficient within himself, undisturbed by the affairs of men, though they rise up in rebellion and unite together to deny him. His sovereign lordship is not disturbed in the least degree and there is nothing that the creature can do to affect heaven or trouble God in any way, for if the clouds are out of reach, how much more is the Lord who is an eternal spirit dwelling in another realm altogether. This is a glorious truth for it shows the invulnerability of heaven as a secure refuge where the saints need fear nothing in the eternal ages. But more importantly it tells us that God, who anticipates all things that will take place, has made provision for everything that may happen in his eternal plan. If Job were to increase his transgressions in an effort to provoke heaven to show some immediate response, he would be met with silence, for God cannot be troubled by any threat from his creatures. He has entrusted some power to man, he but remains supreme above all things. If Job were to live a life of perfect righteousness and exceed all others in acts of love and kindness, God would not find himself obliged to repay him immediately so that Job had a lever over God. What would God have that he did not have before? Could his creatures ever put him in their debt? Certainly not. He has no needs; he cannot be added to; he is perfectly content in himself. This is important because it shows us the nature of the God with whom we have to do. Because he is unaffected by the actions of the creature, we know that all his goodness to us comes from grace and not from necessity. Elihu’s argument is not that God is indifferent to human sin or righteousness: ‘Behold, the eye of the LORD is upon them that fear him, upon them that hope in his mercy’ (Psalm 33:18). ‘God judgeth the righteous, and God is angry with the wicked every day’ (Psalm 7:11). The argument is that there is no necessity for God to respond in this way. All his dealings with mankind are a matter of condescension. Certainly he hates human wickedness and will punish it – his justice obliges him to do so – but sin does not harm him, and we glory in the God who is above the reach of his creature. How could it be otherwise if God is eternally and perfectly happy? Job is therefore thinking in the wrong way in making demands that God respond to his morally upright life and reward it appropriately; he is wrong to complain that God does not reward evil immediately on the timescale of Job’s expectation.

Application

We pray and we come humbly; we do not make demands on God. If he answers us we are full of thanks and know that we do not deserve anything. We cannot summon God to an audience with us as Job had tried to do. The only ones affected by Job’s wickedness and righteousness were other human beings like himself. These, being dependant creature certainly were affected by good or evil, but not the Lord. An ordinary man reacts when you hurt him, but God is beyond that sort of peevishness, and to ascribe vindictiveness to him is an outrage. If you do so, you will destroy your sense of communion.

This truth about God affects our worship. Worship cannot consist of trying to add to God in any way. When we ascribe praise top him, we do not imagine that we can bring him anything that profits him. Worship is not an exercise that God craves because he lacks anything. It is all a gift of grace to his creatures who are given the privilege of pouring out their hearts to him, and in his goodness he receives human praise, even though we can never fully pay what we owe. We praise him for what he already has and what he already is.

‘God shows a singular and infinite goodness towards us in that it pleases him to accept our service, even though he receives no profit by it … And yet notwithstanding he tells us that if we endeavour to do good and to walk in his commandments, our works are acceptable sacrifices to him. Is it not a singular comfort that he gives when he says, I accept your works and although they are not worthy to be esteemed, I treat them as of value, and bind myself to you as if I was indebted to you for it … Also let us encourage ourselves to do well when we see that God receives the thing at our hand which is worth nothing, and writes our good deeds in hi book of accounts … Similarly let us assure ourselves that God will not punish our sins out of spite, or because he desires to be avenged as when a man is offended’ (Calvin – in modern English).

Questions

What is the reason that God hates sin? Is it because it does him any true harm? No, he is beyond the reach of his creatures. ‘We can do nothing against the truth’ (2 Corinthians 13:8). We can do nothing that he has not anticipated. We cannot take away from him or diminish his bliss. The Lord hates sin because it is contrary to his nature, because it brings death and misery, because it makes slaves out of men, but he is perfectly able to deal with it, and he does so to his undiminished glory. We have to be careful not to attribute our own fallen motives and goals to the Lord when we try to understand him, or to think that he acts because of any of the finite or fallen motives that drive us.

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Job 35:6 Commentary and Bible Study