Know: Contrast historical examples of God’s retributive judgment with Job’s specific situation.
Feel: Appreciate God’s sovereignty as He deals with humankind throughout history in love and righteousness.
Do: Seek for a healthy and biblical balance in the understanding of God’s justice and mercy in his or her own life and others’ lives.
Learning Outline:
Know: Retributive Judgment
A How do you understand what happened during the Flood or in Sodom and Gomorrah in terms of God’s retributive judgment?
B What is the big difference between these events and the way in which Job’s friends reacted to Job?
Feel: The Deep Things of God
A What are our limitations in understanding the way that God deals with humanity throughout history?
B What can we be certain of, though, in God’s dealings with us, even if we don’t understand His ways?
Do: Finding a Balance
A Does God still use direct retributive judgment during our times? Explain.
B How is it possible to find a balance in our view of God’s grace and mercy?
Summary: Bildad and Zophar really drive their point home in a tone that becomes increasingly harsh as Job affirms his own innocence. While there is direct retributive divine judgment in the Bible, God’s ways are not ours, and it is not for us to to determine when God punishes directly or not. Our task is to lessen suffering whatever the cause is.
Learning Cycle
STEP 1—Motivate
Spotlight on Scripture: 2 Peter 3:5–7
Key Concept for Spiritual Growth: There will be a final day of judgment in which God will destroy everything evil and its originator. It is important to recognize God as the One who actively is involved in this process and who has given ample historical evidence throughout the Bible to assure us of the final outcome of the great controversy. However, not all suffering is an example of God’s retributive punishment, and this assumption is where Job’s friends went terribly wrong.
Just for Teachers: The unity of our church is often challenged by viewpoints that represent extremes. But those who present these extremes argue that anything less than following their point of view would amount to compromising the truth. It appears very difficult for us to find a balanced approach, a middle ground that upholds unity.
Opening Discussion: We all know the sad story of the massacre of the children in Bethlehem that followed the birth of Jesus (Matt. 2:13–18). To recap: only the children who were three years and older survived; all younger infants were cruelly killed by Herod’s henchmen. It’s a horrifying story of fulfilled Messianic prophecy (Matthew is quoting from Jeremiah), of divine protection (Joseph and his family flee to Egypt, prompted by a divine dream), and of Satan’s attempt to kill the young Messiah.
However, John Chrysostom (ca. a.d. 349–407), an early church father and the archbishop of Constantinople, suggested that Herod’s massacre provides an excellent proof text for the doctrine of the Trinity: only the three-year-old children survive, thus signifying those who believe in the doctrine of the Trinity (the three-year-old children symbolize a threefold God), while the two-year-old children die (representing the binitarian view—only two Persons in the divinity), as well as the one-year-old children (representing the unitarian view—God is only one Person).
To understand the significance of this interpretation, we need to place it in its proper historical context: Chrysostom lived in a century marked by the great Arian debate on the Trinity (Arius suggested, in the third century a.d., that Christ was subordinate to, and created by, God), which almost tore the early church apart. We would call Chrysostom’s view an allegorical interpretation.
While we, as Chrysostom did, believe in the Trinity, we might not necessarily look for it in the story of Herod’s massacre. What did Chrysostom, as well as Job’s friends, miss?
STEP 2—Explore
Just for Teachers: One of the most important principles of biblical interpretation is the question of context. Both Bildad and Zophar make the big mistake of not looking at the context of Job’s suffering. They drew on a limited understanding of God that does not take into consideration a changing context. While God’s judgment on Sodom and Gomorrah is an example of direct retributive divine punishment, Job’s situation requires a closer look at a completely different context. Here is a thoroughly and consistently righteous man who is suffering. But how could his friends have known better? Their avoidance in looking at the big picture makes them oblivious to the real issue and susceptible to sinning with their words, leading eventually to the necessity of Job’s interceding on their behalf at the end of the book.
Bible Commentary
There are a number of true and important statements sprinkled throughout both Bildad’s and Zophar’s otherwise harsh and hurtful speeches that are worth looking at. While they fail to portray God correctly and bring no relief to their friend’s suffering, they nevertheless have a partial understanding of God. However, a partial understanding can sometimes be more harmful than none at all, especially when it comes to the Bible.
Harsh Words (Review Job 8:1–20 and 11:1–20 with the class.)
Bildad’s speech, as recorded in Job 8:1–20, responds to Job’s passionate plea in defense of his innocence, in chapters 6 and 7. He delivers his response in a calm and analytical way. Nevertheless, it contains almost scathing words, dismissing Job’s words as “blustering wind” (Job 8:2, NIV). For Bildad, there is no doubt that God (a) always punishes the wicked (Job 8:13) and (b) always prospers the righteous (Job 8:20). In order to support his argument he draws on logic (Job 8:3–7) and tradition (Job 8:8–10) and analogies from nature (Job 9:5–9). As a side note: his imagery of the papyrus plant that wilts without moisture is interesting (Job 8:11, 12), given that Moses, who wrote the book of Job, was very familiar with this plant, which grew profusely in the Nile delta in Egypt from whence he fled. Bildad’s logic and acid analysis desensitized him to the suffering of Job, reducing God to a mechanical executioner of His own justice.
Zophar, on the other hand, after listening to another two chapters of Job’s desperate plea in defense of his innocence (Job 9, 10), brings retribution theology to its cruel conclusion and even beyond that: Job must have sinned, as is evident from his suffering (Job 11:1–4). As a consequence, Job should be punished even more because he is not admitting his guilt (Job 11:5, 6).
However, in the midst of all this theological gibberish, there is a true statement about the “deep things of God” (Job 11:7, 8): God is unfathomable and mysterious. This very fact speaks ironically against Bildad’s and Zophar’s mechanical retribution theology, making space for an unexpected relationship between suffering and righteousness.
Consider This: In what ways have you experienced moments in your life when God did not react the way He was “supposed to”?
II. Defending God (Review Mark 15:3–5 with the class.)
Job’s friends felt very strongly about defending God; their arguments are the prototype of Christian apologetics. However, in their passionate defense, they forgot that God does not need our feeble human efforts to defend Him.
We see this larger truth played out in the Gospel narrative of Mark 15:3–5. Jesus stands before Pilate, accused and beaten. Two times, Mark records that Jesus says nothing. In a related manner, when God finally begins to speak in Job 38, He never answers any of the myriad questions that Job has fired off toward Him throughout the book. He remains silent, as it were, on those questions.
There is a quote, which in its various forms has been attributed alternatively to Martin Luther, Oswald Chambers, and Charles Spurgeon (with the last one being the most likely author): “The gospel is like a caged lion. It does not need to be defended, it just needs to be let out of its cage.” We do not need to defend God. Any attempts to do so are doomed to fail miserably and often are only a poor self-defense of our own warped theologies. We do need to give reason for our faith, though, as the Bible instructs (1 Pet. 3:15). There is a need for Christian apologetics, too, but not for human defenders of the Almighty, whose limits we cannot probe (Job 11:7–9).
Consider This: When have you ever felt the need to defend God? How did it go?
III. God Actively Punishing the Wicked (Review Exodus 15:7, 22:22, 32:10, Numbers 16, Revelation 18:8, and 19:15 with the class.)
There are a number of people who take issue with such stories as Sodom and Gomorrah, the destruction of the sons of Korah, or the Exodus plagues (or the plagues at the end of time), in which God seems to be directly and actively involved in the punishment of the wicked, meting out His wrath upon those who have deliberately and repeatedly opposed Him, until His mercy has come to an end. In order to reconcile this picture with a God of love, the suggestion has been made to understand God’s wrath in terms of the impersonal, inevitable consequence of sin. This idea entails viewing punishment as the direct consequence of sin in which God’s only active role is in withdrawing His protection from the sinner.
This model begs a set of questions: Who alone could have established such an impersonal, universal law of punishment, if not God Himself? And more important: What about the consistently active descriptions of God’s wrath in the Bible that He personally enacts upon the punished? Within the great controversy, sin has originated on a personal level with Satan. The end of sin—whether it be through the direct punishments in the Bible that foreshadow the final judgment or the final resolution of sin at the end of time—is also brought about by a personal being, a God who is actively involved in the work of salvation. And lest we forget: God’s judgment always is inextricably connected to His mercy.
Consider This: How do you feel about God’s actively punishing the wicked with His wrath? Why do you feel this way?
STEP 3—Apply
Just for Teachers: There is a very practical aspect to the idea of God’s being active in punishment, and that is the question of how to relate His active role as Punisher of sin to a loving God.
Thought/Application Questions:
How do you feel about God’s destroying Satan and all evil at the end of history at the second resurrection?
How can you integrate divine punishment into the image of a loving God?
STEP 4—Create
Just for Teachers: There is suffering all around us, and we don’t have to go far to discover it. As a matter of fact, we should go out and discover it more often. This might keep us from falling into the temptation of retribution theology.
Class/Individual Activities:
Visit a place of suffering in your community (for example, a hospice or a hospital) and reach out to the people who experience suffering right now.
What were the words or actions you shared that provided hope for the people you came into contact with? Share next week with the class.
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Key Texts: Job 11:7, 8; 2 Peter 3:5–7
The Student Will:
Learning Outline:
Summary: Bildad and Zophar really drive their point home in a tone that becomes increasingly harsh as Job affirms his own innocence. While there is direct retributive divine judgment in the Bible, God’s ways are not ours, and it is not for us to to determine when God punishes directly or not. Our task is to lessen suffering whatever the cause is.
Learning Cycle
STEP 1—Motivate
Spotlight on Scripture: 2 Peter 3:5–7
Key Concept for Spiritual Growth: There will be a final day of judgment in which God will destroy everything evil and its originator. It is important to recognize God as the One who actively is involved in this process and who has given ample historical evidence throughout the Bible to assure us of the final outcome of the great controversy. However, not all suffering is an example of God’s retributive punishment, and this assumption is where Job’s friends went terribly wrong.
Just for Teachers: The unity of our church is often challenged by viewpoints that represent extremes. But those who present these extremes argue that anything less than following their point of view would amount to compromising the truth. It appears very difficult for us to find a balanced approach, a middle ground that upholds unity.
Opening Discussion: We all know the sad story of the massacre of the children in Bethlehem that followed the birth of Jesus (Matt. 2:13–18). To recap: only the children who were three years and older survived; all younger infants were cruelly killed by Herod’s henchmen. It’s a horrifying story of fulfilled Messianic prophecy (Matthew is quoting from Jeremiah), of divine protection (Joseph and his family flee to Egypt, prompted by a divine dream), and of Satan’s attempt to kill the young Messiah.
However, John Chrysostom (ca. a.d. 349–407), an early church father and the archbishop of Constantinople, suggested that Herod’s massacre provides an excellent proof text for the doctrine of the Trinity: only the three-year-old children survive, thus signifying those who believe in the doctrine of the Trinity (the three-year-old children symbolize a threefold God), while the two-year-old children die (representing the binitarian view—only two Persons in the divinity), as well as the one-year-old children (representing the unitarian view—God is only one Person).
To understand the significance of this interpretation, we need to place it in its proper historical context: Chrysostom lived in a century marked by the great Arian debate on the Trinity (Arius suggested, in the third century a.d., that Christ was subordinate to, and created by, God), which almost tore the early church apart. We would call Chrysostom’s view an allegorical interpretation.
While we, as Chrysostom did, believe in the Trinity, we might not necessarily look for it in the story of Herod’s massacre. What did Chrysostom, as well as Job’s friends, miss?
STEP 2—Explore
Just for Teachers: One of the most important principles of biblical interpretation is the question of context. Both Bildad and Zophar make the big mistake of not looking at the context of Job’s suffering. They drew on a limited understanding of God that does not take into consideration a changing context. While God’s judgment on Sodom and Gomorrah is an example of direct retributive divine punishment, Job’s situation requires a closer look at a completely different context. Here is a thoroughly and consistently righteous man who is suffering. But how could his friends have known better? Their avoidance in looking at the big picture makes them oblivious to the real issue and susceptible to sinning with their words, leading eventually to the necessity of Job’s interceding on their behalf at the end of the book.
Bible Commentary
There are a number of true and important statements sprinkled throughout both Bildad’s and Zophar’s otherwise harsh and hurtful speeches that are worth looking at. While they fail to portray God correctly and bring no relief to their friend’s suffering, they nevertheless have a partial understanding of God. However, a partial understanding can sometimes be more harmful than none at all, especially when it comes to the Bible.
Bildad’s speech, as recorded in Job 8:1–20, responds to Job’s passionate plea in defense of his innocence, in chapters 6 and 7. He delivers his response in a calm and analytical way. Nevertheless, it contains almost scathing words, dismissing Job’s words as “blustering wind” (Job 8:2, NIV). For Bildad, there is no doubt that God (a) always punishes the wicked (Job 8:13) and (b) always prospers the righteous (Job 8:20). In order to support his argument he draws on logic (Job 8:3–7) and tradition (Job 8:8–10) and analogies from nature (Job 9:5–9). As a side note: his imagery of the papyrus plant that wilts without moisture is interesting (Job 8:11, 12), given that Moses, who wrote the book of Job, was very familiar with this plant, which grew profusely in the Nile delta in Egypt from whence he fled. Bildad’s logic and acid analysis desensitized him to the suffering of Job, reducing God to a mechanical executioner of His own justice.
Zophar, on the other hand, after listening to another two chapters of Job’s desperate plea in defense of his innocence (Job 9, 10), brings retribution theology to its cruel conclusion and even beyond that: Job must have sinned, as is evident from his suffering (Job 11:1–4). As a consequence, Job should be punished even more because he is not admitting his guilt (Job 11:5, 6).
However, in the midst of all this theological gibberish, there is a true statement about the “deep things of God” (Job 11:7, 8): God is unfathomable and mysterious. This very fact speaks ironically against Bildad’s and Zophar’s mechanical retribution theology, making space for an unexpected relationship between suffering and righteousness.
Consider This: In what ways have you experienced moments in your life when God did not react the way He was “supposed to”?
Job’s friends felt very strongly about defending God; their arguments are the prototype of Christian apologetics. However, in their passionate defense, they forgot that God does not need our feeble human efforts to defend Him.
We see this larger truth played out in the Gospel narrative of Mark 15:3–5. Jesus stands before Pilate, accused and beaten. Two times, Mark records that Jesus says nothing. In a related manner, when God finally begins to speak in Job 38, He never answers any of the myriad questions that Job has fired off toward Him throughout the book. He remains silent, as it were, on those questions.
There is a quote, which in its various forms has been attributed alternatively to Martin Luther, Oswald Chambers, and Charles Spurgeon (with the last one being the most likely author): “The gospel is like a caged lion. It does not need to be defended, it just needs to be let out of its cage.” We do not need to defend God. Any attempts to do so are doomed to fail miserably and often are only a poor self-defense of our own warped theologies. We do need to give reason for our faith, though, as the Bible instructs (1 Pet. 3:15). There is a need for Christian apologetics, too, but not for human defenders of the Almighty, whose limits we cannot probe (Job 11:7–9).
Consider This: When have you ever felt the need to defend God? How did it go?
There are a number of people who take issue with such stories as Sodom and Gomorrah, the destruction of the sons of Korah, or the Exodus plagues (or the plagues at the end of time), in which God seems to be directly and actively involved in the punishment of the wicked, meting out His wrath upon those who have deliberately and repeatedly opposed Him, until His mercy has come to an end. In order to reconcile this picture with a God of love, the suggestion has been made to understand God’s wrath in terms of the impersonal, inevitable consequence of sin. This idea entails viewing punishment as the direct consequence of sin in which God’s only active role is in withdrawing His protection from the sinner.
This model begs a set of questions: Who alone could have established such an impersonal, universal law of punishment, if not God Himself? And more important: What about the consistently active descriptions of God’s wrath in the Bible that He personally enacts upon the punished? Within the great controversy, sin has originated on a personal level with Satan. The end of sin—whether it be through the direct punishments in the Bible that foreshadow the final judgment or the final resolution of sin at the end of time—is also brought about by a personal being, a God who is actively involved in the work of salvation. And lest we forget: God’s judgment always is inextricably connected to His mercy.
Consider This: How do you feel about God’s actively punishing the wicked with His wrath? Why do you feel this way?
STEP 3—Apply
Just for Teachers: There is a very practical aspect to the idea of God’s being active in punishment, and that is the question of how to relate His active role as Punisher of sin to a loving God.
Thought/Application Questions:
STEP 4—Create
Just for Teachers: There is suffering all around us, and we don’t have to go far to discover it. As a matter of fact, we should go out and discover it more often. This might keep us from falling into the temptation of retribution theology.
Class/Individual Activities: