THE FIRST PART: A BIRD’S-EYE VIEW OF THE OLD TESTAMENT
The Books of Poetry
Message One—The Book of Job
Scripture Reading: Job 1:1, 8; 2:3, 9; 27:5; 31:6; 19:9-10; 42:1-6
I. Job is a book of the debates of godly men concerning the purpose of the sufferings of the saints, that is, the purpose of God’s dealing with His people—13:6; 2:13; 19:9-10; 42:5-6:
A. The book is poetic in form, with the exception of chs. 1 and 2 and the last eleven verses of ch. 42; Job is the first of the five books of poetry in the Scriptures, the other four being Psalms, Proverbs, Ecclesiastes, and Song of Songs.
B. The contents of the book of Job are the expressions of the sentiments of godly men, which are in relation to the judgments of God’s government; the debates between Job and his three friends were mainly concerning judgment; they reasoned that Job must have been wrong in some regard or aspect and that the things which happened to him were a judgment from God; they may also have thought that Job’s children were wrong and died because of God’s judgment.
C. It is evident that Job and his friends did not see the positive aspect of God’s economy in dealing with His holy people; that is, God wants to strip, not to judge, His holy ones that He might gain them so that they might gain Him more; Job’s sufferings were not God’s judgment but God’s stripping—19:9-10.
D. It is through His stripping that God dispenses Himself to those who love Him and seek after Him; Job lost all that he had, but ultimately he gained God Himself; God stripped his all in order that He could be his all for his full transformation and conformation to the glorious image of God in His Son—Rom. 8:29.
E. The book of Job, written early in the progression of the divine revelation (see note 131, par. 2, in ch. 2), does not contain a clear revelation of God’s purpose in dealing with His people; this revelation was given not to Job but to Paul; as unveiled in Paul’s Epistles, God’s purpose in dealing with us is to strip us of all things and to consume us so that we may gain God more and more—Phil. 3:8; 2 Cor. 4:16, cf. note 21 in Gen. 42 and note 261 in Psa. 73.
II. God’s intention with Job—that a good man become a God-man—Job 1:1, 8; 2:3, 9; 27:5; 31:6; 42:5-6:
A. Job was a good man, expressing himself in his perfection, uprightness, and integrity—27:5; 31:6; 32:1:
1. Being perfect is related to the inner man; being upright is related to the outer man; integrity is the totality of being perfect and upright—1:1; 2:3, 9; 27:5; 31:6.
2. Job feared God positively and turned away from evil negatively—1:1.
3. What Job had attained in his perfection, uprightness, and integrity was altogether vanity; it neither fulfilled God’s purpose nor satisfied His desire, and thus He was lovingly concerned for Job—vv. 6-8; 2:1-3.
4. Only God knew that Job had a need—he did not have God within him; therefore, God wanted Job to gain Him in order to express Him for the fulfillment of His purpose—42:5-6.
B. God’s intention was that Job would become a God-man, expressing God in His attributes—22:24-25; 38:1-3:
1. God ushered Job into another realm, the realm of God, that Job might gain God instead of his attainments in his perfection, righteousness, and integrity—42:5-6.
2. God’s intention with Job was to consume him and to strip him of his attainments, his achievements, in the highest standard of ethics in perfection and uprightness—31:6.
3. God’s intention was to tear down the natural Job in his perfection and uprightness that He might build up a renewed Job in God’s nature and attributes—1:6-8; 2:3-6.
4. God’s intention was to make Job a man of God, filled with Christ, the embodiment of God, to be the fullness of God for the expression of God in Christ—1 Tim. 6:11; 2 Tim. 3:17.
5. God’s stripping and consuming were exercised over Job to tear him down that God might have a base and a way to rebuild him with God Himself so that he might become a God-man, the same as God in His life and nature but not in His Godhead, in order to express God—Eph. 3:16-21.
III. God’s intention was not to have a Job in the line of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil but a Job in the line of the tree of life—Gen. 2:9, 17; Job 1:1; 2:3; 42:1-6:
A. The logic of Job and his friends was according to the line of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil—2:11—32:1.
B. Job, like his friends, was halted in the knowledge of right and wrong, not knowing God’s economy—4:7-8.
C. Job and his friends were in the realm of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil; God was trying to rescue them from that realm and put them into the realm of the tree of life—1:1; 2:3; 19:10.
D. God’s purpose in dealing with Job was to turn him from the way of good and evil to the way of life so that he might gain God to the fullest extent—42:1-6.
IV. At the end of the book of Job, God came in to reveal Himself to Job, indicating that He Himself was what Job should pursue, gain, and express—38:1-3; 40:1-14; 42:5-6:
A. In God’s appearing to Job, His intention was to show Job that he was nothing and that God is unlimited, unsearchable, and untraceable.
B. God’s appearing also implied that He wanted to help Job to know that he was in the wrong realm, the realm of building up himself as a man in the old creation in his perfection, uprightness, and integrity.
C. Job 42:5 and 6 indicate that Job gained God in his personal experience (in addition to knowing God in his vain knowledge by tradition) and that he abhorred himself:
1. Seeing God equals gaining God (Matt. 5:8); to gain God is to receive God in His element, in His life, and in His nature; eventually, this not only makes us one with God—it even makes us a part of God.
2. Job said not only that He saw God but also that he abhorred himself; according to our experience, the more we see God and love God, the more we abhor ourselves; the more we know God, the more we deny ourselves.
V. The forty-two chapters in Job leave us with a crucial question of two parts: what was the purpose of God in His creation of man, and what is the purpose of God in His dealing with His chosen people; the entire Bible is needed to answer this question; in particular, the New Testament is a long answer to the question in Job—Mal. 4:5-6; Matt. 1:18-25; Acts 13:33; 1 Cor. 15:45b; 1 Pet. 1:3; Eph. 1:23; Rev. 21:10:
A. The eternal economy of God according to His good pleasure is to dispense Himself in His Divine Trinity—in the Father, in the Son, and in the Spirit—through His incarnation, human living, crucifixion, resurrection, and ascension, with the outpouring of the Spirit, into His chosen and redeemed people, to make all of them the same as He is in life and in nature but not in the Godhead, to make them His duplication that they may express Him—Rom. 8:28-29 and notes.
B. The issue of such a divine dispensing is the church as the Body of Christ, as the new man, and as the organism of the Triune God; this organism will consummate in the New Jerusalem as the enlarged, the increased, incarnation of God consummated in full, that is, the fullness of the Triune God (Eph. 3:19) for Him to express Himself corporately in His divinity mingled with humanity for eternity.
C. This is the divine revelation in the New Testament as the answer to the sufferings of Job and to the great question concerning God’s purpose in His creation of man and in His dealing with His chosen people.
Ministry Excerpts:
THE CONTENTS OF THE BOOK OF JOB
The contents of the book of Job are the expressions of the sentiments of godly men, including Job, his three friends, and the young man Elihu. This book is the record of the speaking of these five parties plus the speaking of God.
The expressions of the sentiments of these godly men are in relation to the judgments of God’s government. The debates between Job and his three friends were mainly concerning judgment. They reasoned that Job must have been wrong in some regard or aspect and that the things which happened to him were a judgment from God. They may also have thought that Job’s children were wrong and died because of God’s judgment. Thus, the contents of this book involve the matter of God’s judgment.
It is evident that Job and his friends did not see the positive aspect of God’s economy in dealing with His holy people. That is, God wants to strip, not to judge, His holy ones that He might gain them so that they might gain Him more.
Job’s friends thought that what he was suffering was a matter of God’s judgment. However, Job’s sufferings were not God’s judgment but God’s stripping. The Sabeans took away Job’s oxen and donkeys, the “fire of God” devoured his sheep, the Chaldeans took his camels, and a great wind caused the death of his sons and daughters (Job 1:13-19). All these things were God’s stripping, but Job and his friends regarded them as God’s judgment. Throughout the centuries, many readers of the book of Job have had the same concept, thinking that Job suffered because of God’s judgment.
Have you ever had the thought that quite often God does something to strip you? Even though you may not be wrong, suddenly certain things happen to you, and God uses these things to strip you. Before I came into the Lord’s recovery, the word stripping was not in my spiritual dictionary. I had heard about judgment, punishment, and chastisement but not about stripping. It was from Brother Nee that I learned about God’s stripping.
Today in our spiritual dictionary the first word should be Christ, and the second word should be stripping. How much of Christ have you gained? How much of Christ we have gained is according to how much stripping we have suffered. The more we suffer God’s stripping, the more we gain Christ.
It is through His stripping that God dispenses Himself to those who love Him and seek after Him. Job lost all that he had, but ultimately he gained God Himself. God stripped his all in order that He could be his all for his full transformation and conformation to the glorious image of God in His Son (Rom. 8:29). (Life-study of Job, msg. 1)
PERFECT AND UPRIGHT, FEARING GOD AND TURNING AWAY FROM EVIL
Job 1:1 says, “There was a man in the land of Uz whose name was Job; and this man was perfect and upright, and he feared God and turned away from evil.” Being perfect is related to our inner man, and being upright is related to our outer man. Furthermore, to be upright means that we are not crooked or biased.
In addition to being perfect inwardly and upright outwardly, Job feared God positively and turned away from evil negatively. However, even with the positive matter of fearing God, there is not anything that is actually positive. God did not create man merely to fear Him without doing anything wrong. The Bible tells us that God created man in His own image and after His likeness that man may express Him (Gen. 1:26). This is the most positive thing among all positive things. To fear God and turn away from evil is not adequate, and actually this is not positive. The most positive thing is to express God. To express God is higher than fearing God and turning away from evil.
Another word used in relation to Job the man is integrity. In 2:3 Jehovah tells Satan that Job “still holds fast his integrity.” In verse 9 Job’s wife asks him, “Do you still hold fast your integrity?” In 27:5 Job says to his friends, “Until I die, I will not put away my integrity from me.” Finally, in 31:6 Job declares, “Let God know my integrity.” Integrity is the totality of being perfect and being upright; it is the totality of perfection plus uprightness.
With respect to Job, integrity is the total expression of what he is. In character he is perfect and upright, and in his ethics he has a high standard of integrity.
Moreover, Job was very successful in being perfect and upright and in holding to his integrity. His possessions, success, and attainment made him a contented and satisfied person. Although Job was full of possessions and full of his attainment, he did not have God within him. As God looked upon Job, He might have said, “Job, what shall I do with you? You are full of your possessions and your attainment, but you are not full of Me. You have Me in name, but you do not have Me within you.” (Life-study of Job, msg. 2)
A STEP OF THE DIVINE ECONOMY
Job’s experience was a step of the divine economy. In this situation God took a step to accomplish something with Job.
The Occurrence Being Planned by God
The occurrence was undoubtedly planned by God. This should not be a problem to us. In His plan, God held a council twice and checked with Satan twice concerning Job, and Satan fell into God’s plan.
To Carry Out the Consuming and Stripping of the Contented Job
This step in God’s economy was to carry out the consuming and stripping of the contented Job in his seeking after Him. Before Satan’s first attack, Job was a person of contentment. He was fully content and satisfied with his attainments in everything. Eventually, Job’s possessions, health, and integrity were stripped away and consumed.
To Usher Job into a Deeper Seeking after God
God’s intention was to usher Job into a deeper seeking after Him that he might gain Him instead of His blessings and his attainments in his perfection and integrity. Job was contented in the realm of success in his gaining of material things and in his ethical attainments, but he had nothing of God. Therefore, God ushered him into another realm that he might gain God. (Life-study of Job, msg. 3)
TWO PRINCIPLES
The first principle is the principle of life, according to which all men in the way of life keep their contact with God, and by which they seek God, gain God, possess God, and enjoy God, step by step, until they reach the fullest extent.
The second principle is the principle of death and of good and evil, in which all men in the way of death follow Satan either consciously or unconsciously, and through which they reject God and His way of life to be Satan’s companions unto death and eternal perdition.
GOD’S PURPOSE IN DEALING WITH JOB SEVERELY
God’s purpose in dealing with Job severely was to adjust his logic concerning his relationship with God from the principle of good and evil according to ethics to the principle of life according to God, that he might be one who gained God and participated in God for the fulfillment of God’s eternal economy. (Life-study of Job, msg. 37)
JOB GAINING GOD IN HIS PERSONAL EXPERIENCE
AND ABHORRING HIMSELF
“I had heard of You by the hearing of the ear,/But now my eye has seen You;/Therefore I abhor myself, and I repent /In dust and ashes” (vv. 5-6). This indicates that Job gained God in his personal experience (in addition to knowing God in his vain knowledge by tradition) and that he abhorred himself.
Seeing God equals gaining God (Matt. 5:8). To gain God is to receive God in His element, in His life, and in His nature. Eventually, this not only makes us one with God—it even makes us a part of God. I prefer not to use the phrase “one with” in describing our relationship with God because to be made a part of God, to be constituted with God in His life and nature, is more than being one with God. We see God that we may be constituted with God, yet we do not have any share in the Godhead.
All God’s redeemed, regenerated, sanctified, transformed, conformed, and glorified people will see God’s face (Rev. 22:4). Seeing God transforms us (2 Cor. 3:18), because in seeing God we receive His element into us. As we receive God, a new element comes into us, and the old element is discharged. This metabolic process is transformation. To see God is to be transformed into the glorious image of God. This makes us a part of God that we may express God in His life and represent Him in His authority.
Job said not only that He saw God but also that he abhorred himself. According to our experience, the more we see God and love God, the more we abhor ourselves. The more we know God, the more we deny ourselves. (Life-study of Job, msg. 30)
GOD’S ANSWER TO JOB
The forty-two chapters in Job leave us with a crucial question of two parts: What was the purpose of God in His creating of man, and what is the purpose of God in His dealing with His chosen people? To answer this question, we need the entire Bible. In particular, the New Testament is a long answer to Job’s question.
Incarnation
If we read the Old Testament with its prophecies, types, and plain words from Genesis through Malachi, we will see that the Old Testament ends with the promise that One was coming (Mal. 4:5-6). The New Testament begins with God’s incarnation (Matt. 1:18-25). The very God who was in eternity, who created the heavens and the earth and billions of items and man, and who did so many things with mankind, came as the promised One. He came in a mysterious way without advertisement and without public notification. He entered into a virgin’s womb and, according to Matthew 1:20, was born in that womb. He remained there for nine months, and then He was born out of that womb. From this we see that the incarnation was God’s coming out of eternity into time, to enter with His divinity into humanity. Prior to the incarnation, God was in eternity and man was in time. Through incarnation God brought the divine nature and the human nature together to make them one entity, even one wonderful person, named Jesus. Jesus, who is both God and man, is the totality of the result of the incarnation.
Human Living
The Lord Jesus lived on earth for more than thirty years. Many Christians, paying their attention to the miracles done by the Lord Jesus, do not know the real, spiritual, and intrinsic significance of Christ’s human living. Christ’s human living was just man living God to express the attributes of God in the human virtues.
Crucifixion
Eventually, the Lord Jesus went to the cross to be crucified there. According to the revelation of the New Testament, the death that Christ died on the cross was all-inclusive and also vicarious for us.
Resurrection
Christ entered into death and went into Hades to visit Hades. He stayed there for three days. Then He came out and entered into resurrection. In resurrection He was begotten of God to be God’s firstborn (Acts 13:33). Not only so, in resurrection He was made the life-giving Spirit –not just a God-man but a Spirit that gives life (1 Cor. 15:45). Moreover, when He was resurrected to be begotten of God to be God’s firstborn Son, He regenerated all His believers, making them the many sons of God and His many brothers as members of His Body (1 Pet. 1:3).
From this we see that through Christ’s incarnation, human living, crucifixion, and resurrection, there is One who is the mingling of divinity with humanity. This One became the firstborn Son of God to express God. He also became the life-giving, life-imparting Spirit to germinate all those of the old creation who had been chosen by God to make them the new creation of God. Now, after the day of resurrection, there are four marvelous things in the universe: the mingling of God with man, the firstborn Son of God, the life-giving Spirit, and the organism of the Triune God.
Ascension
The first four items in God’s answer to the question concerning Job’s suffering are Christ’s incarnation, Christ’s human living, Christ’s crucifixion, and Christ’s resurrection. The fifth item is Christ’s ascension. After His resurrection the Lord Jesus appeared to His disciples during a period of forty days, and then He ascended to the heavens.
The Church as the New Man, as the Body of Christ,
and as the Organism of the Triune God
Consummating in the New Jerusalem
In His ascension Christ poured out Himself as the consummated Triune God and as the all-inclusive Spirit upon His members, to constitute all of them into one organic Body to be the organism of the processed and consummated Triune God. This is the church as the new man, as the Body of Christ, and as the organism of the Triune God, and this entity will consummate in the New Jerusalem. Thus, in God’s long answer to Job’s suffering there are ten main items: incarnation, human living, crucifixion, resurrection, ascension, the church, the new man, the Body of Christ, the organism of the Triune God, and the New Jerusalem.
The Main Contents of the New Testament
The main contents of the New Testament are that the Triune God has an eternal economy according to His good pleasure to dispense Himself into His chosen and redeemed people in His life and in His nature, to make all of them the same as He is in life and nature, to make them His duplication that they may express Him. This corporate expression will consummate in the New Jerusalem. Thus, the New Jerusalem is simply the enlarged, the increased, incarnation consummated in full, that is, the fullness of the Triune God for Him to express Himself in His divinity mingled with humanity. These are the contents of the New Testament, and this is the answer that Job needed. This is God’s answer concerning the purpose of Job’s suffering. (Life-study of Job, msg. 10)