I am using the daily Bible reading schedule from “The Bible.net” for my daily Bible reading.

Today, I am reading and commenting on Job 6-10.

    In his reply to Eliphaz Job makes clear just how great his suffering is: he cannot eat, not even egg whites, because of the misery, he cannot sleep because the pain is too much. Job goes on to proclaim his innocence. He confronts his friends for assuming his guilt with no thought for his great suffering, no thought for his desperation. They could not point to something he had done wrong, they just assumed that his suffering was evidence that he must have done something wrong. Bildad replies by once more saying that Job’s children must have sinned and that is why they died. Further, if Job would just humble himself before God and confess his sins, his suffering would end. Bildad does get one thing right. He says that God will not reject those with integrity and will bring joy back to those who continue to honor Him, no matter how much they may suffer in the meantime.

    Job responds that Bildad is correct in principle, but who can be considered innocent when compared to God. How can we hope to make a case to defend ourselves before God? He is so much greater than us, knows so much more. No matter how pure we make ourselves, we are still dirty and impure when brought into the presence of God. Then Job makes one of the great insights of the Bible. We need a mediator between us and God. It cannot be someone human because they would have all of the weaknesses and flaws which we ourselves have. In Job’s call for a mediator between God and man, we see the need for Christ. Only Christ can fill that role, experiencing and empathizing with human suffering but containing the full greatness of God. Having made this great statement about the need which Christ would later fulfill, Job makes his first misstep. He accuses God of torturing him for no good reason, of creating him for the purpose of watching him suffer. While Job’s despair is understandable, here he went too far. Whatever suffering we experience, we can know that God did not bring it upon us because He takes pleasure in our pain.