SOUL SUFFERING AND FAITH (Job 23:1-17)
SOUL SUFFERING AND FAITH
Job 23:1-17
Job and Jesus both experienced the agony of the soul in the darkness of God's silence and absence. Yet, it was precisely there that they understood their crucial relationship with God. God appeared to Job himself and resolved his suffering, and Jesus found his answer through resurrection. The soul's agony from God's silence is the point of connection between Job, Jesus, and us. Here lies our hope. Elihu's logic of "you reap what you sow" does not apply to the agony of the soul.
Job's Suffering
God allows Satan to take hold of Job. Due to a wager between God and Satan, Job is left alone to suffer. Overnight, Job loses his wealth, children, and his wife flees. He becomes sick and is left with only his words. At first, Job responds to the situation reasonably: "Shall we receive good from God and shall we not receive evil?" (Job 1:21). Job speaks as if he were drinking hemlock, like Socrates, and claims that "Evil is also a form of justice." However, as the situation does not improve despite his long illness, Job begins to curse his own birth and even his mother.
Friends of Job hear of his sudden loss of material possessions and loved ones, and even cursing his own mother while he is sick. Three of Job's friends come to see him: Eliphaz, Bildad, and Zophar. It is important to note that the structure of the story is that each friend talks to Job three times, and in the end, Elihu replaces Zophar. The fact that three friends have three conversations with Job each means that the friends have done everything they can in that situation, and Job has said everything he can, meaning that everything a person can do has been done. Therefore, in the end of the story, only God can appear. Whether this should be called literature or something else, Job's story unfolds through a structure of three conversations with his three friends.
Eliphaz's God
This is a conversation between Job and Eliphaz, their first conversation. Eliphaz tries to comfort Job by asking if he has ever seen an innocent person suffer. He even uses a vision to reinforce his point, saying that he heard a voice in his vision ask, "Can a mortal be more righteous than God?"
Why did Eliphaz say this? Eliphaz believes that a person who sins will always be punished. His view is that God treats good people gently and punishes those who do wrong. His beliefs align with the saying, "As you sow, so shall you reap."
Eliphaz and Job continue their conversation. Eliphaz asks Job if he has seen God's mysterious ways and points out that no one can be pure. Eliphaz believes that Job must be suffering because he has sinned, either knowingly or unknowingly. In their third conversation, Eliphaz challenges Job to think about whether he truly believes he is without sin and suggests that Job's suffering may be a result of his lack of piety. Eliphaz believes that God punishes those who sin and rewards those who do good, and he cites the proverb, "As you sow, so shall you reap." Eliphaz's words echo the conversation between God and Satan in the Book of Job, where Satan questions God's wisdom in blessing Job. Eliphaz's belief in a just God who rewards good and punishes evil is similar to Satan's argument against Job's righteousness.
Job's Longing and Soulful Torment
Job, who had lost his wealth, children, and even fell ill, expresses his desire to see any God that Eliphaz might suggest. "My friend, I know what you're saying. I understand it all. But I am in pain. Do you think I'm suffering because I deserve it? You should try it and see how much it hurts!" Eliphaz's logic is sound, but Job's logic is weak, and he can only cry out in agony. As Job listens to Eliphaz's words, he utters one phrase, "I will speak out in the anguish of my spirit, I will complain in the bitterness of my soul" (Job 7:11). This statement clearly reveals Job's condition and longing. Job is seeking God. The reason why Job could not respond more clearly to Eliphaz's words of admonition is that he was suffering from soulful torment.
What is Job's soul agony? In Job 17, Job pleads with God, "Give me some pledge" (v. 3). Job 23 is entirely about Job's soul agony: "How can I find God?" (v. 3), "I search in vain for Him" (vv. 8-9), "If God would just condemn me and get it over with, I would at least know my fate" (v. 10). "God has made me weak, surrounded me with darkness and gloom" (vv. 16-17). Job is in a state where he cannot find God no matter where he looks. He begs for some kind of assurance that he will see God, even if it means death, and he pours out his longing. This is Job's soul agony, which he experiences intensely in a situation where God remains silent.
When Jesus prayed in Gethsemane, he struggled because of God's silence. Although he could feed five thousand people with five loaves of bread by looking up to heaven, he couldn't get an answer when he begged to be saved from the cross. God was silent in Jesus' prayer. Jesus asked his disciples to help him with his urgent prayer, but it was no help. Even when Jesus was dragged here and there and suffered, God didn't say a word. Jesus' soul was tormented more and more as he endured. Finally, even when he was hanging on the cross, God said nothing. Like Job, Jesus was speechless. Jesus uttered his last words: "Eli, Eli, lema sabachthani?" (My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?) Jesus' soul was in the highest degree of torment. This cry is not just Jesus' cry, but Job's cry, and our cry. Anyone who suffers from the torment of the soul can't help but cry out like this: "God, my God, why have you forsaken me?"
Eliphaz spoke with precision and clarity, but there was a reason why Job's responses were ambiguous and unclear. Job was not addressing Eliphaz, but rather appealing to God. Additionally, Job's search for God caused him to stumble over his words and make his speech less than neat. Just as Pilate, the high priest, and the disciples were not conversation partners for Jesus as He suffered in His soul, only God was His companion. Job was in a similar situation, where Eliphaz, Bildad, Zophar, and Elihu were not his conversation partners in the midst of his soul's anguish. Only God was his interlocutor.
The Fate and Faith of Job
Job searched for God, but God did not answer. His wife told him to curse God and die, but Job could not bring himself to do it. Yet, he could not deny God either, even in his dire circumstances. This is Job's fate, and ours as well: to be in a relationship where God is the only option, whether He saves or allows suffering. For Job, there was no one to talk to except God, whether God answered or remained silent. Job's only dialogue partner was God, and that is our fate as well. We are bound to God in this way, just like Job.
This state can be called a relationship of faith. When God is silent, that's when faith begins. Just like Eliab's words, planting beans doesn't produce peas, and planting red beans doesn't produce red beans. Those things aren't faith, they're just calculations. However, it's also not faith to expect red beans to grow from planting beans.
In fact, we sometimes misunderstand faith because of the pleasure of paradox. Because it seems like a miracle to us when red beans grow from planting beans. Hebrews 11:1 says that faith is "the reality of what is hoped for and the proof of what is not seen." We sometimes misunderstand this verse and think that if it's not God's work, it won't happen dramatically. We thought that planting beans and getting red beans was the reality of what we hoped for and the proof of what was not seen.
That's not true. Such things are not Christian faith. Rather, faith seems to be similar to fate. Even if we search everywhere for God, we cannot find Him, and even if we pray, God does not respond. It is a state where we cannot deny God, and that is the relationship that Job and God are intertwined in, which is the relationship of faith between God and us. That is the relationship of faith that is like fate between God and us.
God's Solution
The agony of the soul is experiencing death because of God's silence in our actions, and prayers. Job experienced God's silence, and Jesus cried out, "My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?" We also suffer from the agony of the soul because of God's silence. Only God can resolve God's silence. In Job 38, God responds to Job's soul agony. For Jesus, resurrection was God's response. If we are destined to be entwined with God, Job and Jesus, then only God can unravel the tangled thread. The fact that we can only think of God in the agony of the soul is evidence that we are bound to God like destiny. We seek God in experience the agony of the soul, but ultimately, when God appears and untangles the knot, we paradoxically confess this relationship as God's grace. Even if there is the world's most desolate and lonely gap between God and us, that is not God's final word.