Earlier in the spring of this year my wife and I went to hear a speech on the book of Job. The speaker was excellent: clear, direct, biblical, and pastoral. He addressed different aspects of this troubling but well-known book in a fine manner. All in all, it was an enriching experience.

Only, as happens more often when I listen to speeches, my mind began to churn away. I started to ask myself all sorts of questions and among them the main one was this: “What is the book of Job really all about?”

Is it about Human Suffering?⤒🔗

Now, the common answer is that this part of Holy Scripture is all about suffering. Many of us know the story. In it we are introduced to Job who is described as “blameless and upright” (1:1, 8). He is also very blessed having seven sons and three daughters. As well, he is exceedingly rich, owning seven thousand sheep, three thousand camels, five hundred yoke of oxen, five hundred donkeys, and many servants. Indeed, we are even told “he was the greatest man among all the people of the East” (1:3). One would say today that Job “had it all.”

Only he did not get to keep it all. As a matter of fact, one day the tide turned and the sky fell in. In quick succession Job was told that his oxen and donkeys had been stolen, then he received news that fire had come down from heaven and burned up his sheep and any number of his servants. Next, he was told that his camels had been taken away and that more servants had died. In one day Job went from being a very rich man to a very poor man.

But that was only the start of his troubles. For thereafter he was told that all of his sons and daughters had died in a terrible accident. A fierce wind had risen and caused the house in which they were partying to collapse on them. One moment his quiver was full with many strong and healthy children and the next moment it was empty, horribly empty. They were all gone. How heart-wrenching!

Still, his troubles did not stop there. For to poverty and sorrow was soon added sickness. Several days later Job came down with some terrible skin disorder. Painful sores afflicted him “from the soles of his feet to the top of his head” (2:7). Job’s life was filled with agony and overwhelmed with pain and discomfort.

In reaction to all of these misfortunes, Job’s wife advised him to “curse God and die!” (2:9) Is that also what he did? Did he draw the conclusion from all of these awful blows that God must have it in for him and that he might as well vent his spleen against God and kill himself? No, Job refused to do so. He rebuked his wife and answered her with this searching question, “Shall we accept good from God, and not trouble?” (2:10)

Job also did more. He went on a prolonged search for the cause of all of his troubles. In the process, he refused to acknowledge that he was some sort of special sinner who was being punished by God for some special, secret sins. He steadfastly maintained his integrity. He did not deny his faith. He did not turn his back on his God. In the face of terrible sufferings for seemingly inscrutable reasons, Job persevered.

As a result, many people insist that here we have the key to the book of Job. It is a book that teaches believers all through the ages just how they too are to respond and react to situations of distressing pain and deep sorrow. Job serves as a model for all Christians in trouble.

Is it about God’s Sovereignty?←⤒🔗

But is that true? For there are others who read this book and conclude that while suffering is surely a main element here, it does not hold the key to it. No, they insist that the key has to do with God’s sovereignty. In other words, as noble a sufferer as Job may have been, he should not be the main focus of our attention. Rather, the main focus belongs elsewhere. It belongs with God, with his rule and reign, with his power and majesty.

The basis for saying this has to do especially with the final chapters of this mysterious and majestic book. For so many chapters Job, as well as Job’s friends, occupy centre stage. They talk and talk. They philosophize. They accuse. They speculate. They complain. They grasp at this or that. They exhaust themselves, and their readers too, with their many words.

And then it is God’s turn. In the chapters 38 to 41, the Lord speaks. He speaks especially in the form of a barrage of questions.

Where were you when I laid the earth’s foundations? ... Who marked off its dimensions? Who shut up the seas behind doors? Have you ever given orders? ... What is the way to the abode of light? ... Have you entered the storehouses of the snow?Job 38:4, 5, 8, 12, 19, 22

On and on it goes and the longer it continues, the smaller Job and his friends become.

At the same time the longer that it continues, the greater and greater God becomes. For those who read these chapters know instinctively that He not only asks the questions but He also knows the answers. He knows! Only He knows, for only He rules supreme and is Lord of all.

Thus, on the basis of these final chapters, men say that this book is really all about God and about His sovereign will and rule. It teaches believers then and now that there comes a time in your life when the questions need to stop and you simply have to find your rest and peace in the certainty that God knows because God rules. Trust in Him and in his greatness.

Fine, this too is both an appropriate and needed lesson for us as believers to learn. Sooner or later we need to turn our sufferings over to God.

Thus having examined a little these various views on the book of Job we need to ask, “So which is it? Is this book about suffering and the correct Christian response to it? Or, is this book about God and our submission, even in suffering, to his sovereign will? Or – and there’s yet another thought - is it perhaps about both?”

Notwithstanding the fact that these views appear to be among the most plausible options, let me be so bold as to suggest another approach to you. According to this approach, the book of Job is not in the first place about suffering nor is it primarily about God’s sovereignty.

Or is it All about Grace?←⤒🔗

Now that sounds almost heretical, does it not? But bear with me for a moment. For there is another way to approach this book and that is to view it as a book that is really all about grace.

What is meant with that? Well, consider the opening chapters of this book, chapters that place this book in its wider context. What is going on there? Does it not open, after a brief introductory word about Job, with a conversation that goes on in heaven between the Lord and Satan?

What is that conversation all about? Some say that it is about Job. Or more correctly, it is about God who is boasting about Job. Wrong! It is really a conversation about the nature of God’s work of grace in the life of Job. Just how good, how strong, how deep is this divine work of grace?

Is it true, as Satan alleges, that Job is no more than a fair weather friend of God? Is it so that Job merely says what he says and does what he does, because he knows who is buttering his bread? At bottom is he no more than “a rice Christian?”

You see, there is a great contest being waged here. It is a contest that affects each and every believer throughout the ages and it is all about the question, “Just how far and how great is this faith that God has worked in me? Just how solid is the redemption of Jesus Christ that is being applied to my life? Just how immovable is the work that Holy Spirit is doing in me? Can it really stand up under all sorts of tests and trials? Can it really continue to exist in the face of suffering, pain, death and disaster? Who is right here? Is it God or Satan?”

The answer that God gives us in the book of Job is that indeed his work of grace can stand and will stand every test and every trial. What the Lord of heaven and earth works in us through his Son and by his Spirit is a great and mighty work. It will prevail! It will last! It will triumph! Believers need not doubt and neither should they worry. It is as the Apostle Paul writes to the believers in Philippi,

He who began a good work in you will carry it on to completion until the day of Christ Jesus.Philippians 1:6

Hence what is the key to understanding the book of Job? It is the realization that in this part of Holy Scripture our God is defending and demonstrating the solidity of his work of grace in the life of the believer.