Job isn’t suffering for sin, but he needs to watch out that his suffering doesn’t lead him to sin!
Here’s a novel idea from Elihu! “Man is also chastened with pain on his bed” (Job 33:19). The word “chastened” in the AV is also translated as reproved, rebuked, and corrected. Job is not being punished, either unjustly or justly, as he and his friends thought. Instead, he’s being chastened. We know that “no chastening seems to be joyful for the present, but painful; nevertheless, afterward it yields the peaceable fruit of righteousness to those who have been trained by it” (Heb 12:11). So all this tragedy is for training, Elihu? These blows are to bear fruit? The agony is for the “afterward”? That’s why unbelievers seem to get away with things, because the Lord is only chastening His children at present. Paul certainly lost a great deal, too. In fact, he “suffered the loss of all things” (Php 3:8), eventually including his head! But he wrote, “For our light and momentary affliction is producing for us an eternal weight of glory that is far beyond comparison” (2 Cor 4:17, BSB). Now Elihu certainly doesn’t minimize the suffering Job has endured, “with strong pain in many of his bones, so that his life abhors bread, and his soul succulent food. His flesh wastes away from sight, and his bones stick out which once were not seen” (vv 19-21). But when people ask, “How’s life?” and the wag retorts, “Compared to what?” Paul has a glorious answer for that. He says, “I consider that the sufferings of this present time are not worthy to be compared with the glory which shall be revealed in us” (Rom 8:18). “Some through the waters, some through the flood, Some through the fire, but all through the blood…God leads His dear children along” (G.A. Young). So no pure gold without the heat. No precious diamonds without the pressure. And no saints without the suffering.