Job has compared himself to other men and looks good as a result. But what happens when he meets God?
Clearly, Elihu is a sharp young man. “Therefore I say, ‘Listen to me, I also will declare my opinion.’ Indeed I waited for your words, I listened to your reasonings, while you searched out what to say. I paid close attention to you; and surely not one of you convinced Job, or answered his words” (Job 32:10-12ff). Notice his succinct observations. First, he makes clear that what he is to say is his opinion. He’s not pretending to be like the others who dared to speak for God. Second, his intention is to answer Job’s words, which we noticed his first three friends rarely did. They came with preconceived notions and, like lobbing hand grenades, thought they came close enough! In order to do this, Elihu would concentrate not only on Job’s words, but on his “reasonings,” something that anyone who has studied the book knows is a serious challenge. But, as we noted in our last study, there’s something more. Madame Guyon explains that Job’s three friends “represent the three powers of the soul—the mind by its reflection, the memory by its recollection, and the will by what it enjoys and experiences.” The first three never left the realm of the soul; Elihu calls us into the life of the spirit (v 18). Chapters 29–31 contain no fewer than one hundred uses of the word “I”! But it’s not yet the I of Jacob, “I am Jacob, the Supplanter.” It isn’t the I of Isaiah, “Woe is me for I am undone!” Nor is it the I of Paul, “O wretched man that I am. Who shall deliver me…?” Elihu’s mission will call Job to justify God, and in so doing, to confess, “now my eye sees You. Therefore I abhor myself, and repent in dust and ashes” (42:5-6). It’s the Spirit’s work to show us our true self so self can be replaced on the heart’s throne by the Lord, its rightful and blessed Occupant.