When God speaks to us, it is always His truth; when He speaks again, it’s also the echo of His grace.
Job says, “Once I have spoken, but I will not answer; yes, twice, but I will proceed no further” (Job 40:5). I can’t help but think of the psalmist’s words: “God has spoken once, twice I have heard this: that power belongs to God. Also to You, O Lord, belongs mercy” (Ps 62:11-12). God has spoken once (Job 38:1–39:30), and now He is going to speak again. He repeats what He said at the beginning—“Now prepare yourself like a man; I will question you, and you shall answer Me” (38:3; 40:7)—but His topic is quite different. The first time the Lord spoke, the subject was Job’s need to see “that power belongs to God.” If Job, and we, can trust Him to hold up the universe, then we should trust Him to hold us as well. Now it will be to uncover the balancing truth: “Also to You, O Lord, belongs mercy.” How does the Lord begin? “Would you indeed annul My judgment? Would you condemn Me that you may be justified?” (Job 40:8). This was the big issue with the religionists in Jesus’ day, the subject Paul explains in the book of Romans. Only one of two opposing paths can be right. One is an attempt at self-justification, something Job has tried strenuously. But the side-effect of self-justification is that it condemns God! Both man and God cannot be right. The other approach is to discover that God through Christ can be both “just and the justifier of the one who has faith in Jesus” (Rom 3:26). As Jesus said to His contemporaries, “You are those who justify yourselves before men, but God knows your hearts” (Lk 16:15). Job is about to have heart surgery. If he can’t grasp the greatness of God’s creation, perhaps he can begin to discover his own heart. But he will also uncover the mercy that flows from the heart of God.