I Know that My Redeemer Lives

Suffering and Redemption in the Book of Job

Ronald P. Hesselgrave

• Publisher: Wipf and Stock
• Year: 2016
• Print ISBN:
  9781498281584
  9781498281607
• eBook ISBN:
  9781498281591
• Topic: Theology & Religion
• Subtopic: Biblical Commentary

The book of Job has captured the imagination of Christians and non-Christians alike. In this study, Ronald Hesselgrave shows how the personal story of Job's intense struggle with suffering is representative of the pain and vexation within the entire creation, and how Job's eventual healing and restoration in the context of his relationship to God is connected to the "grand narrative" of God's purpose to redeem humanity and defeat evil in the world. He explores the themes of creation, evil, lament, justice, and God's sovereignty, grace, and redemption within the separate speeches in Job and against the backdrop of wisdom literature as a whole. A further concern of this study is with the pastoral or practical value of the book of Job, both for caregivers and those who may themselves be going through the valley of deep trauma and suffering. Dr. Hesselgrave brings together theological, social, and psychological insights in a way that deepens our understanding of suffering and provides the basis for a more holistic and comprehensive response to the needs of those who suffer. A final summary of the implications of Job for a practical theology of suffering is given in the conclusion.

Part One

Job and God’s Redemptive Purpose

Predictions about the end of the civilized world are increasingly common in both scientific literature and popular culture. Hollywood films such as Deep Impact (1998) and The Road (2006) depict cataclysmic events that bring an end to the world as we know it and force the remaining humans to resort to living in caves, scavenging, and cannibalism to survive. In Armageddon (1998) the plot centers on a rogue asteroid the size of Texas that will collide with the earth in 18 days. In a last ditch effort to avert an “extinction level event,” NASA dispatches astronauts to detonate a nuclear weapon on the surface of the asteroid. In the movie The Maze (1999) the world is taken over by machines with artificial intelligence.

Various well–known scientists have also expressed pessimism about the fate of the civilized world. In The Universe in a Nutshell Stephen Hawking speculates that “by 2600 the world’s population will be standing shoulder to shoulder, and the electricity use will make the Earth glow red hot.”47 Sir Martin Rees similarly speculates on future risks to human civilization, and concludes that the odds “are no better than fifty–fifty that our present civilization on Earth will survive to the end of the century.”48

Does the book of Job have anything to say to these doomsday scenarios? I will argue that it does. Most studies of this book concentrate on Job’s personal experience of suffering in the context of his relationship to God. While this is indeed an important facet of Job’s overall message, the case can be made for a more holistic reading of Job as a depiction of disorder, pain, and evil within creation and God’s ultimate response of grace and redemption. As Robert Fyall writes:

In microcosm, the flow of the book reflects that of the canon itself. The ‘blessedness’ of the first few verses and the greater blessedness of the last few verses frame a profound struggle with the mysteries of creation, during which Job longs for the created order to be dissolved (ch. 3), expresses both awe and dismay at its mysteries (ch.. 9), uses profound language of worship (ch. 26) and wrestles with the great theological issues of wisdom and creation (ch. 28).49

This interpretation places the book of Job firmly within the context of the Bible’s overall plotline.50 The story of Job is connected with the larger Biblical narrative which depicts the cosmic struggle between God and Satan, and looks forward to Satan’s eventual defeat and the creation of the “new heaven and new earth.”51 At its heart, then, the book of Job has a “missional” focus. It is part of the missio Dei (“mission of God”), or the progressive revelation of God’s purpose and mission in history.52

47. Quoted in Wilkinson, Christian Eschatology, 1.

48. Ibid.

49. Fyall, Now My Eyes Have Seen You, 188.

50. Ibid.

51. Ibid., 23–25, 182, 189.

52. See Waters, “Missio Dei,”19–35.

1

The Mission of God in the Book of Job

A simple reading of the book of Job is that it is the story of a man of good works and faith who is struck down by a series of terrible adversities. The purpose of the book is to demonstrate the sovereignty of God over all areas of life and the importance of humble submission to his will even in the most difficult circumstances. While there is much to be said for this interpretation, as I have already noted, a deeper reading suggests that there is more, much more, to this ancient story. Besides displaying one man’s faith in God in times of suffering, the book of Job has a “missionary” or “missional” purpose. Yet, this facet of Job is rarely addressed.53

The Mission of God

In saying the story of Job has a missionary or missional purpose I am arguing that it is connected to what has been referred to as the missio Dei, or “mission of God.” While this concept has been given a variety of interpretations, basically it means that God is a missionary God and that “mission” is part of God’s essential nature and purpose. The “mission of God,” then, focuses on God’s redemptive purpose and action in human history to heal and restore creation and to call people into a reconciled covenantal relationship with him.54

The term missio Dei further implies that the many smaller stories in the Bible are in various ways part of a larger “theodrama” or “grand narrative” of redemption which takes place against the backdrop of creation and humanity’s fall into sin. It is the “greatest story ever told” that gives the all–embracing perspective for understanding the collection of texts that constitute the canon of Scripture.55 In the words of Chris Wright:

That the Old Testament tells a story needs no defense. My point is much greater, however. The Old Testament tells its story as the story or, rather, as part of that ultimate and universal story that will ultimately embrace the whole of creation, time, and humanity within its scope. In other words, in reading these texts we are invited to embrace a metanarrative, a grand narrative. . . . It is the story that stretches from Genesis to Revelation, not merely as a good yarn or even as a classic of epic literature, but fundamentally as a rendering of reality—an account of the universe we inhabit and of the new creation w...

Table of contents

• Title Page
• Preface
• Introduction
• Part One: Job and God’s Redemptive Purpose
• Part Two: Job and Wisdom Literature
• Part Three: The Speeches in Job
• Conclusion: Toward a Practical Theology of Suffering
• Appendix: Discussion Guide
• Bibliography