The Message of the Ransom
“Think it not strange concerning the fiery trial... which cometh upon you to prove you, as though a strange thing happened unto you.” Pe iva.
“Deliver him... I have found a Ransom.” — Chap. xxxiti. 24.
LIHU has described the condition of the soul in the school of pain, brought down to the very gates of death.
Sometimes the gates are opened, and the suffering one passes through to higher service, not having even seen death, for death is swallowed up in victory, even as mortality is swallowed up in life.
Some gaze within the gates, and are sent back to fulfil their ministry on earth in the light of the face of Him Who conquered death.
Elihu says, ‘‘ [f there be with him... aninterpreter”’ (v. 23). The thought in the original is very suggestive. The word means “‘ to treat as a foreigner’’. ‘The child of God does not understand the language in which his Father is speaking to him! He has known the instruction of the Spirit in the heart, but now he needs an “interpreter ’ — one taught of God to explain the lessons of the crucible.
The word ‘“‘interpreter’? is interchangeable with ambassador in Isaiah xliv. 27, m. ‘The interpreter is also an ambassador from the King of Kings, one who knows how to commune with the King, and is chosen of Him to convey His message, and speak with authority in His name.
Elihu says that such interpreters are “‘ one among a thousand”’. They are rare because few are willing for the necessary training in the school of suffering, and the furnace seven times heated, which develops in the soul that sensitive intuition of the mind of God, and delicate touch with the Spirit of God, needed for such a work.
The friends of Job could search out words from their store of knowledge, and in beautiful language reason, as they thought, on God’s behalf, but they could not understand Job’s position, nor interpret to him the purposes of God in placing him in the crucible.
“An interpreter... to shew unto man what ts right for him.” Elihu has plainly shown Job what was right for him to do. The searching of his own heart, and the self-consolation that he had not knowingly transgressed against the Lord, must end. The misjudging of God in thinking that He was treating His servant as an enemy, must be put away. ‘The writhing under His hand must cease. For until he ended the struggling, and rested upon the faithfulness of God, there was no hope of response or light from Him upon his path.
The word of the Cross
“Then He is gracious unto him, and saith, Deliver him... J have found a Ransom.” — Chap. xxxiii. 24.
It has often been said that the Old Testament contains the germ of the New. The Ransom spoken of by Elihu is unmistakably the Ransom proclaimed by the apostle Paul, who saw with marvellous spiritual vision, that the sacrifice of Christ began in far back ages of eternity, declaring that He gave Himself a Ransom for all, the ‘“‘ testimony”’ to be ‘“‘ borne in tts own times”?.
Elihu may not have known the full prophetical import of his message, for we are told by the apostle Peter that the prophets searched diligently what time “‘ the Spirit of Christ which was in them did point unto, when it testified beforehand the sufferings of Christ’. Peter’s words show that the Spirit of Christ was in Elihu as he preached deliverance through the Ransom to the afflicted Job. Thus we have, in the oldest book extant, the germ of the after-revealed Gospel, and the foreshadowed message of the Cross.
Elihu was a true messenger of God to Job. Without superfluity of words he interprets to him his position, and gives the message of life.
God had been leading Job to another class in His school, from the stage of the instruction of the heart, to the lessons of the crucible. He had withdrawn him from the work he loved, that He might save him from spiritual pride, so that naught of his life might end in corruption, or perish under the judgments of God.
God had brought him down from his high place, to make him know himself, and his dependence upon Him for every breath of life. Now, at the point of extremity, let him take the right attitude before the Lord, cease from himself, and think no more of his own integrity, but turn away to his Redeemer.
Job had seen his Redeemer as the Living One, Who would vindicate him in the day of His coming, but let him now see Him as the Ransom, the One Who would be gracious to him, and deliver him from going down to the pit — not on the ground of ob’s integrity, but on the ground of His own sacrifice for the redemption of fallen man.
‘* T have found a Ransom”? is now the message of God to Job, foreshadowing the “‘ word of the Cross’’ preached by the apostle Paul, ‘‘ to them that are perishing foolishness; but unto us which are being saved... the power of God”’.
Job had been placed by the will of God in a crucible of unparalleled trial. In the anguish of his sufferings there was revealed an aspect of the life of self not seen in his days of prosperity and power. ‘The turning point of his deliverance must therefore come to him by a fresh appropriation of the Ransom ’’ — the death of the Son of God.
Through this atoning sacrifice alone can grace, mercy, and peace, flow to the stripped and suffering soul, and the omnipotent word be spoken — ‘‘ Deliver him... J have found a Ransom”’.
The life out of death
“His flesh shall be fresher than a child’s; he returneth to the
days of his youth.” — Chap. xxxiii. 25.
The omnipotent word of deliverance through the Ransom, is followed by the impartation of the new life in Christ Jesus, sweet and fresh as a little child’s.
In another part of the Old Testament, and again in a living object lesson, we have a corresponding passage to this message of Elihu to Job.
Naaman was bidden to wash seven times in the waters of Jordan, and then his flesh ‘‘ came again like unto the flesh of a little child ’’.*
The Ransom preached to Job, and the waters of Jordan commanded to Naaman, both prefigure the death on Calvary’s * 2 Kings v. 14.
Cross, and in each case the result of believing obedience is
seen to be the same.
The olyective work of Christ is proclaimed to Job for his deliverance; even as we understand that, by faith, we are
truly one with Christ upon His Cross and in the sight of God
have died in’ Him.
The subjective aspect of the death of Christ is more clearly seen in Naaman’s story, for he was bidden go in to Jordan seven times ere he could emerge in the likeness of a little child. The “seven times” expressing simply the lesson that we need the many times into Jordan before we lose the pride of life in knowledge and power, and become one of the little ones who are the greatest in the Kingdom of heaven.
Surely Job’s prolonged path of trial must have meant to him a very real passing through the waters of Jordan.
He had been such a great man; how could he ever become as a little child, whilst he retained his place as chief, and sat as a king in his army?
The child-access to God
“He prayeth unto God, and He is favourable unto him; so that he seeth His face with joy; and He restoreth unto man his righteousness.” — Chap. xxxiii. 26.
Job had known what it was in his days of fellowship with God to call upon Him, and receive the answer, but through the fiery trial, that he has called strange, he is being led into a life of child-communion with the Father such as he has not known before.
Job had looked back upon the past, and remembered how the friendship of God had been with him in his tent, but, in the richer and fuller life that God is calling him to, he is to have access to Him in His sanctuary, behold his face with joy, and know that he has whatsoever petition he desires of Him.
God will restore unto him once more the assurance of righteousness before Him, ‘“‘ accepted in the Beloved’’ — the Ransom Who purchased him with His own blood.
The child-honesty before men
“‘ He looketh upon men, and saith, J have sinned... and it was not requited unto me. He hath redeemed my soul from going into the pit, and my life shall behold the light.” — Chap. xxxiii. 27, 28, m.
Job in the consciousness of his heart integrity before God, resented being charged with transgression by his friends.
“© Tell me where I have erred,” he cries; and ‘Jf I have sinned... why dost Thou not pardon me,” he pleads with God.
Unable to confess to any of the definite charges brought against him by Eliphaz, he can only say “‘J have not gone back ’’, and finally close the discussion with the words, “‘ My heart doth not reproach me for any of my days”; ‘‘ Till I die I will not put away mine integrity from me; my righteousness I hold fast, and will not let it go”’.
At the beginning of the story of Job’s fiery trial we have seen him to be intensely sensitive to every possibility of grieving the Lord. With his whole heart he ‘shunned evil’, and offered sacrifices to God for even the sins of ignorance of his children. Hence his inability to understand the dealings of God with him, and why he should have been placed — the just and wholehearted man — in such a furnace of trial. Gleams of light at times have broken upon him, and the thought of gold being placed in the fire for the refining away of the dross, comes to his mind, but his last words to the friends show that at all events he is assured of his integrity before God, and he is determined to cling to that assurance to the end.
The Spirit-taught interpreter, Elihu, shows that he has understood the dealings of God with Job, but he does not attempt to combat his insistence on integrity, as the other men have done. He only tells him that the soul who has learnt to know himself in the school of trial, and turned in utter self-despair to the Ransom in his hour of need, will come out, not only with a new spirit as a little child; a new freshness of life in heavenly youthfulness; a new power in prayer and joyous knowledge of the face of God; a new assurance of righteousness in union with the Righteous One; but with a new attitude to sin, and honest confession of sin to others.
With unspeakable relief the child-like spirit can leave the character of its Father to His own keeping, and know that it need no longer uphold its testimony to His delivering power, by fearing frankly to own when it is wrong, and to say plainly to men, ‘“‘J have sinned, and it was not requited unto me”? (v. 27, m.).
Yea, the delivered one ‘“‘ singeth before men’’, as he looks back upon the gracious dealings of God with him, for he sees how he has been redeemed from the pit of nothingness, and Osan im new hope he cries ‘‘ my life shall behold the light” Nien:
The thrice working of God
“Lo, all these things God doth work, twice, yea thrice, with a man, to bring back his soul from the pit, that he may be enlightened with the light of life.” — Chap. xxxiii. 29, 30, m.
Elihu had said that God “speaketh in one way, yea, in two”’, and had described His two classes for the instruction of His children, but he says that He works all these things twice, and thrice with a man bringing his soul from the pit, and enlightening him with the light of the living.
Is this one of the gleams of light that so wondrously bring out the inner harmony of the sacred writings?
The “three days”’ so often met with in various parts of Scripture is generally understood to typify the death and resurrection of Christ, the Lord Himself saying, “‘ As Jonah was three days and three nights in the... sea-monster; so shall the Son of Man be three days and three nights in the heart of the earth ’’.*
Does Elihu’s language mean that God works the ‘‘ twice” in bringing souls into fellowship with Christ in His death, but that the ‘“‘thrice’’ of “resurrection”? is needed ere they know the abundant life in union with the Risen Lord?
In any case the purpose of the patient working of God is emphasized as the delivering of the soul from the pit,t and the life from perishing by the sword.
Elihu speaks again and again of the soul and the life, and always connects the soul with the “‘ pit”’.
It is important to distinguish things that differ. When the Scripture speaks of the soul it does not mean the spirit.
Paul describes the threefold nature of man as spirit, soul, and body, and explains the difference between soul and spirit in his letter to the Corinthians, when he says that ‘‘ The first Adam became a living soul. The last Adam became a life-giving Spirit ’’.f
Again the word of God in its workings is said to divide between soul and spirit, piercing as a sharp knife to the very joints and marrow of the inner being of man. §
In speaking of the grain of wheat falling into the ground to die, Christ said, ‘‘ He that loveth his life [soul] loseth it; and he-that hateth his life [soul] in this world shall keep it unto life eternal ’’.|| * Matt. xii.40,m. t+ See Isaiah xxxviii.17,m. 1 Cor. xv. 45, 46.
§ Heb. iv. 12. John xii. 25, m.
Ii!
The soul-life therefore is the life that we derive from the first Adam — the fallen life of nature. The second Adam, the Lord from heaven, quickens the spirit and brings it into union with Himself as a life-giving Spirit. Dwelling within in the shrine of the spirit, the Master-Workman then divides between soul and spirit by the Word of God which reveals the soul-life in its true light, so that it may be unswervingly “‘ hated”’ or renounced, and surrendered to the death of the Cross, where it is continually exchanged for the life eternal in union with the Risen Lord.
These New Testament passages throw strong light upon Elihu’s message to Job at this particular point of his spiritual history.
Job’s integrity of heart is beyond question. He has known fellowship with God, and the Spirit of God has dwelt within him, and given him life. In the crucible, soul and spirit is being divided, until the soul-life mingled with his service for God is brought to light, and is revealed in the self-vindicating that broke from him at the crucial point of his trial.
After the wondrous Spirit-given interpretation of God’s way of teaching His children, Elihu appeals to Job to mark well the message (v. 31), and earnestly entreats him to speak, for he truly desires to “‘ justify? him, or help him to understand God’s way with him (v. 32).
But Job is silent
Job, Chapters xxxiv, xxxv.