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Justification by faith is both an Old Testament and a New Testament doctrine. It reads like a major theme in the book of Job, the oldest Old Testament book. Job’s friends speak to him about justification and Job answers about justification. Is Job justified?

A related aspect to justification is a common Old Testament Hebrew word, mishpot, translated “judgment.” Forms of mishpot occur 23 times in Job. “Judgment” and “righteousness” both have been assessed as the theme of the entire Bible. I can’t disagree with either assessment. Over ten years ago I read a book by James Hamilton, God’s Glory in Salvation through Judgment: A Biblical Theology, which proposed judgment as the subject of all of scripture. Men are judged by God as to whether they are righteous. He judges a man righteous, who is justified. Men also judge other men as to their justification, which is what Job’s friends were doing.

Judgment, mishpot, by God is based upon His righteous nature and standard or law. A popular recent, contemporary concept is “authenticity” or “authentic.” Job was authentic, and the normal or plain understanding of authentic has been based upon an objective standard, so outside of one’s own self. Self-authenticity is a kind of oxymoron. Just because you’re consistent with your own understanding of who you are doesn’t make you authentic. Naugahyde couldn’t be said to be authentic. Leather is. And one can judge leather by an objective standard. It was at one time the outer layer or skin of an animal.

Was Job justified? Was he an authentic righteous man? He, his friends, and finally God have this discussion. Satan said he wasn’t. God said he was. So what is it?

One of Job’s friends, Zophar, starts his speech in chapter 11, asking and using the ninth of twenty-eight usages of a form of the Hebrew verb form tsadek (v. 2):

Should not the multitude of words be answered? and should a man full of talk be justified?

Zophar insinuates overt loquaciousness of Job, implying Job’s justification of himself with his words. Zophar is suggesting that rather than the words of Job justifying him, it be the consequences of his actions. In other words, someone facing the hardship of Job couldn’t be righteous. In weighing Job’s talk against the gravity of his situation, Zophar infers that the latter condemns him. However, Job’s guilt or righteousness could not be judged by the circumstances of his life. Job has been arguing against the false conclusion that his trials evidenced unrighteousness.

In a second chapter of Job’s answer to Zophar in Job 13:18, he says:

Behold now, I have ordered my cause; I know that I shall be justified.

Matthew Henry asserts that Job could say, “I shall be justified,” not because of his works, but because he knew that his “Redeemer liveth” (19:25). Job knew himself to be sincere in his faith in God, to lay hold on the justifying righteousness of his Redeemer, not a justifying righteousness in his own works.

Job had ordered his cause, that is, he had looked thoroughly over all that was occurring, and he says, “I know.” Certainty of justification comes from faith in the Lord, not in self. Paul commanded (2 Cor 13:5), examine yourself whether ye be in the faith. The trials of life necessitate reviewing our lives for the assurances of salvation. Job did.

Later, Eliphaz confronts Job in 15:12-16:

12 Why doth thine heart carry thee away? and what do thy eyes wink at, 13 That thou turnest thy spirit against God, and lettest such words go out of thy mouth? 14 What is man, that he should be clean? and he which is born of a woman, that he should be righteous (tsadek)? 15 Behold, he putteth no trust in his saints; yea, the heavens are not clean in his sight. 16 How much more abominable and filthy is man, which drinketh iniquity like water?

In general, his words ring true. “What is man, . . . which is born of a woman, that he should be righteous (tsadek)?” This conflict exists. In his natural state, no man is just, and yet Job is righteous. A man drinks iniquity like water, so how could he be justified before God? Only by faith. God can make an unclean thing into a clean thing.

Eliphaz then asks Job (22:3):

Is it any pleasure to the Almighty, that thou art righteous (tsadek)? or is it gain to him, that thou makest thy ways perfect?

It’s a rhetorical question with the implied negative answer, which is false. God does take pleasure in Job’s righteousness, which the first verse of Job (1:1) states. God has no pleasure in self-righteousness, but Job was a righteous man on account of God. Even Job’s friends knew he was righteous.

Bildad asks Job in 25:4-6:

4 How then can man be justified with God? or how can he be clean that is born of a woman? 5 Behold even to the moon, and it shineth not; yea, the stars are not pure in his sight. 6 How much less man, that is a worm? and the son of man, which is a worm?

Job was not justifying himself before God. Job knew that he was not justified by His own righteousness but by the imputed righteousness of God. Isaac Watts asks in his hymn, At the Cross, in the first stanza:

Alas! and did my Savior bleed?

And did my Sov’reign die?

Would He devote that sacred head

For such a worm as I?

Surely, Watts thought of Bildad’s words and Job would have been familiar with a necessary sacrifice for his own sins, resulting in a gracious provision of righteousness.

Job answers in 27:5-6, using tsadek twice, once translated “justify” and the other “righteousness”:

5 God forbid that I should justify you: till I die I will not remove mine integrity from me. 6 My righteousness I hold fast, and will not let it go: my heart shall not reproach me so long as I live.

Satan would tempt a righteous man to doubt. Paul said, put on the helmet of salvation (Eph 6:17), for one because Satan wants men struggling in their minds in their spiritual warfare. Job would not be swayed against the knowledge of salvation. He was putting on his helmet. He would hold fast, which is a standing in grace. Job would not justify his accusers by accrediting their denunciations of him. He does so in the same spirit that Paul later writes in Romans 8:33:

Who shall lay any thing to the charge of God’s elect? It is God that justifieth.

In his defense in 29:14, Job says:

I put on righteousness (tsadek), and it clothed me: my judgment was as a robe and a diadem.

Paul later writes in Ephesians 4:24, “Put on the new man.” This isn’t salvation language. This the breastplate of righteousness of Ephesians 6. Saving, justifying righteousness, no one puts that on. Sanctifying righteousness, someone must put on. That’s the righteousness that people see in your life, that Job put on.

When Job talked about how he lived a righteous life in Job 31, he requested (verse 6):

Let me be weighed in an even (tsadek) balance, that God may know mine integrity.

Rather than the unjust scales of his friends, Job wanted God to judge his righteousness by his own. He trusted God’s judgment. It’s easy for any of us to put our thumb on the scale in our judgment of others, but God is just in his dealings.

After Job’s long speech of the previous chapters, Job 32:2 says of Elihu:

Then was kindled the wrath of Elihu the son of Barachel the Buzite, of the kindred of Ram: against Job was his wrath kindled, because he justified (tsadek) himself rather than God.

Elihu thought Job to put greater efforts to justify himself than He did God, that is, Job should have been exalting God’s rightful judgment of him rather than his own righteousness. This is the first speech of Elihu and he, as a younger man, had waited through all of the speeches of both Job and his friends to bring his own observations of this matter of Job. Elihu spends more time confronting Job’s friends, but he accuses Job of putting less energy into defending God as he did himself. This criticism of Elihu is worth consideration.

Elihu does not call Job an unjust man. He speaks of this one violation, that Job was unjust in this one action of his defense. He continues this in the next chapter (33), especially observing verses 12 and 32, which contain the word, tsadek:

12 Behold, in this thou art not just: I will answer thee, that God is greater than man. . . . . 32 If thou hast any thing to say, answer me: speak, for I desire to justify thee.

In this one thing, Elihu says Job was not just, the action of Job in the repeated contention of his own innocence without the accompanying advocacy of God. Elihu does not speak to condemn Job, but to justify him. Righteous men struggle against sin too (cf. Romans 7:18-25).

As Elihu continues in chapter 34, as best he could he recounts Job’s words in verse 5:

For Job hath said, I am righteous (tsadek): and God hath taken away my judgment.

His representation of Job is that Job contends for his own righteousness and accuses God to have taken away his ability to defend himself. Even though he was just, God wasn’t vindicating Job with His treatment of him, a false charge.

In Job 35:2 and 7, Elihu uses tsadek again toward Job:

2 Thinkest thou this to be right, that thou saidst, My righteousness (tsadek) is more than God’s? . . . . 7 If thou be righteous (tsadek), what givest thou him? or what receiveth he of thine hand?

Elihu is asking Job whether by Job’s defending himself more than God, he was not guilty of saying that his righteousness is more than God’s? If Job was really righteous, which is not Elihu saying that Job isn’t, what was Job giving God compared to what Job had received from God? It’s a good argument. Shouldn’t a righteous man, which Job was, be defending God more than himself?

In Job 36:3, Elihu continues with Job:

I will fetch my knowledge from afar, and will ascribe righteousness (tsadek) to my Maker.

Elihu compares himself with Job. Rather than ascribe righteousness to himself, he does that to God, his Maker. It is more of the same line of criticism of Job by Elihu.

Elihu differed with Job’s other friends in their judgment (mishpot) of Job. Elihu uses this word nine times in his speech between Job 34-36. I commiserate with Job at least in his experience of judgment. The Apostle Paul was judged by false teachers and defended himself (2 Corinthians and Galatians). Job defended himself too, but it is fair for anyone who is judged to consider how much defending he does in comparison to how much his exaltation of God.

The last usage of tsadek in Job is in Job 40:8, as is the last usage of mishpot, judgment, dovetailing the two.

Wilt thou also disannul my judgment (mishpot)? wilt thou condemn me, that thou mayest be righteous (tsadek)?

Of all of the uses of tsadek, this is the only used by God Himself, and He is speaking to Job. God expresses His concern for Job’s communication of unjust treatment of himself by God. Rather than attempting to clear his self, He should defend God. Whatever God is doing, it is right. God has something to say about how Job has been talking about all he’s gone through.

Despite all that Job said, in the end God came down on his side against that of his friends. Job 42:7 says,

And it was so, that after the LORD had spoken these words unto Job, the LORD said to Eliphaz the Temanite, My wrath is kindled against thee, and against thy two friends: for ye have not spoken of me the thing that is right, as my servant Job hath.

Job said some things wrong, but God judges him in general as saying what was right, that is, Job was righteous. The friends were wrong about that. The word “right” in this verse means “the truth,” that Job was telling the truth and they weren’t. Verse 9 says that God accepted Job and not Eliphaz, Bildad, and Zophar. He leaves out Elihu.

Job was justified before God, not because of his works, but because of the righteousness that was imputed to him by faith.

Justification In Job, pt. 1

September 26, 2021 / 3 Comments on Justification In Job, pt. 1

When someone thinks of Job, the book of Job from the Old Testament of the Bible, maybe he doesn’t think of “justification.” I’ve taught through the whole book twice, once fast and the second fairly slowly. Recently I was reading through it the second time this year, moving through the Bible twice in this year, and the word, “justify,” stuck out this time to me.

When I taught slowly through Job, I taught the theme was the security of God. God kept Job. Job passed the test because of God. I taught that Job was about God and what He did, not about the person, Job. When we look at the names of the books of the Bible, we can think about the men of the Bible. However, the whole Bible is about God.

The Hebrew word, tsadek, that is translated, “just” or the forms of it, “justify,” “justified,” etc. is found at least twenty-eight times in Job. In this post or maybe a series of two of them, I want to look at all of those usages and how they fit into the book of Job. The word refers to something that is according to a standard that is of the nature and the will of God, so it is just, right, or righteous. It doesn’t fall short of the glory of God. The word applies to God. The standard for right or righteousness is God. Whether someone is righteous or just compares to God, not a human standard.

A big part of Job is whether Job is right with God. You could ask, Is he saved? To be saved, you have to stand before God as righteous. Apparently, Job was righteous, but not according to everyone. How righteous did he need to be? Whatever trials he went through, was it because he was not righteous or because he was? These are important questions. Everyone needs to think about them still. Here’s a last one. If God is the standard, His righteousness, how is Job or anyone else to be justified before God? This brings in the doctrine of justification. How is someone justified? Churches and religions differ as to the answers to these questions, and there is only one right answer.

I’m going to assume that you know, that in the story of Job (chapters 1-2), he is put through one of the most difficult trials ever for any human being in all history, losing all his children, his wealth, and his health. God allows Satan to put Job through this test to prove whether he’s really a righteous man. Satan says, no. God says, yes. While going through these severe circumstances, certain so-called friends of Job give him speeches, also casting doubt on his righteousness.

In Job 4, one of the friends, Eliphaz, talks to Job and argues essentially that people go through things like Job out of judgment for their sin. It had to be his sin. As further evidence, Eliphaz recounts in verses 12-16 that a spirit had given him (we know none sent by God gave him the message) the following message (verse 17), which is also the first usage of tsadek in the book of Job:

Shall mortal man be more just than God? shall a man be more pure than his maker?

It’s the word, “just.” Through the use of these questions, the message to Job is that he shouldn’t be justifying himself before God. Even though no angelic spirit communicated or even would communicate those questions to Eliphaz — you can’t be more just than God — it introduces the subject matter.

Job speaks in Job 6 and says in verse 29:

Return, I pray you, let it not be iniquity; yea, return again, my righteousness is in it.

Job is saying to the friend, back away from this conclusion you’re making that iniquity is the cause of my suffering, and come back to righteousness as the reason. Job isn’t saying that he is justified as righteous before God, but righteous in particular as related to the reason behind these trials. Between iniquity and righteousness, these circumstances for Job are not due to iniquity.

In chapter 8, Bildad confronts Job with an accusation common to the book. In verse 3, he uses tsadek in application to God, asking, “Doth God pervert judgment? or doth the Almighty pervert justice?” “Justice” translates the form of the word. He continues in verse 6:

If thou wert pure and upright; surely now he would awake for thee, and make the habitation of thy righteousness prosperous.

Bildad concludes that God would have made the habitation of Job prosperous if he were righteous. It does sound like Bildad may have believed in justification by works too. God “would awake,” respond to Job with tangible rewards, if he were “pure and upright.” It’s actually the opposite, we don’t wake God up. He wakes us up.

Job answers Bildad in the next two chapters (9-10), and deals with this theme of justification in four of the verses. Verse 2 is classic:

I know it is so of a truth: but how should man be just with God?

What Job knows is a truth is that God is just, so God couldn’t be unjust to him or anyone else. Job’s rhetorical question says that through anything that a man could do on his own or by himself, he could not be just with God. Any man on his own or according to his own merits, could not stand before God as just.

Job says in verse 15:

Whom, though I were righteous, yet would I not answer, but I would make supplication to my judge.

Even if Job were righteous, he would not argue with God about it. When God accused him of some sin, he wouldn’t answer. Instead, he would make supplication, which is to ask for grace or mercy. Job knows he’s not worthy before God. His justification can’t be by works, but by grace, depending on God for justification.

Job continues in verse 20:

If I justify myself, mine own mouth shall condemn me: if I say, I am perfect, it shall also prove me perverse.

If he used his mouth to justify himself, his mouth would be condemning him. He would by lying. A mouth justifying self is a sinful one. Saying you are perfect just proves you to be perverse. He would be saying that in him is no sin, which is false. Even if he were righteous, Job says in 10:15:

If I be wicked, woe unto me; and if I be righteous, yet will I not lift up my head. I am full of confusion; therefore see thou mine affliction.

He would not lift up his head, that is, be proud about it. Abraham could not glory in his righteousness, because it was not by works (Romans 4:1-5). The Apostle Paul, as a genuine believer, would glory or boast in Christ Jesus, putting no confidence in the flesh (Philip 3:3). Job would know that whatever righteousness he had, it wasn’t because of him. It was nothing to be proud of. He wouldn’t want to take credit for it.

The word “confusion” is the reproach or shame that Job feels, especially at the accusations of his friends. Rather than continuing to lay on him more pummeling, he’s asking that they see his affliction. Show some sympathy. He’s going through enough without their further hurtful words about him.

(To Be Continued)

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