Job -- The Suffering Prophet (4): Satan Before the Heavenly Court
Reflections on Job (4)
Satan Summoned Before the Heavenly Court
As the story Job continues to unfold, the veil between the seen and the unseen is lifted. We discover that the heavenly court is in session. The Lord is on his throne and legions of angels are present. Summoned by God, Satan comes before the court as the accuser of God’s people. But this time it is the Lord who directs Satan’s attention to his righteous servant, Job. Seeing an opportunity to attack the foundation of the gospel, Satan takes the up the Lord’s challenge, calling into question Job’s righteousness. According to Satan the Accuser, Job is a hypocrite. Job is blameless and upright, fears God and shuns evil, only because God bribes him to do so by giving Job great wealth and personal comfort. Take all these things away–Satan argues–and Job’s supposed piety will be exposed for what it is–a falsehood. Once God’s challenge has been issued and accepted by Satan, the wisdom and goodness of God is at stake. Job must enter into a trial by ordeal, a trial he must endure and from which he must emerge victorious, so that God’s wisdom will be vindicated and that all his ways–mysterious as they may be–will be proven right.
In the next section of the Book of Job the mysterious purpose underlying Job’s horrific ordeal is revealed. The vindication of God’s wisdom in his dealing with all of his creatures, especially as it relates to the gospel and God’s redemption of sinners, becomes the main storyline. Job will lose everything he has except his life, his wife and three of his friends. As the scope of the disaster faced by Job becomes fully apparent, the reader begins to ask whether Job would be much better off without his wife and friends, since his wife behaves like Eve (unwittingly serving the purposes of the Devil) and since his friends only contribute to Job’s suffering through their seemingly wise, but utterly flawed theological counsel.
We Know What Job Does Not
Before we turn to the scene before the heavenly court and consider the results of the decision issued by the heavenly court, we need to keep in mind that the readers of this book know what Job does not. Job does not know about the courtroom scene, nor does he know about the challenge to the gospel raised by Satan. Job has no idea of what is about to befall him. Nor does Job know the reason why a series of horrible things will take place leaving him sick, heart-broken and with nothing. All Job knows after losing everything is that some how, and in some way, God will do what is right and vindicate Job in the end. In this, Job is an example to us.
Despite the temptation to dwell on the past and despite the counsel given him by his friends to look back at his life to find the reason why he lost everything–“what did you do that brought all of this to pass?”–instead, Job looks to the future. Job tells us, “I know that my Redeemer lives, and that in the end he will stand upon the earth” (Job 19:25). It is Job, while in the midst of pain and loss beyond our imagination, who points us to the coming redeemer. When his wife tells him to curse God and die, when his friends tell him that he is only getting what he deserved, it is Job, who refuses to blame God and instead praises his name. It is the suffering and miserable Job, who is both a type of Christ–the true man of sorrows–as well as a prophet who directs our gaze ahead to that final day when God will turn all our suffering to good.
In the Book of Job, Satan is identified as the “Accuser,” or more literally, “the Adversary.” He is summoned to appear before the court by God. Satan must obey. Satan cannot touch Job until given permission to do so. God’s sovereignty over all things is absolute, including the activities and operations of the Devil. As Luther once put it, “the Devil is God’s Devil.” Satan cannot do anything which God does not permit him to do. Satan is a creature, bound to submit to God, and not in any sense God’s equal.
We Are Not in Job’s Situation
Given the unique circumstances just described, every reader of Job must realize that our situation is completely different from Job’s. He lived long before the coming of Christ and the cross. We live in a period long after Jesus has crushed Satan’s head. With the coming of Jesus Christ in fulfillment of his messianic mission, Satan has been cast from the heaven and no longer has access to the heavenly court. In Revelation 12:7-9, we read “war arose in heaven, Michael and his angels fighting against the dragon. And the dragon and his angels fought back, but he was defeated, and there was no longer any place for them in heaven. And the great dragon was thrown down, that ancient serpent, who is called the devil and Satan, the deceiver of the whole world—he was thrown down to the earth, and his angels were thrown down with him.” John also tells us that Satan has been bound and confined to the great abyss as depicted in Revelation 20:1-3.
The eviction of Satan from heaven accounts for two important theological facts. First, Satan no longer has access to the throne of God. He can no longer accuse us or bargain with God about our particular circumstances. If we suffer, it is not because the circumstances involved are beyond the control of God–as if the Devil was free to torment us what he wanted. Satan is now a defeated foe, utterly humiliated by the cross. Second, Satan has been cast to earth where he wages a furious war against the church through the propagation of lies and heresies, since Satan is elsewhere called the father of all lies since he was a liar from the beginning (John 8:44). In Revelation 12:12, we read that Satan “has come down to you in great wrath, because he knows that his time is short!” Defeated, and knowing that his doom is sure, Satan is like a wounded animal, perhaps more dangerous than before. After his defeat at the cross, his weapons are not lightening, whirlwinds, and boils. Rather he creates heresy and schism in the church. It is Satan who will attempt to trick us into despair by propagating lies about the goodness of God.
The Heavenly Court Is in Session
We get a glimpse of the heavenly court in session in Job 1:7. “The Lord said to Satan, `From where have you come?’ Satan answered the Lord and said, `From going to and fro on the earth, and from walking up and down on it.’” This reflects Peter’s declaration, “your adversary the devil prowls around like a roaring lion, seeking someone to devour” (1 Peter 5:8), although the Devils rage is grounded in the knowledge that his fate has been sealed. From the heavenly bench, the Lord directs Satan’s attention to the man Job, whom one writer describes as a creation of God’s redemptive grace. [2] As a fallen son of Adam, who embraces God’s promise, Job has already been justified by grace through faith and now manifests the fruit of the Spirit. In Job 1:8, the challenge is issued. “And the Lord said to Satan, `Have you considered my servant Job, that there is none like him on the earth, a blameless and upright man, who fears God and turns away from evil?’”
This remarkable assertion goes beyond the declaration of verse 1. Not only was Job blameless and upright, his piety was so great that “there is none like him on the earth.” This man is the apple of God’s eye. He and manifests a faint glimmer of that perfect righteousness we will later see in the life of Jesus Christ. In the similar scene found in Zechariah 3, Satan can find all kinds of sin in Joshua the high priest. In that instance, God’s response is to strip of Joshua’s dirty garments and give him clean ones, pointing us to the glorious righteousness of Christ. But Satan can find nothing in Job’s life which he can point out and condemn. Job’s piety–the fruit of justifying faith–is truly remarkable. There is no one else like him.
Since Job is blameless and upright, Satan takes another tact. He attacks Job’s righteous behavior by contending that this faultlessness and blamelessness is not sincere. Job is being bribed with wealth and the pleasures of family in exchange for his good behavior. Job is not obedient because he loves God. Rather, in his twisted mind, Satan reasons that Job is obedient because he loves the good things God has given him. Take away all of the goodies, Satan contends, and Job’s faith and piety will quickly disappear. God’s plan to redeem sinners will be shown to be a failure. And so in verses 9-11, Satan responds to God’s question by taking up the challenge. “Then Satan answered the Lord and said, `Does Job fear God for no reason? Have you not put a hedge around him and his house and all that he has, on every side? You have blessed the work of his hands, and his possessions have increased in the land. But stretch out your hand and touch all that he has, and he will curse you to your face.’”
We must not miss the fact that this is the exact opposite of the approach Satan took in Eden. In Eden, the Devil appeared to Adam and attacked the righteous ways of God. Here, the Devil appears before God and attacks a righteous man. Despite the different point of attack, the basic tactics used by the Devil are still the same. Satan starts with a subtle question, but then draws the most blasphemous of conclusions.[3] He claims that Job is not righteous–Job loves all the things given to him by God. As for God, he is not righteous either–Satan calls him a cosmic blackmailer. Satan claims, “take away Job’s possessions and Job’s piety will vanish.” Satan’s aim is that God’s method of redeeming sinners will be proven to be an abject failure. Bribery may get superficial results. But divine bribery cannot ultimately redeem sinners. Therefore, we must not miss the fact that by afflicting Job, Satan is attacking the very foundation of the gospel–the justice and mercy of God.
Notice too, that all of what follows in the trials and travails of Job stems from a sovereign act of God. It is God who directs Satan’s attention to Job, unlike the account in Zechariah 3, where Satan tattles on Israel’s priest because of his sins. We read of God’s directive in verse 12. “And the Lord said to Satan, `Behold, all that he has is in your hand. Only against him do not stretch out your hand.” So Satan went out from the presence of the Lord.”
What follows then, is the account of Job’s trial by ordeal–a trial he must endure in order to vindicate God’s redemption of sinners.
Next time, Job Loses Everything . . . Job: The Suffering Prophet (5)
To read the first in this series: Job: The Suffering Prophet (1)
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[1] M. G. Kline, Glory in Our Midst (Overland Park, KS: Two-Age Press, 2001), 100.
[2] Kline, Job, 462.
[3] Kline, Job, 462.