By Mark Grace, CCCNZ Ambassador
He iti rawa ranei mou nga whakamarie a te Atua, te kupu ngawari e hoatu ana ki a koe?
Are God’s consolations not enough for you, words spoken gently to you?
Job 15:11
The intensity of the conversation is heating up. Job has lashed out at his ‘friends’ in Job 13:4. “You, however, smear me with lies; you are worthless physicians, all of you!”.
Here, in Job 15:11, Eliphaz the Temanite strikes back: “Are God’s consolations not enough for you, words spoken gently to you?” A conversation that began with comfort in the early chapters of Job now turns confrontational.
Eliphaz’s retort is an arrogant one. He thinks he and his advice are God’s consolation for Job. He thinks Job is not taking his medicine.
Eliphaz’s rebuke of Job is also wrong. He assumes the only reason for Job’s sickness is his sin.
And yet even here, in this arrogant, misguided critic, we can hear echoes of the words of Christ. In John 14:26, Jesus calls the Holy Spirit our Comforter. This poignant question in the Old Testament is finally answered at the cross, at the coming of the Holy Spirit to the church in the New Testament.
God applies his consolations to us through the Holy Spirit of Christ, our Comforter.
He is God’s consolation to deal with our sin and shame.
He is God’s consolation who sees us in our sorrow.
He is God’s consolation who stands with us in trials.
He is God's consolation who suffers with us.
He is God’s consolation to settle our hearts.
He is God’s consolation to set our hopes on.
God intends that the Holy Spirit comfort us in and through our church families. The Spirit works in the people of God to encourage each other, to remind each other of the glorious and comforting truths in Scripture.
God intends that, unlike Eliphaz, we would be conduits for God’s consolation to his people.
(I'm grateful for David Guzik's interpretation of this passage which has influenced my thinking).
