The injustice of equality.
Job complains that the same doom is meted out to the perfect and the wicked; this seems to be unjust. Our modern complaints are of the injustice of the terrible inequalities of life. But Job's position suggests to us that justice is not simple equality. Equal dealing may be unjust dealing. To be fair to all, we must not treat all alike. Yet the injustice of equality is apparently a common thing in the experience of life, and even in the dispensations of Providence. Thus special providence seems to be lost, and one broad, rough treatment appears to serve for the greatest variety of people.
I. IT WOULD BE UNJUST TO TREAT ALL ALIKE. This much may be conceded if we think of the whole of life, not of external experience alone, nor only of this temporal and limited sphere of existence. To look for absolute equality is to ignore variations of requirements and distinctions of character. But if this be so, what are we to understand by the apparent disregard of those differences? The world is governed by general laws. Events have widespread influences. Calamities come in a swelling tide, not in a meandering stream, and when they sweep over the land, weeds and fruitful plants suffer from the same devastation.
II. NEVERTHELESS, GOD IS NOT THUS UNJUST. Job is mistaken.
1. We only see the outside of life. The events which are common to all alike are external. They are visible objects of superficial observation. But these events do not constitute the whole of experience. The blow that breaks stone only toughens iron. The calamity that is a crushing judgment to one man is a healing tonic to another. When a flood sweeps over a district it leaves behind very different effects; for while it only brings ruin to houses, it brings fertility to fields. So the trouble is only equal externally. If only we could follow it into the experience of different men, we should discover that the inequality has ceased, and that a different effect is produced according to character and condition. While it is a curse to one life, it is a blessing to another.
2. We only see the present experience. Now, and on earth, there seems to be a rough, indiscriminate treatment of men. Here the injustice of equality is too often seen. Bat we must wait for the end. In Job's case the end brought about a complete reversal of the whole course of events. Now God makes his sun to shine and his rain to fall on good and bad alike—favouring equally, as he sometimes chastises equally. But this equality will not continue after death. Wheat and tares grow together, but only until the harvest. There will be a great inequality of treatment, when the one is gathered into the barns, and the other is burned. Surely men should learn to bear the common troubles of life patiently, if they know that beyond them all there is more than compensation: there is fruitful increase, with richest blessings, for the true servants of God who endure patiently.—W.F.A.
The swift days.
Job compares his days to what is swiftest-on earth, the running messenger; in the sea, the boat of reeds; in the air, the eagle darting down on its prey. We must not look for a difference in the suggestiveness of these several illustrations. Gathered from every region of existence, they give great emphasis to the one significant fact of the brevity of life.
I. OUR DAYS ARE SWIFT IN COMPARISON WITH NATURE. The course of nature moves on slowly. Geology tells of innumerable vast ages of antiquity. Evolution presupposes an even longer stretch of time. By the side of the gradual movements of nature, our little days are swift and brief. Each man's life registers but a moment on the great dial of time. The old world rolls on, while we children of a day come and go in a rapid march of succeeding generations.
II. OUR DAYS ARE SWIFT IN RELATION TO OUR DESIRES. We crave for long experience. Extinction of being is a horror to us. There are within us great instincts of immortality. Thus, while we live our little earthly day, we are reaching forward to God's great eternity. We cannot be satisfied with an ephemeral existence.
III. OUR DAYS ARE SWIFT IN REGARD TO OUR POWERS. It takes us long to train those powers. Half a lifetime is not enough to perfect them. But before they are perfected, the shadows begin to lengthen and the melancholy afternoon is upon us. Surely, if God has given us faculties that take so long to develop, and that seem capable of great achievements if only they had full scope, it is sad that they should begin to wither as soon as they have reached maturity.
IV. OUR DAYS ARE SWIFT IN CONNECTION WITH OUR DUTIES. There is so much to be done and so little time to do it in. Our tasks grow upon us, and our opportunities are cramped and cut short. Do we not all plan out more work than we can ever accomplish? Thus we labour with a sad consciousness that we can never overtake our intentions.
V. OUR DAYS ARE SWIFT BY THE, SIDE OF OUR EXPECTATIONS. A child sees eternity before him. In his estimation, one year—a whole year—is a vast epoch. Even in later youth time seems to be an abundant commodity. There is little need to economize it, for have we not enough and to spare? Presently we are surprised to see how quickly its unheeded moments are slipping away from us. Every year it goes faster, till the silent stream has become a headlong torrent, and days fly past us with terrible speed.
VI. OUR DAYS ARE SWIFT IN THE LIGHT OF ETERNITY. Here is the explanation of the whole mystery. We are not creatures of a day, although our earthly life is so short. God has given us a spark of his own immortality. In view of that the largest earthly life is a fleeting shadow. Yet the ample leisure of eternity must not make us careless of the work of the day, for this day will never return. How valuable is time in the outer world! The messenger runs with swiftest paces, the little skiff darts about on the waters, the fierce eagle drops on its prey like a thunderbolt. Though eternity is long, let us hasten to use our glorious prospects as an inspiration for a like eagerness in making the most of our brief earthly days.—W.F.A.
Despair of purification.
Job is possessed by a terrible thought. He imagines that God is so determined to have him as an object of condemnation that nothing he can do can set him right; even if he makes himself ever so clean, God will plunge him back in the mire, God will overwhelm him with guilt. This is, of course, a wholly false view of God, though it is not altogether inexcusable with Job in his ignorance and awful distress.
I. GOD ONLY DESIRES OUR PURIFICATION. We may not be tempted to fall into Job's mistake, for we have more light, and our circumstances are far more hopeful than his were. Still, it is difficult for us to conceive how entirely averse to making the worst of us God is. He cannot ignore sin, for his searching glance always reveals it to him, and his just judgment always estimates it rightly. He must bring our sin home to us; for this is for our own good, as well as necessary in regard to the claims of righteous-neat. Thus he seems to be forcing out our guilt. But in doing so he is not plunging us into the mire, but only making apparent the hidden evil of our heart. The process is like that of a photographer developing a picture, like that of a physician bringing a disease to the surface. The result makes apparent what existed before, unseen but dangerously powerful.
II. IT IS HOPELESS TO ATTEMPT OUR OWN PURIFICATION. Here Job was right. We may wash ourselves, but we shall not be clean. Sin is more than a defilement; it is a stain, a dye, an ingrained evil. It is like the Ethiopian's skin and the leopard's spots; sin has become a part of the sinner's very constitution. Tears of repentance will not wash it out. Blood of sacrificed victims will not cleanse it away. Penance and good deeds will not remove it. We cannot undo the past, cannot do away with the fact that sin was committed. Therefore we cannot remove the guilt of our sin, nor its contaminating, corrupting influence from our consciences.
III. GOD PROVIDES PURIFICATION FROM SIN. We need not despair. Job is not only mistaken; the truth is the very opposite to what he imagines it to be. God himself, instead of aggravating guilt, has provided the only efficacious means for its removal. This was promised in the Old Testament: "Come now, and let us reason together, saith the Lord," etc. (Isaiah 1:18). It is accomplished in the New Testament. Christ offered forgiveness of sin (Matthew 9:2). By his death on the cross he made that forgiveness sure to us. What no tsars or works of ours can do is effected by the blood of Christ, which "cleanseth us from all sin" (1 John 1:7). That is to say, Christ's death is the great purifying sacrifice. When we trust in him the cleansing of guilt that is given, on condition of the perfect sacrifice, is ours. Our despair of purification outside Christ should only drive us to Christ that we may receive it.—W.F.A.