The Righteousness of Slander: Eliphaz's Gospel of Works Text: Job 22:6-11
Introduction: The Bankruptcy of Karmic Christianity
We come now to the third and final round of speeches from Job's friends, these miserable comforters. And if we thought they might have learned anything from Job's steadfast refusal to buckle under their theological waterboarding, we would be mistaken. Eliphaz, the elder statesman of this trio, doubles down. His arguments have run out of steam, his reasoning has grown thin, and so he does what all bankrupt theologians do when their tidy systems collide with the jagged edges of reality. He resorts to slander. He simply makes things up.
We must understand what is happening here. This is not a simple disagreement between friends. This is a clash of fundamental worldviews. Eliphaz is the chief spokesman for what we might call retribution theology, or karmic Christianity. It is the simple, tidy, and utterly damnable belief that God runs the world like a cosmic vending machine. You put in a coin of righteousness, and out comes a blessing. You put in a coin of sin, and out comes a calamity. If you are suffering, it is axiomatic that you have sinned. The size of the suffering is directly proportional to the size of the sin. It is a closed system, neat, predictable, and God is little more than the dispassionate administrator of its rules.
This theology is immensely popular because it puts man in the driver's seat. It gives him a lever to pull. If I do X, God must do Y. It domesticates God, making Him manageable. But it is a lie from the pit. It is a theology that cannot handle the book of Job, it cannot handle the cross of Christ, and it cannot handle the sovereign, untamable God of the Bible. When God finally speaks out of the whirlwind, He does not give Job a tidy explanation. He gives Job Himself. He reveals His majesty, His power, His wild and glorious sovereignty. The answer to suffering is not a formula; it is a Person.
Eliphaz, unable to grasp this, must invent sins for Job to justify his own faulty system. He cannot allow for a righteous man to suffer, because that would break his theology. And rather than break his theology on the rock of reality, he chooses to break Job on the wheel of false accusation. This is a profound warning for us. When our systems become more precious to us than the Word of God and the people of God, we are on the verge of becoming miserable comforters ourselves, slandering the righteous to protect our idols of explanation.
The Text
For you have taken pledges of your brothers without cause,
And stripped the clothing of the naked.
To the weary you have given no water to drink,
And from the hungry you have withheld bread.
But the earth belongs to the mighty man,
And the highly respected man inhabits it.
You have sent widows away empty,
And the might of the orphans has been crushed.
Therefore snares surround you,
And sudden dread terrifies you,
Or darkness, so that you cannot see,
And an abundance of water covers you.
(Job 22:6-11 LSB)
A Catalogue of Fabricated Sins (vv. 6-9)
Eliphaz, having established his premise that Job's suffering must be the result of great sin, now proceeds to fill in the blanks. He becomes a prosecutor inventing a case out of thin air.
"For you have taken pledges of your brothers without cause, And stripped the clothing of the naked. To the weary you have given no water to drink, And from the hungry you have withheld bread." (Job 22:6-7)
Notice the specificity. This is not a vague charge of "being a sinner." Eliphaz accuses Job of specific violations of covenantal ethics. Taking a pledge from a brother without cause, especially stripping the naked of their clothing, was a grievous offense against the law of love. A man's cloak was often his only covering at night; to take it as collateral was to leave him exposed and vulnerable (Ex. 22:26-27). Likewise, withholding basic sustenance, water and bread, from the weary and hungry was the mark of a wicked and merciless man. Eliphaz is painting Job as a cruel oppressor, a loan shark who preys on the poor.
Where is his evidence? He has none. He needs none. Job's boils are his evidence. The dead children are his evidence. The ruined estate is his evidence. The logic is entirely circular: Job is suffering, therefore he must have sinned in this way. Eliphaz's theology is the engine, and slander is the fuel.
He continues his indictment, contrasting Job's alleged behavior with the privileges of the powerful.
"But the earth belongs to the mighty man, And the highly respected man inhabits it. You have sent widows away empty, And the might of the orphans has been crushed." (Job 22:8-9)
This is dripping with sarcasm. Eliphaz says, "You acted like the whole world was yours for the taking. You were the mighty man, the respected man, and you used your position not to help, but to crush." The care for the widow and the orphan was a non-negotiable benchmark of righteousness in the ancient world, and indeed, throughout Scripture. To send widows away empty-handed and to crush the strength of the fatherless was to attack those whom God had taken under His special protection (Deut. 10:18; Ps. 68:5). Pure and undefiled religion, James tells us, is this: to visit orphans and widows in their affliction (James 1:27).
Eliphaz is accusing Job of the very antithesis of true religion. And it is all a lie. We know from the first chapter that Job was "blameless and upright." Later, in his great oath of innocence in chapter 31, Job will systematically refute every one of these charges. He will call down curses on himself if he has ever done these things. The point here is to see the diabolical nature of a works-righteousness system. When it cannot explain reality, it must distort reality. It must bear false witness. It is a theology that makes liars of its adherents.
The Inevitable Conclusion (vv. 10-11)
Having laid out his fictitious charges, Eliphaz now draws his conclusion. The "therefore" in verse 10 is the linchpin of his entire argument.
"Therefore snares surround you, And sudden dread terrifies you, Or darkness, so that you cannot see, And an abundance of water covers you." (Job 22:10-11)
"Therefore." Because of all these sins I have just invented for you, this is what is happening. The snares, the dread, the darkness, the flood, it is all the direct consequence of your actions. It is simple cause and effect. You did the crime, now you are doing the time. Eliphaz presents this as a settled case. The verdict is in, the sentence has been passed, and all that is left is for Job to confess.
The imagery here is potent. Snares speak of being trapped, with no way of escape. Sudden dread speaks to the psychological torment, the sheer terror that has gripped Job. Darkness is the confusion, the inability to see or understand what is happening. And the abundance of water is a picture of being utterly overwhelmed, drowned by calamity. Eliphaz is not wrong in his description of Job's condition. He is catastrophically wrong about the reason for it.
This is the cruelty of legalism. It not only misdiagnoses the problem, but it also offers a false cure. The cure, which Eliphaz will get to later in the chapter, is simple repentance for sins that were never committed. It is a demand for a man to lie about his past in order to secure a future blessing. It is a gospel of works, and like all such gospels, it crushes the afflicted and offers no real hope, because it is not grounded in the grace of God, but in the performance of man.
The Shadow of a Better Friend
As we watch Eliphaz heap these burning coals of slander on Job's head, we must see the profound contrast with the true and better Friend, the Lord Jesus Christ. Job's friends came to him with a theology that demanded a reason for his suffering, and when they could not find one, they invented one. They came to defend the honor of their tidy theological system.
But Jesus Christ comes to us in our suffering not to defend a system, but to enter our mess. He is the friend who sticks closer than a brother. And what is the charge against us? It is not fabricated. Unlike Job, we are not blameless and upright. The charges against us are true. We have, in principle, done everything Eliphaz falsely accused Job of. We have been selfish. We have ignored the needy. We have lived as though the earth belonged to us. We have crushed others with our words and our actions. The wages of our sin is indeed death. The snares, the dread, the darkness, the flood of judgment, we deserve it all.
And what does our Friend do? He does not stand at a distance and lecture us on the principle of cause and effect. He steps into the dock and takes the accusation upon Himself. He who knew no sin was made to be sin for us. He who was the very definition of righteousness was slandered, falsely accused, and condemned. The snares surrounded Him. The sudden dread in the garden terrified Him. The darkness covered the land as He hung on the cross. The abundance of waters, the flood of God's own wrath against sin, covered Him.
Eliphaz said to Job, "You are suffering because you are a great sinner." The gospel says to us, "Christ suffered because you are a great sinner." Eliphaz's system offered a false cure for a false charge. The gospel offers a true cure for a true charge. The cure is not our repentance, our promises, or our good works. The cure is the finished work of another. It is the blood and righteousness of Jesus Christ, received by faith alone.
This is why the theology of Eliphaz is so pernicious. It is not just bad advice for suffering people. It is a rival gospel. It is the anti-gospel. It directs a man to look at himself, at his own performance, for the source of his standing with God. The true gospel directs a man to look away from himself entirely, to a crucified and risen Savior. Job, in his integrity, refused to play Eliphaz's game. He knew the charges were false. And in his deepest anguish, he looked for a Redeemer (Job 19:25). He was looking for Christ. May we, in our own trials, whether deserved or not, learn to turn away from the miserable comfort of karmic religion and find our only rest in Him.