The Unborrowed Breath of God Text: Job 34:13-15
Introduction: The Committee of Non-Existence
We live in an age of cosmic insolence. Modern man, in his rebellion, wants to put God on trial. He wants to audit the Almighty, to review His performance, to give Him a grade. He imagines a universe where God is a cosmic civil servant, appointed by some higher committee, and answerable to us, the constituents. If God does not perform to our satisfaction, if His management of the world offends our delicate sensibilities, then we feel perfectly justified in lodging a formal complaint, or perhaps, in voting Him out of office at the next available opportunity.
Job, in the depths of his suffering, was tempted toward this very posture. His friends, with their tidy but cruel theology, had accused him of secret sin. Job, knowing his relative integrity, rightly rejected their premise but was in danger of overcorrecting into the ditch of accusing God. He wanted his day in court. He wanted to depose the Almighty. And here, the young man Elihu, for all his youthful bluster, steps in and speaks a necessary and foundational truth. He is not just correcting Job; he is correcting the perennial human temptation to forget our place. He is reminding us of the ultimate, unassailable, and absolute sovereignty of God.
The questions Elihu poses in our text are not meant to be answered. They are rhetorical broadsides, designed to shatter the very framework of our rebellious assumptions. They are meant to remind us that before we can question God's justice, we must first reckon with His existence and His authority. Where did God get His authority? Who put Him in charge? The answer is so profound that it dismantles the question. It is like asking who gave the dictionary permission to define words. The question assumes a standard outside the standard, an authority above the authority, which is a logical absurdity.
Elihu's argument is simple and devastating. God's authority is not delegated. It is not assigned. It is inherent. And our very existence is not a right, but a moment-by-moment loan from the one who possesses life in Himself. If we get this wrong, everything else will be wrong. If we think God is answerable to us, we have inverted the cosmos. We have placed the potter's clay on the judge's bench. The result is not just bad theology; it is insanity.
The Text
Who appointed Him with authority over the earth?
And who has laid on Him the whole world?
If He should set His heart on it,
If He should gather to Himself His spirit and His breath,
All flesh would breathe its last together,
And man would return to dust.
(Job 34:13-15 LSB)
The Un-Commissioned King (v. 13)
Elihu begins with two thunderous, rhetorical questions that establish the bedrock of all reality.
"Who appointed Him with authority over the earth? And who has laid on Him the whole world?" (Job 34:13)
Think about the audacity of the question itself. "Who appointed Him?" The question presupposes a board of directors, a heavenly search committee that interviewed candidates for the position of "God." Who was on this committee? The archangels? The primordial cosmic dust bunnies? The committee of non-existence?
The question is designed to implode. God's authority is underived. He wasn't given a commission. He wasn't elected. He wasn't promoted. His authority is an essential attribute of His being, as fundamental as His goodness or His holiness. To be God is to be the ultimate authority. If another being gave God His authority, then that other being would be God. You cannot go behind the ultimate. You cannot appeal to a higher court than the Supreme Court.
This is the great Creator/creature distinction, the infinite, qualitative chasm that separates God from everything else. God is. Everything else is made. Because He made everything, He owns everything. And because He owns everything, He rules everything. His right to govern is a manufacturer's right. He is not a manager hired by the creation; He is the artist who owns the painting. He is not a politician who serves at the pleasure of the people; He is the potter who has absolute rights over the clay.
This demolishes every pagan and modern conception of divinity. The pagan gods were part of the cosmos, born from chaos, and they fought for their turf. The modern god of sentimentalism is a celestial butler who exists to meet our needs and validate our feelings. But the God of the Bible is the uncreated Creator. He does not apply for the job of running the world. The world is His personal property. He is not accountable to anyone because there is no one for Him to be accountable to. Isaiah asks the same kind of questions: "Who has measured the Spirit of the LORD, or what man shows him his counsel? Whom did he consult, and who made him understand?" (Isaiah 40:13-14). The answer is a resounding nobody.
The Divine Inhale (v. 14-15)
Having established that God's authority is absolute, Elihu now demonstrates that our existence is absolutely dependent.
"If He should set His heart on it, If He should gather to Himself His spirit and His breath, All flesh would breathe its last together, And man would return to dust." (Job 34:14-15)
This is one of the most terrifying and simultaneously comforting truths in all of Scripture. Our life is not our own. The very breath in your lungs at this moment is a gift, a loan from the sovereign God. The "spirit" and "breath" here refer to the life-force that God imparts to all living things. It is His energy, His power, that sustains the universe. As Paul told the Athenians, "in Him we live and move and have our being" (Acts 17:28).
Elihu presents a stark thought experiment. What if God decided to simply... stop? What if He "set His heart on it," not in some malicious way, but simply to recall what is His? What if He were to inhale? If God were to gather back to Himself the breath He has lent to creation, the effect would be instantaneous and universal. "All flesh would breathe its last together."
Notice the scope: "all flesh." Not just one person, not just a city, but the entire biosphere. Every man, every animal, every insect. The world would not slowly wind down. It would cease. Instantly. Man, for all his pride and technological prowess, would simply "return to dust." This is a direct echo of the creative act and the curse. God formed man from the dust and breathed into him the breath of life (Gen. 2:7), and because of sin, He decreed, "for you are dust, and to dust you shall return" (Gen. 3:19).
This truth is a great hammer against our pride. We strut about, making our five-year plans, boasting of our accomplishments, and acting as though we are the masters of our fate. But we cannot guarantee our next heartbeat. Our continued existence is an act of continuous creation, a constant outpouring of divine grace. We are utterly and completely contingent. God is not. He is the great I AM; we are the "we are because He is."
Conclusion: The Ground of All Comfort
Now, for the unbeliever, this is a doctrine of sheer terror. To be so utterly dependent on a God you hate is the very definition of a cosmic predicament. It means you have no ground to stand on, no air to breathe that is your own, no court of appeal. Your rebellion is being funded, moment by moment, by the very King you are fighting against. It is an act of profound insanity.
But for the Christian, for the one who has been reconciled to God through Jesus Christ, this doctrine is the ground of all comfort. Why? Because this sovereign God, this un-commissioned King who holds our every breath in His hand, is our Father. The one who has this absolute authority is the same one who so loved the world that He gave His only Son (John 3:16).
Think of it. The same power that could extinguish all life with a thought is the power that holds you fast. The same authority that is answerable to no one has bound Himself by a covenant of grace to you in Christ. He who needs nothing from us has, in Christ, pledged everything to us. The hands that could crush the universe are the same hands that were pierced for our transgressions.
Therefore, we do not come to God as Job was tempted to, demanding an explanation for our suffering. We come to Him in utter dependence, knowing that our suffering, our joy, our life, and our death are all held within the hands of a sovereign Father who is both infinitely powerful and infinitely good. He does not owe us an explanation; He has given us something far better. He has given us Himself.
Our lives are not a random series of events. They are a story being written by the ultimate Author. Our breath is not a chemical reaction; it is a gift from the giver of life. And our hope is not in our own strength or understanding, but in the unshakable character of the God who needs no appointment, who governs all things, and who, in Christ, has gathered us not to dust, but to Himself, forever.