The Divine Cross-Examination
Introduction: The Courtroom of the Whirlwind
For thirty-some chapters, Job has been demanding his day in court. He has sat on his ash heap, scraping his sores with a potsherd, and has called for a legal showdown with the Almighty. He wants to present his case. He wants to argue his righteousness. He wants God to show up and explain Himself. In our modern therapeutic age, we are quite comfortable with this posture. We want a God who is accountable to us, a God who can be put in the dock and cross-examined about His management of the universe, and particularly, His management of our lives.
And then, in chapter thirty-eight, God shows up. But He does not show up as the defendant. He does not come to be questioned, but to question. He does not arrive with a legal brief to justify His actions, but in a whirlwind to display His majesty. The entire premise of Job's lawsuit is obliterated by the sheer, untamable reality of God. God does not answer Job's "why" questions. He answers Job's "who" question. Job wanted to know why he was suffering. God answers by showing Job who He is, and by extension, who Job is. This is the fundamental issue. The problem is not God's inscrutable plan; the problem is our creaturely finitude and, more than that, our sinful arrogance.
In our text today, God continues His cross-examination. This is not a gentle inquiry. It is a divine taunt, a holy sarcasm designed to dismantle Job's last remaining shred of self-righteousness. Job has been teetering on the edge of accusing God of injustice in order to maintain his own integrity. Here, God calls his bluff. God essentially says, "You think you could run the world better? You think my judgments are faulty? Fine. You take the throne. You be God for a day. Here is the job description." What follows is one of the most potent refutations of human pride in all of Scripture. It establishes, once and for all, the absolute chasm between the Creator and the creature, and in so doing, lays the foundation for our only hope of salvation.
The Text
Then Yahweh answered Job out of the whirlwind and said,
"Now gird up your loins like a man; I will ask you, and you make Me know.
Will you really annul My judgment? Will you condemn Me that you may be justified?
Or do you have an arm like God, And can you thunder with a voice like His?
'Adorn yourself with exaltation and loftiness, And clothe yourself with splendor and majesty.
Pour out the overflowings of your anger, And look on everyone who is proud, and make him low.
Look on everyone who is proud, and humble him, And tread down the wicked in their place.
Hide them in the dust together; Bind their faces in the hidden place.
Then I will also praise you, That your own right hand can save you.'
(Job 40:6-14 LSB)
The Divine Summons (vv. 6-7)
The confrontation begins with God setting the terms of engagement.
"Then Yahweh answered Job out of the whirlwind and said, 'Now gird up your loins like a man; I will ask you, and you make Me know.'" (Job 40:6-7)
First, notice the setting. God speaks from a whirlwind. This is not a still, small voice. This is a theophany of raw, cosmic power. The context of God's speech is His untamable sovereignty. His words cannot be detached from His nature. To hear God is to be confronted by His power. This is not a safe, manageable deity that can be summoned to a human courtroom. This is the God who directs the tornadoes.
The command to "gird up your loins like a man" is the language of a warrior preparing for combat or a laborer for a strenuous task. Job had been collapsed in a heap of self-pity. God commands him to stand up. It is a summons to face the music. In one sense, it is an act of respect. God is not talking down to a worm; He is addressing a man made in His image. But it is also a challenge. "You wanted a confrontation, Job. Here it is. Stand and deliver."
And then the roles are violently reversed. "I will ask you, and you make Me know." For chapters, Job has been the one with the questions. Now, God declares that He will be the interrogator. The creature does not cross-examine the Creator. All of our attempts to put God on trial are fundamentally illegitimate. He is the judge; we are the ones who must give an account. This is the basic grammar of reality that our rebellious age has forgotten. We think we are the ones with the right to demand answers, when in fact, we are the ones who must answer to Him.
The Central Accusation (v. 8)
God immediately gets to the heart of the matter, the central sin that undergirded all of Job's complaints.
"Will you really annul My judgment? Will you condemn Me that you may be justified?" (Job 40:8 LSB)
This is the engine of all human rebellion, from the Garden to your own heart this morning. In order to justify ourselves, we must find fault with God. If your circumstances are miserable, and you insist on your own righteousness, then the only possible conclusion is that God has made a mistake. He has been unjust. He has mismanaged His world. For you to be right, God must be wrong.
This is a zero-sum game. You cannot have it both ways. You cannot simultaneously maintain your own innocence and God's perfect justice when you are in the posture of complaining against Him. This is precisely what Adam did. When confronted with his sin, he said, "The woman whom You gave to be with me, she gave me of the tree, and I ate" (Gen. 3:12). See the logic? "It's her fault, which means it's ultimately Your fault for giving her to me." To justify himself, he had to condemn God.
Every time we grumble about our lot in life, every time we harbor bitterness over our trials, we are doing the same thing. We are annulling God's judgment. We are setting up our own little tribunal, with ourselves as the judge, and we are declaring God's verdict on the world, and on us, to be null and void. We are condemning God so that we may be justified. It is the essence of pride.
The Divine Job Application (vv. 9-13)
Having identified the sin, God now demonstrates its absurdity with a torrent of divine sarcasm. He invites Job to apply for the position of God.
"Or do you have an arm like God, And can you thunder with a voice like His? Adorn yourself with exaltation and loftiness, And clothe yourself with splendor and majesty." (Job 40:9-10 LSB)
The first part of the job application concerns qualifications. "Do you have an arm like God?" The arm is a symbol of power, the ability to act and execute judgment. "Can you thunder with a voice like His?" Can you speak and make the mountains skip like lambs? The answer is, of course, no. Job does not possess the raw power required for the job.
So God taunts him. "Go ahead, then. Put on the uniform. Adorn yourself. Clothe yourself." It is a picture of a small boy dressing up in his father's military uniform. It hangs on him ridiculously. The invitation to clothe himself in splendor and majesty is designed to highlight the infinite gap between God's glory and Job's frailty. You cannot just decide to be majestic. You either are or you are not.
Next, God lays out the job description. If Job is going to be God, here is his first task:
"Pour out the overflowings of your anger, And look on everyone who is proud, and make him low. Look on everyone who is proud, and humble him, And tread down the wicked in their place. Hide them in the dust together; Bind their faces in the hidden place." (Job 40:11-13 LSB)
The task is simple: go and execute perfect, universal justice. Right now. You are concerned about injustice, Job? Then fix it. Pour out righteous wrath. But not just on some people. You must "look on everyone who is proud." This requires omniscience. And you must "make him low." With a look. This requires omnipotence. You must tread down the wicked, not after a long court case, but "in their place," right where they stand. And you must consign them all to the grave, to the dust, to the hidden place of judgment.
This is what it takes to be God. It takes infinite knowledge to identify every proud heart and infinite power to humble every one of them instantly and perfectly. Job, who could not even understand the justice in his own case, is being challenged to administer justice to the entire cosmos. The folly of his complaint is laid bare.
The Punchline and the Gospel (v. 14)
Finally, God delivers the punchline, and in it, the very heart of the gospel.
"Then I will also praise you, That your own right hand can save you." (Job 40:14 LSB)
This is the conclusion of the divine argument. If you, Job, can successfully perform the duties of God, if you can run the universe with perfect justice and power, then God Himself will confess that you are your own savior. If you can be God, then you do not need God. If your own right hand is sufficient to manage the cosmos, then it is certainly sufficient to deliver you from your troubles.
But of course, Job cannot. And neither can we. This is the ultimate refutation of all self-salvation projects. The reason we cannot save ourselves is because we are not God. We lack the righteousness, the wisdom, and the power. Our right hand is limp and useless. We are creatures, and sinful creatures at that. We are not qualified for the job.
And this is where the terror of the whirlwind gives way to the glory of the gospel. For this passage forces us to ask a question: Is there anyone who can meet these qualifications? Is there a man who has an arm like God? Is there one who is truly clothed in splendor and majesty? Is there one who has the authority and power to humble the proud and tread down the wicked?
Yes, there is. His name is Jesus Christ. He is the man who is also God. He is the one who, in His first coming, poured out the overflowings of God's anger by absorbing it in His own body on the cross. He humbled Himself, so that we might be exalted. And He is the one who will, at His second coming, look on everyone who is proud and make him low. He will tread the winepress of the fierceness and wrath of Almighty God.
Job was being asked to be the Messiah, and the weight of the task crushed him into repentance. He could not do it. His own right hand could not save him. And neither can yours. Our only hope is to stop trying to justify ourselves, to stop condemning God, and to look to the only one whose right hand can save. Our salvation is not found in our own performance, but in His. Job needed a redeemer, and in this divine cross-examination, God showed him just how much. And He does the same for us.