Dust, Ashes, and Seeing God
Introduction: The End of the Argument
The book of Job is a long and arduous wrestling match. It is a courtroom drama where the defendant, Job, a man righteous in his generation, has been subjected to a catastrophic series of calamities. His friends, those miserable comforters, arrive on the scene with their tidy, Deuteronomic boxes, insisting that such suffering must be the direct result of some secret, heinous sin. They are peddling a cheap, mechanistic karma that masquerades as biblical orthodoxy. Job, to his credit, knows this is not the case. He knows he has not committed some great evil to deserve this, and so he defends his integrity.
But in the heat of the battle, in the agony of his loss, Job oversteps his creaturely station. He moves from defending his own integrity to impugning God's. He demands his day in court. He wants to cross examine the Almighty. He wants the charges read. He wants an explanation. For thirty seven chapters, the argument rages. And then, in chapter thirty eight, God shows up. He answers Job out of the whirlwind.
But notice how God answers. He doesn't give Job the minutes from the heavenly board meeting. He doesn't explain the wager with the adversary. He doesn't answer a single one of Job's "why" questions. Instead, He puts Job on the witness stand and cross examines him. "Where were you when I laid the foundation of the earth?" He asks. He unleashes a torrent of questions about the cosmos, the weather, the animal kingdom, from the mountain goats to the leviathan, all designed to demonstrate one central point: Job, you are the creature. I am the Creator. Your refusal to bow before my wisdom in the things you can see is the very reason you have no standing to question my wisdom in the things you cannot.
The speech from the whirlwind was not an explanation; it was a revelation. God did not reveal His secret counsel; He revealed Himself. And that revelation is what brings us to our text today. This is the end of the argument. This is not a truce, or a settlement. This is an unconditional surrender. This is what happens when a man who has only heard about God finally, truly, sees Him.
The Text
Then Job answered Yahweh and said,
"I know that You can do all things,
And that no purpose of Yours can be thwarted.
'Who is this that hides counsel without knowledge?'
Therefore I have declared that which I did not understand,
Things too marvelous for me, which I did not know.
'Hear, now, and I will speak;
I will ask You, and You make me know.'
I have heard of You by the hearing of the ear;
But now my eye sees You;
Therefore I reject myself,
And I repent in dust and ashes."
(Job 42:1-6 LSB)
Unthwartable Purpose (vv. 1-2)
Job begins his reply not with an excuse, but with a bedrock confession of divine sovereignty.
"Then Job answered Yahweh and said, 'I know that You can do all things, And that no purpose of Yours can be thwarted.'" (Job 42:1-2)
This is the great conclusion. After everything, after the boils and the bankruptcy and the bereavement, this is the truth that settles in his soul. "I know." This is not the abstract, doctrinal knowledge he had before. This is knowledge forged in the fire. He has experienced the full force of God's permissive will, and has now been confronted with the full force of His creative power. The result is a settled conviction in God's absolute omnipotence.
But it is the second clause that carries the weight: "no purpose of Yours can be thwarted." This is where the rubber of sovereignty meets the road of suffering. Job now understands that his ordeal was not a random, chaotic tragedy that God was scrambling to fix. It was not a plan that went sideways. It was, from beginning to end, contained within the unthwartable, unstoppable, sovereign purpose of God. This is a terrifying truth for the unregenerate man, for it means there is no escape from God. But for the child of God, it is the only true foundation for comfort. If God's purposes can be thwarted, then we are all cosmic orphans, subject to the whims of chance, fate, or the devil. But if His purpose cannot be thwarted, then even the most horrific suffering is held in His hand, and is being bent toward a glorious end that He has determined from all eternity.
Guilty as Charged (v. 3)
Next, Job takes God's own accusation from the beginning of the whirlwind speech and pleads guilty to it.
"'Who is this that hides counsel without knowledge?' Therefore I have declared that which I did not understand, Things too marvelous for me, which I did not know." (Job 42:3)
Job is quoting God back to Himself. God had asked, "Who is this that darkens counsel by words without knowledge?" (Job 38:2). Job now points the finger at himself and says, "That would be me. I am that man." This is the essence of true confession. It is not excuse making. It is not "I'm sorry, but..." It is an unvarnished agreement with God's assessment of our sin.
Job's sin was not the secret wickedness his friends accused him of. His sin was intellectual pride. It was the sin of speaking with authority on matters far outside his pay grade. He had taken the data of his own limited, painful experience and from it extrapolated a judgment against the character of the God who governs the universe. He confesses to declaring, to pontificating, on things he did not understand. These things were "too marvelous" for him, not just too complex, but too wonderful, too glorious. He was a man with a thimble trying to measure the Pacific Ocean, and he had the audacity to complain about the tides.
From Prosecutor to Pupil (vv. 4-5)
The heart of Job's transformation is captured in the shift of his posture before God, culminating in the book's most famous lines.
"'Hear, now, and I will speak; I will ask You, and You make me know.' I have heard of You by the hearing of the ear; But now my eye sees You;" (Job 42:4-5)
In verse 4, Job again quotes his own earlier, arrogant demands. He had wanted to put God on the stand. But now, the tone is entirely different. It is not the demand of a prosecutor, but the plea of a humbled student. He still wants to hear from God, but not so he can argue. He wants to hear so he can learn. He has finally shut his mouth, which is the first requirement for gaining any wisdom.
Verse 5 is the pivot upon which the entire story turns. "I have heard of You by the hearing of the ear; But now my eye sees You." Before this, Job had a correct theology. He had second hand information. It was orthodox, it was robust, but it was still at a distance. It was like reading a biography of a great man. But the whirlwind was not a lecture; it was an introduction. Job came face to face with the living God. He went from reading the book to meeting the Author.
And this is the ultimate answer to the problem of evil and suffering. The answer is not a proposition. It is not a tidy syllogism. The answer is a Person. The final resolution to our pain is not found in understanding the reason for it, but in seeing the glory of the One who ordains it. A true vision of God does not answer all our questions. It incinerates them.
The Necessary Consequence (v. 6)
Seeing God as He is must produce a correct view of ourselves. Job's reaction is not optional; it is the only logical and righteous response.
"Therefore I reject myself, And I repent in dust and ashes." (Job 42:6)
Notice the "Therefore." Because I have seen You, this is what I must do. True repentance is never the cause of seeing God; it is always the effect. We do not clean ourselves up to meet God. We meet God, and the sight of His holiness makes us see our filth for the first time.
"I reject myself." Other translations say "I despise myself" or "I abhor myself." This is not the angsty self-loathing of a teenager. This is the righteous self-rejection of a man who has seen his own self-righteousness in the blazing light of God's perfect righteousness. He is retracting his entire case. He is repudiating the proud, demanding, questioning self that ran his mouth for dozens of chapters. He sees that at the root of all his complaints was a sinful, idolatrous love of self.
And so he repents "in dust and ashes." This is not just a feeling. It is a posture. It is the external sign of an internal collapse. Dust signifies his creatureliness, that he is nothing, formed from the ground. Ashes signify his sinfulness, the ruin and waste of his pride. He is a sinful creature before a holy Creator, and in that position, he finally finds peace.
The Gospel in the Whirlwind
The story of Job is a glorious foreshadowing of the gospel. Job saw God in the terrifying power of the whirlwind and it brought him to his knees. We, on this side of the cross, have been given a far greater, and far clearer, revelation.
We have not just heard of God; we have seen Him. "And the Word became flesh and dwelt among us, and we have seen his glory, glory as of the only Son from the Father, full of grace and truth" (John 1:14). Jesus Christ is the ultimate whirlwind. He is the perfect revelation of the character of God.
In Christ, we see a holiness that is infinitely more terrifying to our sin than any storm, and a love that is infinitely more comforting than any explanation. Job saw the God who created Leviathan. We see the God who became a man and crushed the head of that ancient serpent, Leviathan himself, Satan. Job's questions about justice were silenced by a display of cosmic power. Our questions about justice were answered at a Roman cross, where the unthwartable purpose of God was to crush His only Son in our place.
Therefore, our response must be the same as Job's, only deeper. When the Holy Spirit opens our eyes to see the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ, our only proper response is to say, "I reject myself." I reject my own righteousness, which is a filthy rag. I reject my own wisdom, which is foolishness. I reject my own demands, my own claims, my own rights.
And we repent in dust and ashes. We come to the foot of the cross as ruined, sinful creatures. But here is the glory of it all. Job was restored and blessed in the end. But we who repent at the cross are not just restored. We are robed in the perfect righteousness of Christ Himself. We are raised from the dust and ashes of our repentance and seated with Him in the heavenly places. Job saw God and fell down. We see God in Christ, and He lifts us up.