Previously, Eliphaz claimed to know even by direct inspiration from God that Job’s calamity was self-inflicted by sin. By the same logic, Bildad’s first pitch was that Job failed to cooperate with God to make himself acceptable again. They agreed on one simple truth: Sin and its guilt must be dealt with by all who want to be declared not guilty (i.e. justified). God is set against all pretense that we are righteous when we are not, Ps 5:4-7. The urge to justify ourselves is universal, but the key question is what man can or cannot contribute. Over this question, the world has persecuted the prophets both in David’s own days (Ps 5:9) and ever since Cain and Abel throughout the history of the church (Lk 11:46-52):
If any one saith, that by faith alone the impious is justified; in such wise as to mean, that nothing else is required to co-operate in order to the obtaining the grace of Justification, and that it is not in any way necessary, that he be prepared and disposed by the movement of his own will; let him be anathema.*
List of excommunicable offences from the Council of Trent, point 9. (1545-1563), Wikipedia
The theologians who issued this anathema against believers during the Counter-Reformation wasted the gospel by subjecting its interpretation to human tradition. In that tradition, we must believe that God gave us free will so that we may freely seek Him with sacrifices of our own free will which God then will reward by giving us more grace.** For how could it be fair of God to hold us accountable for any evil, if there were no free will? The doctrine that believers are declared righteous because of Him who calls and not according to their works always meets this same objection: “You will say to me then why does he still find fault? For who can resist his will?” (Ro 9:11-19).
The short answer of the Bible to that question is that the justice of God in this matter is above and beyond our grasp, Ro 11:33-34, and that this is why the Bildads in this world are bound by their tradition to spite those who believe:
Bildad’s first speech
Job 8:
- 8:2-3 Your windy words (about God’s severity) imply that God would be unjust.
- 8:4 The fate of your children was sealed by their own hand. It was their choice, not God: If they had not endulged in drinking at their brothers house, they would still be alive (1:18-19).
- 8:5-7 If you only would rightly collaborate with God to be saved, i.e. if you would go to confession and plead for mercy and henceforth keep yourself pure, God would justly reward you with a state of grace to return to you a rightful share in His habitation (or, as our blessed tradition will say in a few centuries from now: God will bless you with his Presence by rewarding you with His storehouse of mercy that He purchased for you***).
- 8:8-10 If you would learn and humbly submit to these traditions of our forbears, they would teach you a more balanced understanding: God’s sovereignty and free will are not contrary to each other; they are only two sides of the same coin. But you are misled by your one-sided opinion.
- 8:11-13 Take a look at God’s creation: Will He make papyrus plants grow where there are no marshes, or reeds where there is no water? You better bring that sweet water with you, like we all do (i.e. God will not come as a shining knight in white armor to do it for you).
- But as it stands, you have forgotten the one true God. That is why you are forsaken and perish:
- 8:14-15 Your faith was as easily torn as a spider’s web. Your house crumbles because you built it on the shifting sand of an empty profession of faith alone, without the solid foundation of righteous works.
- 8:16-19 You and your “faith” are not worth to be remembered by your successors.
- 8:20-22 But if you are blameless as you claim, cheer up: If you are without fault, you can count on God’s unmerited free grace. For the only small condition for God’s grace to be unconditionally lavished on you is that you must be blameless.***
Job’s reply to Bildad’s first speech
Job 9:
- 9:1 “I know it is so:…” – Job by no means affirms Bildad who claimed in 8:6 & 8:20 that God is merciful to those who deserve it; he directly contradicts him (see 9:22). Thus, v1 should be read “I know better; I tell you how it really is: …”
- 9:2-11 God is too much aloof, too great to take note of me:
- 9:12-15 He does as He pleases, and no one can stop Him, nothing can stand against His indignation. I am in the right, but defending my justice against the Creator is futile; and if I am consigned to beg for mercy, what is that good for? I do not and cannot believe that He has mercy on me (cf 7:21; 10:6-7, 14)
- 9:16-35 …who can summon Him, v19?
- On this earth, the wicked rule, and God even has a hand in it by blindfolding the eyes of judges.
- v24 At least in this life, God does not reward with success our own efforts to cleanse ourselves, but rather crushes them,
- for He is not a man, v30-32.
Job’s appeal to God
Job 10:
- 10:1-17 Why did you create me only to prosecute and hunt me down, and even when I am not guilty?
- 10:18-22 I wish I had never been born, or that you would at least leave me alone.
* Hardly by coincidence, the Quran declares the same agenda for Islam already on the front page: “In the name of Allah, Most Gracious, Most Merciful. …Show us the straight path. The path of those whom thou hast favored; not the (path) of those who earn thine anger nor of those who go astray.” (The Opening, 1:1-1:7). The sum of it is to deny that justification could be merited by God himself on our behalf when He became man in the person of Jesus Christ (cf 1Jn 4:1-3): “Allah, the Eternal Refuge. He neither begets nor is born, nor is there to him any equivalent.” (The Purity, 112:1-3)
** e.g. Didymus of Alexandria (313-398 AD), on the foundational gospel story in the Old Testament (Gen 4): “Insofar as Cain had made his offering with indifference, and Abel with sincerity, God took notice of Abel and his gift, whereas to Cain and his offerings he paid no heed.” And John Chrysostom (347-407 AD, Homilies on Genesis 18.17): “And Abel offered of the firstborn of his sheep, and of their fat. See how his most pious mind is shown to us, and how he did not merely offer sheep, but of the firstborn: that is, of the most precious and the most excellent: and then, of these firstborn the most precious parts: and of their fat, it says: that is, of the fattest and best. Nothing of the sort is recorded of Cain: he offered sacrifice from the fruits of the earth: as though to say, whatever he came across, taking no labor or pains to choose among them.” (Emphasis added to highlight what the writers read into the story by themselves).
*** Caricatured here to highlight how even long before Muhammed or the catholic church Council of Trent, Bildad denied the grace of God by preaching that grace depends on works of the Law. In the same manner as the Quran, these theologians stubbornly believed that preaching the requirement to be blameless (v20) is the same as proclaiming God the merciful (v5), and that this self-contradiction was the ‘balanced’ view espoused by Abraham, Isaac and Jacob (v8).
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