It’s not fair! Job and the question of justice
We all care about justice. We innately want the world to be fair. What that usually means is that we want justice to work for us personally. We want things to work out well for us. While this is perfectly understandable, it is a very selfish and limited point of view. True justice is bigger than what happens to us personally.
That was a major concern that Job had about his suffering. He knew that he wasn’t a perfect man, but he didn’t think he had done anything that deserved the suffering he received. A major complaint he raised, and discussed with his friends, was that justice be done in his situation.
Job’s friends also thought that justice mattered, yet they took another position. Because God is just, they thought that whatever Job endured was perfectly just and fair. The only way they could resolve this was to tell Job that he was lying and was actually guilty of some great sin that he needed to repent of.
When God answered Job, he did not deal with the questions Job raised in a direct way. Yet God did answer the justice question in an unexpected way. Instead of discussing justice in an abstract way, God showed Job that he cared about justice in a much deeper and more practical way than Job or his friends had thought about.
Much of God’s answer to Job dealt with the natural world, God’s care for the animals and the plants He has made. Job wasn’t really concerned with the animals and plants; he was concerned for his own suffering! Yet God pointed out that Job’s suffering, in a bigger perspective, was one part of a much bigger puzzle. God cared for all kinds of animals, including ones that the Jewish people thought of as unclean (like the raven in Job 38:41). God was interested not only in Job, but also in making sure the lions were fed and the donkeys had enough.
God is also concerned that the waste and desolate lands receive rain and sprout forth grass (Job 38:27). Think about that for a moment. Do you really care if some desert you will never see gets rain or not? I am guessing you don’t care and don’t ever even think about that. Yet God cares and thinks about it. God provides what is needed in His world, and not only for us.
Why does this matter? It matters because God shows us that He cares deeply for justice, in a way that we can never fully understand. God cares for our situation and the situation of remote places and unusual animals. We should be slow to accuse God of being unjust or not caring for justice because our life does not look the way we want it to at the moment. God does care, more than we ever could, about justice.
We see that not only in the natural world, of course, but in what God has done for us in Jesus. The death of Jesus shows real justice, with sin being paid for instead of just ignored. Yet, even for us who trust in Jesus and his death for us, we know that true justice is not experienced just yet. One Day we will see true justice, with God balancing the books of the world.
We can trust the justice of God. Let’s not be too quick to assume our situation is unfair.