Job 4-5; 15: 22; RELIGIOUS HUMAN EXPERIENCE AND EMOTION
RELIGIOUS HUMAN EXPERIENCE AND EMOTION
Job 4-5; 15; 22
ELIPHAZ THE TEMANITE
Taught by: Carolyn Sissom
Tuesday Morning Bible Study, February 9, 2010
Eliphaz (#464, 410, 6337) means “God of gold; God is fine gold; God is purification, God is dispenser, the God of strength, whom God makes strong.”
Eliphaz relied upon religious human experience and emotion. He was the chief of Job’s three friends (spokesman), and perhaps the eldest. He shows the clearest reasoning. Some have called him a dogmatic religionist: one experience and he “understands” it all! He represented the orthodox wisdom of his day (mature, courteous, and poised). Eliphaz attempted to prove that all calamities are a judgment upon sin and that Job must be a secret sinner. At heart, he was a good man forced to look at reality and perhaps frightened that if this could happen to Job, it could also happen to him. So, in his fear, he had the need to explain Job out of his circumstances.
The philosophy of Eliphaz was based upon two things: general observations, and spiritual illumination. He argued in particular from the basis of special revelation through a supernatural agency. As to the first of these, he speaks in 4:8; 5:3; 27; 15:27 (“I have seen”); as to the second, see his reference to a vision and visitation (4:12-16). In chapter 15, 18-19) he gives reference to a special wisdom handed down from his Temanite predecessors. There are many in the church world today who speak thusly: “My experience has been…” We thank the Lord for experience, but it is but sense knowledge.
4:12-21: “Now a thing was secretly brought to me, and my ear received a little thereof. In thoughts from visions of the night, when deep sleep falls on men, fear came upon me, and trembling, which made all my bones to shake. Than a spirit (lower case) passed before my face; the hair of my flesh stood up: It stood still, but I could not discern the form thereof; an image was before my eyes, there was a silence, and I heard a voice saying, ‘Shall mortal man be more just than God? Shall a man be more pure than his maker? Behold, he put no trust in his servants; and his angels he charged with folly: How much less in them that dwell in houses of clay, whose foundation is in the dust, which are crushed before the moth? They are destroyed from morning to evening; they perish for ever without any regarding it. Does not their Excellency which is in them go away: they die, even without wisdom?”
This kind of “imagery” is idolatrous and must be demolished. The lie is that the old man is still alive. The implication is that the Christ is still entombed. Why seek you the living among the dead?
This is the thinking of Old Order—it is legalism, the law of sin and death. It is a mind that is filled with the death of futility, vanity, and hopelessness. It is Outer court (outer darkness) theology.
Indeed Eliphaz describes in detail the man of dust which we were. Now we are the righteousness of God in Christ. (11 Cor. 5:21) “For he has made him to be sin for us, who knew no sin; that we might be made the righteousness of God in Him.”
At this point, I am sure I would have dumped Eliphaz. However, I have the advantage of living after the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ. As we know, the Lord allowed all of this conversation, to redeem Job and his friends.
Kenyon’s definition of “Righteousness” is that ability of man to stand in the Presence of the Lord without having any sense of inferiority.
1 Samuel 2:8: “He raises up the poor out of the dust, and lifts up the beggar from the dunghill, to set them among princes, and to make them inherit the throne of glory: for the pillars of the earth are the Lord’s, and he has set the world upon them.”
Eph. 2: 1-6: “You have been quickened, who were dead in trespasses and sins; Wherein in time past you walked according to the course of this world, according to the prince of the power of the air, the spirit that now works in the children of disobedience; Among whom also we all had our conversation in times past in the lusts of our flesh, fulfilling the desires of the flesh and of the mind; and were by nature the children of wrath, even as others. But God, who is rich in mercy, for his great love wherewith he loved us. Even when we were dead in sins, has quickened us together with Christ, (by grace you are saved ;) And has raised us up together, and made us sit together in heavenly places in Christ Jesus.”
In Chapter 5, Eliphaz continues. We must remember that he had been seduced by a lying spirit. (1I Tim. 4:1) “Now the spirit speaks expressly, that in the latter times some shall depart from the faith, giving heed to seducing spirits, and doctrines of devils.”
The language of the spirit-form that passed before his eyes is the language of the devil as “an angel of light”. This “Lying spirit” wholly misled (deceived) Eliphaz with a half-truth. The “spirit “asserted that no moral man can be just and pure before His Maker---this is the lie (vanity). The adversary is always accusing man to God, and God to man! Remember it is satan who stirred up this third attack on Job through the accusations of his friends.
Eliphaz is the “candid friend”---the friend we know so well in actual life who always feels it incumbent upon himself to speak out his entire mind! Men reap what they sow. Job must be reaping the consequences of sin; God must be angry with him.
In chapter 5, he denounces Faith in the power of God to save and deliver. (Verse 4) “His children are far from safety, and they are crushed in the gate, neither is there any to deliver them.” To a Christian, this is blasphemy. Later Job will object to the teaching that a man’s sins are visited upon his children. (21:19) Every curse was broken at the cross. Heb. 12:29: “For our God is a consuming fire. So that we may boldly say, The Lord is my helper, and I will not fear what man shall do unto me.
In chapter 5, he avows what his own pious reaction would be if he himself were in such a trouble as Job’s. He applies all this to Job in a poetically arresting appeal which begins, “Behold, happy is the man whom God corrects.”
Eliphaz makes three speeches, chapters 4-5, chapter 15 and Chapter 22.
He rests his philosophy of life peculiarly on his own observation and experience. He is committed to a fixed theory, with a much too narrow and rigid view of
His theory, as applied to Job, finds focus in 5:17, “Behold, happy is the man who God corrects: therefore despise not you the chastening of the Almighty.” Job suffers because he has sinned.
Eliphaz represents the emotions men feel about Job based on experience. The religious moralist—the apologist---the word “If”.
All three of Job’s friends are in natural light---the outer darkness and ignorance of the
All three comprise the carnal mind, which is death. (
All are committed to what is substantially the same fixed theory about life; namely, that calamity is always the direct outcome of sin, and that Divine favor or disfavor is indicated by a man’s material blessing (prosperity) or cursing (adversity).
They all have a too Narrow and rigid view of
They all believe that goodness and wickedness are always rewarded or punished in this present life; they are all silent concerning human destiny or divine retribution in a life beyond this present one.
From the standpoint of argument, they are all absolutely static. Although there is marked advance in the thinking of Job himself, there is no advance at all on the part of the three friends, except in the expression of their views. They are all set in their frame of mind and have no intention to change.
Romans 12: 1-2: “I beseech you therefore, brethren, by the mercies of God, that you present your bodies a living sacrifice, holy acceptable unto God, which is your reasonable service. And be not conformed to this world; but be you transformed by the renewing of your mind, that you may prove what is that good, and acceptable, and perfect, will of God.”
They all fail to give any real or convincing answer to Job, as is recognized by those who witness the debate. Remember all of Heaven’s Court is watching this play out.
32:3 “Also against his three friends was his wrath kindled, because they had found no answer, and yet had condemned Job.” (verse5) when Elihu saw that there was no answer in the mouth of these three men, and then his wrath was kindled.” (Verse 11) “Behold, I waited for your words; I gave ear to your reasons, while you searched out what to say.”
Thus, the discussions exhaust itself in a sheer deadlock. This historic debate has been called “the first recorded struggle of a new experience with an established orthodox belief. It is the first fierce collision of a new fact of experience with the accepted creed which will not stretch over it. Job knew that no creed could be true or adequate if it contradicted that which is deepest and truest and most native in our human constitution. The verdict of God later comes down on Job’s side.
So it is in this New Day. God is planting a message in the hearts of men today that has never been spoken before. The way in which God is dealing with his sons contradicts the dogma of religious tradition. The popular teaching of “faith and prosperity” falls helpless on the crucible of our being trained for ruler ship.
We might as well move on to Eliphaz’s second speech in chapter 15 and be done with him.
As Job becomes more vehement, his friends become more severe. At first, Eliphaz was gentle and courteous. Now his politeness diminishes, and he bluntly accuses Job of folly and impiety. If at first, with his great reputation, there had been doubt about Job’s need for Divine correction, now Eliphaz’s irreverent words show how empty are his claim to wisdom. (15: 2-6).
Can you image, Job in the worst condition man could be in and not be in the grave and these three men fighting over who was wrong or right.
It is at once evident that Job’s words had wounded Eliphaz. He first begins by criticizing Job’s manner of boldness and irreverence. He also attacked the claim of Job to wisdom and his attitude toward God. turning from his rebuke of Job’s attitude, Eliphaz again declared his view of the meaning of the affliction: the wicked suffer!
Eliphaz continues that he did not think a man could be pure and righteous before God (15: 14-16). This is an echo of the spirit-voice of 4:15 (a lying spirit) that Eliphaz relied upon as his authority for dealing with Job. This language proves that visions can be given to the soul by the adversary. In such case the visions do not result in deliverance from the power of sin, whereas the Holy Spirit reveals the truth of God for the purpose of freeing the sinner from his sins. The devil often makes use of a half-truth to blind his captives. He is quite satisfied that Eliphaz should believe in the complete and utters corruption of fallen man if thereby man will remain in the dust. The message of the gospel comes to fallen man, and offers to make him a new creature! Dust we were, but we need not return! Eliphaz is not able to do more than assert that man is too corrupt and filthy to hope to stand righteous before God. such is the mind of sensual experience.
Chapter 22 is Eliphaz’s third and final speech.
In the first cycle of speeches the friends were content to talk in generalities, without venturing to apply their doctrine openly to Job. In the second round, the main theme is the fate of the wicked, and Job’s point of view comes into open contradiction against that of his friends. Their relationship, from that point, noticeably deteriorates. The breach between them is complete. Once this point is reached, there can be no further dialogue, and the discussion grinds to a halt.
From the point of view of the friends, Job’s persistence is incomprehensible. The idea of a good man suffering never enters their thoughts. It would demolish their theology, or, as Eliphaz has already said, undermine religion (15:4) the reader, who happens to know what is really going on (from chapter 1-2), understand that Job is neither stubborn nor arrogant. He is honest and tenacious! From the depths of a sick body and broken mind, his spirit is still thrusting its faith into God, even though his blind cries sound wild to his friends.
Eliphaz is a good man. No trace of malice appears in his word. The irony of this his third and final speech lies in his failure to see Job’s problem with Job’s eyes, or more to feel it with Job’s feelings. How can he, when he thinks that Job is self-deceived? He does his best, and he talks well. He makes a more drastic attempt to bring Job face to face with his sin, pays more tribute to the greatness of God (22:12-20), and makes a final appeal to Job to repent (22: 21-30).
Emotion made its last appeal charging Job with avarice and cruelty. He then hypocritically dwelt upon the omniscience of God and the wickedness of man, urging Job to get right with God. he bears down harder and harder on Job’s wickedness, especially naming his cruel treatment of the poor.
Here Eliphaz made his great mistake. Without proof, save such as he was able to deduce from his own reasoning, he had charged Job with the most terrible crimes! Had his deductions been correct, the advice he now gave would indeed have been the highest and the best. What man needs in order to be blessed and to be made a blessing is the knowledge of God, “acquaint now yourself with him, and be at peace; thereby, good shall come unto you.”
Eliphaz has not yet spoken his last word. One more attempt must be made to press conviction home. Since Job persistently refuses to acknowledge transgression in the cause of his affliction, he must be dealt with more specifically, and Eliphaz will put before him in detail some possible ways in which he has grieved the Lord. Thus the friends all through the dialogues reveal a most lamentable ignorance of the character of God. they know about Him, but do not know Him! Eliphaz’s favorite weapon is sarcasm. Remember sarcasm is one of the spirits of the strong man scorn which was the first devil to fall at the Cross.
From candid speaking, Eliphaz then turns to pleading, for he genuinely desires to help this grief-stricken man! It was so sad to see such havoc as appeared in Job’s life (or ministry) through persistent refusal to listen to the advice of the friends now pleading with him!
Carolyn Sissom, Pastor
Eastgate Ministries, Inc.