Objection: Job Was a Godly Man, Yet God Let Him Get Sick
I am being charitable in my statement of this objection and at least giving the objector credit for realizing that it was not God who made Job sick. Some people think that God did it, for one of two reasons. One would be because they have not read the explicit statement that the devil, not God, made Job sick (Job 2:4-7). The other would be that they are confused because Job 42:11 appears to teach that the LORD brought evil upon Job by letting Satan attack Job. (It doesn’t actually mean that, and I have included an adequate explanation for that in the Job Explained article.) In either event, Satan was the direct agent of the calamities and God was definitely the one who healed Job (Job 42:10) and undid Satan’s work in Job’s life.
From this, we should learn that it is the devil who makes people sick and God who heals them, not the other way around.
The main thing to know is that you cannot be “Job 2” under the New Covenant because you have authority over the devil, which Job did not have. You have a healing covenant with God, which Job, living in the time before even the Law of Moses, did not have. You really could stop reading this answer right here if you’re worried about being another Job, but you can read on to dig a lot deeper.
You don’t need to avoid the book of Job for fear that hearing that part of the Word of God will take away your faith. Faith comes by hearing the Word of God. The Word, including the book of Job, produces faith! You don’t have to worry that reading Job will get you into unbelief. I got healed of allergies I’d had all my life by reading the book of Job, so I get quite passionate about that book! Faith came by hearing what the Word really had to say, not by what many people think it says who haven’t read it carefully.
Let’s examine the typical arguments that say that you could be another Job:
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JOB: YOUR EXAMPLE OF PATIENT SUFFERING
by Professor Kranken Heitlieber
Job was a perfect and upright man who feared God and eschewed evil (Job 1:1). God’s plan was to have Job be sick to prove his character. So perfect Job got sick as a dog. You name it, he had it. Job humbly and lovingly resigned himself to the will of God, saying, “Naked came I out of my mother’s womb, and naked I shall return thither: the LORD gave, and the LORD hath taken away; blessed be the name of the LORD.” In all this Job sinned not, nor charged God foolishly (Job 1:21-22). After all, the Word of God tells us that Job’s siblings and acquaintances “comforted him over all the evil that the LORD had brought upon him” (Job 42:11), and we know that Job spoke of the Lord the thing that was right (Job 42:8). We can’t wriggle out of Job 42:11 by saying that God only passively permitted it, because the Hebrew verb is causative in that verse. GOD destroyed Job without cause when Satan moved Him to do it (Job 2:3).
Regardless of what simplistic and uneducated faith preachers say, it was not Job’s fear or any other shortcoming that was the cause – Job 2:3 says that there was no cause! The only reason God allowed Satan to beat up Job is that He considered Job his trophy to show off to Satan, that no matter how miserable Job got, he would not curse God and die because he was such a great guy.
Rather than pestering God for healing as some so-called faith Christians do today, Job humbly accepted that the LORD had taken everything away from him, despite his perfect walk with Him. If Job’s statement were wrong, he would have been sinning, so Job must have been right. Although our flesh rebels at the thought, it was the perfect will of God for his life that his animals and servants should be killed and kidnapped, all his children killed, and his body tortured with a lingering, wasting illness. The will of God can be mysterious to us at times, but He has a purpose for bad things. He works all these things to our good (Romans 8:28). We must accept that God brings calamity into our lives for a higher purpose.
Job said, “What? shall we receive good at the hand of God, and shall we not receive evil? In all this did not Job sin with his lips” (Job 2:10). Job understood the precious lesson that God gives us both good things and bad things. You, like Job, must learn to contentedly receive evil from the hand of God. Job was not sinning when he said this, so we know that this is a correct statement that bears the same force as any other doctrinal verse in the Bible. We can receive evil from God. Job did not try to undo the will of God in his life, but suffered patiently, realizing the great truth we see elsewhere that there is “a time to weep... a time to mourn...a time to lose” (Ecclesiastes 3:4, 6).
Job proved that he did not just serve God for the money, as some shallow Christians do today. Satan thought that Job did, but Job proved otherwise with his patient endurance. He was willing to serve God no matter what God brought on him. Here we find some of the most touching, beautiful words in the entire Bible, and my personal favorite verse, “Though he slay me, yet will I trust in him” (Job 13:15).
God gave Satan permission to afflict Job, so He may choose to give Satan permission to afflict you, too. Don’t complain as Job did about the sickness that God allows you to have; just praise your loving heavenly Father who may see fit in His wisdom to have Satan steal from you, destroy you and even kill you when a higher purpose is served.
So next time you’re sick, remember that you could be another Job. Endure your trial with patient, satisfied resignation to the perfect will of God, as Job did, rather than presumptuously bossing Him around, ordering Him to heal you. Job resisted that temptation, and so should you. Receive evil from God cheerfully when “the Lord who giveth and taketh away” taketh away from you.
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Job Was Wrong
We know that it was Satan, not God, who was responsible for all of Job’s calamities. “So Satan went forth from the presence of the LORD, and smote Job with sore boils from the sole of his foot unto his crown” (Job 2:7). Job was obviously wrong about it because he said that we receive evil from the Lord, not from Satan. So how could he not be sinning or making foolish charges against God? Because he didn’t know any better! He had no way to know that the devil had made him sick. People back then were unaware of the existence of a personal adversary, so they attributed everything to God. Job had no way to know God’s true character. Sin is not imputed where there is no law (Romans 5:13) and that is why God wasn’t upset. Job could not have known what was really going on, so God did not consider Job’s charges foolish.
It is a fact that Job said the words that he did about the Lord hathing taken away and his hathing received evil from God. But these words were not the truth. Right before he said that the Lord taketh away, he said that he would return naked to his mother’s womb. Job couldn’t possibly return naked to his mother’s womb! It is true that Job said that, but that doesn’t make it true. The Bible has plenty of quotations in it that are true quotations of things that are not true! The Bible records what Goliath said to David, but Goliath’s quotes were not true statements, though they are truly recorded in the Bible. David’s flesh was not fed to the birds. Other enemies of Israel came and made dire and explicitly vulgar predictions that are recorded in the Bible, but which were not true statements either.
Job said that He would trust God even if God killed him, but he failed to realize that it was the devil, not God, doing the bad things to him. Job didn’t even know that there was a real devil! (Many Christians today are not much better; they don’t seem to believe in a personal devil either. When bad things happen to them, they blame God just as Job did. That is far less excusable when we have the light of the New Covenant and more Bible translations than we’ll ever be able to read.)
Now what do we say about Job 42:11, where “the LORD” brought evil on Job, when earlier it was clearly stated to be the work of the devil? We can see that the Lord was obviously permitting the devil to do certain things, but not doing them Himself. However, we can check out the Hebrew and find that our dear professor is correct that the Hebrew used in Job 42:11 IS causative, so it looks like God had a part to play in it by “causing” Satan to be able to do it. But how can that be true when Satan is explicitly the one who afflicted Job? One explanation would be that God and Satan could share responsibility in the way that Matthew says that a centurion said things to Jesus while Luke says that he sent Jews and friends to say things to Jesus. Both are biblically correct. This would be an example of “indirect responsibility.” Thus, it could be correct to say that the Lord did it and that Satan did it, if indeed God wanted Satan to do it. There would be precedent for this if we wanted to interpret it that way.
Is there any way that Job 42:11 can be interpreted to NOT indicate that the LORD brought evil on Job, given that it comes out and says it? Actually, there is. John 5:18 says that Jesus broke the Sabbath, and it does not directly quote someone else. However, Jesus made it clear that it WAS legal to heal on the Sabbath, which means that He did not actually break the Sabbath. If He had, He would have sinned and ruined the entire plan of salvation! The verse seems to be saying quite clearly that the Jews sought to kill Him because they THOUGHT that He had broken the Sabbath. Thus, Job 42:11 could be a parallel case where the INTENT of the people in the verse was indicated, not the TRUTH. They THOUGHT that the Lord had brought evil upon Job.
Another case of this is Acts 21:4, where the disciples told Paul “through the Spirit” not to go to Jerusalem. They THOUGHT they were doing it by the Spirit and the verse appears to reflect their perspective even though Paul was not disobedient to God when he went to Jerusalem.
Yet another case is Joshua 2:7, where the pursuers THOGUHT they were chasing the spies down to the river even though they were still hiding on Ahab’s roof.
And yet another case is 2 Thessalonians 2:4, where the Antichrist “shows that he is God,” which is only from the standpoint of his claim, given that he is surely NOT God!
These cases are discussed in more detail in the “9D” section of the Job Explained article.
Thus far, Job had not made any railing, unfair accusations against God. Job was wrong, but he was not accusing God of wrongdoing. However, as you continue in the book of Job, Job makes more and more foolish and untrue accusations against God. For these, God rebuked him (see Job chapters 38 through 41), and Job had to repent (Job 42:6). Basically, Job ranted against God for all the things that God supposedly did to him, and finally God got tired of the slander and told Job to shut up! God said, and Job had to admit, that Job had “darkened counsel without knowledge” (Job 38:2, Job 42:3). Job said that he had “uttered that I understood not, things too wonderful for me, that I knew not...Wherefore I abhor myself, and repent in dust and ashes” (Job 42:3, Job 42:6). Once Job repented of his false accusations against God, God healed him.
Now the part that is funny (not in the humorous sense, though) is that JOB admitted that the things he said were wrong and GOD said that the things Job said were wrong, but many CHRISTIANS want you to believe that these statements of Job are RIGHT: “The LORD giveth, and the LORD taketh away (Job 1:21)...Shall we receive good at the hand of God, and shall we not receive evil? (Job 2:10)...For he breaketh me in a tempest, and multiplieth my wounds without cause (Job 9:17)...the Almighty (hath) vexed my soul (Job 27:2).”
The objectors usually stress the statements at the beginning of Job that say that he was perfect and upright, that he feared God and eschewed evil. However, Job did have to repent at the end of the book for speaking things about God that were not right. The fact that Job lived a morally pure life does not mean that his theology was correct. If Job were right about everything, he would not have had to repent of his ignorant babblings.
By the way, the book of Job should prove to you that damages from lightning and windstorms are not “acts of God,” no matter what your insurance company says. They were expressly acts of Satan in the book of Job. Besides, if God sent all storms, Jesus sinned by rebuking a storm, because He would have been undoing the works of God!
Satan’s Diminishing Rights
Of course, we must now meet the next objection, which is, “Yeah, but God allowed it! Maybe He didn’t do it, but He was complicit in it, as He explicitly allowed Satan to make Job sick.”
Obviously, He did. Based on Job 1:10, it appears that at some point God had put a hedge around Job, and it is implied that the devil could not get at him because of it. Why did God choose to remove the hedge of protection? Is this not tantamount to committing these acts himself, leading us back to Professor Heitlieber’s argument that God did them? After all, God seemed to grant Satan permission to do evil to Job. This is amplified by the fact that God seemed to take down part of the hedge in two phases. At first, Satan was allowed to destroy a lot of things except for Job’s body, but later, he was allowed to destroy Job’s body as long as Job was not killed in the process.
However, “allowing” Satan to do things in a general sense does not implicate God. If it did, God would bear the guilt for every act of stealing, killing and destroying that Satan does on the earth today. God wasn’t really the one of “allowed” it – man was. Adam’s sin allowed Satan into the earth. He has had the right to be here and try to hurt people ever since then. That was never the perfect plan of God, but man messed up God’s perfect plan. Thank God, Jesus came and we will live on a new earth in the future where things are perfect again.
Job was not under a covenant with God that excluded Satan from afflicting him. The promises of healing and protection had not yet been given to man. Thus, Satan had a legal right to afflict Job. When you think about it, Satan still has the legal right to try to afflict you. Unlike Job, however, you have a covenant that you can stand on to make Satan flee. Job did not have any promise that he could claim to make Satan stop hurting him. He did not have a healing covenant with God as you do. He did not have authority over the devil.
However, God was not unjust the way you might think He was when he “let down” the hedge around Job. In fact, if God NEVER gave Satan access to Job, given Job’s lack of covenant as a fallen man on a fallen earth, God Himself could be accused of being unfair – to Satan! That seemed to be Satan’s complaint, actually – that God had hedged Job in such a way that Satan had no access to Job, despite the fact that Job had no covenant that denied Satan access to Job, and despite the fact that Job lived on a fallen earth where Satan was allowed to walk to and fro seeking whom he could devour.
Let’s look at a similar case that was also before the Law of Moses. God allowed the Egyptians to afflict Israel with cruel servitude for many generations. The Law of Moses showed that you did not have to be slaves of another nation if you served the Lord because you would defeat your enemies every time (Deuteronomy 28:7). However, the Law and its corresponding Mosaic Covenant had not yet been given, so the Israelites in Egypt could not claim any promise to be delivered right away. The only promise that was theirs to claim was that at some point God would visit them and bring them back to their own land because God had promised it to Abraham (Genesis 15:13-16).
Also consider that you could not be born again under the Old Covenant. No matter how much faith you had, the new birth simply wasn’t available back then. You could not live in New Covenant rights and privileges under the Old Covenant. Likewise, you could not walk in the blessings of the Law of Moses before the Law of Moses was given. Job had neither the New Covenant nor the Law of Moses to stand on.
Satan was “allowed” to afflict Israel in Egypt. He had a right to do it then. Once God gave His Law through Moses, Satan’s rights were restricted. He could only bring Israel into bondage if Israel forsook the Lord. If Israel walked with God, God’s promise was that they could not be brought into subjection like that again.
Over time, as God gave additional promises, Satan’s rights diminished. Under the New Covenant, NONE of Satan’s rights is left. He has no business dominating you in any area. There is not a single case in the New Testament where Jesus told a sick person, “God has given Satan permission to afflict you. Bear it patiently.” No, Jesus was manifested to DESTROY the works of the devil (1 John 3:8), not DEPLOY the works of the devil. The only time that Satan has the “right” to destroy anyone’s flesh is if that person is being subjected to church discipline for gross, unrepented sin (1 Corinthians 5:1-5). Even then, as proved elsewhere in this book, that is not a true “right” – NOTHING Satan does is legal in God’s eyes in the New Covenant. He lost everything when Jesus died for our sins and rose again.
Job Is Commended for His Patience, Not for His Faith
Job is not listed in Hebrews 11 with those of great faith! Job’s patience is no laughing matter; he did not give up when he had lost everything, his body was in tatters, his wife told him to curse God and die, and his friends accused him of all kinds of wrong things that he had never done. His patience truly was extraordinary. Let’s give the guy a break; he didn’t have a basis for faith based on the Law of Moses, let alone the New Covenant. He may not have known what was going on, but he still honored God most of the time and he maintained his integrity throughout all his trials by never cursing God, though he did accuse God unjustly as things played out.
We should not belittle the patience of those who are unenlightened concerning their redemptive right to be healed. I’m sure that there are many good people who are terribly sick and yet exhibit more patience than most Christians who know that healing was in Christ’s atonement. Let Job be a lesson that God will honor the patience of the unenlightened. Yes, God would get much more glory if they got healed and rose from their sickbeds. However, we should admit that God does get some degree of glory from sick saints who manifest the fruit of the Spirit. I even know of a case where a man got saved watching a sick Christian display patience and an upbeat attitude. Of course, the fruit of the Spirit glorifies God, not the sickness! But it sure beats having them fuss and complain all day, as so many sick people do. It isn’t God’s best, but it isn’t the devil’s worst, either. Even if the devil seems to win by robbing them of their lives, they’ll never be sick again! That beats being in perfect health and spending eternity in the lake of fire, doesn't it?
Job’s Sickness Was Temporary, and God Healed Him
It is not stated exactly how long Job was sick, but it appears to have been less than a year. Job talked of possessing months of vanity, not years (Job 7:3). It may seem like forever as you trudge through the chapters of ignorant poetic ramblings from Job’s “comforters.” (But aren’t these Bible verses, too? Yes, it is a fact that the statements were made, but God Himself said that Job’s so-called comforters had committed folly, and not spoken of him that which is right (Job 42:8), so while those words were said, they are not necessarily reliable sources of doctrine.)
It appears that Job was sick for less than 1% of his life (discussed below) and we know that God healed Job. So you have no excuse for saying that someone who died of cancer was another Job. The real Job was healed and was not sick for years on end. The real Job did not die of cancer. If you stay sick or die, you are definitely NOT another Job!
Why You Cannot Be “Another Job” Under the New Covenant
Job did not have the New Covenant, which was the first and only covenant to give its adherents direct power over the devil himself. Even the giants of faith in the Old Testament could not command the devil to stop doing anything. Job could not have spoken to Satan himself. But you can!
Since we know that Satan is the author of sickness, and we know that we have authority over him, we can command him to take his hands off our bodies. Job couldn’t do that, so he wasn’t expected to do it. But as a New Testament believer, you do not have to sit there and let the devil beat you up! The devil must bow his knee when you command him to leave in the name of Jesus.
Jesus gave His followers power over all demons, all sicknesses and everything the devil has to offer (Luke 10:19). Job did not have this power.
Job did not know the Mediator (“daysman”). We know that there is one mediator between God and man, the Man Christ Jesus (1 Timothy 2:5). Job seemed to know that if he had had one, he would not have been sick so long:
Job 16:21:
O that one might plead for a man with God, as a man pleadeth for his neighbour!
Job 9:32-35:
For he is not a man, as I am, that I should answer him, and we should come together in judgment.
Neither is there any daysman betwixt us, that might lay his hand upon us both.
Let him take his rod away from me, and let not his fear terrify me:
Then would I speak, and not fear him; but it is not so with me.
Job 19:25:
For I know that my redeemer liveth, and that he shall stand at the latter day upon the earth.
Even Elihu understood – and told Job – that if there were a ransom (an atonement), it would be cause for sickness to be removed! What an amazing insight for someone of the day! Read Job 33:19-25. Someone who didn’t know the Old Covenant let alone the New Covenant understood something that most New Covenant believers today don’t even know yet!
Job never had that ransom paid for him during his lifetime. But under the New Covenant, Jesus Christ has paid the ransom Elihu talked about! Thus, we should expect to be delivered from going down to the pit, for God has found a ransom. Our flesh should be fresher than a child’s. We should return to the days of our youth. In other words, we should be healed!
How Do You Read Job?
If you get the idea from the book of Job that God is a meanie who will tear apart your life to test you, you are reading Job incorrectly. Thus saith the Lord. That’s not just my opinion – it’s God’s opinion. Here is what the Lord “thus saiths” in James 5:11: “Ye have heard of the patience of Job, and have seen the end of the Lord; that the Lord is very pitiful, and of tender mercy.” You are supposed to see God’s pity and tender mercy when you read Job. Otherwise, you have not read it the way the Holy Spirit wants you to read it! The context here is that Job (along with the prophets that James has just mentioned) was an example of patience in suffering affliction, even though he was not an example of faith or spiritual knowledge. And God, in His pity and mercy, forgave Job for the bitter statements he made about Him while he was in pain.
I will now return to my personal testimony of how I was healed of lifelong (until then) allergy problems after reading the book of Job! Once I saw that the devil sickens and God heals, I realized that God would undo the devil’s works in my body as he did for Job. I also realized when Job spoke of a Redeemer that I knew that Redeemer! Job believed that if he could just meet his Redeemer, he would be free from his illness. I had met my Redeemer, and I realized that I should therefore be free from my illness. Elihu said that if there were an atonement, someone’s flesh could be like that of a child – he could be healed! I realized that the atonement of which Elihu spoke had already been made for me. I knew the very Redeemer of whom Job had only a fleeting glimpse. I saw that if there were only a mediator, Job would have been spared his trials, and I realized that I have the one Mediator between God and man – the Man Christ Jesus (1 Timothy 2:5)! Thus, NONE of Job’s trials had any right to happen to me! I saw that I had it way better than Job ever did. Armed with this knowledge, I believed that I received my healing when I prayed, knowing that it had to be God’s will for me. Now I used to go through a box of tissues every 3 days or so at work, and the day after I believed that I received, those allergies acted up in probably the worst way I had ever experienced. My nose was just running like a faucet. But I would not back down and lie and say that I hadn’t received when I prayed. I went to the park next door to spend some time with the Lord during my lunch hour, and those allergies disappeared during that lunch hour. They never came back!
I’m not suggesting that you sit and read the entire book of Job to a terminally ill person, but the fact is that faith comes by hearing all of the Word of God! So if you think that reading Job takes away your faith, you’re reading Job incorrectly. Remember that Job’s trial was a matter of months, not years. If you are sick for as small a percentage of your life as Job, you are doing very well!
The Time to Weep, Mourn and Lose
There is a time to weep, mourn and lose. Everyone you know will die unless Jesus returns soon, and you will no doubt weep and mourn when you lose friends and relatives. But you do not have to be robbed by the devil. You do not have to lose a single thing that God provided for you in Christ. It is NEVER the time to lose in the sense of not having the victory, because God always gives you the victory (1 Corinthians 15:57) and you can reign in life (Romans 5:17). (See You Win! for a lot more proof of that.)
Use Job as an Encouragement Rather than an Objection!
Why is it that the people who make a big deal about the fact that Job got sick do not make a bigger deal out of the fact that God healed Job completely, and that there is no record of him ever getting sick again for the rest of his life? Anyone who thinks he is another Job should prepare to get completely healed and blessed with twice what he had before (Job 42:10)! Also, prepare to live another 140 years after you get healed without sickness or loss, as Job did (Job 42:16-17). If you do not get healed, stay healed, and get back twice what you lost, you are not another Job. If you stay sick more than a year, you are not another Job. If you experience this kind of trial for more than 1% of your life, you are not another Job. Expecting to have to endure sickness patiently until you die from it is contrary to the book of Job! God healed Job!
In Closing
People will probably argue until Jesus returns about some of the particular nuances in the book of Job, but one thing about Job should be beyond argument – you can’t be another Job today because you have authority over Satan and all his works. Job did not have that. Be glad that you live in a far better day than Job did! If Satan tries to do to you what he did to Job, you have God-given authority to stop him!
Because Job is such a difficult book for many people – including almost all preachers – I have written a large discussion in this book that I encourage you to read, entitled Job Explained.