Where There’s Blayze

The Book of Job: Is God Just?

The Book of Job is one of the most profound and challenging texts in all of Scripture. Many approach it with the assumption that it’s a story about suffering, asking the age-old question, “Why does God allow suffering?” While suffering is certainly at the heart of Job’s experience, I believe the book is asking a deeper and more complex question: “Is God just?”

This is a question that grows out of suffering but reaches far beyond it. Job’s story challenges us to rethink our assumptions about God’s justice, and it pushes us to confront a mystery that is far greater than our understanding.

The Setting: God’s Courtroom and the Accuser

Job opens in a dramatic scene resembling a courtroom. God is seated with His heavenly council—a familiar image in the Old Testament. Among the heavenly beings is “the Satan,” a title that means “the accuser” or “the prosecutor.” In this role, Satan challenges God’s assessment of Job, accusing him of being faithful only because of the blessings he has received. Essentially, Satan argues that Job’s devotion is transactional, dependent on his prosperity.

To test this claim, God allows Satan to strip Job of his wealth, family, and health, plunging him into unimaginable suffering. Job loses nearly everything, and his immediate response is one of grief and confusion. His wife, in her despair, tells him to curse God and die, what more could you ask of a loving wife! Despite this, it is a sentiment echoed by many who feel abandoned in their darkest moments. But instead, Job clings to his faith, even as his confusion deepens.

Job’s Friends and the Problem of Justice

Job’s three friends—Eliphaz, Bildad, and Zophar—enter the scene. They represent the wisdom of the ancient world, seeking to explain Job’s suffering. Their logic is simple: God is just, and therefore, if Job is suffering, he must have done something to deserve it. Their understanding of God operates on a strict cause-and-effect basis: the righteous are rewarded, and the wicked are punished.

This kind of thinking is familiar to us today. How often do we hear, or even think to ourselves, that if someone is going through hardship, there must be a reason? Perhaps they weren’t as faithful as they appeared. Perhaps they made some mistake that led to their downfall. Job’s friends are trying to force Job’s suffering into this neat, transactional understanding of God’s justice.

But Job pushes back. He maintains his innocence and insists that his suffering is not a result of sin. His question isn’t merely, “Why am I suffering?” but “How can God be just and allow this to happen to me?” This shifts the focus of the book. The real question Job wrestles with is whether God’s justice operates in a way we can understand or even recognise. Job’s suffering pushes him to the brink, and he begins to demand answers from God.

A Modern Parallel: Bruce Almighty

This struggle isn’t unique to Job; it’s a theme that resonates deeply with us today. A modern take on this can be found in the film Bruce Almighty. In the movie, Bruce, played by Jim Carrey, is angry with God. He feels that God is unfair and that life is filled with injustice, particularly in his own life. Like Job, Bruce questions God’s goodness and accuses Him of being absent or uncaring.

In a twist, Bruce is given God’s powers for a time and quickly discovers how overwhelming and complex it is to govern the world. He realises that the things he once thought were so simple, fixing injustices, giving people what they want, are far more complicated than he ever imagined. Bruce learns that his limited perspective can’t possibly grasp the enormity of what it means to be God.

This is very much like the turning point in Job’s story. After Job’s relentless questioning and demands, God finally responds—but not in the way Job expects.

God’s Response: The Challenge of Divine Perspective

When God answers Job, He doesn’t offer a detailed explanation for Job’s suffering. Instead, He responds with a series of questions that challenge Job’s understanding of the universe. God asks, “Where were you when I laid the foundation of the earth? Tell me, if you have understanding. Who determined its measurements—surely you know!” (Job 38:4-5). The irony in God’s words is clear: Job has been questioning God’s justice, but he lacks the perspective to even begin understanding the complexities of the world God created and governs.

God goes on to challenge Job further: “Have you an arm like God, and can you thunder with a voice like His?… Look on everyone who is proud and bring him low… Then will I also acknowledge to you that your own right hand can save you” (Job 40:9-14). God essentially says, “If you think you understand justice better than I do, then go ahead, run the universe.”

This is the crux of the book’s wisdom. Job, like Bruce in Bruce Almighty, is confronted with the reality that God’s ways are infinitely higher than ours. God’s justice, His governance of the world, and His allowance of suffering are not things we can fully comprehend. We are finite beings trying to grasp the infinite.

Trusting the God Who Knows More Than We Do

The book of Job doesn’t end with a simple answer to the question of suffering. Instead, it reveals the limits of human understanding. Job’s friends assumed that God’s justice was straightforward, that good people are rewarded and bad people are punished. Job himself believed he had a right to challenge God’s justice because his suffering didn’t align with his understanding of fairness. But God’s response forces Job, and us, to reconsider. The book of Ecclesiastes does likewise as it explores this linear interpretation of Gods justice.

This doesn’t mean that God is indifferent to suffering. The entire arc of Scripture shows us that God deeply cares about justice and righteousness. But it does mean that we, with our limited perspective, can’t always understand the reasons behind what God allows. The gap between our understanding and God’s wisdom is immense.

A helpful analogy is that of a child receiving a vaccination. To a young child, a shot feels like a betrayal, a painful and seemingly unjust experience. The child can’t understand why a loving parent would allow this to happen. But the parent sees the bigger picture, understanding that the brief pain serves a greater purpose. How much more, then, does God see what we cannot?

In moments of suffering, it’s natural to question God, to cry out in pain, and even to doubt His justice. Job did, and so do we. But the wisdom of Job invites us to trust that God’s justice is deeper, wider, and more mysterious than we can imagine. It calls us to humility before the Creator of the universe, who sees all, knows all, and governs all with a wisdom we can scarcely fathom.

So the next time we, like Bruce, feel overwhelmed by life’s injustices or wonder why things are happening the way they are, let’s remember the lesson of Job. Our God is not only just but also infinitely wise, working in ways that go far beyond our understanding. And though we may not always get the answers we seek, we are called to trust the One who laid the foundations of the earth. After all, God is the only one that offers a solution to our suffering. Revelation 21:4 tells us that “He will wipe away every tear from their eyes, and death shall be no more, neither shall there be mourning, nor crying, nor pain anymore, for the former things have passed away.”” It may not be an answer to suffering, but its more important than that. It’s a promise of something greater, its a solution to the problem of suffering.