Why Does God Let Men Suffer?

A Sermon on Job

by JAMES B. TORRANCE

/ have heard of thee by the hearing of the ear: but now mine eye seeth thee.
Wherefore I abhor myself, and repent in dust and ashes... And the Lord
turned the captivity of Job when he prayed for his friends.—JOB 42:5, 6, 10

I F God is all-powerful and all-loving, why does he let men suffer? Why
does God let a young mother die of cancer, or a young athlete contract
poliomyelitis in the prime of his youth? Why does God permit terrible
road accidents to happen, where a child may lose a limb or a father be
killed? Why does God allow war with all its frightful aftermath of
misery and sorrow and broken homes? Why do such things as hurricanes
and earthquakes and volcanic eruptions happen when they cause such
loss of life? The world all around us is full of suffering, and many people
today find this to be the deepest reason for their doubts about God and
the Christian faith.
A generation ago, thinking people were more frequently worried by
"the problem of science." Could they, in the light of modern scientific
discovery, be intellectually honest and still be Christian? They were
rightly concerned to integrate their Christian biblical faith with modern
knowledge. Today, I suspect, after two world wars and with our fears
about the future, people more often worry about "the problem of suf-
fering."
That is what makes this Book of Job so eloquent for us today, be-
cause it grapples in a wonderful way with the problem of suffering. What
does it say to us?
I
First of all, it would say to the man who is torn with this kind of doubt,
that suffering is only a problem for the man who already believes in God.
For the atheist, suffering is not a problem. It is just a fact of this world
in which we live—sad, regrettable no doubt, but nevertheless just a hard,
stubborn meaningless fact. It is only a problem when we presuppose
three things; firstly, that God is all-powerful and therefore could, if he so

Downloaded from int.sagepub.com at FLORIDA INTERNATIONAL UNIV on June 2, 2015

ι58 Interpretation

willed, prevent it; secondly, that God is all-loving and good, and there­
fore can take no pleasure in seeing men suffer; and thirdly, that evil and
suffering are real, and not just illusory. It is because Job believed these
things that his suffering was such a problem to him. Had he taken his
wife's advice and renounced faith in God and died, he would simply have
dismissed it as a problem, and found no light in his darkness. But because
he faced up to it as a problem, and struggled to find an answer, and clung
to faith when at first he could see no solution, eventually light dawned.
No answer to the problem of suffering can be truly adequate which
does not take into account these three presuppositions, that God is al­
mighty, that God is all-loving, and that evil and suffering are real. In
the history of mankind, many inadequate answers have been given to
the problem, where one or two of these facts have been stressed at the
expense of the other. The religion of Islam has stressed the power of God
at the expense of God's love, and so belittled human responsibility. Suf­
fering is simply willed and caused by God, and all we can do is bow
before the divine decree and accept it. Christian Science has sought a
solution by so stressing the goodness and love of God, that it has denied
the reality of evil and suffering and dismissed them as illusory. Again
men have denied the omnipotence of God, and regarded evil and suf­
fering as eternal insoluble realities, as ultimate as God himself.
The great thing about the Bible is that it assumes these three presup­
positions to be absolutely real—as Job did—and so points us to the Cross,
where we see not only the reality of evil and suffering at its worst, but
also God's almighty power and love revealed to destroy them. The gospel
does not give us simply a theoretical answer, but a practical one. In the
death and the resurrection of Jesus, God takes our sufferings to himself
and destroys the power of evil and gives us the promise of a kingdom
where pain and suffering will be no more. In the word of the Cross, the
Bible gives an answer in terms of the very presuppositions which make
suffering such a problem.

II
Secondly, the Book of Job tells us that suffering is not always the re­
sult of human sin. How often the Christian pastor visits someone in a
hospital bed who says, "What have I done to deserve this?" The sufferer
feels that somehow or other suffering is God's punishment for sin, and so
tortures himself into wondering where his life had gone wrong. What
can the pastor say?

Downloaded from int.sagepub.com at FLORIDA INTERNATIONAL UNIV on June 2, 2015

 Why Does God Let Men Suffer? 159

The Bible makes it quite clear that when God sends suffering to his
people, it is usually for one or other of two reasons. On the one hand
it may occasionally be as a punishment, as a direct consequence of our
sins, and that is not inconsistent with the fact that God loves and God
forgives. A child tells a lie or steals money and the father punishes him.
But the punishment does not mean that the father does not love the child
or forgive the child. God in his love can and does punish those whom at
the same time he forgives. "Whom the Lord loves he chastens." It is
of God's goodness that sometimes we drink the cup of bitterness for our
own folly and sin, that we may trace our footsteps back to God in
penitence.
But far more often suffering is not sent as a punishment for sin, but as
a way in which God, in his inscrutable wisdom, may try us and test our
faith, and woo us more closely to himself. For that very reason it is a
fallacy to suppose that suffering is always a direct punishment for our
sins. Now that is the great lesson of this remarkable Book of Job. Look
again at the story. Job was a prosperous well-to-do farmer. He had a
huge cattle ranch with thousands of sheep and oxen and camels. He had
a comfortable home, a large family of sons and daughters, and a retinue
of servants and farm-laborers. He had all that his heart could desire.
But one day tragedy came to his home and his estate. The enemy came
and attacked them and took away the oxen and the asses. Fire destroyed
his sheep, and to make matters worse his children were killed by a violent
storm which destroyed the house where they were feasting. When news
was brought to Job he could only bow down and worship and say, "Naked
came I out of my mother's womb, and naked shall I return thither: the
Lord gave and the Lord hath taken away; blessed be the name of the
Lord." He doesn't know why God has done this to him, but he must
have his own hidden reasons. Then there comes the comment of the
writer, "In all this Job sinned not, nor charged God foolishly." But the
chapter of tragedies was not ended. Job himself was overtaken by a hor-
rid disease, which left him covered with putrid sores and lying at death's
door. The old story tells us quite simply that God permitted all this
suffering and sorrow to come, not as a punishment for Job's sins, but
rather to test him and prove the integrity and uprightness of his heart.
At this juncture, three of Job's friends arrive, ostensibly to comfort
him, and most of the book is a poetic dialogue, a discussion between
them, as to why God has permitted this. The sum of the friends' argu-
ment is that:

Downloaded from int.sagepub.com at FLORIDA INTERNATIONAL UNIV on June 2, 2015

16ο Interpretation

All suffering is a punishment for sin,

Job is suffering,
Therefore Job is being punished for his sin.

Their practical answer, therefore, is for Job to confess his sins, turn in
penitence to God, and God will take away his suffering.
But so far from comforting Job, his friends only add effectively to his
miseries. Job knows that their reasoning is wrong. Their major premise
is false. He is certainly suffering, but in his heart of hearts he knows that
he has done no sin to deserve all this. So he stoutly seeks to defend him­
self and appeals to God to vindicate him. Some of the most eloquent
parts of the book are where, as in chapter thirty-one, Job pleads his own
integrity and uprightness. He has made a covenant with his eyes to
preserve purity of thought and desire. He has not stooped to take bribes.
He has always sought to deal justly with his servants if they have brought
any complaint to him. He has been the constant friend of the poor and
the fatherless and the destitute. He has not made money his god, nor has
he rejoiced when his enemy has fallen. Job does not plead perfection or
sinlessness. He acknowledges his faults. But he knows he had done noth­
ing to deserve these calamities. When his friends still refuse to believe
him, he can only committ himself to him who judges righteously. He
knows there is One, his Kinsman-Redeemer, who will vindicate him at
the end.
Part of the clue to understanding the whole poem is to recognize that
although Job has a good case, he pleads it poorly, whereas his friends,
who have a poor case, plead it well. Job in his misery and darkness can
say rebellious things which shock his friends—for after all he is a man
with passions and weaknesses like ourselves— and his friends teach much
that is true. But this much emerges clearly. Although sin may lead to
suffering, suffering is not always due to sin.
Job here foreshadows the gospel. Our Lord's disciples once asked him
about a blind man, "Master, who did sin, this man or his parents, that
he was born blind?" Back comes the reply of Jesus, clear and decisive,
"Neither hath this man sinned, nor his parents: but that the works of
God should be made manifest in him." The disciples had to learn, as
Job's friends did, that God orders our lives in his own wonderful way,
sometimes sending joy, sometimes sending sorrow, not according to any
narrow scheme of merit and reward, but according to his own purposes
of grace and glory.

Downloaded from int.sagepub.com at FLORIDA INTERNATIONAL UNIV on June 2, 2015

 Why Does God Let Men Suffer? 161

No doubt sin always leads to suffering in one form or another. In the

justice of God, the wages of sin is death. If it does not produce physical
suffering, it can produce mental suffering, not only in ourselves but also
in the heart of God. That is why Jesus was a man of sorrows and ac-
quainted with grief. God was in Christ, taking the consequences of our
sin to his own fatherly heart, suffering death itself that he might pardon
and destroy the very sin that leads to suffering and death.
But if human sin led to the sufferings of Jesus, there was suffering in
the life of Jesus that was not due to sin. The sinless Lamb of God could
suffer hunger and thirst and loneliness and weariness, with a patience
greater than that of Job, that the works of God might be made manifest
in him. He also suffered by being misunderstood and slandered and false-
ly accused. "For which glory is it," says a New Testament writer, "if,
when ye be buffeted for your faults, ye shall take it patiently? but if,
when ye do well, and suffer for it, ye take it patiently, this is acceptable
with God. For even hereunto were ye called : because Christ also suffered
for us, leaving us an example, that ye should follow his steps : Who did
no sin, neither was guile found in his mouth : Who, when he was reviled,
reviled not again: when he suffered, he threatened not; but committed
himself to him that judgeth righteously." In Christ a greater than Job
is here.
Ill
Notice thirdly, that through his suffering Job came to a firsthand ex-
perience of God. The book ends by God himself coming suddenly on the
scene to vindicate Job and rebuke his friends. Job falls down and wor-
ships God. "I have heard of thee by the hearing of the ear: but now
mine eyes seeth thee. Wherefore I abhor myself, and repent in dust and
ashes." Then he begins to pray for his friends who have so slandered him
and given him such false comfort, and we read, "the Lord turned the
captivity of Job, when he prayed for his friends."
Throughout the whole discussion, Job and his friends have discussed
and argued about God as though God were absent and in no sense present
in their deliberations. Even Job's religion, in his own confession, seems
to have been rather too secondhand. That does not mean that he had not
always been a God-fearing man. The very first verse in the first chapter
tells us, "there was a man in the land of Uz, whose name was Job; and
that man was perfect and upright, and one that feared God, and es-
chewed evil." A few verses later we read that "there was a day when the

Downloaded from int.sagepub.com at FLORIDA INTERNATIONAL UNIV on June 2, 2015

162 Interpretation

sons of God [the angels] came to present themselves before the Lord, and
Satan [the counsel for the prosecution] came also among them. And
the Lord said unto Satan,... Hast thou considered my servant Job, that
there is none like him in the earth, a perfect and an upright man, one
that feareth God, and escheweth evil?" It is impossible to read this book,
without seeing that this remarkable man was not only a man who be-
lieved in God and feared him, but also one who knew a lot about God.
But, for all he knew about God, it was only when he had been through
the school of suffering, when his pride had been brought down to the dust,
and his body to the edge of the grave, that he came face to face with
God in personal encounter and experience and heard God speak to his
soul. Up till that time, for all his God—fearing, for all his uprightness,
for all his delight and faithfulness in attendance to the worship of God,
for all his godly pious conversation, there was a lack. He had not yet
come to know God at firsthand in the kind of intimate personal com-
munion that was born out of the travail of his soul.
Is that not a word of God for us? We may be good living people. We
may fear God and eschew evil. We may come to church on Sundays
and send our children to Sunday School. We believe in God. Why? Is
it simply because we have always been taught to do so? Is it because
we live among other people who believe these things? We have learned
much about God in Sunday School or Bible Class, from the lips of the
minister or even as we have sat at the Lord's Table. We believe these
things to be true. But is it all simply hearsay and secondhand? Or is our
faith born out of firsthand experience of God? Can we say like Job, from
the heart, "I have heard of thee by the hearing of the ear: but now mine
eye seeth thee. "I know thee. I love thee." Sometimes God sends us
through the school of suffering, until on our knees we come face to face
with him and discover something of his purpose through it all. The
apostle Paul, writing from prison to the Philippians, could say his great
desire was to know Christ" and the fellowship of his sufferings" that he
might "attain to the resurrection of the dead."
Notice this further: when Job came to this firsthand experience of
God, he gained a new understanding of himself. "I have heard of thee
by the hearing of the ear: but now mine eye seeth thee. Wherefore I
abhor myself, and repent in dust and ashes." In God's holy presence the
very angels veil their faces. No man can stand in the scorching search-
light of God's presence without having all his hypocrisy unmasked, his
conceit taken away, his pride broken, or his falsehood dragged out. No

Downloaded from int.sagepub.com at FLORIDA INTERNATIONAL UNIV on June 2, 2015

 Why Does God Let Men Suffer? 163

man can live in personal communion with God, and harbor resentment
or hatred towards his neighbor, or spread gossip and slander, or deliber-
ately nourish impure thoughts or desires. If ever you have had a first-
hand experience of God, if God's Holy Spirit has ever opened your heart,
you will know the unworthiness, the poverty, the nakedness of your own
soul and cry like the publican in the New Testament, "Lord, be merciful
to me a sinner."
Job had stoutly defended his integrity before his friends, and seen the
falsity of their position. But now in the holy presence of God, all his
righteousness and integrity and good works and even his valid argu-
ments disappear, or are seen as so many filthy rags. So before the Cross of
Jesus Christ, the Christian knows that all self-justification must cease
that we may receive God's forgiveness, and in the words of the apostle,
"be found in him, not having mine own righteousness . . . but that which
is through the faith of Christ, the righteousness which is of God by faith."
Finally, when Job through his sufferings gained this firsthand experi-
ence of God, it gave him a new attitude to his fellows. The immediate
effect of God's encounter and word to his heart was that he began to
pray for his friends. They had slandered him. They had criticized him.
They had tried to bully him into confessing sins he knew he had never
committed. They had added to his load and made him miserable. But
if ever he had harbored bitterness, if ever he had wanted to fight for his
rights, it was all changed now. We read "the Lord turned the captivity
of Job, when he prayed for his friends." The prayer was still on his lips
when there came unto him all his brethren, all his sisters, and all they
that had been of his acquaintance before So the Lord blessed the
latter end of Job more than his beginning."
Happy is the man whose sufferings can lead him not only to God, but
to a new sympathy and love and tenderness towards his fellowmen, so
that he can pray for those who despitefully use him, and like his Savior,
in the hour of bitter trial, say, "Father, forgive them; for they know not
what they do."
"Blessed are ye, when men shall revile you, and persecute you, and
shall say all manner of evil against you falsely, for my sake. Rejoice, and
be exceeding glad: for great is your reward in heaven."

Downloaded from int.sagepub.com at FLORIDA INTERNATIONAL UNIV on June 2, 2015