"When we watch our friends suffer...."

Gracious wisdom from Ray Ortlund, Jr.:

Eliphaz reveals how his suspicions of Job were confirmed.  “A spirit glided past my face” one night with a message (Job 4:12-16).  A profound insight came to him in this striking manner.  What was it?  Nobody’s perfect (Job 4:17).  Wow.  We really needed spiritual illumination to know that.

In Eliphaz’s mind, that glib moralism explains Job’s sufferings.  It gives Eliphaz, he feels, authority to needle Job, to go on and on about how Job should repent and if only he would own up everything would get better, etc.

But more, his simplistic outlook casts a shadow on God: “Even in his servants he puts no trust, and his angels he charges with error” (Job 4:18).  In other words, God is the ultimate Fault-Finder.  That is the moral calculus of the universe.

“Nobody’s perfect” is indeed true, but not profound, nor even relevant in Job’s case (Job 1:1, 8).  It does, however, surround Job with an aura of suspicion in the eyes of others.  There is a social dimension to suffering, as friends gather around to insinuate their well-meaning but misplaced criticisms.  Inevitably, a mentality of judgment projects its darkness even onto God himself.  God saw it that way (Job 42:7).

Wisdom, by contrast, makes us suspicious of our own suspicions, critical of our own criticisms.  Wisdom stops, rather than spreads, a spirit of accusation.  Wisdom gives the benefit of the doubt.  Wisdom, like love, “believes all things” (1 Corinthians 13:7), filling in every blank with positive assumptions.

God does sit in judgment over us all — with perfect wisdom, for the sake of Jesus Christ his Son, the Friend of sufferers, the Accused in their place.

Our part?  “Whoever belittles his neighbor lacks sense, but a man of understanding remains silent” (Proverbs 11:12).  And, “Gracious words are like a honeycomb, sweetness to the soul and health to the body” (Proverbs 16:24).