Bible Commentaries

An Ancient Conception of Wickedness.
II.

Job 20:11-14).

According to Zophar, the wicked man is not permitted to keep that which he has attained; he falls back from every point of supposed progress; he yields every assumed victory. "He hath swallowed down riches, and he shall vomit them up again" ( Job 20:15). He shall not be for ever rich. He may have the handling of much gold, but he will be a beggar at the last. He shall suck the poison of asps which lies in the hedge. He shall suppose himself to be enjoying a luxury, but he shall awake too late, to find that he has been feeding upon the poison of asps.

Zophar leaves the wicked man no point of redemption, no rag of reputation, no standing-ground in the assembly of the ages. He kindles a hell around the evil-doer, and burns him, so that there is nothing left of him but hot ashes. The judgment is complete, all-including, terrible in all its aspects and issues.

But all this might be taken as so much denunciation in words, were not some substantial moral reason assigned for all this visitation. Here is the strength of the Bible. We may stand and gaze upon its Niagara-like denunciations, we may wonder at the torrent of "woes proceeding from the gracious lips of the Son of God, and we may say, All this is eloquent expression: but is it anything more? Now, wherever there is denunciation there is explanation, and in all cases the woe never exceeds the moral reason; there is no excess of utterance; the reason is deep enough to hold all the torrent. We have that reason even in the speech of Zophar. Job 20:19).

That is the reason! It is sufficient! This is a moral universe, governed by moral considerations, judged by moral standards. This is not a mere creation, in the sense of a gigantic framework well put together, excellently lighted, and affording abundant accommodation for anybody who may choose to come into it; this is a school, a sanctuary, a place of judgment, a sphere in which issues are determined by good conduct. Let us dwell upon this point until we feel much of its meaning.

What is it that excites all this divine antagonism and judgment? Was the object of it a theological heretic? Was the man pronounced wicked because he had imbibed certain wrong notions? Was this a case of heterodoxy of creed being punished by the outpouring of the vials of divine wrath? Look at the words again—"because he hath oppressed and hath forsaken the poor." His philanthropy was wrong. The man was wicked socially—wicked in relation to his fellow men. All wickedness is not of a theological nature and quality, rising upward into the region of metaphysical conceptions and definitions of the Godhead, which only the learned can present or comprehend; there is a lateral wickedness, a wickedness as between man and Job 20:22).

That is a marvellous instance of divine judgment. A man may have much, and yet be in poverty. We have heard of some such instances in actual life Men are said to have quite an abundance of property, and yet they cannot meet an immediate obligation: their property is consolidated; it is not immediately available, so that comparatively rich men have sometimes to ask favours of their friends. All this may be good in commerce, perfectly intelligible in business relations; it involves no dishonour whatever: but take it as a suggestion of something far beyond itself. Here is a man who has "fulness of sufficiency," and yet he is in straits. He has plenty of the wrong stuff. A man at a toll-gate who has a million-pound note is as badly off as the man who has not a single halfpenny: neither of the men can pass through the toll-gate. There may be a poverty of wealth as well as a poverty of destitution. So the wicked man may be in straits of all kinds; he may have plenty of money, and not know how to spend it; he may have an abundance of property, and be without thoughts, impulses of a heavenly kind, aspirations that seek the skies. The bad man may have no explanation of the miseries which torment him; he may be mad with impatience because his spirit has never been chastened by heavenly experience. The good man may have nothing, and yet may abound; he may be hungry, and yet may be satisfied: his affliction is a sanctified sorrow; he says, This is for the present, and "no chastening for the present seemeth to be joyous, but grievous: nevertheless afterward it yieldeth the peaceable fruit of righteousness unto them which are exercised thereby;" and the Lord may come tomorrow, or on the third day he may be here: one look, and I shall forget my lifelong trouble; one vision of Christ, and all earth's tragedy will be sunk in oblivion. The good man, whose whole estate is in God, can never be in straits; he meets a mystery, and hails it, turns it into an altar, and under its darkening shadow prays his mightiest prayers The good man entertains as a guest black affliction, weird grief, awful sorrow, and says to the guest, You are not welcome for your own sake, but a blessing shall come even out of you: God sent you: you may eat my flesh and my bones, and drink my blood, and seem to conquer, but inasmuch as I believe God, and in God, and live in God, you cannot hurt me; I have a word singing in me now, and this is what it says—"Be not afraid of them that kill the body, and after that have no more that they can do:" stop as long as God wants you to stop: your victory will be your failure; when you have conquered in your little purpose, you will have but cut the tether, and given me all the room of heaven. "Blessed are the poor in spirit: for their's is the kingdom of heaven. Blessed are they that mourn: for they shall be comforted." "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: for so persecuted they the prophets which were before you." "Moses... refused to be called the son of Pharaoh's daughter... esteeming the reproach of Christ greater riches than the treasures in Egypt." Liberty is in the mind; freedom is in Christian hope: he who is in Christ, and seizes the future in Christ's spirit and in Christ's name, is not poor, cannot be poor; he is rich with unsearchable riches.

So Zophar has described the estate and condition of the wicked. Who will be wicked now? Who will dare this fate? We know it to be true; we need no logician or rhetorician to prove this truth and drive it home upon us: we know it to be true. "It is a fearful thing to fall into the hands of the living God;" "Our God is a consuming fire;" "How shall we escape, if we neglect so great salvation?" "The wicked shall be turned into hell, and all the nations that forget God." "The wicked shall go away into everlasting punishment." We cannot tell the meaning of these terms; we have never pretended to define them; if they could be defined they would be weakened: let them stand there, in all their dumb significance, too vast for language, too awful for metaphor. If this be the fate of the wicked, it follows that the fate of the righteous must be otherwise. "Le me die the death of the righteous, and let my last end be like his." "Though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil: for thou art with me; thy rod and thy staff they comfort me." I would rather die with Christ by my side in the poorest hovel in creation, than die without him in a king's palace, with regiments of soldiers gathered in serried ranks around the royal walls. Blessed are the dead which die in the Lord; they rest from their labours, and their works do follow them: "they shall hunger no more, neither thirst any more; neither shall the sun light on them, nor any heat. For the Lamb which is in the midst of the throne shall feed them, and shall lead them unto living fountains of waters: and God shall wipe away all tears from their eyes;" they shall serve God day and night in his temple, and his name shall be in their foreheads, and a white stone of mystery in their palm. May this be our sweet fate! That it may be so we must adopt the divine means for securing the gracious end: "Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, and thou shalt be saved." "Come unto me, all ye that labour and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest." "Him that cometh unto me I will in no wise cast out" "If any man thirst, let him come unto me, and drink." Seeing that we have to face: the future, that every man has to read the dark book for himself, who says that he will refuse the light of Christ's presence,—the joy of Christ's comfort?