Introduction. Read Job15

Eliphaz's second presentation is much fiercer than his first. He makes absolutly no attempt to understand how Job is feeling or to sympathise with his plight. All he is concerned about is to defend his own Theological position. Whenever people get into Theological disputes the temperature begins to rise. Such is the case here. Eliphaz has no new arguments - he just restates his old ones even more dogmatically. He also gets personal and begins to insult Job.

The passage can be divided up on the basis of the five things Eliphaz accuses Job of: verbal flatulence, conceit, presumption, obstinacy and culpability.

(1) Job's flatulence. See v1to6.

Eliphaz accuses Job of being full of hot air - and we know what happens when the belly is full of hot air. Eliphaz is being rather crude - like we are when we say someone has verbal diarrhoea. It is sad whenever we resort to personal abuse in the course of a dispute.

Eliphaz also makes out that Job is undermining men's devotion to God. Job's experience certainly threatened Eliphaz's simplistic Theology. The Temanite probably thought no one would revere a God who rewarded righteousness with suffering. This was the position adopted by Satan in his interview with God.

Today there are those like Eliphaz with a very simple Theology: the good go to heaven and the wicked go to hell. I have heard Christians say that if hell is not a place of everlasting torment there is no incentive for anyone to believe in Jesus. It is necessary to emphasise the agonies of hell for the gospel to be effective.

All the motivation I need for being a Christian is contained in Jesus' words: "For my Father's will is that everyone who looks to the Son and believes in him shall have eternal life, and I will raise him up at the last day." John6v40.

(2) Job's conceit. v7to11.

Eliphaz sets out to take Job down a peg or two. He asks him, "Who do you think you are?" The Temanite implies Job's conceit by the questions he poses:

(a) Are you the wisest man alive? It seems Eliphaz uses the word 'first' to signify 'greatest'.

(b) Have you eavesdropped on the councils of God?

(c) Do you really know more than the rest of us?

(d) How can you disregard the wisdom of the ages?

The implication of these questions is very unfair for the following reasons:

(a) Job didn't claim to be the wisest man alive.

(b) He wasn't privy to God's council. If only Job had overheard God's conversation with Satan he would have understood why he was suffering.

(c) Eliphaz in no way demonstrated through the subtlety of his arguments that he possessed greater knowledge than Job.

(d) The wisdom of the ages was no help in explaining Job's experience. The patriarch knows that he has done nothing to deserve the calamities that have overtaken him. He no more deserved them than Eliphaz himself or anyone else for that matter.

I think nearly every denomination contains dissidents who do not toe the party line. I, for example, dissent from the majority of Grace Baptists in believing that when a Christian dies their state is more like sleep than anything else. When I have put forward this view it has been pooh-poohed. I am told: that's what the Seventh Day Adventists and Jehovah's Witnesses believe. They are sects - what they believe cannot be true! (It seems foolish to me to think they are wrong about everything!) I am further asked whether I know better than the vast majority of conservative evangelicals. Have I considered that the teaching of the church through the centuries is that believers go consciously to heaven when they die?

The one thing these clones of Eliphaz fail to do is explore the evidence of Scripture for the nature of life after death. See article on life after death.

(3) Job's presumption. v12to16.

Eliphaz accuses of Job of having no grounds for his anger with God. He says: "Why do your eyes flash, so that you vent your rage against God." v12and13.

Eliphaz justifies God's treatment of Job in terms of man's universal and general sinfulness. No one born of a woman can be righteous. God's standards are so much higher than ours. We practice sin with the avidity of a thirsty man tossing back a glass of water. So, insofar as Job shares in this general sinfulness he deserves to suffer.

This is a similar argument to the one which blames human suffering on the Fall. Pain and tribulation are a consequence of the sin of Adam and Eve.

Job, however, knew from experience that the intensity of a man's suffering did not match a person's level of sinfulness. Job knew that compared to others, his three friends for example, he was righteous. Yet he suffered extraordinary losses whereas some rank bad men experienced no losses at all.

This kind of reasoning is still deeply resented by some Christians. They cannot bear to think that some suffering is undeserved. Well they shouldn't pick a quarrel with me! When Jesus was asked by his disciples about a man born blind - whether he or his parents had sinned - he said, "Neither!"

(4) Job's obstinacy. See v17to26.

Eliphaz addresses Job as a teacher might a recalcitrant child: "Listen to me and I will explain to you ..... ." v17. Many a time I said in my career, "Pay attention." Perhaps, too, there is a reference to Job's belligerent attitude in v25and26: "Because he shakes his fist at God and vaunts himself against the Almighty, defiantly charging against him with a thick, strong shield."

Eliphaz is annoyed that Job cannot accept his truth. It is a truth agreed on by all the wise: "All his days the wicked man suffers torment." v20. He then attempts to convince Job that the wicked are not really happy. Instead their lives are characterised by: despair, restlessness, distress and anguish. (I have just come from visiting an old Christian woman in hospital who is suffering from encephalitis and she displays all four of these symptoms!)

I have heard this poppy cock so often - especially in the past. The evangelist proclaims: "The rich and successful might seem happy but underneath it all there is no satisfaction, no peace, no hope and no joy." This may be true of some wealthy people but not all. A substantial number are perfectly content with their lives. They enjoy their work, their family and their leisure. There may only be one life but they intend to make the most of it.

Discontent and despair drive men and women to Jesus. If the wealthy and successful were unhappy and unfulfilled they would be flocking to the Saviour. There is very little evidence of this in Britain!

(5) Job's culpability. v27to35.

Eliphaz made up his mind that Job was wicked because of the terrible setbacks he suffered. This is called judging by outcome. It is a very common form of judgment. Premier League football managers sink or swim by it. Schools are assessed on how well their pupils do in public examinations. It can also be used informally to assess the competence of a pastor. If people are not being converted and the church is not growing elements in the church may begin to question the pastor's ability. Judgement by outcome is not always fair or even accurate. Other factors are involved. In the parable of the sower there was nothing wrong with the seed or the sower. The problem lay with the soil! If Jesus had been rated on how well he did in his public ministry he may have seemed a failure. He lost a lot of support as time went on.

The fact is, Job was a praiseworthy man in God's estimation - as was his dear Son with whom he was well pleased. Many other Old Testament characters were underestimated. The children of Israel did not have the high regard for Moses that God did. Jeremiah was a faithful witness for God but had the reputation of being an old misery guts. We need to be very careful before we judge a man or woman on outcome only.

Eliphaz goes on to describe with increasing relish how God punishes the wicked. A wicked man is like an evil king who is successful in battle, who sacks cities, but who eventually loses his wealth. God brings down the curtain upon his triumphs, shrivels him and blows him away. A wicked man foolishly trusts in what is worthless - his wealth and power. They will yield him no benefits. He will be like a vine stripped of unripe grapes or an olive tree whose blossom falls before fertilisation takes place. The unfruitful life is fit only for the fire. The only produce from a wicked man's life, if such they can be called, are trouble and evil.

Eliphaz takes too much pleasure in the punishments he imagines God inflicts on the unrighteous. There have always been some who lick their lips over the flames of hell and the torments of the damned. This is a sample of what Jonathan Edwards said in an infamous sermon on hell: First, be entreated to consider attentively how great and awful a thing eternity is. Although you cannot comprehend it the more by considering, yet you may be made more sensible that it is not a thing to be disregarded. Do but consider what it is to suffer extreme torment forever and ever: to suffer it day and night from one year to another, from one age to another, and from one thousand ages to another (and so adding age to age, and thousands to thousands), in pain, in wailing and lamenting, groaning and shrieking, and gnashing your teeth - with your souls full of dreadful grief and amazement, with your bodies and every member full of racking torture; without any possibility of getting ease; without any possibility of moving God to pity by your cries; without any possibility of hiding yourselves from him; without any possibility of diverting your thoughts from your pain; without any possibility of obtaining any manner of mitigation, or help, or change for the better. This sort of preaching represents God as a monster.

It is a very dangerous matter to foist on to God behaviour he would never, never countenance. Gehenna was a real place - the Jerusalem rubbish dump. The rubbish there was destroyed by fire and maggots. Hell was a place of destruction. God will destroy men and women who turn out to be irredeemably bad. He will finally empty his mind of them and they will be no more. There is no need to go further than that!