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A Battle for Righteousness - the message of the book of JobOn the JobA BATTLE FOR RIGHTEOUSNESS There cannot be many Christians (let alone preachers) who have not struggled with the message of Job. Although it is easy at one level to regard this Old Testament book as a pot pourri of wonderful texts, capturing the internal flow of its message and seeing how it fits into the overall flow of biblical revelation is a very different matter. This English translation of a work that originally appeared in Dutch in 1957 goes a long way towards addressing both of these larger issues. Professor Popma regards himself as a 'lay exegete' - his training and life's work were in the fields of classics and philosophy - but he provides us with an extremely thought-provoking commentary on what he rightly describes as a 'powerful book of the Bible'. His thorough knowledge of the biblical languages combines with a rich knowledge of both biblical and systematic theology to open windows on the message of Job that might otherwise remain closed. His approach is to go through Job sequentially in the course of five chapters providing a fairly straightforward analysis of the text. Then, in the sixth chapter, he goes over the same material again looking at the main characters of the book in turn and providing us with a synthesis of the message of the book. He draws out some rich insights theologically, not least providing many helpful thoughts on the doctrine of the devil and demonology in general, as well as on Job's place in the unfolding scheme of redemptive history. It is in this latter realm that we are shown how the experience of Job points the way towards the accomplishment of Christ in salvation. In essence, '...the demise of Satan in the story of Job anticipates the defeat of Satan on the cross of Calvary'. This Christocentric approach is the vital key to understanding the book. Popma offers some pro-vocative suggestions in relation to the date and authorship of Job. He sees it as coming from outside the Israelite community in the form of a 1,000 year-old written tradition that then passed through prophetic hands into the corpus of Scripture. He also shows powerful sensitivity to the complexity of human suffering that underlies the book as a whole. His remark, 'Probably only Jesus really understood Job' (p. 236), says more than one might at first think. The bottom line of the book as far as this commentary is concerned lies in what God has to say about the animals in the closing chapters. If man cannot even understand what goes on in the world of animals, how much less will he comprehend the workings of God. It draws us to that point in our experience where we bow before the sovereign lordship of the God of all creation and acknowledge, not merely the authority, but especially the grace he displays in everything he does. Mark Johnston, Camberwell© Evangelicals Now - June 2001 |