The Cross in the Book of Job with Todd Tomasella and Travis Bryan III

The Book of Job

1.  Job contains the theology of the cross centuries before the cross.

2.  Job teaches us that God relates to humanity through the cross and the resurrection and not through the law.  Law is a juridical system of reward and punishment or blessing versus cursing.  Grace is a dying and rising participation with Christ.  God relates to is through grace not law. 

3.  The cross must come to everyone, the good (like Job) as well as the evil.  The resurrection also comes to both the good and the evil. 

4.  Job and his three friends all had a fallen understanding.  They derived their view point, as we all do until we are enlightened, from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil.  This is the tree of law.  They believed that God relates to us based on our performance.  If we are good we will be blessed.  If we are evil we will be cursed or punished.  They believed that their relationship with God was dependent on their performance. Consequently, Job's friends believed his suffering was due to his sinful life.  Job knew otherwise but his friends would not believe him.  Job could not understand why a righteous person like him was suffering. Only sinners should have to suffer.  This is tree of knowledge thinking.  Job and his friends were like both the elder and younger son in the prodigal story of Luke 15.  They were both infected with the same tree of the knowledge of good and evil, reward/punishment, thinking.  See also Jesus' disciples view of why the man was blind in John 9:1-3. See also the Jews in John 8:1-10 for more of this good vs evil type of thinking.

safeguardyoursoul.com