Professor of Old Testament Studies, Reformed Presbyterian Theological Seminary
Introduction
The Book of Job is often regarded as a lesson on how a faithful man should endure hardship while trusting in the good providence of God. It is that, to be sure, but Job is much more than a fine example of faithful patience in suffering. If we see Job as he is meant to be seen – not just as an example to follow in dealing with our sufferings, but as a prophetic prefigurement of the sufferings of Christ – we gain a much greater perspective on the meaning and purpose of suffering in the life of faith. This paper will do two things: first, establish that Job is a type of Christ who foreshadowed the redemptive suffering of our Savior, and second, examine how this perspective gives us great comfort in the life of faith when we suffer hardship ourselves.
Old Testament Typology
The Pattern
We begin by noting that typology in the Old Testament often consists not in isolated images frozen in time, but in recurring historical patterns that become progressively familiar, until they reach their crescendo in the New Testament. The analogy that exists between type and antitype often becomes a historical pattern with progressive manifestations. G. W. H. Lampe identified this feature of typology as “the tracing of the constant principles of God’s working in history, revealing a recurrent rhythm in past history which is taken up more fully and perfectly in Gospel events.”[1] The historical pattern, or “recurrent rhythm”, which is one key to understanding the Book of Job, is what we may call “The Messianic Trajectory.” It is the prophetic experience of being cast down from an established exalted position to the depths of undeserved humiliation, and then to be exalted by the hand of God to a place of even higher honor than the beginning.
This trajectory of experience is identified by Christ as a summary of His life and a pattern of Old Testament prophecy:
“O foolish ones, and slow of heart to believe in all that the prophets have spoken! Ought not the Christ to have suffered these things and to enter into His glory?” And beginning at Moses and all the prophets, He expounded to them in all the Scriptures the things concerning Himself. (Luke 24:25-27)Thus Jesus rebuked the two disciples on the road to Emmaus, and gave them what was undoubtedly the greatest lesson on the Old Testament ever taught. Though we may wish for a transcript of His lesson, His main points are still preserved for us. The first is that Moses, the prophets, and “all the Scriptures” are about the Lord Jesus Christ. This must be our expectation and our presupposition when reading the Old Testament, including the Book of Job. To read it in any other way is to misread it.
Humiliation And Exaltation
The second is that the Old Testament lays a particular stress on the sequence of Christ’s suffering and entrance into glory, that is, His humiliation and His exaltation. This precise emphasis of the Old Testament is also confirmed by Peter, who characterized all the prophets as testifying to “the sufferings of Christ and the glories that would follow” (I Peter 1:11). This trajectory of experience is summarized and emphasized again by the Apostle Paul in Philippians 2:5-11:
Let this mind be in you which was also in Christ Jesus, who, being in the form of God, did not consider it robbery to be equal with God, but made Himself of no reputation, taking the form of a bondservant, and coming in the likeness of men. And being found in appearance as a man, He humbled Himself and became obedient to the point of death, even the death of the cross. Therefore, God also has highly exalted Him and given Him the name which is above every name, that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, of those in heaven, and of those on earth, and of those under the earth, and that every tongue should confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father.If Christ and the apostles could point to this pattern of experience as the essence of Old Testament prophecy, and a summary of the Savior’s work, we may expect to find portrayals of this pattern in the Old Testament that foreshadow the Lord Jesus Christ, and in such a way that we should be able to answer the question, “Ought not the Christ to have suffered these things and to enter into His glory?” (Luke 24:26).
When we turn to the Old Testament, we find the literary prophecies of Christ replete with this emphasis on suffering followed by exaltation. For instance, in the wondrous Servant Song of Isaiah 53, “He was oppressed and He was afflicted” (vs. 7) is followed by the Father’s vow to exalt Him: “Therefore I will divide Him a portion with the great…” (vs. 12). The Psalms are saturated with this pattern of experience, where the voice of distress gives way to the triumph of exaltation and praise. “My God, My God, why have you forsaken Me?” (Ps. 22:1) leads to “I will declare Your name to My brethren; in the midst of the assembly I will praise You” (Ps. 22:22). Many prophecies of Christ emphasize either His humiliation or His exaltation, but the overall prophetic picture is of suffering leading to glory.
The Example Of Joseph
When we turn to the actual history of the Old Testament, which is the realm of typology, we see the pattern of this experience emerge as a recurring theme of redemptive history. There are several prominent figures whose lives can be summarized by the experience of being cast down from an established position to the depths of undeserved humiliation, then to be exalted by God to a place of even higher honor than the beginning.
The story of Joseph is one of the longest and most elaborate in Old Testament narrative, and it is built upon this pattern of experience. Joseph began life as the favored son of his father, but his envious brothers tore him away from his privileged position, casting him into a pit, selling him into slavery, and faking his death (Gen. 37). Joseph sunk lower still in his affliction, and was sent to prison, when the wife of his Egyptian master wrongly accused him of making advances (Gen. 39). Through all his trials, however, the Lord was with Joseph and showed him mercy (Gen. 39:21). From a prison cell, he began his miraculous rise to second in command of Egypt, when his God-given ability to interpret dreams brought him favor with Pharaoh (Gen. 41). God’s purpose in Joseph’s humiliation and exaltation was ultimately salvific – to save the lives of his family “by a great deliverance,” in providing them with food during a severe famine (Gen. 45:5-7).
The story of Joseph certainly reflects the messianic trajectory of undeserved suffering followed by divine exaltation. Is this pattern alone enough for us to see Joseph as a formal type of Christ? There are some who think so, like Patrick Fairbairn[2] At the very least, it is clear that the pattern of humiliation leading to exaltation is the very essence of Joseph’s story, and part of a larger pattern in redemptive history that would come to its fruition in Christ.
The Example Of King David
An even sharper example comes from the life of King David, whom the New Testament writers indisputably see as a type of Christ. As a younger brother, like Joseph, David began life with the humble work of a shepherd until he was anointed king by Samuel (I Sam. 16). Saul, the jealous and vengeful king whom David was to replace, persecuted him and forced him into hiding, until eventually David lived the life of an outcast among the Philistines (I Sam. 27). Hiding in caves and living on the run, David characterized his existence as being only a step away from death (I Sam. 20:3). From this low point of humiliation and unjust persecution, God propelled David to the height of kingship over a united Israel, and furthermore promised him that his Son would sit on his throne forever (II Sam. 7:12-16).
The Psalms vividly portray the humiliation and exaltation that David experienced, and in such a way that his words point directly to the experience of the Savior. In fact, there is hardly a Psalm of David that does not contain something of the sequence of suffering leading to grace, and the New Testament writers quote these Psalms more than any other portion of the Old Testament as prophecies of Christ. As a prophet and a type of Christ, David lived through and wrote about the extremes of humiliation and exaltation, which his greater Son would experience in full.
The Example Of Job
Turning, then, to the Book of Job, we see yet another example – perhaps the clearest example of all – of the messianic trajectory of experience. Job is introduced to us Melchizedek-like, without genealogy, as a man who was “greatest of all the people of the east,” (Job 1:3). In God’s own estimation, there was “none like him on earth” (Job 1:8). Job was rich in earthly possessions, but known even more for his exemplary life, being characterized by the narrator of the Book, and by God Himself, as being “blameless and upright” (Job 1:1, 8). The story begins with Job living an ideal existence, pious and prosperous beyond any other man on earth, and enjoying the unique favor of God.
Job is, then, all at once, cast down to such depths of suffering and humiliation that no other man had theretofore experienced. This change was no gradual run of providential difficulties; Job’s entire world came crashing down in a moment. He lost his family, his health, and his possessions. His wife and his friends turned on him. He was brought to a point where he literally had nothing left to lose but his life, and there he sat in an ash heap, scraping his diseased skin with a potsherd, wondering why he was still alive.
Throughout his long, poetic argument with his friends, Job maintained his innocence in the face of their accusations. Just as Christ was “numbered among the transgressors,” (Luke 22:37), or accused of being a sinner, Job’s friends also accused him of great sin, even though God Himself called Job “blameless and upright.” When the Lord finally spoke, Job’s friends were rebuked and Job was justified. At the end of the book, just as in the beginning, the Lord owned Job as “My servant” (1:8; 42:7), which reappears as a favorite messianic title in the Servant Songs of Isaiah.
At the conclusion of the Book of Job, we find that “the Lord gave Job twice as much as he had before” (Job 42:10), and “the Lord blessed the latter days of Job more than his beginning” (Job 42:12). His family was restored, his flocks were doubled, and he lived another one hundred and forty years, seeing his children’s children to four generations. If, in the beginning, Job was the greatest man in the east, and there was none else like him on earth, his later years of life must have been nothing short of idyllic – even glorious.
There is nothing ordinary about this story. It is extreme in every way. Job was not an average believer who learned to cope with hardship by trusting in the Lord. He was the greatest, most pious man on the earth, who experienced more undeserved suffering than any man had ever endured, and who was finally exalted by God to twice the status he enjoyed before. While Joseph’s rise from a dungeon to Pharaoh’s right hand is remarkable, and David’s elevation from outcast to king is extraordinary, the story of Job truly has no earthly equal. Here we see the sequence of humiliation and exaltation in its extreme. It is not a providential process, as with other Old Testament examples. Job’s experience moved from extreme to extreme, in such a way that there is no doubt that God’s hand moved these events directly and purposefully. Job was divinely moved from the outermost limits of the human experience of suffering on earth, to the outermost limits of the human experience of blessing on earth – all as if to illustrate something beyond the limits of human experience.
We have defined the “Messianic Trajectory” as the prophetic experience of being cast down from an established, exalted position to the depths of undeserved humiliation, then to be exalted by the hand of God to a place of even higher honor than the beginning. The imprint of this experience is all over the Old Testament, with greater or lesser clarity, but nowhere does it seem clearer than in the Book of Job. The extremity of Job’s experience is only outmatched by Christ, who was at first “equal with God,” who then “became obedient to the point of death,” and was subsequently given “the name which is above every name” (Phil 2:5-11).
Thus, the Book of Job is far more than an encouraging story of the perseverance of faith. It is that, but its depth of meaning reaches to the very heart of the Gospel and our hope in Jesus Christ. That such a prominent and unique book of the Old Testament would be devoted to the prefigurement of Christ’s sufferings points to how greatly our salvation depends on this aspect of His work.
Every sin deserves the wrath and curse of God in this life and the next.[3] Sin and suffering do not occur in a simplistic 1:1 ratio in this world as Job’s friends suggested, and the far greater part of God’s justice is reserved for the last great day. However, we must remember that sin deserves God’s wrath in this life, and it is only by God’s mercy that every sinner does not suffer as Job did, or worse (Rom. 2:4). The Savior had to die for our sins because “the wages of sin is death” (Rom. 6:23), but the suffering He endured leading up to His death was also an essential part of bearing the consequences of our sin. Thus, the Scriptures connect both the suffering and death of Christ as two essential parts of His one great work of salvation. “For Christ also suffered once for sins, the just for the unjust, that He might bring us to God, being put to death in the flesh but made alive by the Spirit” (I Pet. 3:18). Christ said again and again that He “must suffer many things” (Matt. 16:21; Mark 9:12; Luke 17:25), and that it was necessary for the Christ to suffer (Luke 24:46). The sufferings of Christ are therefore a central aspect of the gospel in apostolic preaching: “But those things which God foretold by the mouth of all His prophets, that the Christ would suffer, He has thus fulfilled” (Acts 3:8; cf. Acts 1:3; 17:3; 26:23). The grievous suffering that Christ endured in His flesh was a necessary part of His bearing the consequences of the sins of His people. The Book of Job is a glorious, prophetic testimony to this aspect of Christ’s work. Job, as a type of Christ, suffered a taste of what every sinner deserves and what Christ ultimately endured on our behalf.
As the eventual exaltation of Job foreshadowed, the sufferings of Christ led to “the glories that would follow” (I Pet. 1:11), namely, His resurrection, ascension, and session at the right hand of God. In this experience of suffering leading to glory, we, like Job, are united to Christ by faith. To some degree we will partake of Christ’s sufferings in this life, but only as an antecedent to the glory we have been promised. Paul said that we, by faith, are heirs of God, and joint heirs with Christ, “if indeed we suffer with Him, that we may also be glorified together” (Rom. 8:17). Peter said, “But rejoice to the extent that you partake of Christ’s sufferings, that when His glory is revealed, you may also be glad with exceeding joy” (I Pet. 4:13). Being united to Christ by faith, the believer may expect to experience something of the “trajectory” of suffering leading to glory. This pathway Christ took, and His disciples are not above their Master. The hardships we may endure will never approximate those of Christ, or even Job, but, once we belong to Christ, we never suffer outside of Him. We partake of His sufferings as a testimony that we abide in him. Upon reading the Book of Job we may give thanks always that we suffer so little in comparison, but we have the great assurance that any hardships we do endure are a brief precursor to the eternal glory that we are promised in Christ: “For I consider that the sufferings of this present time are not worthy to be compared with the glory which shall be revealed in us” (Rom. 8:18). Job’s story is a source of great assurance that this is true. For the believer, every hardship has the seed of glory in it. Each trial bears testimony in our hearts that we are united to Christ. There is no pointless suffering in the life of faith. The experience of Job, and ultimately that of Christ, teaches us that the gift of glory is both affirmed and perfected through the patient endurance of what trials God may appoint. “For our light affliction, which is but for a moment, is working for us a far more exceeding and eternal weight of glory” (I Cor. 4:17). Our affliction is working for us, not against us.
We may surmise that in many ways Job was a “changed man” after his hardships were over. One can only imagine what sympathy was opened up in his heart for others who suffer in this world. This sensitivity is found in the One whom Job foreshadowed. Scripture tells us that because Christ suffered as a true man, He has a knowing compassion upon us when we suffer any trial or temptation in Him. “For we do not have a High Priest who cannot sympathize with our weaknesses, but was in all points tempted as we are, yet without sin” (Heb. 4:15). The sympathy of our Savior is born of His own experience of suffering, and is thus full of personal compassion. Job experienced the blundering attempts of “miserable comforters” to speak about things they never experienced. The compassion of Christ on His people is just the opposite. He has gone through the vale of tears and experienced human anguish at its greatest. He can truly sympathize with our weaknesses and provide exactly what grace and comfort are needed in our lives. Scripture tells us that our consolation in Christ will always meet the measure of our need: “For as the sufferings of Christ abound in us, so our consolation also abounds through Christ” (II Cor. 1:5). The Book of Job is a prophetic testimony to the depth of suffering that brought forth the boundless sympathy of our great High Priest.
Finally, we turn to the lone mention of Job in the New Testament, where he is held out to us as an example of patience and perseverance:
My brethren, take the prophets who spoke in the name of the Lord, as an example of suffering and patience. Indeed, we count them blessed who endure. You have heard of the perseverance of Job and seen the end intended by the Lord – that the Lord is very compassionate and merciful. (Jas. 5:10, 11)It is noteworthy that James refers us to all the prophets, then singles out only Job by name. Not only is Job counted among the prophets, but he is viewed as is the greatest example among them when it comes to the patient endurance of suffering. So, while Job is not mentioned in the “Hall of Faith” in Hebrews 11, he is the only one mentioned by name in the “Hall of Patience” in James 5.
If Job is an example of the patient endurance of suffering, he is so only because he reflects the perfect patience of Christ, which we too are called to reflect. The apostle’s prayer for believers is that the Lord would direct our hearts “into the love of God and into the patience of Christ” (II Thess. 3:5). As we partake of the sufferings of Christ, we are called to partake of His patience as well. This fruit of the Spirit is ours to receive, as the example of Job will forever remind us.
While Job’s outcries sometimes seem incongruous with patience, we are reminded (as we are in the Psalms) that the frank expressions of the heart have a place in our prayers. Job was nothing if not honest about his pain, fears, and frustrations. This openness did not mitigate what he knew to be true: that God is to be praised at all times (Job 1:21), and that adversity is to be patiently received from His hand (Job 2:10). Suffering may tempt us to question God in our unguarded moments, but there is always an objective truth to which we can return and find rest. It is the truth taught everywhere in Scripture and cited by James as the crowning lesson of the Book of Job – “the Lord is very compassionate and merciful.”
Perhaps the better part of Job’s patience consisted in trust. Even though he could not fathom why he suffered so grievously, Job’s trust in God was relentless. He was resolved to trust in the Lord and what He was doing, even to death. “Though He slay me, yet will I trust Him” (Job 13:15). Job could not see the purpose behind his suffering, but he knew there was a purpose. Perhaps he did not see the full dimensions of his typological experience, but he knew his anguish and pain were not meaningless. He was resolved to trust in God’s good purpose, even if it were inscrutable.
From the vantage point of the New Testament, we have the blessing of knowing the purpose behind our trials and struggles. They are meant to add perseverance to our faith and produce the fruit of patience. The apostle said, “…we also glory in tribulations, knowing that tribulation produces perseverance; and perseverance, character; and character, hope” (Rom. 5:3). James likewise says, “My brethren, count it all joy when you fall into various trials, knowing that the testing of your faith produces patience. But let patience have its perfect work, that you may be perfect and complete, lacking nothing” (Jas. 1:3, 4). The “glory” of Paul and the “joy” of James are often hard to grasp in our darkest moments, but they begin with trust – obstinate trust – that the Lord is using our trials to ultimately bring us to glory. Remember that even our Savior Himself was made “perfect through suffering” (Heb. 2:10). For our part, we must make it our purpose to grow in faith and patience through whatever trials we encounter, trusting that this indeed is God’s purpose.
Both James and Paul mention patience or perseverance as the fruit of tribulation. Too often, trials produce impatience within us. We pray and hope for the trial to end as soon as possible, without letting patience “have its perfect work.” No one hopes to have the trials of life prolonged, but there is a purpose to their timespan. Patience – of all things – is not learned quickly. Perseverance of faith cannot be penciled into our schedules. To recognize this truth is, perhaps, part of what it means to accept adversity (Job 2:10). Our first impulse is to reject it, and pray that God would move heaven and earth to bring our adversity to a hasty conclusion. But we must remember that Paul’s golden chain of tribulation, perseverance, character, and hope is a process in which each element begets the next in due time, and there are no shortcuts.
Conclusion
The Book of Job reminds us how little we actually see of the big picture of God’s work in our lives, and how only trust can fill the great gaps in our vision. The prologue of Job gives us a privileged glimpse into the origin and purpose of Job’s trials, but Job and his friends, for their part, were wrestling in the dark. When they dared to explain what they did not know, they exposed themselves to the hurtful consequences of misconstruing God’s work. As Derek Kidner put it so well, the Book of Job shows “how small a part of any situation is the fragment we see; how much of what we do see we ignore or distort through preconceptions; and how unwise it is to extrapolate from our elementary grasp of truth.”[4] There is a plan and purpose behind all that happens in our lives, but like Job, we do not get to read the blueprint ahead of time. The glorious day will come when we will see, in retrospect, the perfect goodness and wisdom of God at every turn in our life story, but until that day comes, it is our part to patiently and persistently trust that “all things work together for good to those who love God” (Rom. 8:28).
The Book of Job is meant to cause our faith, love, and thankfulness to abound toward our suffering Savior. We must read Job’s story as being “passionately and profoundly about Jesus, whom Job foreshadows both in his blamelessness and perseverance through undeserved suffering.”[5] It is therefore a book that is also meant to produce in us “the patience of Christ” (II Thess. 3:5) whenever we suffer hardship, so that we too, like Job, may reflect something of this crowning attribute of the Savior. There are no more types of Christ being sent by God into this world; the shadows have given way to the reality. Yet, in a very real way, we are called to reflect Jesus Christ in our lives through patient trust in the Father’s will. The typology that made Job so unique is now brought down to the plane of our common calling in Christ. If we endure any hardship with the patience of Christ, trusting His promise that our suffering will lead to glory, we may take our place alongside Job among those who are counted blessed who endure (Jas. 5:11).
Notes
- G. W. H. Lampe, “The Reasonableness of Typology,” in Essays on Typology, G. W. H. Lampe and K. J. Woollcombe, eds. (Naperville: A.R. Allenson, 1957), 27.
- Fairbairn writes, “Especially in the history of Joseph, the representative of the covenant in its earlier stage, was there given a wonderful similitude of Him in whom its powers and blessings were to be concentrated in their entire fullness, and who was therefore in all things to obtain the preeminence among His brethren. Like Joseph, the son of Mary, though born among brethren after the flesh, was treated as an alien; envied and persecuted even from His infancy, and obliged to find a temporary refuge in the very land that shielded Joseph from the fury of his kindred. His supernatural and unblemished righteousness continually provoked the malice of the world, and at the same time received the most unequivocal tokens of the divine favor and blessing. It was that righteousness, exhibited among the greatest trials and indignities, in the deepest debasement, and in worse than prison-house affliction, which procured His elevation to the right hand of power and glory, from which He was thenceforth to dispense the means of salvation to the world.” Typology, (Kregel Classics, 2000) I, 325.
- Westminster Shorter Catechism Question 84: What doth every sin deserve? Every sin deserveth God’s wrath and curse, both in this life, and that which is to come. (Eph. 5:6; Gal. 3:10; Lam. 3:39; Matt. 25:41).
- Derek Kidner, The Wisdom of Proverbs, Job & Ecclesiastes (Downers Grove: IVP, 1985), 61.
- Christopher Ash, Job: The Wisdom of the Cross (Wheaton: Crossway, 2014), 436.
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