The Righteous Suffer

Someone from our congregation wrote this to me:

I’ve been reading the book of Job in my daily bible reading and I have a question. When Job and his friends are talking, it seems that is friends are telling Job that he has sinned and he needs to repent and turn back to God. Job maintains his innocence and his righteousness. Yet I’m wondering how Romans 3:23 applies? Would it be more correct to say that what has happened to Job is not a result of his righteousness or his sin, but because God is God?

This was my reply:

David sometimes speaks this way in the Psalms as well (see Ps. 26, for example). It strikes us as odd because we are well versed in the doctrine that all men are sinners, as concisely stated in Romans 3:23.

What Job is asserting is not that he is sinless, but that he does not believe that he has committed a sin that would bring on all his trials and suffering. The friends' logic is simple and, to a certain extent, biblical. It reflects justice: sin leads to judgment/punishment. Thus, in their equation, because they see Job's suffering as judgment/punishment from God (notice that they don't believe in impersonal forces or coincidences), therefore, Job must have committed some sin to bring it upon himself. This is why Job struggles-- he believes he has maintained his integrity before God. He searches his heart, but he has not been harboring hidden sin. At some level, Job is using the same logic, and that's why he has great anxiety. "Why am I suffering if I haven't done some big, bad sin to bring it on? Hadn't I been maintaining a close walk with God?"

I think one of the big lessons from Job (or John 9) is the reminder that all suffering is not a direct consequence of our sinful actions. Sometimes it is the result of the sinful conditions of this world (the Curse), it can be spiritual forces of darkness (Satan, demons), but in all things, God is at work for his glory. This is hard to hold together in our finite minds.

In the end, Job acknowledges his sin-- not that he actually had some bad sin that brought on his suffering, but that he was wrong for challenging and questioning God. The book concludes as you say, the suffering is not a result of Job's righteousness or sin, but for reasons we cannot know. How do we live in a world where things happen that don't fit the logic of justice (good wins, evil loses, righteous rewarded, wickedness punished)? We have to trust in the God who is far more powerful, wise, and good that we are or could ever comprehend, and also believe that perfect justice will be established in the end.

Our hope is in the fact that, because of Christ, we do not have to face perfect justice, but may receive mercy by his grace. If anyone ever suffered while innocent, it was Jesus, but he did so, making it possible for the guilty to be relieved of eternal suffering.