I think fewer books in the Bible have challenged the reader more to understand the Divine message to be had than the book of Job. The Book of Job by Ethelbert W. Bullinger goes a long way to remove the mystery and confusion. It's available at Amazon.com but way too expensive as it is out of print and people that have it are sharking it for obscene prices. I picked it up for $11.00 a couple weeks ago. If anyone is interested in the book, I'd suggest waiting until another used book vendor offers it for sale at a reasonable price. I recently saw it offered here for $13.75 but don't know if it's still available.
From the book:
As the lost son confessed "I have sinned". As Joseph's brethren acknowledged "We are verily guilty". As David said "I have sinned against the Lord". As Isaiah confessed "I am undone...unclean". And as Daniel declared "my comeliness was turned into corruption". So must Job be brought to say, "I am vile. I abhor myself. I repent in dust and ashes".
This is the end of the Lord for the Lord Himself must be the teacher of this Divine lesson. Man may be used by God to bring it about but God alone can be the bringer near of His own salvation, and the bestower of his own righteousness.
All this is quite apart from mere "religion," as such. Job was religious, just as the heathen may be "very religious". Religion is the attempt of man to become righteous by morality and ordinances, but, the moment God produces a broken heart and a contrite spirit, the sinner is lifted completely out of the region of religion, and becomes the possessor of the "righteousness of God" Himself.
The book of Job, therefore, as we have said, is the illustration and the spiritual enlargement of the oldest lesson in the world as first taught in Gen. iv. 1-5. It is an object lesson which exhibits before our eyes the Divine answer to man's great question - the question of this book: "How shall mortal man be just with God?"
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The first time the Lord God speaks to man after the Fall, He sets forth in his brief question, "Where art thou?" the lost and helpless condition of man. This is the first great lesson which man has to learn; and his attempt to answer this great question is that which forms the first step in his attainment of true "wisdom".
The first question of the Bible is intended to reveal to man his lost condition; and when he has discovered this, he asks the first question in the New Testament, intended to express this conviction, when he cries "Where is He?" (Matt. ii. 2) Where is the Savior whom Thou hast provided for lost sinners? Where is the Savior whom Thou has given and sent?
Unless we recognize this, as the "end" and design of the book, we shall never understand it, or learn the lesson for ourselves.
