Job 22

“Then Eliphaz the Temanite answered and said: ‘Can a man be profitable to God?  Surely he who is wise is profitable to himself.  Is it any pleasure to the Almighty if you are in the right, or is it gain to him if you make your ways blameless? Is it for your fear of him that he reproves you and enters into judgment with you? Is not your evil abundant? There is no end to your iniquities. For you have exacted pledges of your brothers for nothing and stripped the naked of their clothing. You have given no water to the weary to drink, and you have withheld bread from the hungry. The man with power possessed the land, and the favored man lived in it. You have sent widows away empty, and the arms of the fatherless were crushed. Therefore snares are all around you, and sudden terror overwhelms you, or darkness, so that you cannot see, and a flood of water covers you.’” Job 22:1-11 (ESV)

Are you bored with the monotony of these arguments from Job’s so-called “friends”? You should be; that is precisely why the Lord keeps confronting us with their arguments. We must endure the repetitiveness of their arguments because they are the same arguments Satan uses against us today! When we hear worldly counsel from well-intended yet Biblically context-ignorant church friends, we are intended to respond, “Oh, I’ve heard that argument before, and it is not of the Lord!”

Eliphaz is still convinced that Job is being judged by God, as opposed to being tested by Him, by allowing Satan’s divinely limited attack. Eliphaz argues that Job’s good works have not allowed him to escape God’s judgment of secret sin. That is, Job’s righteousness is of no profit to God. And that counsel is Biblically accurate in that we can never accrue enough good works to say that God OWES us anything. In fact, Jesus compared believers to servants who owe everything to their master who redeemed them and shouldn’t assume He owes them anything for their service.

“So likewise you, when you have done all those things which you are commanded, say, ‘We are unprofitable servants. We have done what was our duty to do.’” Luke 17:10 (NKJV)

But when taken out of Biblical context (Eliphaz did not include in his operational theology that God would test His servants to such an extreme as Job endured), otherwise Biblically correct counsel can turn people to despair as opposed to repentance and restoration. In Job’s case (where he committed no sin, which led him to such horrible circumstances), Eliphaz’s words extend no hope that Job could hang his faith.

No, our good works do not profit God. He does not need us, yet He chooses to call, equip, and use us to build His kingdom. The calling, equipping, and kingdom are all supplied by Him, but the choice to participate is ours. And therein lies the love of God: while our righteousness is of no profit to Him, our faith brings Him pleasure.  And the faithful should strive to hear Him proclaim, “Well done!”  (Mathew 25:21-23)