Job 33:32

If thou hast any thing to say, answer me: speak, for I desire to justify thee.

Justify - to do thee justice; and, if I can, consistently with it, to declare thee innocent. At Job 33:33 Elihu pauses for a reply; then proceeds, Job 34:1.

Remarks:

(1) Calm and candid reasoning in a kindly spirit is more likely to win men to a right state of mind than dealing with a "heavy hand" (Job 33:3; Job 33:7). The minister, while addressing sinners authoritatively, as "in God's stead" (Job 33:6), and "in Christ's stead" (2 Corinthians 5:20), should speak with a fellow-feeling, as Elihu, "I also am formed out of the clay:" or as Peter to Cornelius, "I myself also am a man." 'Terror' only hardens it: it is love alone that melts it (Job 33:7).

(2) At the same time, the sinner is to be dealt faithfully with; and when anything has been said to the dishonour of God, we ought to bear our testimony against it, in vindication of His goodness and His justice (Job 33:8). Job had been betrayed, by a mind soured by misfortune, into unwarranted reflections against God, as though God treated him in the spirit of an "enemy;" and this, notwithstanding that he was "clean, without transgression, and innocent." The one simple consideration, that "God is greater than man," is a complete answer to such wrong-minded imputations against Yahweh. When God afflicts man, it cannot be from fear or jealousy of him as an equal. It must be for some other reason. It is worse than vain to "strive against Him" (Job 33:13) because we cannot always discover what is the reason of some of His dealings with us: for "He giveth not account of any of His matters." We may in faith take it assuredly for granted that He acts in perfect wisdom, justice, and goodness, though we cannot perceive it.

(3) When God designs our good, He speaks to us by various agencies: if we give no heed to one voice from Him, He speaks to us in another (Job 33:14). When His word of grace and His loving dealings in providence fail to attract us to Him, He next sends affliction. His gracious purpose is to open men's hearts, as well as their ears, to saving instruction (Job 33:16), as He opened the heart of Lydia (Acts 16:14). Man if left to himself, would go on in his own "work" of self-seeking "pride," which goeth before destruction (Job 33:17; Proverbs 16:18). But God mercifully "keepeth back his soul from the pit," by sending severe but wholesome disciplinary chastisement (Job 33:19). Though pain, which is the fruit of sin, is not for the time "joyous, but grievous, yet afterward it yields the peaceable fruit of righteousness to them that are exercised thereby" (Hebrews 12:11).

(4) Gods most effectual way of drawing man to Himself is by the Divine "Messenger" between God and man, the Mediator, "the chiefest among ten thousand," the Intercessor with God for us, and the "Interpreter" to vindicate God's righteousness to us (Job 33:23; Job 33:26). Christ Jesus is at once the Redeemer and the Ransom found by the love of the triune God: He is alone the Priest and the Sacrifice. In order to have a saving part in this great redemption, we must be born again of the Spirit, and become little children (Job 33:25). The first token of regeneration is hearty repentance and confession of sin-of the fact of sin, without palliating it - "I have sinned;" of the perversity of our sin - "I have perverted that which was right;" of, the profitless folly of it - "It profited me not." Then shall we "be enlightened with the light of the living" (Job 33:30), and "shall see God's face with joy," as a reconciled Father (Job 33:26).