INDEPENDENT of its poetic and dramatic interest, the book of Job is one of the most remarkable in the Old Testament. According to the narrative, the patriarch from whom the book derives its title is plunged from the pinnacle of apparent material prosperity to the seeming depths of woe and desolation, from which he raises his anguished voice, like many in the present day, to ask the reason why. The introductory chapter of the book closes a catalogue of successive disasters with this statement: "In all this Job sinned not, nor charged God foolishly."
Job was accounted in the words of the narrator, "a perfect and an upright man, one that feareth God, and escheweth evil." In his utter despair, when tempted by his wife to renounce his allegiance to God, he answered, "Thou speakest as one of the foolish women speaketh." Nevertheless, there must have been in Job's thought the error of believing that good and evil proceed from the same source, and that evil has power, and the consequent fear, for we find him supplementing the rebuke to his wife with the question, "Shall we receive good at the hand of God, and shall we not receive evil?"
Job had studied and zealously observed the Mosaic law, which included the belief in a sinner who is to be punished. In accordance with this teaching he believed the phenomena of sin and sickness to be real, and having clothed his belief with supposititious power, he feared the thing he had created; and so we find him in a mournful plaint exclaiming, "The thing which I greatly feared is come upon me." The fallacy that good and evil are from the same source has sown the seeds of fear in human consciousness, produced its inevitable penalties, and disturbed the peace of mankind through all the ages. Mankind has feared evil and evil conditions in proportion to its belief in the reality of evil and its consequent power to harm. The failure to recognize Truth and reject the false assertions of error is, however, the passive sin that frequently seeks to be excused on the specious plea of ignorance, set up in defense of those who "imagine vain things" and are charging God foolishly in the belief that our heavenly Father is responsible for the ills of humanity. The belief that God is powerful but that He is vindictive contradicts the inspired statement of the apostle John, who knew the divine nature so well that he could declare in definite terms, "God is love;" and again, "There is no fear in love; but perfect love casteth out fear."
