Throughout the ages, one of the most important as well as one of the most difficult lessons to impart to mankind has been the distinction between true and false theology, or the right and the wrong concept of God. The book of Job brings out forcibly this distinction between the true and the false sense of God. Its unique place in the Bible fulfills a very definite purpose, and is not, as so many seem to think, simply that of a beautiful poem or drama, from which we may quote at random. The book of Job clearly presents the utter unreliability of any form of false theology which teaches an undemonstrable knowledge of God, or which offers a concept of God based wholly or partially upon the evidence of the physical senses. Incidentally, the book of Job is also one of the earliest records of the power of spiritual understanding to overcome fear and all error. Coleridge says: "The Book of Job is an Arab poem antecedent to the Mosaic dispensation. It represents the mind of a good man not enlightened by an actual revelation, but seeking about for one."
The understanding of God always has come and always will come in the form of spiritual revelation; which is only another way of saying that it cannot come through the physical senses. Spirit never being in matter, and never controlled by material belief, imparts its own spiritual revelations to hearts hungering and thirsting after righteousness, and teaches mankind the truth about reality. Coleridge, therefore, stated the case correctly when he said that Job was not enlightened by a revelation, but was earnestly seeking for one. Herein lies the great appeal of the book of Job to humanity; for may it not be said of all of us that before the revelation of Truth in Christian Science has found us, we are like Job when he still had no revelation? Nevertheless, blessed are we if we also are seeking for such.
Let us point out some of the strong characteristics of Job, which may help others in finding the true God. In all of his terrific mental struggles there is not a tinge of doubt in Job as to the great fact that God is. One could never have made an atheist out of Job, for the patriarch's cry is always summed up by these words: "Oh that I knew where I might find him!" Moreover, there is not the slightest hint that Job is looking for any form of material relief,—which to-day we would possibly call medical help. He is perfectly convinced—and this should be a great help to every one who is seeking Christian Science healing—that if he can only get a right concept of God, his physical ailments will vanish. Job saw, at least dimly, that right understanding of God was his health. This, however, he had not learned from arguments like those advanced by his three friends, but he had evidently reasoned it out for himself; and to this fact he held with commendable tenacity, even though his three friends condemned him for doing so. It is this constructive reasoning that makes the book of Job so full of meaning and dramatic interest,—reasoning constructive to a new and higher concept of God, but destructive to the false beliefs of the physical senses.
