Job holds to his belief that God will yet save him. He holds to his claim that he has not brought his sorrows upon himself by some hidden sin he’s refusing to repent of. But he wants an audience with God because he wants to reason with him. He figures he needs to plead his case with God–make him understand that his punishment isn’t fair.

Is God fair?

How can Job think so? His friends are telling him that God judges the wicked and blesses the righteous. The Bible even tells us that. But Job is, by God’s own account, the most righteous man on the earth. How then can it be fair for God to punish him so severely and let others go free?

The answer has to be in God’s grace.

Job is a sinner. He’s human, conceived in sin, needing to be saved by the blood of Christ. He is born destined for hell and it is perfectly just for God to kill him and send him there. It is also perfectly just for God to give Job suffering here and now.

Well, is it fair for God to give Job what he deserves and to withhold suffering from people who are far more evil?

That’s the question that the workers asked when the eleventh hour man got paid the same wages as the rest. “We’ve born the heat of the day,” they said. “Why don’t you pay us more?” And the landowner said, “I have given you what you deserve. Do you call me unjust because I am merciful to some?”

God gave Job what we all deserve. Should we call him unjust because he’s merciful to us and doesn’t make us suffer to such an extent? When we do suffer, should we find him unjust because he’s merciful to others?

I don’t think we can leave it there, though. What’s going on with Job is not judgment at all. I think chapter one makes it clear. I just needed to get the judgment thing out of the way. God is just even when we see him treating one person one way and one another. He will have mercy upon whom he has mercy. We are created and it’s up to him to dispose of us as he will.

But what I really think is going with Job is mercy not judgment.