In Job, chapter forty, verse eight, Job’s contention that he was innocent and that God had been unjustly punishing him brought him close to condemning God. The Lord asked Job specifically whether he would continue to assert his limited perspective of God’s administration of the world at the cost of rejecting His justice and goodness.
Those who profit from what they hear from God shall get more from him. And those convinced of sin must be more thoroughly assured and more humbled. No doubt God, and he only, has the power to humble and bring down proud men; he has the wisdom to know when and how to do it, and it is not for us to teach him how to govern the world. Our hands cannot save us by recommending us to God’s grace, much less rescuing us from his justice; therefore, we must commit ourselves. The renewal of a believer proceeds in the same way of conviction, humbling, and watchfulness against remaining sin as his first conversion. When convinced of many evils in our conduct, we still need convincing of many more.
Wilt thou “reverse” the judgment I formed and show that it should have differed from what it is? The implication of what Job had undertaken. His complaint about the dealings of God was the same as saying that he could show that those dealings should have been different from what they were. When a man complains against God, it implies that he supposes he could show why his dealings should differ from what they are and should reverse them.
Wilt thou condemn me, that thou mayest be righteous? – Or “Wilt thou show that I am wrong because thou art superior in justice?” Job had allowed himself to use language which strongly implied that God was improperly severe. He had regarded himself as punished far beyond what he deserved and suffering in a manner that justice did not demand. All this implied that “Job” was more righteous in the case than God, for when a man allows himself to vent complaining more just than his Maker. God now calls upon Job to maintain this proposition since he had advanced it and to urge the arguments that would prove that “he” was more righteous in the case than God. It was proper to demand this. It was a charge of such a nature that could not pass in silence, and God asks, therefore, with emphasis, whether Job now supposed that he could institute such an argument to show that he was right and his Maker wrong.