Though He Slay Me
This year we're collaborating with writers across the Augustine Collective, a network of student-led Christian journals, to bring you a series of short devotional articles during this season of Lent, the 40-day period prior to Easter. Find this series also published by UChicago's CANA Journal and UC Berkeley's TAUG.
by isaac liu, uc berkeley
Though He slay me, yet I will trust in Him. [1]
This is one of the most well-known verses from the book of Job, which tells the story of a man who is blameless and God-fearing, yet nonetheless endures intense suffering. Though it’s nestled within a much longer complaint to God, this short statement displays the extent of Job’s faithfulness, for which he is commended by God at the end of the book.
Whenever I think about this verse, I wonder at its seeming impossibility. How could anyone possibly trust someone who’d willingly harm them, even kill them? After all, that’s generally considered to be one of the most telltale signs of a toxic relationship. Perhaps what’s more disturbing is whom the verse suggests is the killer: God Himself. How could a righteous God possibly be justified in killing a servant as righteous as Job?
At first glance, it seems like Job is caught in a one-sided relationship with his Maker. While Job loves and trusts God, God can do whatever He wants with Job without reference to his spotless moral record. If anything, it seems like Job is the one who’s perfectly righteous, while God needs someone to knock some sense into Him.
And yet, as the book of Job draws to a close, we find that this couldn’t be further from the truth.
Beginning in chapter 38, God brings a slew of His own questions before Job, and the interrogation reveals the vastness of God’s power and wisdom: He is the one who built the universe from the ground up, who brings rain and sunshine upon the earth, who feeds and provides shelter to every animal. God is the good Creator whose wisdom and justice surpass His creatures’ understanding. Far from being the one who needs sense knocked into His head, He is the one who is most qualified to do the knocking.
Job, on the other hand, has his illusion of self-righteousness unraveled when he is confronted by God. Though it is true that his immense suffering was brought upon him in spite of his reverence before God and his obedience of God’s ways, this direct encounter with God reveals to him that evil still plagues his heart in ways that either he was previously unaware of or had refused to acknowledge: “I had heard of You by the hearing of the ear, but now my eye sees You; therefore I despise myself, and repent in dust and ashes.” [2] Having seen God in His holiness and splendor, Job realizes that he is nowhere close to being the righteous man he thought he was.
And of course, it’s worth noting that in all of this, Job was never actually slain. Though disaster had struck in virtually every area of his life, his life itself was spared. What’s more, the book ends with God restoring to Job double what his previous fortunes were worth. In the end, he wasn’t able to say those words declaring his trust in God in the face of death from his own experience.
But a couple thousand years after Job died “an old man, and full of days” [3], there lived another man who could. Unlike Job, this man was truly blameless before God—“one who in every respect [was] tempted as we are, yet without sin.” [4] If anyone could suffer unrighteously, it was him; and suffer he did, for he was falsely accused by religious authorities, and nailed to a Roman cross beside convicted criminals. More than that, his death was at the hands of God Himself—he was “smitten by God,” and “crushed [by Him] for our iniquities… [for] the Lord has laid on him the iniquity of us all.” [5] Yet even to his very last breath he remained faithful to God, seeking Him and calling out to Him in anguish.
This man was none other than Jesus Christ, and every Easter serves as a reminder that he alone died a death at the hands of God that he didn’t deserve. But the celebration of Easter also reminds us that this same man did not stay dead! This Savior has gone through suffering and death and come out the other side, bringing with him all those who believe in him as their sole hope for salvation from the death that our sin demands. Though Jesus was slain by God, it was not for nothing; and in the end, death did not have the final word.
Faith like that of Job’s bold claim before God often feels impossible in the face of suffering, especially when it is both deep and seemingly inexplicable. And indeed, the faith to trust God amidst such trials is unattainable in our natural state. But as Easter approaches, let it point us to the Savior who, by his death and resurrection, has united us to him, so that by his strength we can truly say with him, “Though He slay me, yet I will trust in Him.”
Isaac Liu is a senior at UC Berkeley studying English and Music.
Sources
[1] Job 13:15a
[2] Job 42:5–6
[3] Job 42:17
[4] Hebrews 4:15
[5] Isaiah 53:4–6