If ever a book had a promising title, this is it! How wonderfully inviting, having heard and read of Job’s struggles – not just with his suffering itself but with his very faith – to be reminded that it is in Jesus that we find the answer to Job’s quest.
- “How shall a man be just with God?” (Job 9:2)
- “If a man dies, shall he live again?” (Job 14:14)
- “Even now, behold, my witness is in heaven” (Job 16:19)
- “I know that my Redeemer lives” (Job 19:25)
- “Oh, that I knew where I might find him!” (Job 23:3)
- “Oh, that I had someone to hear me!” (Job 31:35)
- “For you say, ‘My doctrine is pure, and I am clean in God’s eyes.” (Job 11:4)
To read the book of Job as Christians we simply have to take the forward look and find in the Lord Jesus the ultimate rest for our soul struggles. In the title, the chapter headings, and their respective passages and themes G. Campbell Morgan, the famous Bible teacher of the last century, gives us a powerfully suggestive reminder of how we ought to read the book of Job.
So far, so good.
Now I realize that Morgan was a very popular Bible teacher, and I understand that many still profit from his writings. So the criticism I’m about to give probably says more about me than it does about him. But I found this book disappointing. My complaint is not that Morgan “got it wrong” so much as, the book just didn’t seem to me to deliver what the title promises. He surveys the major questions and statements of Job (as those listed above) that are just brimming with New Testament gospel implications, and he in turn points to marvelous New Testament passages that “answer” Job’s quest well. But, for me, at least, that is the extent of the profit this book delivers. Morgan just doesn’t seem to me to develop the chosen themes in a profitable way. I opened the book with such great excitement, but with the reading of it I was disappointed. There is nothing exactly bad or wrong about the book – I just found the expositions rather flat and unprofitable.
I can say at least this for the book: the suggestiveness of the title was worth the price! What a wonderful series of sermons its chapters can be! And I am very eager to develop these themes for my own preaching ministry. But the preacher hoping to depend on Morgan I think will find himself still needing to develop the passages and themes himself.
Fred Zaspel
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The Answers of Jesus to Job