Job versus the religionists/free willers..
All of Job’s friends believe that Job has done something wrong with a free will and that God is justly punishing him for that imagined offense committed in an imagined state of absolute freedom. Thus the pre-Incarnate Christ’s reply through Job: “No doubt but ye are the people, and wisdom shall die with you.” Christ/Word of God/Creating Speech speaks to Job’s friends pointing out that they know nothing of what is going on in reality, and saying without openly declaring it that their speech cannot save them and that their speech is anti-Christ/anti-Word of God/non-creating speech. There is no thought of new creation in their summations of Job or the overall situation. Indeed, the very so-called wisdom they had is absolutely predicated on the lifespan of the soul being only the lifespan of the body; it is wisdom on a timer that is not eternal wisdom and reflects nothing of eternal life except a kind of compulsory inclusion in theology to qualify one to speak on such matters in front of others with the same type of wisdom-on-a-timer.
Only Pre-Incarnate Christ through Job speaks of seeing God after death in righteousness and reflects an understanding of God far beyond his earthly friends. But to see and understand the light coming from the “despised lamp” because of the infirmity God had laid on Job by the means of Satan, would mean an end to even the pretense of having wisdom by his friends. They only have the mind of anti-Christ, of non-creation and to merely take from them the pretense of wisdom without replacing it with Christ would have made them what men call insane even compared to themselves. And they are spiritually mature in their own minds according to their beliefs.
There is a conversation between two entities in two different speaks but there is no exchange of spirit. While pre-Incarnate Christ is speaking through Job on Job’s behalf, He does not give Himself to the wicked. When He came as Incarnate, as Word-Made-Flesh, Christ did not give himself to men as well:
John 2:24,25 But Jesus did not commit himself unto them, because he knew all men, And needed not that any should testify of man: for he knew what was in man.
Job is validated as a new creature in Jesus Christ by the presence of pre-Incarnate Christ in Him, the same Creating Word that makes all new creatures in Jesus Christ. When Christ gives Himself to a fallen man, He makes that elect person a new creature. Christ and anti-Christ will never be mingled as one speech in fallen man.
James 1:18 Of his own will begat he us with the word of truth, that we should be a kind of firstfruits of his creatures.
Anti-Christ / wisdom-of-non-creation is constantly challenging Job with a accusation after accusation to see which one will “work” to get Job to lie about his own life supposedly to praise God in a false way ( to “admit” he has a free will and has used it improperly at some point and that God is merely reacting to Job’s free will and can do no other or God be supposedly genuinely “unjust” ) …as his friends constantly do with the common sense of living inside a speech/mind that never expects new creation but that relies on lack of new creation to exists as a wisdom and as a speech to declare that wisdom. ( and which God rebukes in the end : Job 42:7,8 And it was so, that after the LORD had spoken these words unto Job, the LORD said to Eliphaz the Temanite, My wrath is kindled against thee, and against thy two friends: for ye have not spoken of me the thing that is right, as my servant Job hath. Therefore take unto you now seven bullocks and seven rams, and go to my servant Job, and offer up for yourselves a burnt offering; and my servant Job shall pray for you: for him will I accept: lest I deal with you after your folly, in that ye have not spoken of me the thing which is right, like my servant Job. )
On the one hand, Job has made it to that isolated place wherein those around him are genuinely unknowing of his wisdom and he has great understanding of God that they do not and will never possess as they are so far in life. But there is more to know of the Christ whose understanding is infinite. Job’s understanding and work from the foundation of that understanding as a priest to His family has so far been concerned with “keeping clean” on this earth before God. But God already has that under control in Christ, planning already for the Incarnation of the Word of God that spoke and gave power to Job’s actual accuser in times past and whose Word creates what He says. Yet those who thought to have that power forever because of the eternal nature of God do not expect God to become flesh as Word and die, thus fulfilling His Word and ending their power as accuser and in every other way.
But Job only knows the pain of the physical torment he is suffering inside the wisdom God had revealed in that era, the early surprise and confusion of the falsely accused that matures into an understanding of the depth of cleverness and depravity of the accuser, as well as the isolation from all else because of the very wisdom he possess. And pre-Incarnate Christ will not relent for Job. It’s holy business to be conducted here based on realities and rules not yet revealed to man but demonstrated for benefit before such revelation. Not only is Job isolated, but cannot, under any reasoning or circumstances as he pleases, grant that same wisdom to his accuser, whether he loves them or not, whether the understanding will make the false accusations stop or not.
Many commentators have assumed Job spoke in bitterness “against” his accusers by saying ” you are the people and wisdom will die with you”, deriding them for having pop/mob religion. But it is just as likely Job understood they would never understand and that they would die in their sins while thinking themselves just before God …but having lied against God all their lives as their best honesty. It is just as likely that, sure, he wanted a more friendly, a more wise-without-flattery conversation but that he was essentially whispering what was to him a horror understood through suffering, having the attention focused on non-earthly, non-now stuff, understanding over-the-horizon the result of the judgment on the wicked ..on the best type of non-Christian/non-new-creature-in-Jesus-Christ friends one can have on this earth; men who by every definition of non-creating speech are honorable among themselves and wished to include Job in that honor as a favor of the wise on the ignorant they wish to elevate and do so out of their best benevolence. He is praying they be saved and they are trying to “introduce him” to the very wisdom they need saving from, but as if it were salvation and as if they were doing him a favor out of their best honesty. Job senses this and simply in resignation understands his friends can’t hear him because of their beliefs about reality compounded by his current physical ugliness. Job 12:5 He that is ready to stumble with the foot is a lamp despised in the thought of him that is at ease.
Everyone’s best honesty is on display and according to the wisdom each one has, everyone’s “motives” are perfect. But his friends do not know and cannot admit until they are told by God directly for themselves that they have lied against God and their best wisdom requires a sacrifice ( of bulls for the duration of that era..) of God as Incarnate Word/Christ Himself to get over and be just before God. They never dreamed their best honesty was a living creature that was not themselves and is their enemy; that they needed saving from the very speech they thought was the gold you go digging for in the spiritual realm.
And Job sits in ashes and sackcloth with Christ within speaking through him beyond his friends and into us whom he never knew, unable to start or stop anything but constantly accused unwittingly through his friends by the anti-Christ as if he could. If you paid him silver and gold and women he couldn’t do it faster; persecuted, he couldn’t stop. The “point” of Job’s three friends speech is that Christ through Job was a liar and that Job was deceived. The conversation goes around in circles while each man seeks the good of his neighbor not understanding the Big Picture.
Pre-Incarnate Christ, speaking of Himself as God through Job:
Job 12:13 With him is wisdom and strength, he hath counsel and understanding.
And yet
Job 12:20 He removeth away the speech of the trusty, and taketh away the understanding of the aged.
———————————
John 8:24,25 I said therefore to you, that ye shall die in your sins; for unless ye shall believe that I am he , ye shall die in your sins. They said therefore to him, Who art thou? And Jesus said to them, Altogether that which I also say to you.
In the Name of Jesus Christ, Amen