Among the mysteries of God's providence there is perhaps no mystery greater than the law by which suffering is meted out in the world. It is not a mystery that sin should bring forth sorrow; it is not a mystery that pain, disease, and death should be the fruit of man's fall. The really difficult problem is not the problem of suffering in the abstract; it is the problem of the meting out of suffering on any theory; it is the problem why the innocent are called upon to suffer while the guilty too often escape; it is the problem why the purest, simplest of our race should drain the cup of sorrow whilst the ungodly have more than their hearts desire, and have neither affliction in their life nor pain in their death. This is the problem which comes before us in that grandest of poems, which has ever sounded the deeps of the human heart, the poem of Job. We have in this book the problem worked out, and three answers given.
I. First is the answer of the three friends who come to condole with Job in his affliction. One after another they repeat the same commonplaces of their creed God is just, and therefore God rewards the righteous and punishes the wicked. If a man suffers, he suffers because he deserves it. The sufferer himself indignantly repudiates this belief. It is of no use to tell him he has been a hypocrite, an evildoer; he denies the accusation; he will be true to God and to the method of His justice so far as he knows it, but he must be true to his conscience; he will not say, "I am guilty," when he knows he is innocent.
II. But there is another theory of suffering, which approaches more nearly to the truth, which is also given in the book of Job. Elihu declares that God's purpose in chastisement is the purification of His servant. Here certainly is a step in advance. To see a purpose of love in affliction is to turn it into a blessing.
III. But the mystery of suffering is not fully explained even when this purifying power is assigned to it. The author of this sublime poem is made the instrument of revealing to us another purpose of affliction. There is a suffering which is not even for the salvation or purification of the individual soul, but for the glory of God. If we look at the prelude of the book, we learn this lesson. Satan insinuates that the piety of Job is a selfish piety. His challenge strikes at the nature of God Himself. And God accepts the challenge. This is the key to the enigma, though Job knew nothing of it. Surely no more noble part can be assigned to any man than to be the champion of God. Men may mock at the Gospel and its promises; they may charge the followers of the Crucified with selfish aims and sordid motives; but one saint, who knows that the glory of God is in his hands, shall answer the sneer. His submission, self-sacrifice, and love shall compel the world to confess that God is love, and that man loves God for Himself.
J. S. Perowne, Christian World Pulpit,vol. xxv., p. 81.