Steve’s Journey Through Job

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• 15 Dec, 2025 *

How does God speak to us? How do we listen?

In today’s sermon Calvin presents us with Eliphaz’s secret communication from a “wind” that terrified him and gave him a message that he feels appropriate to apply to Job.

It is noteworthy that Calvin takes Eliphaz’s dream as actually being from God, and he appears to do so because the message contained within the dream is sound. Calvin’s position here is, however, that the story is “inappropriately” used as instruction for Job. Seem’s fair to me.

Calvin uses these verses to make several good points that stood out to me.

God doesn’t talk to us in this way anymore, i.e. via Eliphaz’s experience. He doesn’t have to. “We have the gospel, in which God makes himself known inwardly. That is the way God speaks to his church today. He has fully revealed his will to us in holy Scripture.” In short, I take that to mean (a) people don’t see visions, or hear audible messages from God anymore, (strangely reassuring to me) and (b) literally everything we need to know is in the Bible (also reassuring). 1.

When God did speak to his servants, I.e. like Eliphaz here, but also more high profile folks like Abraham, Moses, etc. he usually frightened the life out of them. Calvin tells us why. It is because we are “carnal and brutish” and that “In order to remedy such a fault, God has always provided some signs of his majesty so that his word would be received and men would always consider it as more authentic.” Here it is notable to me that this means the first time we hear of words from God’s mouth in the Book of Job is Eliphaz’s dream. It is also notable to me that Eliphaz relays that he was trembling before God’s voice and we know that Job himself is given a full blast of God’s majestic accomplishments in his answer later in the Book. 1.

Looping back to point 1. I need to improve my reading of scripture to fully take on its sufficiency and its weight. “Consequently, when we read holy Scripture and come to preaching, may it be to revere God because of his majesty. Let us not profane his holy truth by thinking it is presented as some amusing story…we must kneel before him. Men must tremble at what he says.” I am learning this lesson in the Book of Job. Many texts are helping me realize how every single word has been thought through. Further Calvin himself is doing an excellent job of presenting Eliphaz as a Godly man, much better than me, but still making some mistakes.

So the sermon today? Eliphaz is correct. We are all totally depraved before God. What’s to argue. A message apparently from God, that isn’t surprising anyone, yet needs to be communicated clearly. Did Job need to hear this at that moment? Not really. Should we hold our tongue and not think ourselves so clever every time we have a great anecdote or piece of insider information, almost certainly.