In 1 Kings 10:1 we are informed that “when the queen of Sheba heard of the fame of Solomon concerning the Name of the Lord, she came to prove him with hard questions: there was not any thing hid from the king, which he told her not.” Solomon had asked God for wisdom, and this was granted to him, and his “wisdom excelled the wisdom of all the children of the east country, and all the wisdom of Egypt, for he was wiser than all men…and his fame was in all nations round about” (1 Kings 4:29–34). Many hard questions have been answered so that, like the queen of Sheba, we might be found worshipping in the presence of God, and praising Him who is greater than Solomon, the Son of God, to whom we too can bring our offerings.
God’s Questions to Job
Were there ever questions put to a man like those that the Lord put to Job? In chapters 38 – 41 there were questions in relation to the earth and heavens that were utterly beyond the wisdom of Job, or any other man, to answer. Some of the greatest of human intellects have been occupied with the structure of the earth, but not one can tell us of the foundations of the earth, or about their fastenings. Questions regarding the sea, the morning, the depths, the springs of the sea, the gates of death, the treasures of the snow and the hail, the stars of the heavens, and many other such matters are asked of Job so that he might realise what he was in the sight of the great Creator and sustainer of the universe.
Job had been put through a fiery trial by God, and had been sustained of God in it. When he lost all his family, and all his possessions he clung to God and His righteousness, but when unjustly charged by his friends it was too much for him, and this exposed what was in the heart of this faithful and righteous man. God had to expose to Job what was in him, and this Satan could not do, but the taunts of his friends was used of God to show that Job thought a great deal of himself, and this had to be exposed. When Job, through all these questions, found himself exposed in all his littleness, and in all his vileness, he was able to pray for his friends, and to receive the rich blessing that God had in store for him.
Job’s Hard Questions
Answering Bildad the Shuhite in chapter 9, Job said, “I know it is so of a truth: but how should man be just with God” (verse 2). Job knew that much that Bildad said was true, that “God will not cast away a perfect man,” that He will fill the mouth of the perfect man with laughter, and his lips with rejoicing, and that they that hated him would be clothed with shame (Job 8:20–22). This is what happened to Job after his days of testing were over, but Bildad did not understand that God could test very severely the man whose life was pleasing to Him so that it might be more pleasing still.
While understanding the truth of Bildad’s remarks, Job asks this hard question, “how should man be just with God?” The full answer could not be given until the Son of God had come, died upon the cross, and taken His place at the right hand of God. The answer is found in Paul’s epistle to the Romans, where we read of God declaring “His righteousness for the remission of sins that are past…that He might be just, and the justifier of him which believes in Jesus” (Rom. 3:24–26). It is through the shedding of the blood of Jesus that we can be righteous in the sight of God, but faith too is needed to be accounted righteous. The Book of Genesis was not available to Job and probably was not yet written, else he might have known that Abram “believed the Lord, and He counted it to him for righteousness” (Gen. 15:6).
Another of Job’s hard questions is, “But man dies, and wastes away: yea, man gives up the ghost, and where is he?” (Job 14:10). Job had considered the tree that was felled, its root remaining in the soil, and that the presence of moisture caused fresh shoots to grow, but it was so different with man, and so the question arose in his mind as to where man went on departing this life. He knew the body wasted away, but where was the man who dwelt in the body? The answer to Job’s hard question was given by the Lord in Luke 16:19–31; and Luke 23:43; and by Paul through the Spirit in 2 Corinthians 5:1–8; and Philippians 1:23. For the believer, death means entry into Christ’s presence in the heavenly paradise, but for the unbeliever it is entry into hell with all its torments.
In verse 14 of the same chapter Job asks yet another hard question, “If a man die, shall he live again?” (Job 14:14) There was no doubt in Job’s mind about this. For himself, he could say, “all the days of my appointed time will I wait, till my change come.” God would hide him in the grave till the time came for him to rise in a changed condition, and as for men generally, “man lies down, and rises not: till the heavens be no more, they shall not awake, nor be raised out of their sleep” (verse 12). Revelation 20:11–14 confirms the accuracy of Job’s words, for the heavens and earth pass away, then the dead small and great stand before the great white throne, having been raised from the dead. Many New Testament Scriptures, including the words of the Lord Jesus in John 5:21–29, and the words of the Holy Spirit in 1 Corinthians 15, give the complete and detailed answer to Job’s hard question regarding resurrection of the dead.
Hard Questions to the Lord
When the scribes and Pharisees brought to the Lord the woman that had been taken in sin they asked Him a hard question, thinking He would be in a dilemma. They asked, “Master…Moses in the law commanded us, that such should be stoned: but what sayest Thou?” (John 8:4-5). Had He answered, Let her be stoned, they would have said, Where is your grace? but if He had answered, Do not stone her, they would have accused Him of not upholding the law. They thought there was no escape for the Lord: they could accuse Him whichever way He answered. His first answer was to write on the ground, but they could not understand His writing. They could not discern that the Son of God was writing on the dust of this world with the finger of a Man the story of the grace of God. He had not come to administer the law that, of old, He had written with His divine finger the ten commandments on tables of stone.
As they continued to ask their question, no doubt feeling they had trapped Jesus, He arose, and said to them, “He that is without sin among you, let him first cast a stone at her” (verse 7). This shaft of divine light for their consciences exposed them as sinners, altogether unfit to execute the law they professed to uphold and the only One who was without sin had not come to execute the penalties of the law, either on the woman, or on them, but to write indelibly before them that His grace was available for all.
Pharisees, Herodians, chief priests and scribes, were all concerned in seeking by craft to entangle the Lord Jesus (Matt. 22:15; Luke 20:19) when they asked Him, “Is it lawful for us to give tribute unto Caesar, or no?” They thought it a hard question for the Son of God, the answer to it being bound to convict Him of sedition towards Rome or not being loyal to Israel. Well might they marvel at His answer, “Render therefore unto Caesar the things which be Caesar’s, and unto God the things which be God’s” (Luke 20:25). They should have known that the reason for their being compelled to pay tribute to Caesar was that they had not, as a nation, rendered to God what was due to Him, and it was also a word for their every conscience.
After the Pharisees and their allies had been silenced, the Sadducees, who denied the truth of resurrection, came with their hard question to Jesus. Whether the story they brought was true, or an invention, is of little matter, for the Lord does not deal with that. They asked about the woman with the reputed seven husbands, “In the resurrection whose wife of them is she? for the seven had her to wife (Luke 20:27–33). If it was a hard question in their minds, the answer to Jesus was simple, “The children of this world marry, and are given in marriage: but they which shall be accounted worthy to obtain that world, and the resurrection from the dead…are the children of God, being the children of the resurrection.” they erred, “not knowing the Scriptures, nor the power of God” (Matt. 22:29).
The Sadducees knew nothing of God’s world, for they were not His children, but children of this world, and their thoughts could not reach to the thoughts of God. Had they possessed divine intelligence they could have learned from God’s words to Moses at the burning bush the truth of resurrection, and something of those who had entered the world into which the children of God enter when they leave this world. They live in “that world” where Abraham, Isaac and Jacob live with God, and where Moses is to whom God spoke at the bush, and Elias who did not die, is there also, for the three disciples of the Lord saw Moses and Ellias with Him on the holy mount. God could also speak of the patriarchs as if they were already raised from the dead, for what are a few thousands of years to Him who inhabits eternity.
A Hard Question from the Lord
After the Lord Jesus had answered the questions of the Pharisees and the Sadducees, certain scribes said, “Master, Thou hast well said,” for none dare further question Him. Now was the time for Jesus to ask the Pharisees a question (Matt. 22:41–46), “What think ye of Christ? whose son is he? They say unto Him, The Son of David.” They had no difficulty in answering this first question, for the Jew knew from the Old Testament that Messiah was to be David’s son. Jesus then asked, “How then doth David in spirit call Him Lord, saying, The Lord said unto my Lord, Sit Thou on my right hand, till I make Thine enemies Thy footstool? If David then call Him Lord, how is He his son.
This was indeed a hard question for them, but one which they should have been able to answer had there been with them the simplicity of faith that accepts God’s word as it has been written. The Pharisees could not deny that David was speaking of Messiah in Psalm 110, and they had confessed that Messiah was Son of David, how was it then that the same Person was David’s son, yet David’s Lord. It was a question that unbelief could not answer, but which can be readily given by those who have faith in Jesus, the Son of God, for Jesus is not only the offspring of David, but the Root of David (Rev. 22:16).
Alas! poor Israel, as led by the Pharisees and the Sadducees, and the chief priests and Herodians, had rejected their Messiah, the true Son of David, and the Son of God, and in rejecting Him they had rejected the blessings that God would have given them. For the time being that blessing would be the portion of those who accepted Jesus as Son of God, and the blessing for the nation would await His coming again, and be based on the work of the cross. God would make known that the many questions that sin had raised in His universe, and that the rejection of Messiah by Israel had raised, were not too hard for Him, but in His wisdom every question would be answered, according to His eternal purpose, by the redemption accomplished, according to the predeterminate counsel and foreknowledge of God.
R. 14.1.70