If there be a messenger with him, an interpreter, one among a thousand, to shew unto man his uprightness: then he is gracious unto him, and saith, Deliver him from going down to the pit: I have found a ransom. Job 33:23-24
Before the Lord himself spoke to afflicted Job from the tempest, declaring his own righteousness and majesty, he sent a messenger to prepare the way for himself. This messenger was Elihu, and what he said stood fast. Elihu invited a reply from Job (Job 33:5), but none ever came. Importantly, the Lord had nothing to say by way of rebuking Elihu, as he did with Eliphaz and his two friends (Job 42:7). Rather, Elihu anticipated what the Lord himself was about to say, as may be seen by comparing chapters 37 and 38. Elihu then was a reliable witness who showed sound speech that cannot be condemned (Titus 2:7).
After the introduction to his speech, what Elihu first focuses on is the question of how God delivers sinners from death, or the pit, as he calls it. The first way is through dreams and visions, “that he may withdraw man from his purpose, and hide pride from man. He keepeth back his soul from the pit, and his life from perishing by the sword” (Job 33:15-18). Here Elihu seems to be pointing out the divine purpose behind the terrifying dreams that Job had complained of earlier (Job 7:13-14). It is hard to imagine a more direct and immediate mode of revelation than a divine warning to a man’s conscience in a dream amidst the stillness and isolation of the night! The second way that God saves sinners from the pit, however, is not direct and immediate, but through the presence of a “messenger.” This messenger may be present with a man, not in the wholesome repose of sleep, but when he is wracked with pain and wasting away unto death (33:19-22). Elihu says, “If there be a messenger with him, an interpreter, one among a thousand, to shew unto man his uprightness: then he is gracious unto him, and saith, Deliver him from going down to the pit: I have found a ransom,” and then follows a description of the perishing sinner wonderfully restored to life (Job 33:23-28).
With God’s ways of delivering sinners from the pit in view, Elihu exclaims, adding “Lo” to stir our minds to attention and our hearts to wonder: “Lo, all these things worketh God oftentimes with man, to bring back his soul from the pit, to be enlightened with the light of the living” (Job 33: 29-30). If Elihu did not witness people being converted by the thousands, he did at least witness God repeatedly, here and there, saving sinners from death—frequently enough to say that God did so “oftentimes.” This testimony (coming as it does in this “grey-haired” book from before the time of Moses, and set amongst Gentile people) should encourage us that God will save sinners in every age, including our own.
The first way of sinners being delivered from death is that of dreams and visions. However, we know from Scripture that dreams and visions have not been given in every age of history (1 Sam. 3:1), so if we desire to know what God’s more regular and constant way of delivering sinners from death is, we will have to consider Elihu’s reference to a messenger—an interpreter (Job 33: 23-24). This description may be fitly applied to a minister of the Gospel. William Perkins interprets the passage of a minister in The Calling of the Ministry, and when John Bunyan writes of the house of Interpreter in Pilgrim’s Progress, he seems to be using Elihu’s word to describe a minister of the Gospel.
But if Elihu’s words are taken as a proper description of a minister of the Gospel, will that not put too much weight on the office of the ministry by making it the ordinary way in which God delivers sinners from death? Would it not give more honor to Christ if the passage was applied directly to him, making him the messenger, the interpreter, the one among a thousand? The first question can be answered by noting Paul’s words to Timothy, an ordinary minister of the Gospel: “Take heed unto thyself, and unto the doctrine; continue in them: for in doing this you shalt both save thyself, and them that hear thee” (1 Tim. 4:16). The second question is helpful, and indeed we should never think of the office of the ministry without first raising up our hearts unto Jesus Christ. He is indeed the messenger of the covenant (Mal. 3:1), God’s interpreter (John 1:18), the chiefest among ten thousand (Song 5:10), the declarer of God’s uprightness (Ps. 40:9-10), the one commanded by God to deliver sinners from the pit (John 6:39), and the very ransom by which sinners may be so delivered (Mark 10:45).
We may apply Elihu’s description of the interpreter directly and personally to Jesus Christ, but we should not limit the interpretation to this, since he who was sent by the Father has also sent others in his name to have dealings with sinners (John 20:21). By speaking of the interpreter, Elihu is partly referring to himself, strengthening himself to speak up (Job 32:6), and preparing Job to receive his words. Thus, Elihu may be regarded as an early pattern of the office of a Gospel minister.
Ministers can benefit from Elihu’s instruction by gaining a fresh view of the high place and dignity of their office. The people who enjoy the means of grace can also benefit by seeing the preciousness of what is afforded to them in the Gospel ministry, and thus being moved to receive and pray for the ministry.
First, Consider the Providential Hand of God in the Presence of a Minister
“If there be a messenger with him,” says Elihu, and let us lay the emphasis on the word “if.” Only God can bring about the presence of such a messenger. Elihu reminds Job that he had wished (Job 9:32-33) that a fellow man might intervene between himself and God. Job’s three other friends left this desire less than satisfied, but it was being granted in Elihu: “Behold, I am according to thy wish in God’s stead: I also am formed out of the clay” (Job 33:6). At the eleventh hour, in the providence of God, a faithful messenger, present all along at that council beside the ash heap, stepped forth out of the shadows.
Ministers should count precious the opportunities that they have with the particular people with whom they are present. Though a minister may, in a sense, long to be in more than one place at once (1 Thess. 2:17), no minister can be everywhere. If a minister is at the bedside of a particular sufferer, as Elihu was with Job, let him avoid speaking too hastily, but let him also seek to do good to him while he can, as Elihu did. Let him consider that the providence of God has placed him where he is, and that it is a very uncertain thing whether his opportunity with any particular person will be long continued.
People who have the benefit of the Gospel ministry should likewise count the presence of any particular minister with them a precious thing and a result of God’s providence. Job’s sufferings came by the irresistible providence of God, and Elihu’s presence was by the same providence. God smote Job with one hand, and brought help alongside him with the other. Therefore, consider that each minister that you sit under, and each particular sermon, however ordinary and unimpressive as to outward things, is specially designed for you in the providence of God. Give thanks to God if your minister, in addition to his public ministry, seeks to have a more personal and private ministry unto you, like Elihu’s messenger, drawing alongside the sickbed of the afflicted man. Others have a famine of the Word of God, and are left to their own counsels. Therefore, do not take for granted or let slip the presence of a faithful minister with you.
Second, Consider the Titles of a True Minister
“A messenger … an interpreter,” Elihu calls him. The messengers who came to Job with news of disaster ran because circumstances compelled them to do so. A minister is God’s messenger who runs with God’s message because he has been sent by God. No one can preach God’s message unless he has been sent. “How then shall they call on him in whom they have not believed? And how shall they believe in him of whom they have not heard? And how shall they hear without a preacher? And how shall they preach, except they be sent?” (Rom. 10:14-15). The first element of a call to the ministry is an inward compulsion to preach the Word, which Elihu felt: “For I am full of matter, the spirit within me constraineth me. Behold my belly is as wine which hath no vent; it is ready to burst like new bottles” (Job 32:18-19). The second element of a call to the ministry is the outward call of the church and the laying on hands of the presbytery (1 Tim. 4:14). The response and reception will vary. In some cases, there will be glad and eager reception: “How beautiful are the feet of them that preach the gospel of peace …!” (Rom. 10:15). In other cases, there will be rejection and difficulty discerning anyone who does receive the ministry: “Lord, who hath believed our report?” (Rom. 10:16). Ministers, therefore, are exercised in needing to judge themselves in terms of faithfulness to the message of God rather than in terms of its reception by men. People, for their part, must guard themselves against rejecting a message that God has gone to great lengths to bring unto them through a faithful messenger.
Elihu also calls this messenger an “interpreter”—a word that is used to describe the one through whom Joseph spoke to his brothers (Gen. 42:23), and the ambassadors of the princes of Babylon who were sent to Hezekiah (2 Chron. 32:31). What the word indicates then is one who has a two-sided task—both to declare the mind of the one who sent him, and to return back to the one who sent him with the result of his dealings. Indeed, the true minister must both declare the whole counsel of God to the people, and also come to the throne of grace and intercede for the success of the Word in their hearts. Strikingly, in two places in Scripture, this duty of ministerial intercession is put in the first place before ministerial declaration. Samuel said, “Moreover as for me, God forbid that I should sin against the LORD in ceasing to pray for you: but I will teach you the good and the right way” (1 Sam 12:23). The apostles said, “But we will give ourselves continually to prayer, and to the ministry of the Word” (Acts 6:4). Ministerial intercession is partly public and partly private. As to public intercession, part of the expectancy that worshipers should have in approaching worship and their active participation in worship pertains to being led in prayer and prayed for by their minister. The prayers of the Christian assembly are no mere footnote to the sermon. As to private intercession, there is a danger of undervaluing it because it is secret. Yet, a proper regard for the minister’s exercise of private intercession—both by himself and by the people—will tend to humble man and exalt God. The power to help souls does not reside in the minister himself, but in the hands of Christ, and must be sought continually by prayer.
Third, Consider the Scarcity of True Ministers
Elihu calls the interpreter “one among a thousand.” This expression cannot be pressed with mathematical precision, as if we could say that there will always be one minister for every thousand individuals, or among every one thousand professing Christian men. But the expression does describe the relative scarcity and preciousness of true ministers. It is noteworthy that, in addition to setting forth the qualifications, duties, dangers, and encouragements of the office of the ministry, Scripture also expressly speaks to this point— the numerical scarcity of true ministers. James speaks of this point by way of precept: “My brethren, be not many masters [teachers]” (James 3:1). Paul speaks of it by way of example: “I have no man likeminded” (Phil. 2:20). Our Lord speaks of it by way of a reason to pray: “the labourers are few” (Luke 10:2).
Why are true ministers scarce and rare? In the first place, though a scarcity of ministers cannot be considered a good thing in itself, such a scarcity may sometimes be a result of the application of biblical wisdom. Where James’s warning about the “greater condemnation” awaiting those who abuse this office is remembered, young men will hold the office in high regard and be less likely to thrust themselves forward for the office carelessly. When those charged to examine and ordain candidates for the ministry remember Paul’s exhortation to lay hands suddenly on no man (1 Tim. 5:22), they will tend to be impartial, deliberate and careful, and will sometimes have to turn away men who do not meet the biblical qualifications.
Furthermore, the office of the ministry holds the potential to fulfill Solomon’s saying that, “The lips of the righteous feed many” (Prov. 10:21), and Daniel’s description of “they that turn many to righteousness” (Dan. 12:3). Even one ministry that is blessed and owned by God can bring many souls to feed upon Christ. Preaching is a minister’s first responsibility (2 Tim. 4:2; 1 Cor. 1:17), and part of God’s good design for preaching is that one speaks and many may hear: “I have preached righteousness in the great congregation” (Ps. 40:9). Where this is remembered, we will pray for God to give us ministers who, even if they are few in number, can preach and feed many souls, rather than accumulating large staffs of ministers, some of whom rarely preach at all.
In the next place, the scarcity of ministers may be a sign of spiritual ill health. Elihu is stating a fact when he says that the interpreter is “one among a thousand,” but it is a fact for which, sometimes, we ought to be blamed. Have we held forth before our young men the usefulness of the ministry, showing them that “If a man desire the office of a bishop, he desireth a good work” (1 Tim. 3:1)? Have we believed the Saviour’s declaration that the harvest is great, and obeyed his command to pray the Lord of the harvest to send forth labourers into his harvest (Matt. 9:37-38)? Have we hungered and thirsted and cried out for a true word from God, or have we followed the multitude who have itching ears and heap up the kind of teachers that the flesh craves? Have we who are ministers adorned and dignified our office by our behavior?
Finally, whatever we have contributed, good or ill, toward the scarcity of ministers, it is a sovereign God who has made it so. It is only a specific act of the ascended Christ that can make a man a minister (Eph. 4:11). For our part, we should heartily agree with Moses’ answer to Joshua: “Enviest thou for my sake? would God that all the LORD’s people were prophets, and that the LORD would put his Spirit upon them!” (Numbers 11:29). In one sense, this wish of Moses has been granted in the Pentecostal outpouring of Christ’s Spirit upon his whole church. In another sense, the Lord, who heard what Moses said and could have granted his wish, has in sovereign wisdom denied it. In Moses’ day there were seventy among perhaps millions of Israelites who were specially gifted to administer the Word of the Lord to the people, and in our day, likewise, the laborers are few. To God be the glory, for “there is no restraint to the LORD to save by many or by few” (1 Sam. 14:6).
Fourthly, Consider the Message of a True Minister
His message is the righteousness of God. Elihu says that his task is “to shew unto man his uprightness.” “His” uprightness surely refers to God’s uprightness, not man’s uprightness, since God’s uprightness or righteousness, was the thing that Elihu was defending (e.g., Job 34:12). The minister declares God’s righteousness to produce conviction, laying the dying man even lower than he was before. Like Elihu, he declares that it is not God who is to be faulted but man. No affliction received from the hand of God is ever more than what sin deserves, but this side of hell, is only less.
Elihu’s speech is heavy in its emphasis upon silencing and humbling man by exalting a righteous God. The soft flesh and blood of the man of God may often feel like shrinking from such an uncompromising message. However, one thing that spurred Elihu on in declaring this message was his knowledge that it is conviction that opens the way for comfort. It is when the afflicted man has the uprightness of God declared to him that, “Then [God] is gracious unto him, and saith, Deliver him from going down to the pit: I have found a ransom” (Job 33:24). What a thrilling thing! The minister is privileged to offer water to the thirsty and rest to the heavy laden, to be the instrument of the deliverance of humbled sinners through the grace of God. The minister preaches the righteousness of God to convict men’s consciences, and then preaches the Gospel of Christ, wherein the righteousness of God is revealed from faith to faith.
When the minister is comforting the convicted sinner, he declares to him a righteousness from God that is received by faith, a righteousness that is based upon a ransom. God says, according to Elihu, “I have found a ransom” (Job 33:24). Men in their wisdom have found out ways to build bridges and mine gold and translate ancient languages. But only God can find a ransom by which the dying sinner is delivered from death. “My son, God will provide himself a lamb for a burnt offering” (Gen. 22:8). In Christ Jesus, God has found for himself a ransom fully sufficient to satisfy his own offended justice. He who trusts upon this ransom need no longer fear coming before God, because God will never reject the ransom that he himself has devised. What a glorious message to declare!
The minister declares God’s righteousness to convict and to comfort. Yet this message, when believed, does not incline men to lawlessness and unrighteousness, for the life of the sinner is restored for the very purpose that he might live in communion with God: “He shall pray unto God, and he will be favorable unto him; and he shall see his face with joy” (Job 33:26).
These things concerning the office of the ministry will be of profit to us in valuing, receiving, praying for, and for some, aspiring unto the office of the ministry.
