coming of our Lord Jesus Christ'. `Wanting nothing'. The same word is found in James 1:5 `lack', and in 2:15

It will be seen that the New Testament meaning of the word `perfect' includes the idea of `wholeness' that we

found was implied by the Old Testament usage. We read in James 1:4 that patience has a `perfect work'. Patience

is a factor in the perfecting of the believer. `Patience' is most surely linked with `the end of the Lord' even as it is

surely associated with hope. James has much to say about `work'; indeed he uses the word ergon fourteen times.

He associates faith with works, even as he does patience, and teaches not only that patience has a perfecting work to

accomplish, but concerning Abraham says `seest thou how faith wrought with his works, and by works was faith

made perfect?' (James 2:22).

Teleios occurs again in James 1:17 where we read:

`Every good gift and every perfect gift is from above, and cometh down from the Father of lights, with Whom is no

variableness, neither shadow of turning'.

In his next usage of anothen `from above' James speaks of `wisdom' (James 3:15,17); contrasting the wisdom

that is from beneath with that which is from above. Now Job is most certainly one of the `wisdom' books of the

Bible, and without the Divine comment found in Job 42:7 who of us would feel capable of pronouncing judgment

upon the logic and philosophy of Eliphaz and his friends? The word teleios is used twice more `the perfect law of

of

in

is

to

(James 3:2). While there is no evident reference in this passage to the work of Job, it is interesting to see that

`unbridled disrespect' was a figure well-known to Job by painful experience (Job 30:11).

Teleioo `to perfect', occurs but once in James in the passage already quoted: `seest thou how faith wrought with

his works, and by works was faith made perfect?' (James 2:22). James is not traversing the doctrines of Romans or

Galatians, which insist upon the doctrine of justification by faith only, but speaks of the `perfecting' of that faith by

works that follow.

Teleo occurs but once in James, `if ye fulfil the royal law', where the word means as elsewhere to `finish' as a

course, as well as to fulfil, as a law.

In these eight references we can see that James means by `the end' of the Lord, the end the Lord had in view

when He permitted Job to be subjected to such severe discipline. Job knew what it was to be visited `every

morning' and tried `every moment' (Job 7:18). He could also say `when He hath tried me, I shall come forth as

gold' (Job 23:10), then `patience' had its perfecting work and the end of the Lord was achieved.

The problem of pain and of apparent unequal distribution of suffering; the total disregard, in natural events, of

relating the life and character of the sufferer with the heaviness of the stroke endured, these and similar subjects

have tormented the minds of sensitive men and women since the dawn of time; yet here, at the threshold of

revelation, is a book that epitomizes the problem of the ages and deals with this very thing. In the opening chapters

of Job is made known that which was hidden from Job and his friends - the enmity that must exist between the two

seeds and which underlies the problem of the ages. The overruling grace of God, bending all these things to the

accomplishing of His `end', shines as a light in a dark place. Argument can never resolve the problem of evil.

Philosophic research is vain. Tradition can offer no solution, and religion no solace; all that Job could do, and all

that we can do, is to `trust', to lean hard upon the fact that God is both righteous and good; both wise and kind; and

at last He will be justified in all His ways, and the sufferer `come forth as gold'.

Job uses the word massah `temptation' in chapter 9:23 where he faces the problems of the apparent inequality in

the distribution of affliction: of man's inability to justify himself; and here we find him feeling out for the only key

to the enigma, `The Daysman', the One Mediator the Man Christ Jesus. In the margin of his own translation of Job

the running comment of Carey is suggestive, and we hope every reader will `open the book' and read the following

with the text beside him. Commencing at Job 8:20, therefore, let us read Carey's paraphrase:

`Let Job then observe, for his own satisfaction (if the case can apply), that God will not cast away, but will bless

the upright; and, so far from helping, will destroy the ungodly. Then Job answered and said Bildad has said

nothing new, and has shown how any man can dare insist with God upon his own righteousness - (with God!) -