“Remember, I pray thee, who ever perished, being innocent? Or where were the righteous cut off?” (Job 4:7).

The thought of the Messiah suffering and dying on a cross has been a stumbling block for many. Does not the law of God itself say that “he that is hanged is accursed of God” (Deuteronomy 21:23)?

In our text, Eliphaz was of the opinion, apparently, that righteous people do not perish—they do not get “cut off.” The Lord Jesus, however, “was cut off” (Isaiah 53:8). The book of Job proves that a righteous person can suffer. On the one hand, the supreme judge described Job as “a perfect and an upright man” (Job 2:3), yet Job suffered greatly.

On a scale far greater, the Lord Jesus, the embodiment of all righteousness, also suffered. His suffering, however, entailed the added indignity of hanging on a cross. Job had never suffered this.

But how, some might wonder, could the Father be just in commissioning His perfectly righteous Son to suffer on a cross, becoming, as it were, “accursed of God”? It is because the Lord was made “to be sin for us, who knew no sin; that we might be made the righteousness of God in Him” (II Corinthians 5:21). The Lord Jesus took the sin of the world upon Himself and was cursed of God for us. We deserved what Jesus received; for the transgression of God’s people “He was cut off out of the land of the living” (Isaiah 53:8).

The Father in heaven loved us so much that He gave the best that He had, to take the penalty due us; God the Son became “accursed of God” the Father.

Some have spurned God’s love in the past and may still be continuing to turn their backs toward God, but may the Spirit of Christ soften hard hearts even now and turn eyes of faith to the perfect One who was “cut off” for the transgression of His people. PGH