Hope Not Slain

Has a particular Scripture verse ever stopped you in your tracks or caused you to do a double take? I’m not talking about those times when God clearly speaks through his Word to comfort you in a specific season of your life, but when you think you surely can’t be reading a verse correctly and wonder if your Bible possibly has a misprint. The language of the Bible can be shocking.

As I worked through my chronological Bible reading plan recently, it didn’t take long for me to find such striking language. Time stood still as I read Job’s words: “Though he slay me, I will hope in him” (Job 13:15). 

Job’s language is staggering for two reasons. First, what kind of God slays his own people? Second, why in the world would anyone continue to hope in a God who slays his own people? Nevertheless, in spite of his suffering, Job remains confident in and committed to God. Though he may be slain, nothing can slay his hope in the God who is sovereign over all.

Although it is Satan who physically afflicts Job with so much pain, it is God who allows it and sets the limits. Job’s intense suffering doesn’t take God by surprise, and he can stop it at any moment if he chooses. It may be a hard concept to wrap our minds around, but Job is right in saying God is the one who slays him.

Job has no knowledge of the conversation between God and Satan in which Satan is given permission to test Job. He doesn’t understand what is happening to him or why he is being tested, but his faith is strong enough to believe that God is in control of it all. Furthermore, he knows that God is still his only hope even when he allows incredibly difficult circumstances in his life. Yet, as astonishing as it may seem, Job’s steadfast hope in the God who slays is not an isolated account in the Bible.

In Genesis 22, Abraham clings to his hope in God’s providence even after he is commanded to slay his own son Isaac—the son of promise for whom he has waited so long. When Isaac asks Abraham where the sacrificial lamb is, Abraham responds in full confidence that God is going to provide the lamb. As Abraham reaches toward the knife to slaughter his son (Gen. 22:10), the angel of the Lord stops him and a sacrificial animal is provided in Isaac’s place. Abraham’s faith in God in the midst of such circumstances is utterly astounding and, according to the writer of Hebrews, Abraham “considered that God was able even to raise [Isaac] from the dead” (Heb. 11:19). Even though God commands the son of promise to be slain, Abraham’s hope in God’s provision remains.

We see a further example in the book of Daniel where three faithful men—Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego—face persecution for worshiping God instead of the king. They have faith that God will deliver them from the fiery furnace that awaits them, but they also assure the king that their faith in God will stand even if God does not intervene on their behalf. In Daniel 3:17–18, they boldly proclaim: “If this be so, our God whom we serve is able to deliver us from the burning fiery furnace, and he will deliver us out of your hand, O king. But if not, be it known to you, O king, that we will not serve your gods or worship the golden image that you have set up.” In other words, even if God allows them to perish in this way, their hope in him will remain steadfast.

In the New Testament, Paul repeatedly speaks of his own afflictions and those of other believers. During a particularly debilitating season, he says, “indeed, we felt that we had received the sentence of death” (2 Cor. 1:9a). However, he proceeds to offer the reason for his suffering and reveal the foundation of his hope: “[Our affliction] was to make us rely not on ourselves but on God who raises the dead. He delivered us from such a deadly peril, and he will deliver us. On him we have set our hope that he will deliver us again” (2 Cor. 1:9b–10). In spite of his overwhelming affliction, Paul’s hope in the mighty deliverer is not slain.

In Jesus’s death and resurrection, this theme reaches its climax. On multiple occasions throughout Scripture, Jesus reveals his earthly purpose to be slain for the sins of the world and displays confident hope in his own resurrection (Matt. 16:21; Matt. 17:22–23; John 2:19). In Matthew 17:22–23, he says to his disciples: “See, we are going up to Jerusalem. And the Son of Man will be delivered over to the chief priests and scribes, and they will condemn him to death and deliver him over to the Gentiles to be mocked and flogged and crucified, and he will be raised on the third day.”

It was God’s plan from the beginning to slay his Son. Jesus may have been “crucified and killed by the hands of lawless men,” but he was “delivered up according to the definite plan and foreknowledge of God” (Acts 2:23). The Son was slain by the Father, but he did not remain slain. As the beloved hymn “In Christ Alone” expresses:

There in the ground his body lay
Light of the world by darkness slain
Then bursting forth in glorious day
Up from the grave he rose again!

Jesus was slain for us according to the perfect will of the Father, and he was raised again according to the perfect will of the Father. As a result of his death, we are justified. Thanks to his resurrection, we get to live with him forever and we, too, have a hope that cannot be slain.

Steadfast hope amid trials is only possible with a high view of God’s sovereignty. Without the belief that God is in control of all things, hope would be a mere fairy tale. Charles Spurgeon, in the throws of deep depression, expressed, “It would be a very sharp and trying experience to me to think that I have an affliction which God never sent me, that the bitter cup was never filled by his hand, that my trials were never measured out by him, nor sent to me by his arrangement of their weight and quantity” (John Piper, 21 Servants of Sovereign Joy, 761). His high view of God’s sovereignty over his affliction was the basis of his hope.

Without confidence in God’s total control, there is no hope. If something can take God by surprise, there is no hope. If God is incapable of stopping something, there is no hope. We simply cannot hope in a God who must bow to Satan’s desires and actions. Satan may scheme against us and people may do wicked things toward us, but we can still trust that God is sovereign over it all. Everything is in his hands.

Ultimately, we can only have steadfast hope because God—not Satan—is the one who slays. For he is working all things “together for good, for those who are called according to his purpose” (Rom. 8:28), and he is “preparing for us an eternal weight of glory beyond all comparison” (2 Cor. 4:17). Therefore, we can boldly say with Job, “Though he slay me, I will hope in him.”