turning evil into good

I've reached a turning point in Job. Up until now, Job has been dialoguing with three of his friends. At the end of chapter 31, Job has had it. He is tired of going around and around in verbal circles about whether or not he is to blame for his suffering. In 31:35-37 he says he wants a new conversation partner:

If only I had someone to hear my case!
Here is my signature; let the Almighty answer me.
Let my Opponent compose His indictment.
I would surely carry it on my shoulder
and wear it like a crown.
I would give Him an account of all my steps;
I would approach Him like a prince.

Job wants to hear from God himself. Job gets a new conversation partner, but it turns out to be Elihu at first. Whereas Job's friends have mostly described suffering as punishment for the wicked, Elihu adds something new to the conversation by suggesting that suffering can be the means by which God brings people back to himself:

A person may be disciplined on his bed with pain and constant distress in his bones, 
so that he detests bread, and his soul despises his favorite food. 
His flesh wastes away to nothing, and his unseen bones stick out...
God certainly does all these things two or three times to a man 
in order to turn him back from the Pit, so he may shine with the light of life. 
- Job 33:19-21, 29-30

Redemption means to bring good out of bad - to win back something good that has been taken captive. After Creation with all its goodness, the Fall occurred, and ever since then Redemption has been God's main task in the world. Elihu's speeches illustrate one form of that redemption, in that suffering, a consequence of sin, can become a portal to encountering God and returning to him. My Old Testament professor, Ellen Davis, said it this way: "Suffering is itself a means of approach to God; it can be a gateway into wisdom." The consequences of sin are not merely a means of alienation from God; rather, they can become the means by which wayward humanity sees the light and returns to God.

This is an idea that must be carefully nuanced; I do not mean that God wants people to suffer, or that all suffering is deserved (Job is an excellent counter point to that idea), or that we need to just accept suffering in every situation. But rather, I mean what Joseph meant when he told his brothers, "You intended to harm me, but God intended it for good to accomplish what is now being done, the saving of many lives" (Genesis 50:20). As the beginning of Job illustrates, the accuser seeks to alienate us from God, to get God to focus on our failures, to get us to distrust God. God, however, is able to weave things meant to undo us into his larger story. God can turn things meant for evil into the means for good. The same idea shows up in the New Testament; Romans 8:28 says, "And we know that in all things God works for the good of those who love him."

I noticed another passage in Job that reflects the coming Christ:

If there is an angel on his side, one mediator out of a thousand, to tell a person what is right for himand to be gracious to him and say, “Spare him from going down to the Pit; I have found a ransom,” then his flesh will be healthier than in his youth, and he will return to the days of his youthful vigor.- Job 33:23-25

The theologian Karl Barth saw the person of Job as a witness to Christ; he believed that the book of Job prepares us to understand the suffering Christ. After all, similar things happened with Jesus; he too suffered unjustly, but in his case, he did so on behalf of others; he became the ransom that spares the sinner from his doom. Because of Christ, we are spared from the pit and can say along with the voice of verses 27-28:

They will go to others and say, “I have sinned and perverted what was right; yet I did not get what I deserved.He redeemed my soul from going down to the Pit, and I will continue to see the light.”