The hidden God becomes the revealed God to Job (and to us also)

The book of Job really shows the distinction between the hidden will of God and the revealed will of God. Granted, we are told what happened behind the scenes that Job was not privy to while he was suffering. And even when God revealed Himself to Job and his friends, chastising Job for inquiring why God "punished him" and his friends for presuming to know what is only hidden to God as to blame Job's suffering on some secret sins (falsely) he may be guilty of, He didn't reveal to Job or his friends to what purpose he suffered for. Job, once God revealed Himself to him without letting him to know what was His purpose, was satisfied to know the revealed God and not the hidden God. And he was blessed for by faith trusting God as He revealed Himself to Job.

And that is how God wants to deal with us in the midst of our own trials and tribulations. We are not to look at the hidden God as if we can know His mind and purpose not revealed to us but we are to look to His Word where He is revealed. Nor presume like Job's friends who foolishly automatically assumed a person suffered through life because he is somehow has some secret sin others don't have.

And what we have is the hidden God becoming the revealed God when His eternally begotten Son assumed flesh to do what none of us can do (which is fully obey God's law) and to pay a sin debt we can never repay God, by taking our place at the Cross and dying for our sins there.

It is at the Cross that our God Incarnate tasted the innocent and bitter suffering and death on our behalf (and being the only one ever sinless, He was truly the only innocent to ever suffered, and He volunteered to do so for us out of His great love for us). And by what Christ did, God is reconciled to us that we may be reconciled to Him by grace through faith when Christ offers Himself to us in Word and Sacrament.

Seek the revealed God where He may be found- in Word and Sacrament. That is where He comes to us to tell us of His love for us that He had our sins atoned for and His desire we turn and receive what He did for us. And He tells in all these things He works for the good of those who are in Christ. And He will see us through our circumstances. His grace is made perfect in our weaknesses.

So, let's like Job, regardless of our circumstances trust in the revealed God, who loves us and desires to save us, and avoid probing what is hidden to us, such as is  the case of Job's friends.

Here are Luther's words to the wise in his commentary on Genesis (29:9):

"You must kill the other thoughts and the ways of reason or of the flesh, for God detests them. The only thing you have to do is to receive the Son, so that Christ is welcome in your heart in His birth, miracles, and cross. For here is the book of life in which you have been written. And this is the only and the most efficacious remedy for that horrible disease because of which human beings in their investigation of God want to proceed in a speculative manner and eventually rush into despair or contempt. If you want to escape despair, hatred, and blasphemy of God, give up your speculation about the hidden God, and cease to strive in vain to see the face of God. "



Here we stand.