Sunday, June 09, 2013

Context, Please!

"11    “Are the consolations of God too small for you,     Even the word spoken gently with you?
12    “Why does your heart carry you away?     And why do your eyes flash,
13    That you should turn your spirit against God     And allow such words to go out of your mouth?
14    “What is man, that he should be pure,     Or he who is born of a woman, that he should be righteous?
15    “Behold, He puts no trust in His holy ones,     And the heavens are not pure in His sight;
16    How much less one who is detestable and corrupt,     Man, who drinks iniquity like water!"

Job 15:11-16

In context, Job's buddy Eliphaz was taking him to task, suggesting that Job must be guilty of  dishonoring God, of speaking against God; Job's troubles were evidence of God's Judgement.
What made this SIN so scurrilous to Eliphaz was the fact that Job HAD known God, and must have sinned big time to heap up such Judgment.

Eliphaz's  questions could be asked of any sinner (hint:everybody) who rejects God:
“Are the consolations of God too small for you,     Even the word spoken gently with you?"
Any joy and happiness you have enjoyed as part of His Creation you received from God whether you admit to it or not.
“Why does your heart carry you away?     And why do your eyes flash, That you should turn your spirit against God     And allow such words to go out of your mouth?"
Why DOES your heart carry you away? Because you have been taught in this corrupted world that God hates rather than loves, that God is not to be trusted, even though He made you for His own purposes.
“What is man, that he should be pure,     Or he who is born of a woman, that he should be righteous?"
In other words, seeing as how MAN is corrupt, living in a fallen world, who can honestly claim to be righteous apart from God?
“Behold, He puts no trust in His holy ones,"  
God Knows that even we who belong to Him, while we are in this fallen world, are incapable of being worthy of God's trust. Every Christian sins and falls and must come again to God asking forgiveness- not to be saved, but to be right with God as He works on us, conforming, perfecting us though we will not see perfection on this side of the grave.
"And the heavens are not pure in His sight;" Not Heaven where He is, but the corrupted place where we exist. The ones set for destruction and replacement by new heavens and a new earth as noted in Revelation
chapter 21.
 “Behold, He puts no trust in His holy ones,     And the heavens are not pure in His sight;
16    How much less one who is detestable and corrupt,     Man, who drinks iniquity like water!"

If His holy ones and the heavens are not pure, then those sinners who reject God don't stand a chance of being right with Him.

But of course, Eliphaz was wrong about Job, and did not consider that which does make man righteous before God: God's Grace and Mercy, freely given, impossible to earn.
God, in His Mercy, made a way for Eliphaz and his partners to be forgiven for their sins of ignorance and of being religious: they had to ask Job to petition God on their behalf, which Job, being Job, was happy to do.
Bottom line-God is in the forgiving business, and the purification of His Creation business, and it is fruitless to fight against God. Better to seek Him and ask to be considered for His Salvation business.

1 comment:

Doug said...

a person could appear to be very smart by simply repeating what is heard in a John MacArthur sermon.
Listening this afternoon to a sermon about the "New Heavens and the New earth" MacArthur noted the passage from Job about even the heavens not being pure in His sight.
Which led me back to Job, and here we are.