The Question

Scripture Reading: Job 9

Truly I know that it is so: But how can a man be in the right before God? (Job 9:2)

Job responds to his friends’ counsel by acknowledging the truth in what they were saying. God is just and delivers His judgments without partiality and according to truth. Then, Job points out the problem inherent in that truth. God is perfect and man is not. So, no matter where a person might fall on the scale of righteousness, he/she always falls short of the perfect standard of God.

The word Job uses for man is not “Adam,” nor is it “ish.” He uses “enosh.” The basic meaning of “enosh” refers generally to mankind, but it emphasizes on mankind in his weakness and/or mortality. It is man as frail and human in all the ways “human” points to our fallibility and lowliness. It emphasizes the fundamental difference between God and man and the insignificance of man before God. It is the word the Psalmist used when he asked, “What is man that you are mindful of him?” (Psalm 8:4)

So, Job acknowledges that what his friends said was true, at least in part, but that it was unhelpful because it only led to a dead end. To sum up their counsel to Job, it was like saying, “If you were perfect, holy, and righteous before God then none of this would have come on you.” And Job’s reply was, “Sure, but I am like all men. I am imperfect, mortal, sinful, with faults, and frail. In comparison to God, I am nothing. So, how can any man expect to be right before God?”

This is the question. It is the question every religion seeks to answer, but only biblical Christianity rightly answers. Every religion apart from biblical Christianity gives some form of a “do” answer. There is something you must do. It might be a ritual you perform, or a good deed of some sort, or an allegiance to their organization; but they say if you do that, you can be right with God.

Biblical Christianity answers with a “done.” Jesus Christ’s life, death, and resurrection is a finished work of redemption. “For the wages of sin is death, but the free gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord,” (Romans 6:23).

The answer to Job’s question – The Question – is found in that well-known and beloved verse, John 3:16:

For God so loved the world, that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life.