Job 25
We now have a very short chapter in which we read another reply from Job's friend Bildad.
He simply speaks of God's greatness, his dominion, his armies and how even the moon and stars are not pure in his sight - and how much less man, that is like a worm in God's sight!
This is not a very complementary view of us is it?
Worms!!
How do you and I like to be described as worms? And yet it is an apt description by Bildad of our inferiority, position and condition in comparison to God - naturally speaking.
Because of this Bildad asks, 'How then can man be justified with God? or how can he be clean that is born of a woman?' (verse 4).
Bildad has an understanding and awe of God's greatness, but his question makes me wonder if he - unlike Job - had not been given understanding of the coming of a future Redeemer.
He is right, that by ourselves we cannot be clean in God's sight, or 'justified' - in other words 'made righteous' or 'good' in God's sight.
(Some have described justification as 'just-as-if-I-hadn't-sinned').
But this is where the wonder and joyful news of the gospel is!
There is a way that man can 'be justified with God', and it is 'through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus' (Romans 3:24).
The Apostle Paul tells us that this wonderful truth is:
1. - by God's grace (God's favour and love to us)
2. - free (Jesus has paid the price)
3. - by faith (by believing/trusting).
Paul writes - like Bildad - that we are all sinners in God's sight but that we have been 'justified freely by his (God's) grace' and concludes that 'a man is justified by faith without the deeds of the law'.
He then talks of Abraham of whom it was said, 'Abraham believed God, and it was counted unto him for righteousness' rather than God attributing righteousness to Abraham because of his good works in keeping God's law, or because he was circumcised (Romans 3: 22-28, 4:1-25).
What does this mean for you and for me today?
It means that those people who have by God's grace been given the faith to believe in Jesus Christ as their Saviour are transformed in God's sight!
Although in themselves they are unclean and as worms, God views them through what Jesus achieved by his life and death. Our sins - our uncleanness - our 'wormness' is transformed, so that we are privileged to be called 'sons (and daughters) of God '(John 1:12).
What a contrast! How undeserved!
Other scriptures illustrate this further:
'Though your sins be as scarlet, they shall be as white as snow; though they be red like crimson, they shall be as wool' (Isaiah 1: 18);
Our 'filthy garments' will be taken away and replaced with a 'change of raiment', Zechariah 3:3,4
Like the hungry, thirsty and penniless prodigal son, devoid of all comforts and possessions, so returning sinners have the embrace of their Father, clean clothes, a ring to show their relationship and heritage in the family of God, spiritual food, drink, blessings, comforts and love - everything they can need in the fullness of Jesus.
Transformed as Jesus describes it in this parable, 'this my son was dead, and is alive again; he was lost, and is found' (Luke 15:24).
Are you feeling your 'wormness' today?
Are you despondent over your sins and feeling your uncleanness in God's sight? Are you trying hard to keep yourself from sinning and feeling how much you fail?
It seems to be a lesson we have to keep learning, that our forgiveness, acceptance and justification is all of grace - all from God's love.
What love this is - would you try to save a worm? Would you care if you stepped on a worm in your garden?
Perhaps some would carefully make sure not to step on it if you saw it in time, but think how often we drive our cars over worms that have appeared on the road when wet and rainy. 'It's just a worm,' we might think.
Jesus didn't think that. He loves us 'worms' so much, that he gave up his glory in heaven to experience the humiliation of being a man - a rejected man - a poor despised man - who lived his entire life for the good of others, and then gave it up in a cruel death on the cross experiencing the wrath of his Father for all the sins of the worms who he died for.
Justified worms.
Unspeakable!
Let us praise and thank him for what he has done. Let us pray for help to live to him and to his glory, to serve him here below.
And if you are today feeling your sins, feeling your need of justification perhaps you are like I read last night in 'Susie', the Life and Legacy of Susannah Spurgeon (page 40):
It has been suggested that in her early life 'her sense of guilt clouded her eyes to the grace of God', but 'many years later after her conversion although still grieving over her "misgivings" and "weaknesses", so forgetful, so unworthy and so inexcusable... by that time she understood God's kindness and sought Him for help to overcome her sins'.
I personally feel I can hardly grasp the extent of God's love to us in Jesus - may we be taught more, although to know more may mean we have to experience more of our 'wormness' to know what we have been saved from.
But even in that, may we take comfort from the knowledge that Jesus understands - so much more than we realise, for he - the Son of God - our Redeemer - said through the Psalmist David, 'I am a worm, and no man; a reproach of men, and despised of the people' (Psalm 22:6).
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