Job 25:4 - "How Can Man Be Justified with God?"

Job 25:4

"How then can man be justified with God? or how can he be clean that is born of a woman?"

Here is the foundational question of the Gospel, raised by Bildad, the Shuhite—one who typifies legalism, natural religion, the law without Grace, despair without Hope, conviction without Christ. He sees sin as that which separates the sinner from God. He declares God’s Holiness, but does not point to the Mediator. He expresses truth, but misapplied. He knows that a man is a worm before God, but he does not know that God would stoop to be that Worm in the Person of the LORD Jesus Christ. “I am a worm, and no man” (Psalm 22:6).

Bildad represents natural light, the wisdom of the world, truth without revelation and knowledge without the Spirit of Christ yet in him, (Matthew 6:23). He sees the creature’s sinfulness and God’s Holiness. Still, he has no way of declaring how Christ is the answer. Yet, in God’s providence, he becomes an instrument to raise the very question that drives those the LORD has taught to Christ. Like Caiaphas when he declared, “It is expedient for us, that one man should die for the people, and that the whole nation perish not” (John 11:50). Though thinking in terms of earthly preservation, he prophesied that Jesus should die for that nation which the Father had given Him out of every tribe, nation, and tongue. Here again, God uses one in his spiritual ignorance to point to the True Substitute.

Bildad begins with "dominion and fear are with Him" (v. 2) and speaks of the One Who maketh peace in his high places, whose armies cannot be numbered, upon whom his light arises (Job 25:1–3). He gives a high view of God’s Sovereignty and Majesty, and yet he is without the Revelation of Christ in the heart. Many can say God is Holy, and yet never have had the true Revelation of this God. Unless the sinner is brought to see God as high, Holy, Sovereign, enthroned, how God can be just to justify sinners, without compromising His justice, will mean little to him.

So the question stands: "How then can man be justified with God?" This question raised by Bildad is answered by the Gospel. Man is fallen, sinful, unclean, and separated from God. He may acknowledge sin, even quote, “all have sinned, and come short of the glory of God” (Romans 3:23), and yet never know the depth of being an unclean thing, and never see that even their righteousnesses are as filthy rags (Isaiah 64:6). He may say God is holy, but not so Holy that man cannot win his favor. That is natural religion. It acknowledges a gulf, but does not know how wide, nor that salvation is not a bridge…It’s the Person of Christ… the Hand of God that reaches down.

The Gospel answer is given later: “Therefore we conclude that a man is justified by faith…without the deeds of the law”(Romans 3:28). Faith is the Revelation of Christ and His death. Only God can justify the ungodly, and He must do it in a just way. He does so freely, through that Righteousness that the LORD Jesus Christ came and earned and established, when at the cross the Father imputed that Righteousness to everyone for whom He paid the debt. Salvation is by imputation. "By one man sin entered into the world" (Romans 5:12). "By the obedience of one shall many be made righteous" (Romans 5:19). "Christ has been made unto His people wisdom, and righteousness, and sanctification, and redemption" (1 Corinthians 1:30), "that he that glorieth, let him glory in the Lord" (1 Corinthians 1:31).

Thus the question Bildad uttered without an answer becomes the very question that, by Grace, causes the sinner to look to Christ—the One Who identified with sinners, Who said, “I am a worm, and no man,” Bildad’s ancient question still stands: “How then can man be justified with God? or how can he be clean that is born of a woman?” (Job 25:4). Left to ourselves, the answer is dreadful—no man can. But God Himself has answered the question in the Person and work of His dear Son. At the cross, the LORD Jesus—spotless, Holy, and without sin—was made the sin Offering for His elect (Isaiah 53:10), that they might be made “the righteousness of God in Him” (2 Corinthians 5:21).  There, and there alone, God's elected, guilty sinners were justified (Romans 5:9-11). In His death, the sin of God's elect was judged; in His Obedience their Righteousness was obtained. So the only answer to Bildad’s question is Christ crucified—His Righteousness imputed, His Grace bestowed, His Salvation made certain to every soul chosen of the Father from eternity. In Him the unclean are made clean, and in Him the unjust are declared Righteous forever.