THE BIGGEST QUESTION

"How can a person be justified before God?

How can one born of woman be pure?" (Job 25:4 HCSB)

Job is a book filled with questions. The one which Job repeats constantly is, "Why?" Why would God allow him to suffer despite his faithfulness to Him? Why do the wicked seem to get off the hook?

His "friends" thought they knew the answer. Job suffered because he was being punished. They wrongfully and repeatedly leveled this hurtful accusation.

While the answers given by Eliphaz, Bildad and Zophar are off-target, there is a question asked that hits the bull's eye, "How can a person be justified before God?" That is the biggest question of all--not the why question, but the how question!

We want to know, "Why do bad things happen to good people?"

Job was good--relatively speaking. He was a godly man. Compared to other men, he stood head and shoulders above them. We would not want to join the chorus of critics that condemned him falsely. Yet, we must also face that compared to God's standard of righteousness, Job was not a sinless man--none are.

Jesus declared, "There is only One who is good." (Matthew 19:17b HCSB) Only God is utterly, absolutely good. David stated, " All have turned away; all alike have become corrupt. There is no one who does good, not even one. (Psalm 14:3 HCSB) Paul underscores this fact in the first three chapters of Romans--an indictment of humanity's crimes against heaven--where he quotes that Psalm and concludes, "For all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God." (Romans 3:23 HCSB)

Even Job knew that. It is why he offered a sacrifice and prayed continually for his children. "For Job thought: Perhaps my children have sinned, having cursed God in their hearts. This was Job's regular practice." (Job 1:5b HCSB) Even if he knew of no overt sin they had committed, he knew that lurking down in the human heart are evils that may never surface, but which cannot be hidden from a holy God.

It was in Job. It is in me. Sin is in us all--and God doesn't grade on the curve. On Judgement Day, we will not be evaluated compared to other men, but according to a flawless God. No matter how hard we may have tried--no matter how many Jewish traditions we have kept, how faithfully we have honored the five pillars of Islam, how many door to door witnesses to Jehovah we've presented, how many mission trips we've made on our bicycle, how often we've repeated, "Hail Mary" or what positions we held in the Baptist church--none of it is enough. The question persists, "How can a person be justified before God?"

There is only one answer. Jesus is that answer! God in the flesh, conceived in a virgin's womb without a sin nature, born into this world and having lived a sinless life, fulfilling all the righteous demands of God, making Himself an offering for our sin, rising for our justification, ascending to intercede for us, sending His Spirit to change us from the inside out, and completing that transformation into His image when he returns! By faith in Jesus Christ, His work cancels our sin debt and His perfect righteousness is deposited to our account! Have you received Him?

The biggest question of all is asked, "How can a person be justified before God?

How can one born of woman be pure?" (Job 25:4 HCSB)

The question has but one answer, "He made the One who did not know sin to be sin for us, so that we might become the righteousness of God in Him." (2 Corinthians 5:21 HCSB)