There is a lurking deception, deep seated within our minds and concealed within our being, convincing us that we’ve earned and deserve the good life we live. The root of this deception is a misconception of the very definition of good and evil.
In the Bible, the book of Isaiah 5:11-20, verse 20 says that sorrow awaits those who call good, evil and evil good. At the centre of this lie of self-righteousness is the letter, perhaps a word “I”. Before we consider that further, please remember that God does not see as wee see. 1 Samuel 16:7. God examines the underlying motive of all our actions. The fact we are often blinded to real reasons behind what we do means we cannot self adjudicate fairly – we need a third party. It’s also no good if the examiner is our family or friend – they too will be biased. Consider someone who is not related and their judgement will be skewed by their own experiences. This leaves God, the righteous judge as the only fair judge.
Now let’s return to the letter/word “I”. In Job 31, we read the summary of Job’s defence of the calamity that had befallen him. That it was undeserving since he was a righteous man. Conversely, he was saying he deserves a good life because he is a good man. He went on to explain all the things he had done to enable the good life he had in the first place. He spoke truly as any self-righteous man would. Question is, was it even remotely possible for Job to act in his own defence against God? How can he possibly claim that he deserves the good Life based on his good works and that God had no right taken that away from him? Was he right in asserting that he is a just man before man and God and that no one (not even God) could deny him of his good life? Remember that in John 10:10, Jesus says “the enemy comes to steal to kill and to destroy but I have come that they may have life and have it more abundantly. Abundant life comes only through Jesus, only through God.
Beginning from the next chapter – Job 32, Elihu gave a fiery defense of God’s righteousness. It’s no wonder why, his name means “my God is He”. God is right – “all have sinned and fallen short of His glory.”- so deserves punishment. Accepting this, is a good thing, a good start. We all have fallen short of God’s very high standard of living. If it already wasn’t tough enough to live a “moral and just” life based on the 10 commandments; Jesus, through the sermon on the mount, revealed that we had all fallen (well below par) foul of the laws we claimed to have kept so well. Elihu, acting as a defense lawyer as it were (not that God needed one) continued his speech in chapters 33 and 34 of the book of Job. To be continued.