Reflections on Job 25

 Job 25 (Contemporary English Version)

1. Bildad from Shuah said:
2. God is the one to fear, because God is in control and rules the heavens.
3. Who can count his army of stars? Isn't God the source of light?
4. How can anyone be innocent in the sight of God?
5. To him, not even the light of the moon and stars can ever be pure.
6. So how can we humans, when we are merely worms?

---

In this chapter we have the last of the speeches from the friends, this one delivered by Bildad. Only Eliphaz and Bildad spoke in this third round of speeches, but it is rather obvious from Bildad's contribution that he had little left to say and might have better chosen not to speak as did Zophar.

Bildad offered nothing new in this short speech which could be summed up in saying God is great and man by comparison is a maggot. His question, "How can a person be justified before God?" is left dangling with no offer of hope. If, on the one hand it implies that there is no justification to be had by man before God, he would be grossly in error. The whole of the message of God's Word through the scriptures is man's redemption or justification before God. If, on the other hand Bildad was implying through his question that man cannot justify himself before God and this is only something God can do, then he was correct.

Man's best effort will never justify him before God. But God has made a way through Jesus Christ in which man can be justified simply through faith in the provision He makes possible. Man may be a maggot compared to God, but man is not a maggot in God's eyes, for He was willing to sacrifice His only Son to make possible man's justification.