The Established Path of Discipleship

If we are honest, we must confess the darkness in our hearts. No matter how good we try to be and the nice things we do for others, this darkness confronts us. Jeremiah summed it up this way, “The heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately sick; who can understand it” (Jer. 17:9). The answer to Jeremiah’s question is obvious: God. Only God can understand the heart. This is not to say, “Oh, God knows my heart; he knows I’m giving it a good effort, and I want to do good.” Instead, it is saying that God knows our problem. Paul reveals this problem in Romans 1:21, “For although they knew God, they did not honor him as God or give thanks to him, but they become futile in their thinking, and their foolish hearts were darkened.” So, what is the solution to our problem?

The Book of Job is an unlikely place to go for answers, but it solves our problem by asking and answering a critical question. Eliphaz is the first to ask this question in Job 4:17, “Can mortal man be in the right before God? Can a man be pure before his Maker?” Job asks the same question in Job 9:2, Eliphaz again in Job 15:14, and then Bildad in Job 25:4. If you have ever toughed out the long but purposeful narrative of the book of Job, you know the answer to that question. No. Mortal man cannot be right before God. That is, in his current state.

Job reveals how we can be right and pure before God in Job 19:25-27, “For I know that my Redeemer lives, and at the last he will stand upon the earth. And after my skin has been thus destroyed, yet in my flesh I shall see God, whom I shall see for myself and my eyes shall behold, and not another. My heart faints within me!” We can only be right and pure before God if we know the Redeemer who lives, God who exists eternally as Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. So, how can one know the Redeemer who lives?

“Long ago,” the Redeemer, has spoken to us “at many times and in many ways, God spoke to our fathers by the prophets, but in these last days he has spoken to us by his Son, whom he appointed the heir of all things, through whom also he created the world (Heb. 1:1-2). You can know the Redeemer by confessing “with your mouth that Jesus is Lord and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead” (Rom. 10:9). In doing so, you are confessing that Jesus lived the righteous and pure life you could never live, that he died on the cross for your sins and that he rose from the dead for your justification. You are justified by believing and confessing that (Rom. 10). you are counted right and pure before God.

Job, of course, knew the Redeemer. Instead of maintaining his goodness or righteousness, Job confessed:

“I know that you can do all things,

and that no purpose of yours can be thwarted.

‘Who is this that hides counsel without knowledge?’

Therefore I have uttered what I did not understand,

things too wonderful for me, which I did not know.

‘Hear, and I will speak;

I will question you, and you make it known to me.’

I had heard of you by the hearing of the ear,

but now my eye sees you;

therefore I despise myself,

and repent in dust and ashes.” (Job 42:1-6)

Have you likewise confessed as Job? Do you know the Redeemer who lives?