Justified With God Job 25 :4 CLICK TITLE FOR AUDIO
In Job 25:4, Bildad the Shuhite asked a profound question, How then can man be justified with God? To be justified with God means that you and God are together in judgment and you are declared “not guilty” before him. To be “not guilty” a man will try to be justified with God by:
Judging himself righteous – he takes a look at his life and he says I’m just [usually by comparing himself with others he considers to be sinners] – I’m justified by doing good works or I’m justified by not doing bad things – the Pharisee did [Lk 18:9-12] – Job did [Job 27:5-7] – before men you can be just, Cornelius was [Acts 10:22, 2] – but he was not just before God and so he needed Jesus Christ to justify him [Acts 10:43] – thus, Cornelius put his faith in Jesus and was saved [Acts 11:12-17].
Judging God unrighteous – he takes a look at God and says God would be unrighteous to put me in hell – Rom 3:4 says, “that thou mightest be justified in thy sayings, and mightiest overcome when thou art judged” – Ps 51:4 says, “that thou mayest be justified when thou speakest” – Job claimed “my righteousness is more than God’s” [Job 35:2] – men say, “I can’t believe in a God that would do what he did in the Old Testament; that wasn’t right or “I can’t believe in a God that would let anyone go to hell; that wouldn’t be right” – so rather than trust the Lord they condemn him – but you must remember that God condemned his own Son so that he could declare you righteous if you would put your faith in what he has already done for you.
Judging himself excused – men are very used to this method of justification – they do it all the time to explain why they broke the law or why they were late or why they didn’t finish an assignment – it’s not that they weren’t wrong but that they shouldn’t be held accountable for the wrong because they had a good excuse – concerning justification they say, “I may not be perfect but I’m good enough to get into heaven because nobody’s perfect, everybody’s a sinner and God knows that; I should be in heaven because I have a good excuse” – you cannot excuse yourself before God – Adam and Eve both tried that unsuccessfully – in the case of salvation you either have the Son or you don’t [1 Jn 5:12] – and there is no excuse for not having him since he is freely given to you [Jn 3:16].
Judging God non-existent – the idea is that if there is no God then there is no judgment – you can live everyday your way with no accountability to anyone above your fellow man – but Ps 14:1 says, “The fool hath said in his heart, There is no God” – God manifests himself as the creator [Is 45:12, 18] – Ps 19 says that the heavens declare the glory of God and Rom 1:20 says, therefore, “that they are without excuse” – evolution can’t explain the origin of life – even though Dawkins says evolution is a fact, evolution contradicts the law of biogenesis – scientists can’t demonstrate it; they can only interpret the evidence that way – creationists interpret the same evidence differently – evolutionists lengthened the time by claiming a uniform geology to explain why you have never seen a species change – this is science falsely so called [1 Tim 6:20] – denying the existence of God is like a child covering his own eyes with his hands and telling his father, “You can’t see me” – God sees you and he will judge you.
Judging yourself unrighteous – this is a matter of you seeing yourself the way that God sees you and seeing God the way that he really is – when Job saw God the way he really is he said, “I am vile; what shall I answer thee,” [Job 40:4]? When he saw the righteousness of God he saw his own unrighteousness. Later he said, “… now mine eye seeth thee. Wherefore I abhor myself, and repent in dust and ashes.” This is the right response. You judge Christ righteous and then realize that the only way you can be righteous is for God to give you his righteousness [2 Cor 5:21] – thus you put your faith in the finished work of Jesus Christ on Calvary – when you do that you are justified by God [Rom 3:21-26].
Conclusion: You can keep trying to justify yourself by your religion, or by your good works, or by avoiding bad things, or by excusing yourself, or by degrading God, or by foolishly denying his existence, but in all these cases you are the judge – when you consider that God is the judge, hopefully, you will view yourself and God differently and you will conclude that you need to receive Jesus in order to be justified with God.