What is Man?

Job 15:14 What is man, that he can be pure? Or he who is born of a woman, that he can be righteous? ESV

 

Even though Job's friends were getting down on him and questioning him, they still spoke truth. Here is another nugget and it is similar to something that Job himself said: "But how can a man be right before God?" Job 9:2

 

Here is the question: What is man? Is he pure? Is he righteous? Is he clean, clear, justified? In order to answer this question, there has to be a standard. How do we measure purity? How do we determine righteousness? What is the ultimate measuring tool that we can measure ourselves against to figure out whether we are clean?

 

I am afraid to say that the measuring tool is perfection…the measuring tool is God, and frankly we can't measure up. Paul puts it another way: "For all have sinned and fall short (miss the mark) of the glory (perfection) of God." Rom 3:23 Some may scoff at this and say that there is no God. There is no ultimate. There is no absolute. But then, you ask them if it is right to betray your best friend, or kill an innocent child, or steal from those who are in need and they will readily say that these things are wrong. How do they know if there is no measuring tool…if there is no absolute? The point is that we all have this inner sense of what is right and wrong and we screw up all the time. None of us are pure. None of us are righteous. We are all doomed to this sorry situation.

 

Really? No. We aren't. God loved us so much that He sent His perfect Son to this earth to save us from this impurity. Get this: "For our sake he made him to be sin who knew no sin, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God." 2Cor 5:21