Job 14:4 Commentary - Dr Peter Masters | Metropolitan Tabernacle

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Job 14:4

Comments

Job says, ‘I and every man and woman born into this world are unclean and start life with a corrupt nature, the corruption of original sin. Since this is the case and since there are no exceptions then I start with an impossible disadvantage. How can I be expected to make myself clean when to do so I would have to make something clean out of what is intrinsically unclean? How can I or any other man do this? It is beyond the power of man and therefore it is unreasonable of God to expect men to be perfect.’ Job is not saying here that God cannot make something clean out of something unclean; that is not under consideration. No doubt God can do all things. He is talking about man’s powers and particularly his own. Why should God hold him accountable for failing to do what is impossible for any man to do?As if to say, I cannot help having a sinful nature; it is bound to produce sin. Shouldn’t I be excused because it is inevitable that sin will come out of a sinful heart? To which Scripture answers: that nature you possess is a large part of your sin, and although you cannot rid yourself of it, you are responsible every time you yield to its suggestions. You cannot disassociate yourself from you own nature, or blame God for making you what you are. You are what you are as a result of the action of your covenant head, Adam.

Application

How many religions teach the contrary! How many say that coming to know God and having a hope of being with him after this life is all about self-improvement. But if our hearts are unclean, then all that comes out of them is tainted with the same uncleanness. We lack the power to remove sin or the effects of sin, for sin has penetrated our nature so deeply that there is no part that is not affected by it. Every thought, every motive, the very spring of our being, is rooted in sin.

Questions

Calvin asks a question about our connection with Adam. He says that it might be argued that the only thing we inherit from Adam is the body and not the soul, and yet the seat of sin is the soul not the body, so how can we inherit a sinful nature from Adam. He answers that it is no marvel that men are full of uncleanness because they are taken out of the same lump. Some teach that original sin is nothing unless we willingly follow Adam by an act of will, but God made him the head of the human race, so that he acted on behalf of all his descendants. We are enclosed in his person by the will of God. Through Adam’s sin, not only he himself, but also all his offspring were deprived of the grace that had been bestowed on him. Natural reason is incapable of discovering this, but God has revealed it in his word.

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Job 14:4 Commentary and Bible Study