Job 25--Bildad Speaks: Man Cannot Be Righteous

Bildad Speaks: Man Cannot Be Righteous​
25 Then Bildad the Shuhite answered and said:

2 “Dominion and fear are with God;
    he makes peace in his high heaven.
3 Is there any number to his armies?
    Upon whom does his light not arise?
4 How then can man be in the right before God?
    How can he who is born of woman be pure?
5 Behold, even the moon is not bright,
    and the stars are not pure in his eyes;
6 how much less man, who is a maggot,
    and the son of man, who is a worm!”

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Finally, someone with a short argument!  Bildad uses his last round of debate to argue that "There is none righteous, no not even one."(see Romans 3:10-18).  He seems also to say that God's common blessings (the sun, the rain, etc) are given equally to the just and the unjust.  (See Matthew 5:45).

Bildad also argues that we should not expect peace on earth, but should expect peace in heaven (the afterlife) and that is because that is the way that God has ordained it.  Bildad also seems to agree with the words of Psalm 8, especially verses 3 and 4 in that God has no reason to be mindful of man and that there is no way that the glory of man or nature compares in the least to the glory of God.


Psalm 8
English Standard VersionHow Majestic Is Your NameTo the choirmaster: according to The Gittith. A Psalm of David.8 O Lord, our Lord,
    how majestic is your name in all the earth!
You have set your glory above the heavens.
2     Out of the mouth of babies and infants,
you have established strength because of your foes,
    to still the enemy and the avenger.

3 When I look at your heavens, the work of your fingers,
    the moon and the stars, which you have set in place,
4 what is man that you are mindful of him,
    and the son of man that you care for him?

5 Yet you have made him a little lower than the heavenly beings
    and crowned him with glory and honor.
6 You have given him dominion over the works of your hands;
    you have put all things under his feet,
7 all sheep and oxen,
    and also the beasts of the field,
8 the birds of the heavens, and the fish of the sea,
    whatever passes along the paths of the seas.

9 O Lord, our Lord,
    how majestic is your name in all the earth!
So, again, we see that in terms of the natural man, Bildad is not so wrong here, but the problem is that Job doesn't appear to be a "natural" man from the words that he or God use to describe him, he seems to be one of God's elect whom God has called holy and blameless.  (See Colossians 1:21-23):


Colossians 1:21-23 (emphasis added)
English Standard Version21 And you, who once were alienated and hostile in mind, doing evil deeds, 22 he has now reconciled in his body of flesh by his death, in order to present you holy and blameless and above reproach before him, 23 if indeed you continue in the faith, stable and steadfast, not shifting from the hope of the gospel that you heard, which has been proclaimed in all creation under heaven, and of which I, Paul, became a minister.
In fact, many of those who are "reformed" in our theology and believe in the depravity of man may actually want to agree with Eliphaz here and say that man is depraved and is a "worm" and a "maggot," but is that our identity after we have been "born again?"  See my blog about my issue with Christians continuing to say they are "Just a sinner saved by grace" and what they usually mean by that here.  Also, see my blog about metamorphosis and a change in identity when I talk about what it means to be "born again" here.  Satan loves to try to be the "accuser of the brethren" (see Revelation 12:10) when God has already rendered his verdict of acquittal, but just as bad as that is when the Church and individual Christians forget about our new identity in Christ and choose to continue to define ourselves by our depravity and old nature, which has been put to death and nailed to the cross.

Perhaps the best rebuttal that I can think of to Bildad's argument is this particular verse of the hymn "It is Well With My Soul"​

​​My sin, oh, the bliss of this glorious thought
My sin, not in part but the whole,
Is nailed to the cross, and I bear it no more,
Praise the Lord, praise the Lord, o my soul