Saints and Sinners

“Then Job answered the Lord and said, ‘Behold, I am insignificant; what can I reply to You? I lay my hand on my mouth.’”  Job 40:3-4

It is remarkable how the saintliest of men often confess to bring the worst of sinners. The patriarch Job was said by God Himself that “there is no one like him on the earth, a blameless and upright man, fearing God and turning away from evil” (Job 1:8). Yet when Job saw God, he could only say, “Behold, I am insignificant.”

And consider Abraham, who is called “the father of all who believe” (Rom. 4:11). When he presumed to talk to God, however, Abraham said that he was “but dust and ashes” (Gen. 18:27).

David, “the sweet psalmist of Israel” (2 Sam. 23:1) and “a man after His own heart” (1 Sam. 13:14), said: “Behold, I was brought forth in iniquity, and in sin my mother conceived me” (Psalm 51:5). Isaiah, the greatest of the prophets, testified when he came into God’s presence: “Woe is me, for I am ruined! Because I am a man of unclean lips” (Isaiah 6:5).

The angel recognized Daniel the prophet as a “man of high esteem” by God (Dan. 10:11). Yet when Daniel saw God, he fell on his face and said: “my natural color turned to a deathly pallor, and I retained no strength” (Dan. 10:8).

In the New Testament, the apostle Peter said: “Go away from me Lord, for I am a sinful man!” (Luke 5:8), and Paul called himself the “foremost of all (sinners)” (1 Tim. 1:15). God dwells “in unapproachable light” (1 Tim. 6:16).

The closer one comes to the Lord, the more clearly one sees his own sinfulness and the more wonderful becomes God’s amazing grace. No one who is satisfied with his or her own state of holiness has yet come to know the Lord in His state of holiness! None dare face the Lord except by His grace through the mediator Jesus Christ.