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Tuesday 7 October 2014

Job 14 - Hints of immortality

Verse 1 is commonly quoted, though I doubt most people know its Biblical origins. It is also true. We do have a short life span, just compare it to the life of the universe, or to eternity! And all of us do experience trouble at various points in our life, some to a terrible degree.
Verse 4 summarises the great human problem. Who can bring pure from impure? The fundamental problem is our sinfulness, so no manner of rules, no amount of education or training, will ever produce a pure human being. 
Job knows that God is in control of everything, so he calls on God to just look away, stop bothering us.
Then he compares man to a tree. A tree can suffer terrible damage, yet when conditions return to normal it will revive. Not so with a man.
Verses 13-17 seem to be hinting at the salvation that is in Christ. Job has some inkling that there is life after death, and that the key to it is our sins being covered over.
Yet he is then overcome with despair again.
To fully understand life, to be able to cope, we need the eternal. If this life is all there is, then ultimately everything is pointless. The writer of Ecclesiastes and Paul in 1 Cor 15:19.

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