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Job 15:14-27 The Heavens Are Not Clean In His Sight

Job 15:14 What is man, that he should be clean? and he which is born of a woman, that he should be righteous?
Job 15:15 Behold, he putteth no trust in his saints; yea, the heavens are not clean in his sight.
Job 15:16 How much more abominable and filthy is man, which drinketh iniquity like water?
Job 15:17 I will shew thee, hear me; and that which I have seen I will declare;
Job 15:18 Which wise men have told from their fathers, and have not hid it:
Job 15:19 Unto whom alone the earth was given, and no stranger passed among them.
Job 15:20 The wicked man travaileth with pain all his days, and the number of years is hidden to the oppressor.
Job 15:21 A dreadful sound is in his ears: in prosperity the destroyer shall come upon him.
Job 15:22 He believeth not that he shall return out of darkness, and he is waited for of the sword.
Job 15:23 He wandereth abroad for bread, saying, Where is it? he knoweth that the day of darkness is ready at his hand.
Job 15:24 Trouble and anguish shall make him afraid; they shall prevail against him, as a king ready to the battle.
Job 15:25 For he stretcheth out his hand against God, and strengtheneth himself against the Almighty.
Job 15:26 He runneth upon him, even on his neck, upon the thick bosses of his bucklers:
Job 15:27 Because he covereth his face with his fatness, and maketh collops of fat on his flanks.

In today’s study we continue to see ourselves as Eliphaz who for the second time is quick to condemn those who are suffering as “sinners above all who are in Jerusalem”. That is how Christ describes for us this spirit of Eliphaz, Bildad and Zophar. Here is the spirit that is in each of us by nature:

Luk 13:1 There were present at that season some that told him of the Galilaeans, whose blood Pilate had mingled with their sacrifices.
Luk 13:2 And Jesus answering said unto them, Suppose ye that these Galilaeans were sinners above all the Galilaeans, because they suffered such things?
Luk 13:3 I tell you, Nay: but, except ye repent, ye shall all likewise perish.
Luk 13:4 Or those eighteen, upon whom the tower in Siloam fell, and slew them, think ye that they were sinners above all men that dwelt in Jerusalem?
Luk 13:5 I tell you, Nay: but, except ye repent, ye shall all likewise perish.

Those words are directed to you and to me while we are under the bondage of the spirit of Eliphaz, Bildad and Zophar. These men typify all men who look down on those who they perceive to be less righteous than themselves. According to the dictates of many who are still in Babylon, all who are not being physically blessed are sinning against God and are responsible for their own trials.
If it is true that God himself makes us all wicked men for our own day of evil, then we have no right to look down on anyone, and the Truth is:

Pro 16:4 The LORD hath made all things for himself: yea, even the wicked for the day of evil.

If it is true that you and I are not responsible for our own sins, then we have no cause to hold each other responsible for any of our misdeeds, and that is exactly what the scriptures teach:

Rom 7:17 Now then it is no more I that do it, but sin that dwelleth in me.
Rom 7:18 For I know that in me (that is, in my flesh,) dwelleth no good thing: for to will is present with me; but how to perform that which is good I find not.
Rom 7:19 For the good that I would I do not: but the evil which I would not, that I do.
Rom 7:20 Now if I do that I would not, it is no more I that do it, but sin that dwelleth in me.
Rom 7:21 I find then a law, that, when I would do good, evil is present with me.
Rom 7:22 For I delight in the law of God after the inward man:
Rom 7:23 But I see another law in my members, warring against the law of my mind, and bringing me into captivity to the law of sin which is in my members.

If there is a God- ordained and sustained “law of sin” working in our members, then none of us is responsible for our own actions. This in no way denies that we will give an accounting of our wicked and sinful actions in these vessels of clay, but it does say that we are not responsible for our own sins, and therefore we have no reason to look down on what God has done in the lives of any other of His children.
There are ‘four’ men here because the number ‘four’ is the Biblical symbol for the whole of either heaven or earth:

Mar 13:27 And then shall he send his angels, and shall gather together his elect from the four winds, from the uttermost part of the earth to the uttermost part of heaven.

Rev 7:1 And after these things I saw four angels standing on the four corners of the earth, holding the four winds of the earth, that the wind should not blow on the earth, nor on the sea, nor on any tree.

Rev 20:8 And shall go out to deceive the nations which are in the four quarters of the earth, Gog and Magog, to gather them together to battle: the number of whom is as the sand of the sea.

What is becoming clear is that Job is not the only person in this group of four men who is “full of confusion”.

Job 10:15 If I be wicked, woe unto me; and if I be righteous, yet will I not lift up my head. I am full of confusion; therefore see thou mine affliction;

Apparently Eliphaz is just as confused as Job. Here is what he said during his first discourse with Job:

Job 4:7 Remember, I pray thee, who ever perished, being innocent? or where were the righteous cut off?
Job 4:8 Even as I have seen, they that plow iniquity, and sow wickedness, reap the same.

The implication was that Job’s own sins were responsible for the suffering Job was enduring. But now Eliphaz, while still intent upon condemning Job for his sins, confesses that mankind in general is neither ‘clean’ nor ‘righteous’.

Job 15:14 What is man, that he should be clean? and he which is born of a woman, that he should be righteous?

Eliphaz was certainly “born of a woman” but as is always the case with us all while we are in Babylon, he makes so many truthful statements concerning what constitutes mankind and the state of all who are “born of woman”, but we always think our truthful statements apply to others instead of ourselves. The scriptures agree with Eliphaz, but as only mankind is capable of doing, Eliphaz states the Truth, but then he applies it to anyone and everyone but himself. Nevertheless the scriptures teach that this is a universal Truth.

Psa 14:1 To the chief Musician, A Psalm of David. The fool hath said in his heart, There is no God. They are corrupt, they have done abominable works, there is none that doeth good.
Psa 14:2 The LORD looked down from heaven upon the children of men, to see if there were any that did understand, and seek God.
Psa 14:3 They are all gone aside, they are all together become filthy: there is none that doeth good, no, not one.

Psa 53:1 To the chief Musician upon Mahalath, Maschil, A Psalm of David. The fool hath said in his heart, There is no God. Corrupt are they, and have done abominable iniquity: there is none that doeth good.
Psa 53:2 God looked down from heaven upon the children of men, to see if there were any that did understand, that did seek God.
Psa 53:3 Every one of them is gone back: they are altogether become filthy; there is none that doeth good, no, not one.

Rom 3:10 As it is written, There is none righteous, no, not one:
Rom 3:11 There is none that understandeth, there is none that seeketh after God.
Rom 3:12 They are all gone out of the way, they are together become unprofitable; there is none that doeth good, no, not one.

That is God’s assessment of all flesh. Three times we are told without reservation “there is none that doeth good, no, not one”. That is why we are also told:

1Co 15:50 Now this I say, brethren, that flesh and blood cannot inherit the kingdom of God; neither doth corruption inherit incorruption.

Job 15:15 Behold, he putteth no trust in his saints; yea, the heavens are not clean in his sight.

Without the work of the spirit of God in the fleshly body of His Son, there would be no hope for anyone who has ever been in a body of “sinful flesh… and blood”.

Rom 8:3 For what the law could not do, in that it was weak through the flesh, God sending his own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh, and for sin, condemned sin in the flesh:

We have demonstrated many times that the flesh of Christ was just as much “in the likeness of sinful flesh” as your flesh or my flesh, and that it was the supernatural power of the spirit of His Father which restrained Him from sinning while in that body of “sinful flesh”. Christ’s flesh of itself could not resist sinning any more than our flesh can. Christ Himself tells us this is so:

Joh 5:30 I can of mine own self do nothing: as I hear, I judge: and my judgment is just; because I seek not mine own will, but the will of the Father which hath sent me.
Joh 14:10 Believest thou not that I am in the Father, and the Father in me? the words that I speak unto you I speak not of myself: but the Father that dwelleth in me, he doeth the works.

God put no trust in Christ’s flesh, but instead He gave Christ His spirit without measure to assure us that we would have a spotless sacrifice for our sins.

Joh 3:34 For he whom God hath sent speaketh the words of God: for God giveth not the Spirit by measure unto him.

So “man born of woman” is neither clean nor righteous. This is the condition of all flesh and of all “men born of woman”:

Psa 51:5 Behold, I was shapen in iniquity; and in sin did my mother conceive me.

Our heavenly Father never depended on the flesh of Christ to redeem mankind. He used that flesh, but He was depending only upon Himself, His own spirit within a body of sinful flesh, the flesh of our Savior, to live a spotless life and then to die for our sins.
Here it all is out of Christ’s own mouth:

Mat 19:17 And he said unto him, Why callest thou me good? there is none good but one, that is, God: but if thou wilt enter into life, keep the commandments.

“There is none good but… God… I can of mine own self do nothing…” So was Christ perfected while in a body of “sinful flesh”? Is it possible to be perfected while in a body of flesh? Let’s let Christ Himself answer that question:

Luk 13:32 And he said unto them, Go ye, and tell that fox [ King Herod], Behold, I cast out devils, and I do cures to day and to morrow, and the third day I shall be perfected.

No, not even Christ was perfected until “the third day”, the day of resurrection. So Eliphaz has made a profound statement – “Behold, he putteth no trust in his saints; yea, the heavens are not clean in his sight.” Yet he cannot see that his own words apply to himself as well as all other men. This is a simple and basic spiritual truth.
But “the things of the spirit” are hidden and veiled by the flesh, even by the flesh of Christ:

Heb 10:20 By a new and living way, which he hath consecrated for us, through the veil, that is to say, his flesh;

So with the death and resurrection of our Savior we are finally given to know that the physical realm is more than just a history lesson. We are now granted to understand that the physical heavens are nothing more than a type and a shadow of the spiritual heavens of the scriptures, which are located within each of us. It is into that inward heaven that our Lord has entered and is even now in the process of cleansing and purifying:

Heb 9:23 It was therefore necessary that the patterns of things in the heavens should be purified with these [ the blood of bulls and goats]; but the heavenly things themselves with better sacrifices than these.
Heb 9:24 For Christ is not entered into the holy places made with hands, which are the figures of the true; but into heaven itself [ our hearts and minds], now to appear in the presence of God for us:

So if Christ says of Himself that “there is none good but… God”, and He tells us plainly that He will not be perfected until “the third day”, how true then must be these words of Eliphaz:

Job 15:16 How much more abominable and filthy is man, which drinketh iniquity like water?

Is this true? Is mankind really abominable and filthy? Are you and I by nature ‘abominable and filthy’? What do the scriptures teach? I will repeat:

Psa 51:5 Behold, I was shapen in iniquity; and in sin did my mother conceive me.

And to that I will add:

Rom 7:17 Now then it is no more I that do it, but sin that dwelleth in me.
Rom 7:18 For I know that in me (that is, in my flesh,) dwelleth no good thing: for to will is present with me; but how to perform that which is good I find not.
Rom 7:19 For the good that I would I do not: but the evil which I would not, that I do.
Rom 7:20 Now if I do that I would not, it is no more I that do it, but sin that dwelleth in me.
Rom 7:21 I find then a law, that, when I would do good, evil is present with me.
Rom 7:22 For I delight in the law of God after the inward man:
Rom 7:23 But I see another law in my members, warring against the law of my mind, and bringing me into captivity to the law of sin which is in my members.
Rom 7:24 O wretched man that I am! who shall deliver me from the body of this death?

So yes, it is true, mankind is abominable and filthy [ and he] drinketh iniquity like water”, and without a sacrifice for his sins mankind would be doomed to destruction.

Job 15:17 I will shew thee, hear me; and that which I have seen I will declare;

Each man wants his words to be heard. He wants to declare the things he has seen. Job has told his three friends what he thinks of their observations and their admonitions, and he too, wants them to hear his words:

Job 13:1 Lo, mine eye hath seen all this, mine ear hath heard and understood it.
Job 13:2 What ye know, the same do I know also: I am not inferior unto you.
Job 13:3 Surely I would speak to the Almighty, and I desire to reason with God.
Job 13:4 But ye are forgers of lies, ye are all physicians of no value.
Job 13:5 O that ye would altogether hold your peace! and it should be your wisdom.
Job 13:6 Hear now my reasoning, and hearken to the pleadings of my lips.

What is missing in the “pleading of [ the] lips” of both Job and his detractors is the truth of these verses of scripture:

Pro 16:4 The LORD hath made all things for himself: yea, even the wicked for the day of evil.
Isa 63:17 O LORD, why hast thou made us to err from thy ways, and hardened our heart from thy fear? Return for thy servants’ sake, the tribes of thine inheritance.

God simply has not yet revealed to these men, who are types of us while we are in the Babylonian Christian world, that He has deliberately “made us… marred in the hand of the Potter” for the purpose of building within these clay vessels a spiritual temple for His dwelling place, and that when that temple is built, then these clay vessels must be dispensed with and destroyed. Here is how Christ expresses this process:

Mat 10:39 He that findeth his life shall lose it: and he that loseth his life for my sake shall find it.

1Co 3:16 Know ye not that y e are the temple of God, and that the Spirit of God dwelleth in you?
1Co 3:17 If any man defile the temple of God, him shall God destroy; for the temple of God is holy, which temple ye are.

We have all “defiled the temple of God”, and we must all “lose [ our] life” in order to find it. Until that Truth is revealed to us, like Eliphaz we judge our brothers as if God’s judgment were something we can and should somehow avoid. That is what Eliphaz means when he tells Job:

Job 15:18 Which wise men have told from their fathers, and have not hid it:
Job 15:19 Unto whom alone the earth was given, and no stranger passed among them.

What Eliphaz is telling Job, is what Babylon tells us all. Eliphaz sees physical blessings as proof of God’s approval of the way we are conducting our lives, and physical trials are proof only of how displeased God is of how we are conducting our lives. He is telling Job that wise men have always taught this doctrine, and have always passed this wisdom on to their children.
“Unto whom alone the earth was given and no stranger passed among them” must apply physically to Noah and his sons, and therefore it must spiritually apply to all the descendants of Noah, who still hold to that doctrine:

Joh 15:19 If ye were of the world, [ which knows no strangers] the world would love his own: but because ye are not of the world, but I have chosen you out of the world, therefore the world hateth you.

Eliphaz, as the type of the church which is still in the world, does not like the gospel of Christ which teaches the necessity of losing our lives before we can hope to find life. The spirit of Eliphaz loves the false doctrine of a substitutionary death which eliminates the necessity of being “crucified with Christ”, and “fill[ ing] up in my body that which is behind of the afflictions of Christ”.

Gal 2:20 I am crucified with Christ: nevertheless I live; yet not I, but Christ liveth in me: and the life which I now live in the flesh I live by the faith of the Son of God, who loved me, and gave himself for me.
Gal 2:21 I do not frustrate the grace of God: for if righteousness come by the law, then Christ is dead in vain.
Col 1:24 Who now rejoice in my sufferings for you, and fill up that which is behind of the afflictions of Christ in my flesh for his body’s sake, which is the church:

Eliphaz was the original ‘prosperity evangelist’. He was, as we all are at first, devoid of understanding the need for “dying daily” (1Co 15:31). All trials of our faith are proof positive to the Eliphaz within us of a man who is a sinner above all in Jerusalem, rather than proof that all in Jerusalem are sinners who must be judged.

Job 15:20 The wicked man travaileth with pain all his days, and the number of years is hidden to the oppressor.
Job 15:21 A dreadful sound is in his ears: in prosperity the destroyer shall come upon him.
Job 15:22 He believeth not that he shall return out of darkness, and he is waited for of the sword.

This is a very seductive message which “the first man Adam” finds very appealing. After all who wants to endure the words of those three verses? Who wants to be “hated of all men… lose [ his] life… [ have his] enemies… be they of his own household”, etc.? Eliphaz sees Job’s judgment as something he does not need because of his own righteousness. So he continues to describe Job’s position to him.
Because of spiritual immaturity, with which we all struggle as spiritually “carnal… babes in Christ”, Eliphaz, is incapable of understanding that the troubling of “an evil spirit from God” precedes the judgment of all men just as surely as King Saul preceded King David, and as surely as the first man Adam precedes the last Adam.
Why did King David lust after Bathsheba? He did so for the same reason Joseph’s brothers sold him into Egypt and for the same reason there is “evil in the city”.

Gen 45:4 And Joseph said unto his brethren, Come near to me, I pray you. And they came near. And he said, I am Joseph your brother, whom ye sold into Egypt.
Gen 45:5 Now therefore be not grieved, nor angry with yourselves, that ye sold me hither: for God did send me before you to preserve life.
Gen 45:6 For these two years hath the famine been in the land: and yet there are five years, in the which there shall neither be earing nor harvest.
Gen 45:7 And God sent me before you to preserve you a posterity in the earth, and to save your lives by a great deliverance.
Gen 45:8 So now it was not you that sent me hither, but God: and he hath made me a father to Pharaoh, and lord of all his house, and a ruler throughout all the land of Egypt.
Amo 3:6 Shall a trumpet be blown in the city, and the people not be afraid? shall there be evil in a city, and the LORD hath not done it?

If it seems sinful to us for God to ‘make wicked men for their day of evil’ (Pro 16:4), ‘create evil’ (Isa 45:7), ‘make us to err from His ways’, and send evil spirits to make this all happen (1Sa 16:14-15), then we are still both Job and Eliphaz, contending with, reproving, and condemning God for His ways. We all do that in our own time:

Rom 9:18 Therefore hath he mercy on whom he will have mercy, and whom he will he hardeneth.
Rom 9:19 Thou wilt say then unto me, Why doth he yet find fault? For who hath resisted his will?
Rom 9:20 Nay but, O man, who art thou that repliest against God? Shall the thing formed say to him that formed it, Why hast thou made me thus?
Rom 9:21 Hath not the potter power over the clay, of the same lump to make one vessel unto honour, and another unto dishonour?

But we are all blinded to those words while we tell these words to others who we see as less honorable than ourselves.

Job 15:23 He wandereth abroad for bread, saying, Where is it? he knoweth that the day of darkness is ready at his hand.

Here is the New Testament way of expressing the point Eliphaz is imputing to Job because of his sins:

2Ti 3:7 Ever learning, and never able to come to the knowledge of the truth.

Job 15:24 Trouble and anguish shall make him afraid; they shall prevail against him, as a king ready to the battle.

Job himself had already told us that the thing he had feared was exactly what had happened to him.

Job 3:25 For the thing which I greatly feared is come upon me, and that which I was afraid of is come unto me.

While the love of God which our Savior taught was unheard of in the Old Testament, the effects of not knowing that love were well known by Job as the type of us before we know what is the love of God:

1Jn 4:18 There is no fear in love; but perfect love casteth out fear: because fear hath torment. He that feareth is not made perfect in love.
1Jn 5:2 By this we know that we love the children of God, when we love God, and keep his commandments.
1Jn 5:3 For this is the love of God, that we keep his commandments: and his commandments are not grievous.

Once again, Eliphaz does not know that mankind must live by every word that proceeds out of the mouth of God (Mat 4:4). He does not know or believe that “all things, the world, life, death, things present, and things to come are all ours (1Co 3:21-22), and it had not yet been revealed that the time is at hand to keep the things written in the words of this prophecy (Rev 1:3 and 22:7). So he condemns Job for the things that must necessarily be within his own sinful flesh:

Job 15:25 For he stretcheth out his hand against God, and strengtheneth himself against the Almighty.
Job 15:26 He runneth upon him, even on his neck, upon the thick bosses of his bucklers:
Job 15:27 Because he covereth his face with his fatness, and maketh collops of fat on his flanks.

Eliphaz, being at ease in this life, thinks of himself being above ever contending with, reproving, or condemning his Creator. He thinks that Job’s former prosperity had caused Job to forget his God, and to have “strengthened himself against God”. God Himself tells us that this is exactly what we all do under such circumstances. Moses told Israel that is what they would do, and Jeremiah told them that was what they did. Remember you and I are Israel.

Deu 32:15 But Jeshurun [ a name for Israel] waxed fat, and kicked: thou art waxen fat, thou art grown thick, thou art covered with fatness; then he forsook God which made him, and lightly esteemed the Rock of his salvation.

Jer 5:7 How shall I pardon thee for this? thy children have forsaken me, and sworn by them that are no gods: when I had fed them to the full, they then committed adultery, and assembled themselves by troops in the harlots’ houses.
Jer 5:8 They were as fed horses in the morning: every one neighed after his neighbour’s wife.
Jer 5:9 Shall I not visit for these things? saith the LORD: and shall not my soul be avenged on such a nation as this?

In our own way we all live out every word that proceeds out of the mouth of God. Those who are given to do so will rejoice in knowing what is the secret of God which He has revealed to only very few.
Next week, Lord willing, we will see the rest of Eliphaz’s accusations against his friend, Job.

Job 15:28 And he dwelleth in desolate cities, and in houses which no man inhabiteth, which are ready to become heaps.
Job 15:29 He shall not be rich, neither shall his substance continue, neither shall he prolong the perfection thereof upon the earth.
Job 15:30 He shall not depart out of darkness; the flame shall dry up his branches, and by the breath of his mouth shall he go away.
Job 15:31 Let not him that is deceived trust in vanity: for vanity shall be his recompence.
Job 15:32 It shall be accomplished before his time, and his branch shall not be green.
Job 15:33 He shall shake off his unripe grape as the vine, and shall cast off his flower as the olive.
Job 15:34 For the congregation of hypocrites shall be desolate, and fire shall consume the tabernacles of bribery.
Job 15:35 They conceive mischief, and bring forth vanity, and their belly prepareth deceit.