The Answer Man

For He is not a man, as I am, that I may answer Him—that we may go to court together!  Job 9:32  NASB

Not a man – Are you willing to complain to God?  Careful.  Your answer might be a subtle rebellion.  As Job clearly reminds us, God isn’t a man.  In fact, the Hebrew phrase ki-lo-ish is first in the sentence, the emphatic position.  Furthermore, the negative particle, lo, is the unconditional negation.  There are absolutely no exceptions.  As a result, God and man do not share common ground.  The gap is ontological.  It is simply impossible to hold God accountable to anyhuman ethical standard.

We shouldn’t be surprised by this pronouncement.  Consider Jeremiah’s evaluation of humanity’s standing:

“The heart is deceitful above all things,
And desperately wicked;
Who can know it?”  Jeremiah 17:9 NKJV

Paul reiterates the thought in the apostolic period:

“There is none righteous, no, not one; There is none who understands;
There is none who seeks after God. They have all turned aside;
They have together become unprofitable; There is none who does good, no, not one.”  Romans 3:10-12 NKJV

Put these passages together and you come to only one conclusion: you and I have nothing to say!

God does what He wants to do and there are no grounds for us to argue.  Get used to it!

But if this is true, then how is the Hebrew God any different than the Greek idea of fate?  Are we simply victims of the divine will?  Are we just the mute chess pieces being moved on the cosmic board by unseen forces?  If the ontological gap between Creator and creature is so unbridgeable, are we totally dependent on the fickle mercy of the Master?  As Job says: “There is no arbitrator between us, who can place his hand upon us both” (Job 9:33 NASB).  Enter the “answer man.”

“Therefore he is also able to save forever those who come to God through him, since he always lives to make intercession for them.”  Hebrews 7:25 NASB (theological capitalization removed)

Without the “answer man,” Job is absolutely correct.  No one can take God to court.  Except . . . the one designated by God to do precisely that.  The “answer man” (emphasis on the fact that he is not ontologically separated from us).  The true intercessor must be like us in order to plead for us . . . and he must be designated to play this role by the One Who is not like us.  There could hardly be any other solution.

Topical Index: ki-lo-ish, not a man, fate, answer, Jeremiah 17:9, Romans 3:10-12, Job 9:32