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Job 42:1-6
In listening to God primarily, Job had entered the ra'ah or contemplative stage, where he deeply considered himself and what he had done, and suddenly, he had an entirely different view of himself: He was not the man he thought he was. Now, in his own estimation, he was not righteous but abhorrent and vile—a wholesale change! What we see in Job 38-41 is that God leads the man through a process in which He reveals Himself to Job. He does not directly reveal Job to himself, but He helps Job realize who and what God is—a major key to true repentance. We truly recognize our need to change when we see, not necessarily how we are, but how we compare to and fall woefully short of the perfect righteousness of God. A simple illustration may help us understand how this works. Since the United States dollar is the world's reserve currency, there is a considerable problem with counterfeiting here and around the world. U.S. Treasury officials who are specially trained to seek out and identify counterfeit money study, not the counterfeit notes, but the real U.S. currency. They study it until they know it perfectly. Once they do, it becomes relatively easy for them to distinguish a true dollar from a counterfeit: Any bill that does not exactly conform to the real dollar is a fake. In a similar fashion, God says the same thing to Job as well as to us. If we compare ourselves with the true righteousness and holiness in God, we will recognize just how counterfeit—imperfect, false, and sinful—we are. If we are sincere, we will fling ourselves on God's mercy and repent because we do not want to be sinful but righteous and holy like God. We will want to prove to Him that we have turned from our old, evil way and will henceforth live His way forever. Notice that Job says, "I . . . repent in dust and ashes." His wording expresses ideas of humiliation, mourning, burial, and death. Donning sackcloth and ashes was a common Hebrew act of humility and grief (Esther 4:1; Isaiah 58:5; Jeremiah 6:26). In his affliction, the psalmist writes in Psalm 102:9, "For I have eaten ashes like bread, and mingled my drink with weeping." When God informs Adam that he would die because of sin, He says, "For dust you are, and to dust you shall return" (Genesis 3:19). The traditional funeral sermon from the Anglican Book of Common Prayer includes the memorable line, "Earth to earth, ashes to ashes, dust to dust." Job's turn of phrase reveals the depth of his sorrow, shame, and determination to change. By saying this, he conveys his resolve to put the old, sinful Job to death and become a new man living a life of righteousness.
Richard T. Ritenbaugh
Repentance: The Genuine Article (Part Five)
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