Job CCCXX

 Job 37:1-5, “At this also my heart trembles, and leaps from its place. Hear attentively the thunder of His voice, and the rumbling that comes from His mouth. He sends it forth under the whole heaven, His lightning to the ends of the earth. After it a voice roars; he thunders with His majestic voice, and He does not restrain them when His voice is heard. God thunders marvelously with His voice; He does great things which we cannot comprehend.”

If there is one redeeming quality about Elihu, it’s that he did believe in God. He did not think everything came about accidentally, some serendipitous cosmic alignment that put everything in its place with such precision as to make a Swiss watchmaker blush with shame. If not for his repeated attempts to promote himself and his insistence that he knew the mind of God when he clearly didn’t, he would even be a sympathetic figure to some degree.

At least part of him knew he was full of hot air because he contradicted himself repeatedly when it came to hearing from God or knowing Him on an intimate level that went beyond mere platitudes. Though he claimed to speak on God’s behalf, insisting that he was certain of Job’s guilt, Elihu goes on to say that God does great things which we cannot comprehend. That he would not allow for the possibility that this was just such a case, wherein God was doing something that he could not comprehend, thereby abstaining from giving his opinion, veiled in the pretense that it was God’s judgment rather than his own, confirms that Elihu had a bone to pick with Job, for whatever reason, and this was his opportunity to twist the knife.

Elihu’s entire treatise, however, highlights a deeper issue with which much of today’s church must contend: the realization that there is a difference between knowing about God and knowing God on a personal level.

As James would later state, even the demons believe and tremble. Belief in God isn’t what saves; being born again does. If an individual believes in the existence of God, but does not take the prescribed steps the Bible sets forth for him to be saved, sanctified, and reconciled to God, he has not been transformed or regenerated, but simply holds to an intellectual acknowledgment that there is a Creator; there is a God.

Upon approaching Jesus, Nicodemus acknowledged that he, along with the other Pharisees, knew He was a teacher come from God, for no one could do the signs He did unless God was with Him. They didn’t presume, they didn’t hope, they knew God had sent Him, and rather than thanking him for the compliment and confirming that he was right, Jesus said to him: “Most assuredly, I say to you, unless one is born again, he cannot see the kingdom of God.”

Believing Jesus was special is not enough. Believing He did signs is not enough. Believing he was a prophet or a wise man is not enough. Believing in the existence of God is not enough. You must be born again! It’s not an option, nor is it a take-it-or-leave-it proposition absent afferent consequence; it is imperative. Unless one is born again, one cannot see the kingdom of God! There’s no wiggle room there; there are no hypotheticals that Jesus alludes to where someone can bypass being born again.

Men today are fond of playing the what-if game, thinking they can stump God or find a nonexistent loophole, wherein they can see the kingdom of God without being born again. Professing to be wise, they become fools in the truest sense of the word, believing wholeheartedly that they can argue, demand, or sneak their way into heaven.

Either Jesus lied, or He didn’t, when He said you must be born again to enter the kingdom of God. If He lied about this, then everything else He said is suspect, because eternity is the greatest of issues one must contend with. If He didn’t lie, then no amount of bloviating or throwing out hypothetical situations will change the reality of what He said.

Shocking as it may seem, once you strip away the hyperbole, presupposition, feelings, emotions, and opinion, it boils down to one simple question: Did Jesus speak the truth when He said that you must be born again to see the kingdom of God?

As for me, the answer is an unequivocal yes, because of who He is, and the lengths to which He went on the cross that man might be reconciled to God. Once we’ve established that, then everything falls into place. Everything in my life must be in service to the singular ideal of denying myself, picking up my cross, and following after Him, for He has bought me, redeemed me, cleansed me, and set me upon the path that I must follow.

The notion that one who is saved and sanctified can remain inactive and unresponsive to the urging of the Holy Spirit to draw ever closer to God is anathema and has no biblical foundation. To be transformed is to be changed. To be born again is to die to your old self. To follow after Jesus is to do away with anything and everything that would inhibit you from doing so or stunt your progress and spiritual growth.

We treat too flippantly the thing for which the Son of God was born, lived, suffered, bled, and died that we might attain. We serve Him when it suits us, pray when there’s nothing else vying for our attention, read Scripture when there’s nothing good on the television, yet still have the temerity to insist that we are soldiers of the cross, fully committed, faithful to the end, and ready to receive our marching orders.

Perhaps God isn’t doing the things He once did among His people not because He can no longer do them, as though He were contractually obligated to stop doing what He’s always done, but because those claiming to be His pay Him lip service while living their lives in a manner unworthy of the gospel of Christ, wherein no glory or honor is brought to His name. It may be a hard pill to swallow, but perhaps the problem isn’t with God; it’s with us.          

With love in Christ,

Michael Boldea, Jr. 

Posted on 10 July 2026 | 11:42 am