The High-Tide Mark of Sin Text: Job 15:14-16
Introduction: The Friends Who Weren't
We come now to the second round of speeches from Job’s friends, and Eliphaz the Temanite leads the charge. In these cycles of debate, we are not simply watching three well-meaning but misguided counselors try to comfort a suffering man. We are watching a clash of theological systems. Job is in the crucible, not only of physical suffering, but of a profound spiritual crisis. His friends, on the other hand, are operating from a tidy, predictable, and ultimately cruel system of retribution. Their theology is simple: God is just, therefore the righteous prosper and the wicked suffer. Since Job is suffering immensely, the conclusion is inescapable. Job must be hiding some monumental sin.
Now, we must be careful. What Eliphaz says in our text today is, in the abstract, entirely true. It is orthodox. It is a robust statement on the utter holiness of God and the comprehensive sinfulness of man. If you were to lift these verses out of their context and drop them into a systematic theology textbook under the heading "Doctrine of Man" or "Hamartiology," they would fit perfectly. The problem is not the truth of the statement, but the application of it. Truth spoken without love, truth wielded as a weapon to beat a suffering man into a confession he cannot make, becomes a lie in practice. It is orthodoxy weaponized. It is using God's holy law to do the devil's work.
Eliphaz is trying to corner Job. He is trying to force him to admit that his suffering is a direct result of his sin. To do this, he paints a picture of universal human depravity so stark, so absolute, that Job’s claims to integrity must surely collapse under the weight of it. Eliphaz is arguing from the general to the specific. "All men are sinners, Job. You are a man. Therefore, you are a sinner, and your extraordinary suffering must be due to extraordinary sin." The logic seems sound, but the premise of his application is false. As we know from the prologue, Job's suffering was not a punishment for his sin, but a test of his faith, orchestrated in the heavenly court.
So as we examine these verses, we must do two things. First, we must appreciate the profound truth they contain about God's holiness and man's corruption. This is bedrock biblical doctrine. But second, we must see the pastoral malpractice of Eliphaz. He is a doctor who correctly identifies a universal human condition, fallenness, but uses it to misdiagnose the specific ailment of his patient. He is a miserable comforter because his goal is not comfort, but vindication for his theological system. He wants to win an argument more than he wants to bind up a wound.
The Text
What is man, that he should be pure, Or he who is born of a woman, that he should be righteous? Behold, He puts no faith in His holy ones, And the heavens are not pure in His sight; How much less one who is abominable and corrupt, Man, who drinks unrighteousness like water!
(Job 15:14-16 LSB)
The Rhetorical Question of Depravity (v. 14)
Eliphaz begins his assault with a pair of rhetorical questions designed to leave Job no room to stand.
"What is man, that he should be pure, Or he who is born of a woman, that he should be righteous?" (Job 15:14)
The answer, of course, is implied. Man cannot be pure. One born of a woman cannot be righteous. This is a foundational statement of what the church would later codify as the doctrine of original sin and total depravity. The phrase "born of a woman" is not incidental. It points to our creatureliness, our earthiness, and our connection to the fallen line of Adam. From the moment of our conception, we are part of a race that is in rebellion against God. David says it this way: "Behold, I was brought forth in iniquity, and in sin my mother conceived me" (Psalm 51:5). This doesn't mean the act of conception was sinful, but rather that from our very beginning, we are stamped with a sinful nature.
Man, in his natural state, is not a blank slate. He is not a neutral party waiting to choose good or evil. He is born with a bent, a bias, a gravitational pull toward sin. We are not sinners because we sin; we sin because we are sinners. The fountain is polluted, and so the stream that flows from it is necessarily polluted as well. Eliphaz is absolutely correct here. Before a holy God, no man can stand on the basis of his own purity or his own righteousness. Any claim to inherent goodness is a fantasy. It is to stand before the infinite, blazing sun of God's holiness and boast about the candle you brought with you.
The problem is that Job was not claiming sinless perfection. He was claiming integrity. He was arguing that he had not committed some secret, heinous sin that would justify this level of divine punishment. Eliphaz hears this as a claim to self-righteousness and brings out the heavy artillery of total depravity to demolish it. He is answering an argument Job is not making.
The Staggering Holiness of God (v. 15)
To magnify man's sinfulness, Eliphaz now turns to the breathtaking holiness of God. The blackness of our sin is only truly seen against the brilliant white of His purity.
"Behold, He puts no faith in His holy ones, And the heavens are not pure in His sight;" (Job 15:15 LSB)
This is a staggering statement. The "holy ones" here likely refers to the angels, the unfallen celestial beings who serve before the throne of God. God, in His absolute holiness and omniscience, does not place His ultimate trust even in them. They are creatures, and therefore mutable. They are capable of falling, as Satan and his legions demonstrated. Compared to the absolute, unchangeable perfection of God, even the angels are not a safe bet. God's trust is in Himself alone.
Then he says, "the heavens are not pure in His sight." This is poetic hyperbole to make a theological point. The physical heavens, the cosmos, in all its vastness and glory, is still a mere created thing. It is part of the material order. And when compared to the uncreated, spiritual, absolute purity of God Himself, it is found wanting. If the angels are not ultimately trustworthy, and the very heavens are not pure in comparison to God, what hope does mortal man have?
This establishes the infinite Creator/creature distinction. God is not at the top of a continuum of goodness, with angels just below Him and men further down. He is in a category all by Himself. His holiness is not just a matter of degree; it is a matter of kind. He is holy, holy, holy. All created things, even the most glorious, are derivative, contingent, and, in comparison to Him, unclean. Eliphaz is right. This is the God we are dealing with. A God of such purity that our best deeds are, as Isaiah would later say, like filthy rags (Isaiah 64:6).
Man's Thirst for Iniquity (v. 16)
Having established the vast gulf between a holy God and His creation, Eliphaz now drives the point home with a devastating description of man.
"How much less one who is abominable and corrupt, Man, who drinks unrighteousness like water!" (Job 15:16 LSB)
The logic is an argument from the greater to the lesser. If God finds imperfection in the heavens and His angels, how much more will He find it in man? Eliphaz uses two strong words to describe humanity: "abominable and corrupt." Abominable means detestable, worthy of loathing. Corrupt, or sour, speaks of something that has gone bad, that is spoiled and putrid. This is not the language of modern therapeutic psychology. This is the Bible's unflinching diagnosis of the human heart apart from grace.
But the final phrase is the most powerful. Man "drinks unrighteousness like water." Think about that image. Water is essential for life. We drink it naturally, without thinking, without coercion. We are thirsty for it. Eliphaz says this is how fallen man relates to sin. He doesn't have to be forced to sin. He doesn't dabble in it on occasion. He thirsts for it. He gulps it down. It is his natural inclination. Sin is not an accident for fallen man; it is his element. This is a picture of total depravity. It does not mean that every man is as wicked as he could possibly be, but that sin has corrupted every part of him, his mind, his will, his affections, so that his natural orientation is away from God and toward unrighteousness.
Again, the doctrine is sound. Jeremiah says, "The heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately sick; who can understand it?" (Jeremiah 17:9). Paul, in Romans 3, quotes the Old Testament to paint a similar picture: "None is righteous, no, not one; no one understands; no one seeks for God." This is the truth about us. Left to ourselves, we drink sin like water. And Eliphaz hurls this truth at Job, intending for it to crush him into submission.
The Gospel for Water-Drinkers
Eliphaz spoke these true words for a cruel purpose. But God, in His providence, has preserved them for our good. Because in this stark diagnosis, the necessity of the gospel shines forth with blinding clarity. If this is who we are, then we are utterly without hope in ourselves. If we naturally drink down unrighteousness, we need more than a self-help program. We need more than a moral tune-up. We need a resurrection. We need a new heart with new thirsts.
And this is precisely what the gospel provides. Jesus Christ, the only man born of woman who was truly pure and righteous, stood on this earth and became thirsty. On the cross, He cried out, "I thirst" (John 19:28). Why? He who is the fountain of living water was experiencing the drought of God's wrath against sin. He was enduring the parched hell that we deserved. He who never drank unrighteousness was made to drink the full cup of God's judgment against it.
And having done so, He now stands and offers a different drink. He says, "If anyone thirsts, let him come to me and drink. Whoever believes in me, as the Scripture has said, 'Out of his heart will flow rivers of living water'" (John 7:37-38). He takes men who drink iniquity like water and, by His Spirit, transforms them into men from whom flow rivers of living water.
The truth of Eliphaz, rightly understood, does not lead to despair, but to the foot of the cross. It demolishes our self-righteousness so that we might be found in Christ's righteousness. It shows us that we cannot make ourselves pure, so that we will cling to the One who is our purity. Yes, man is abominable and corrupt. Yes, the heavens are not pure in His sight. But the blood of Jesus Christ, God's Son, cleanses us from all sin (1 John 1:7). The righteousness that Eliphaz rightly says we do not have is the very righteousness that is given to us as a free gift through faith in Jesus Christ.
Eliphaz used this truth as a stone to throw at a broken man. The gospel takes this truth and makes it the foundation stone upon which our salvation is built. We are that sinful, and Christ is that great a Savior.