The Outer Fringes

            
            

Some passages I read in Job 26 that stood out – I recalled reading them on my previous time through Job, and wanted to put some illustration around it. In the middle of Job’s anguish, he recognises something of God’s omnipotence – how we look at the tremendous power displayed in the natural world, all the natural forces that, thousands of years later we’re still at the mercy of.

He can look around and see powers that are orders of magnitude beyond our own – and then these wonderful lines – “these are but the outer fringe of his works; how faint the whisper we hear of him! Who then can understand the thunder of his power?”

All the wonders we see are but the fringes of the whole of his works – and yet we do see more of him than Job did, because we have seen Jesus:

In the past God spoke to our ancestors through the prophets at many times and in various ways, but in these last days he has spoken to us by his Son, whom he appointed heir of all things, and through whom also he made the universe. The Son is the radiance of God’s glory and the exact representation of his being, sustaining all things by his powerful word. After he had provided purification for sins, he sat down at the right hand of the Majesty in heaven.”

Hebrews 1:1-3

In Jesus we recognise God’s absolute majesty and power – and yet can draw near without fearing him, because on the cross we have been made clean, pure, fit to come before the throne of the Almighty.