Job 8 – 10 records the exchange with the second of Job’s friends, Bildad. Bildad opens with Santa Claus Theology:

If you were pure and upright, Surely now He would awake for you, And prosper your rightful dwelling place. (Job 8.6, NKJV)

But Job knows that he is as righteous as he can be, but he still recognizes that it’s not enough:

“Truly I know it is so, But how can a man be righteous before God? (Job 9.2, NKJV)

So Santa Claus Theology falls on its face: if you’re good, then good things happen…but no one is absolutely good:

There is none righteous; no, not one. (Romans 3.10, NKJV)

And just as Job’s three friends are often wrong, Job is wrong sometimes, also:

“For He is not a man, as I am, That I may answer Him, And that we should go to court together. Nor is there any mediator between us, Who may lay his hand on us both. (Job 9.31, 32, NKKJV)

But there is a mediator:

For there is one God and one Mediator between God and men, the Man Christ Jesus. (1 Timothy 2.5, NKJV)

But [Jesus], because He continues forever, has an unchangeable priesthood. Therefore He is also able to save to the uttermost those who come to God through Him, since He always lives to make intercession for them. For such a High Priest was fitting for us, who is holy, harmless, undefiled, separate from sinners, and has become higher than the heavens. (Hebrews 7.24 – 26, NKJV)

And that’s good news.