Pondering Proverbs 10:2

“Treasures gained by wickedness do not profit, but righteousness delivers from death.” Proverbs 10:2.

I’m not sure that we believe the above, after all, so much of our society and economy is based on spin and illusion and image and creating dissatisfaction in order to induce people to part with their money. The one thing we can’t possibly have is a society in which people are content with what they have – the economy would collapse. We are slaves to consumerism, slaves to borrowing, slaves to dissatisfaction.

We do not recognize wickedness because we live in it – anymore, I suspect, than a fish recognizes that it lives in the ocean.

Lying is wickedness. Adultery is wickedness. Stealing is wickedness. Sexual promiscuity is wickedness. Rejecting the image of God is wickedness. Traducing the Gospel is wickedness. Trampling the poor and needy, and stranger and foreigner seeking refuge is wickedness – yet we think little of any of this.

We trade morality, ethics, and righteousness for treasure – we justify anything and everything for treasure in the here and now. How foolish. We live in moral and spiritual death and justify it.

Paul writes:

“He will render to each one according to his works: to those who by patience in well-doing seek for glory and honor and immortality, he will give eternal life; but for those who are self-seeking and do not obey the truth, but obey unrighteousness, there will be wrath and fury. There will be tribulation and distress for every human being who does evil, the Jew first and also the Greek, but glory and honor and peace for everyone who does good, the Jew first and also the Greek. For God shows no partiality.” Romans 2:6 – 11.

There are those who obey unrighteousness, and then there are those who obey righteousness – seeking for glory and honor and immortality. The former will continue to live in death and the fulness of that death will be manifested as the fulness of tribulation and distress come upon them. The latter will be as the sun, shining brighter and brighter until the fulness of that Perfect Day rises within them and upon them.

The glory we seek is the glory of God and from God. The honor we seek is the honor of God and from God. The immortality and peace we seek is the immortality and peace of God and from God. Righteousness does indeed deliver us from death, both now and forever.

But this is not our inherent righteousness which is in and of ourselves, but rather the righteousness of our Lord Jesus Christ – for by His righteousness we are justified, and our Father looks at us as if we have never sinned and as if we have always obeyed His Holy Law – but this is not a fiction, in Christ this is a fact – a fact beyond our comprehension, a reality that we cannot fully understand…or perhaps even begin to comprehend. It is also a righteousness that is implanted within us as Christ lives within us, ingrafted within us – for as Jesus Christ is fully God and fully man, so in Christ we find ourselves being transformed into the image of the Incarnate Son of God, partaking of the Divine Nature in and through Jesus Christ (2 Peter 1:2 – 4). The Incarnation continues in the Body of the Son of God.

The only righteousness that delivers from death is the righteousness of Jesus Christ, the Son of the Living God.

Paul writes, “Therefore, since we have been justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ. Through him we have also obtained access by faith into this grace in which we stand, and we rejoice in hope of the glory of God.” (Romans 5:1-2).

There is a better Way to live than seeking the treasures of wickedness, a better way to live than by being caught up in the slavery of consumerism, materialism, earthly power, ego, illusionary images, and the like – and that Way is Jesus Christ.