GOD’S
PURITY OR MAN’S
PERVERSITY—WHICH?
Denis Gibson
Reading from Proverbs 30:1-9.
My text is Proverbs 30:5-6
Every word of God is pure: he
is a shield unto them that put
their trust in him. Add thou not unto his words, lest he reprove thee, and
thou be found a liar.
When will men heed wisdom’s first as well
as final word on God’s inspired Words!
In Deuteronomy 4:2, 12:32
we read this first word of warning “moved and seconded”:
“Ye shall not add unto the word which I
command you, neither shall ye diminish ought from it, that ye
may keep the commandments of the LORD your God which I command you….
What thing so ever I command you, observe to do it: thou
shalt not add thereto, nor diminish from it.” In The Revelation
22:18-20 this warning is finalized and fixed forever:
“For I testify unto every man that heareth
the words of the prophecy of this book, If any man shall add unto these
things, God shall add unto him the plagues that are written in this book:
And if any man shall take away from the words of the book of this
prophecy, God shall take away his part out of the book of life, and out of
the holy city, and from the things which are written in this book.”
Furthermore, does not that warning re-occur repeatedly throughout the
pages of the Scripture? We recall the Apostle Paul’s
final words to his successor Timothy:
“And
that from a child thou hast known the holy scriptures, which are able to
make thee wise unto salvation through faith which is in Christ Jesus.”
(2 Timothy 3:15) Here Paul calls the Holy Scriptures nothing less than
ta hiera grammata, not just sacred words, but
“the sacred letters”,
reminding us of Dean Burgon’s “every letter”,
for do not sacred letters result in sacred words?
There is also Wisdom’s
final Word in the Book of Proverbs on how men should treat The Word of
God. What we have in these verses, in germ, is expounded more fully
elsewhere, as for instance in Psalm 12, where the polluted words of
the wicked (verses 2-3) are contrasted with the pure words of God.
God’s
Way is perfect, and God’s
Word is also perfect (Psalm 18:30). It is not tainted with
the deceit and flattery, the dross and perversion, of sinful
men!
I. THE CONTEXTUALIZATION:
Consider the context of Proverbs 30:1-9. The last two chapters in the book
of Proverbs seem to be an appendix to the whole Book. Generally speaking,
the context, when expounding the individual proverbs, does not affect
their meaning; each of the proverbs mostly stand alone, or in pairs, or in
small groups. There are places, however, where the context does have
significance, and we suggest the verses in Proverbs 30:5-6 appear is such
a context.
In the phrase the knowledge of
the holy (vs.3), where holy is plural, is there not an allusion
to a certain plurality in the divine nature? This is understood by
many as a name for God Himself (cf. “the holy [One]” Prov.
9:10). It was certainly used by Isaiah as a favourite designation for God,
when he spoke of the holy one of Israel, and which he used some 30
times. Our God is the Thrice Holy One before whom the Seraphim
covered their faces and feet, and before whom Isaiah fell in deepest
conviction and confessed his own and his nation’s
utter uncleanness! With Moses, let us put off our shoes from off our feet,
for we are standing upon holy ground.
Who Agur was no one can say for
certain. Is it a name of one person, or are there four
“unknown”
men referred to here? The name Agur means to gather (6:8, 10:5),
thus Agur may simply refer to someone who
“gathered
or collected”
wise sayings. Agur is also referred to as ben Jakeh, the son of
Jakeh. The root of Jakeh means to preserve from evil
or fear, or to be pious, so is Agur “a pious son”
who preserves proverbs? Some (Jerome and others) have conjectured that
Agur was another name for Solomon himself, like Qoheleth,
collector, preacher, or Lemuel, meaning devoted to God, who
is generally supposed to be Solomon himself. Undoubtedly, Solomon was a
consummate collector or gatherer of all sorts of knowledge
(Eccl.1:1,2,13,16; 2:8).
“It is well known that Hebrew names are always significant, and therefore
it is not surprising that
such an ambiguity should occur.”
Derek Kidner also noted: “The
ancient versions likewise eliminate the proper names here. It [their
meaning] remains an open question.”2
Yet undoubtedly, whoever speaks here does so as a man of God, endowed with
the gift of prophecy (Hebrew: hammassa, the burden of the Lord!),
and his purpose is to teach us some valuable lessons.
The meaning of the names
Ithiel, which literally means with me is God or simply God
is, and Ucal which means an able one, have also been
disputed. The R.V. (1881, marg.) changed these names into verbs, but in
this context may they not be taken as veiled references to Christ, the Son
of God, with whom their meanings so well agree, for it is the Son’s
name, as well as the Father’s,
that is here inquired after. What is his name, and what is his son’s
name, if thou canst tell?
And who can tell? Yes,
there is a Son in the Eternal Godhead, begotten from all eternity (cf.,
Proverbs 8:22-30). Jesus Himself declared: No man knoweth the Son but
the Father (Matt. 11:27). Though for a while the Son’s
Name was secret (Judges 13:18; John 3:2,13), and He was referred to
as the seed of the woman and of the seed of Abraham, He had
many names in the OT. He was Shiloh, Immanuel, Wonderful, the Man, the
Branch, the Lord Our Righteousness. His Name, which is the expression of
His Godhead, was not known by the light of nature, but only by “special”
revelation (Job 11:7-9). But when the fullness of time was come, God
sent forth his Son (Gal. 4:4). His name is Jesus, the Messiah
(Christ), the Son of God, the Word of God, the Creator, the King of kings
and Lord of lords, ho Erchomenos. Man could never have guessed the answer
to the question: What is his son’s
name, but God Himself
sent us the Answer in His Son! “The
hinge of history was on the door of a Bethlehem stable!” (Ralph W.
Sockman)
C. H. Spurgeon said:
“Agur
passed the greatest censure upon himself, that his hearers might not
suffer their faith to stand in the wisdom of men”3. Could
Solomon have uttered Agur’s
words? Yes, for is not one of the marks of true wisdom an honest awareness
of one’s
own ignorance, especially in the presence of the God of the Bible? How
brutish is man’s
knowledge now compared to that of an un-fallen Adam (Psalm 73:22)? Before
Agur would speak of such a God as he here describes, he must abase himself
(Prov.15:33; Matt.23:12). Amos said, “I was no prophet, neither was I a
prophet’s
son,” but what a prophet he was! (7:14). Should we not all do the same,
and lie in the dust before Him whose understanding is infinite
(Psalm 147:5)?
So Agur, though his language is
very strong, may simply have meant: “I didn’t
learn wisdom, for I have knowledge of the holy”
(marg. know), and, as we know, “action is the proper fruit of
knowledge”. Insufficient of himself, Agur humbly points us to the Creator
God, the One who controls the heavens, the winds, the seas and the earth.
It is, therefore, none other than this God whose
every word is perfect
(5-6). It is none other than
this God before whom Agur can truly acknowledge his
brutishness and ignorance, and what God is to one saint He
is to every saint. It is,
therefore, none other God than this
God whose every word is pure and can be trusted
implicitly. Such, then, is the contextualization of Proverbs 30:5-6,
but there is more.
II.
The Inquisition: Yes, there is an
inquisition in progress here as recorded in
verse four.
“Who hath ascended up into heaven,
or descended? who hath gathered the wind in his fists? who hath bound the
waters in a garment? who hath established all the ends of the earth? what
is his name, and what is his son’s name, if thou canst tell?
It has a familiar ring to it. It
reminds us of the questions God put so forcefully to Job (38-41), and also
as He announces the coming redemption of His people (Isaiah 40:12-14,
18-28). This inquisition was intended to remind
“man”
of his puniness and proneness to forget who he is, on the one hand, and to
counter the prevailing practice of forgetting who God is, on the other.
Here, then, is the challenge to remember who controls the heavens, the
winds, the waters, and the earth. Who has established all these things?
What is his name, and what is his son’s
name, if you can tell?
Again, we ask, Who can tell? The answer is obvious. None but the
Mighty-Creator-God of the Scriptures, and His Almighty Son, can resolve
“the riddle” of Life. Jesus clearly referred to this passage when he said
to Nicodemus: No man hath ascended up to heaven, but he that came down
from heaven, even the Son of man which is in heaven (John 3:13). Did
He not command the winds and the waves to obey Him, and did not the
disciples cry out in amazement and fear, What manner of man is this,
that even the winds and the sea obey him? (Matt. 8:27)?
III. THE EXPOSITION:
It is in this context and of this
God, the God of Creation and Redemption, that we can now
properly consider the Word of this God that is
set before us in Proverbs 30:5-6. Will we trust the pure
Words that this God has been pleased to preserve for us, or
will we choose to follow the “guessing game” of those who will be
reproved by this God and found to be liars (vs. 6)?
Let us now consider the Words of Him who holds the World, and all who are
in it, in His unseen but omnipotent Hands.
1. Its
Perfection: Every word of God is pure
(5a).
This reminds us of Paul’s,
All scripture, and most surely includes every word, Old
Testament as well as New Testament, without exception. The
word pure refers to a process where precious metal is refined or
smelted in a furnace to extract every particle of dross, thus producing
the purest gold or finest silver. Psalm 12 says, The words of the
Lord... purified seven times. Seven is the number of completion, of
perfection, and means that God’s
Words are and can be nothing less than the purest perfection. There
can be no misgivings or doubts about their purity.
“Of what other book in the world
can this be said? Where else is the gold found without alloy?
The word is tried
(Heb.). It has stood all the trials, and
no dross has been found in it.
‘Having
God for its Author, it has truth without any admixture of error for its
matter.’
”4
Another old commentator agrees:
“There are no superfluities in the
word of God. Every word of God is useful and holy, righteous and
true….Because the word of God is very pure, we ought to love it, and to
believe it with all our hearts, and to trust in God, as he is revealed to
us in it. Blessed are all they that put their trust in him.”5
Why then should there be any misgivings, or any doubt as to their
reliability, or any need for their
“improvement”
by the unholy hands of men? “To reject therefore one
‘jot
or tittle is a sufficient demonstration,’
as Dr. John Owen admirably observes—‘that
no one jot or tittle of it is received as it ought.’
” 6
2. Its Protection:
“He is a shield….”
Does shield here (5b) refer to God or to
God’s
Word? The Hebrew, we suggest, could be rendered either way, though most
commentators treat it as referring to exclusively to God.
Certainly, there are many verses where God is called a shield to
His people, but we take the primary reference here to be to
every word of God. Is not God’s
Word just another way of referring to God Himself, Himself revealed, who
is behind His every word? When we believe that every word of God is
pure, that Word acts as a shield to them that put their trust
[seek refuge] in it, that is, in His
Word (in Hebrew word is masculine gender thus giving rise
to “he”). It is the word of faith (Romans 10:8) to be
believed, the faithful word to be held fast (Titus 1:9),
and it is that Word that holds firm the one who trusts in it too!
“Yes—if
the word of God be pure, it must be a sure ground of trust.”7
not the soldier, in the thick of battle, be in deadly peril from
arrows or sword without his shield? Do not many Christians admit that
those times of breakdown in their testimony were due mainly to their
failure to use this divinely provided shield, the Pure, Preserved and
Preserving Word of God!
3. Its
Preservation: “[It] He is a shield to them
that put their trust in him [it].”
Many evangelicals while paying lip service to
verbal inspiration have difficulty with verse 6. A Hebrew professor in
Denver Conservative Baptist Seminary states:
“Verses 5 and 6 clearly go
together, linked by God’s
‘words’,
yet verse 6 is difficult to explain or even to accept, especially by
people who write commentaries”
(italics added).8
“lain or
even to accept”, says this Hebrew professor, and
no wonder, for these verses contain another clear and fearful warning not
to tamper with God’s
words. Our Lord Jesus said, in His encounter with the Devil in the
wilderness, “It is written that man shall not live by bread alone, but
by every word of God”
(Luke 4:4). The critics omit but by
every word of God from this text.
Why? Certainly it is not because it is “difficult to explain or even to
accept”, but because of “the presuppositions” by which these textual
critics operate. They prefer to trust a perverted minority text rather
than the text that is supported by the vast majority of the manuscript
evidence. They willfully disregard God’s
repeated warnings not to mix the pure gold of God’s
words with the dross of human conjecture, for, in spite of all their
claims to have superior manuscripts and the latest scholarship on their
side, it all comes down in the end to “human conjecture” which is just a
covert way of saying “man’s fallible guesswork”.
“The fining pot is for silver, and the furnace for
gold, but the Lord trieth the hearts” (Proverbs 17:3).
Yet this removal of God’s
inspired words is still going on in most modern versions. May we not say
“all”
modern versions?
Many insist on separating inspiration
from preservation, leaving them free to add to or subtract from the
Words of God. The historic Confessions all affirm that God “by His
singular care and providence kept pure [His Words] in all ages.” If it is
not inspired “it does not matter if the Bible has been preserved.... It
also follows that if the Bible has not been preserved, it does not matter
how it was inspired” (DBS on
“Preservation”).
IV. THE CONCLUSION:
“Add thou not unto
his
words, lest he reprove thee, and thou be found a liar.”
“In certain parts of America the woodpecker is
known by the name of sapsucker. We beg the honest woodpecker’s
pardon for the liberty we take in applying the term spiritual
sapsuckers to those who drain the Church’s
vitality nowadays by preying on its very pith and marrow, the life-giving
Word of the Lord." 9 Beware of
these spiritual sapsuckers!
Will
not many textual critics of the pure words of God be proved to be
liars in the Day of Judgment! Why, we may well
ask, do these clever, highly trained, textual critics still refuse to heed
the repeated warnings and to bow before God’s Pure-Preserved-Preserving
Words? Why do so many pastors in “evangelical” pulpits glibly assure
their congregations that “one version is as good as another,” that is,
“all except that archaic KJV?!” No wonder that multitudes of “Christians”
rush out to buy the latest version hot off the presses? Does not the
reason for this mis-handling of the Bible lie in the widespread
indifference to truth in academia today, and in our society
at large today? It has been well said that “the hallmark of modern
humanity is its relentless emasculation of truth.” What is called
modernity, that is, this so-called more enlightened age of
ours, now determines our value-systems.
David F. Wells, no friend of DBS, pointed out that ours is “the
therapeutic age” where preaching has been “psychologized”, and where the
meaning of the Christian faith is now “privatized”. Belief in God or the
Bible or Truth has become simply a matter of “what makes me feel good
about [my] self....” Yes, North America is “self-absorbed”, but “the self
is a canvas too narrow, too cramped, to contain the largeness of [the]
Christian truth…. His [God’s] Word becomes intuition, and conviction fades
into evanescent opinion. Theology becomes therapy, righteousness is
replaced by a search for happiness, holiness by wholeness, truth by
feeling good about one’s self….All that remains is self…. And when people
are no longer compelled by God’s truth, they can be compelled to believe
anything, [even] the lure of the novel or the illicit.”10
How, then, are we to communicate in our time with those
who openly reject ultimate authority, who ridicule the sacred, and who
debunk absolutes?! Yet it is to such a people, to such an age as this,
that we are called to proclaim “It is written...!” Jacques Ellul,
commenting on this present scene, observed: “Anyone wishing to save
humanity today must first of all save the word” [of man].How much
more must we “save” the INSPIRED, INSCRIPTURATED WORD OF GOD.
Listen to this reminder from Louis Gaussen
on the importance of a single word of God.
"But above all the
divine inspiration of the Holy Scriptures, even in their smallest parts,
is attested by Christians who have experienced their power, first in their
conversion, and afterwards in the conflicts that followed. They bear one
unanimous testimony. When the Holy Scripture, overmastering their
conscience, made them lie low at the foot of the cross, and there revealed
to them the love of God, what seized hold of them was not the Bible as a
whole, it was not a chapter, it was a verse; ay, a word, which was
at the point of the sword wielded by the very hand of God. It was an
influence from above, concentrated in a single word, which may yet become
for them, ‘as a fire, saith the Lord, and as a
hammer that breaketh the rock in pieces’. In the
moment of their need that Word seized their conscience with an unknown,
sweeping, irresistible force. It was but a Word, but that Word was from
God, and they knew it to be the call of the Lord Jesus Christ.” 11
The story is told of a young man defending his doctoral
dissertation before a panel of academicians. When reprimanded for the
number of allusions he had made to hearsay evidence, and challenged on the
weakness of such a defense, he facetiously said, “Just because something
is written does not make it any more certain, does it?” The chairman had a
brilliant comeback. "All right then,” he said, “I just want you to know
that we will be granting you the degree, but it will not be in writing.
You can just take our word for it.” The candidate quickly complied with
the documentary evidence demanded.
Luther
wrote words that became “the battle hymn” of the 16th century
Reformation, and they still carry power to this very day in which we live.
And tho this world with devils filled, Should threaten
to undo us,
We will not fear for God hath willed His truth to
triumph through us.
The Prince of darkness grim, We tremble not for him,
His rage we can endure, For lo his doom is sure,
One little word will fell him.
That word above all
earthly powers No thanks to them, abideth;
The Spirit and the gifts are ours Through Him who with
us sideth:
Let goods and kindred go, This mortal life also;
The body they may kill: God’s truth abideth still,
His kingdom is forever.
Our
Lord “felled” the Devil with “every word of God” still extant! Luther
“felled” the Devil with “one little word” still extant! What if, from your
“Bible” that “little word” was no longer extant?!
Every word of God is pure; he [it] is a shield
unto them that put their trust in him [it]. Add thou not unto his words,
lest he reprove thee, and thou be found a liar.
Let
this be our prayer:
Lord,
bow down our minds and hearts before Thy Pure, Preserved and Preserving
Words to humbly receive them, believe them, and strive to
live them, for they are “the
Scriptures of Truth.”
Endnotes
#
Studies in Proverbs
by Wm. Arnot, Kegel Pub., 1875, p. 5612
Proverbs, Inter-Varsity Press, 1964, p. 178
3
The Biblical Illustrator, PROVERBS, p. 6694
Proverbs
by Charles Bridges, Banner of Truth Trust, 1846, last reprinted 1983, p.
593
5
Proverbs,
by George Lawson, 1829, reprinted by Kegel 1984, p.8376
Charles Bridges, op. cit. p.594
Charles Bridges, op. cit., p. 59488
Proverbs,
by Robert L. Alden, Baker House, p. 208
9
Truth Unchanged, Unchanging, Editor S. M. Houghton, Bible League,
1984, p. 12710
NO PLACE FOR TRUTH,
by David F. Wells, Erdmann, 1993, pp.101, 183
11
Theopneustia
by Louis Gaussen, Quarterly Record, Trinitarian Bible Society, July
1965
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