Proverbs: Where is Jesus? (Transcript)

Jon Moffitt:

Hi, this is Jon. Today on Theocast, we are going to talk about one of the most popular books in the Old Testament that most people read: Proverbs and Ecclesiastes - the wisdom literature of the Old Testament. We try to explain what is the purpose of these books, how we often use them inappropriately, and how we bring Law into our life and actually ignore the gospel. We explained the three uses of the Law, Law-gospel distinction, and a redemptive historic understanding of scripture as it relates to Proverbs. If you have no idea what those are, this podcast is definitely for you.

And then in our membership section, we continue this conversation into the Proverbs 31 woman. We also talk about the purpose of the book Song of Solomon. We hope you enjoy.

Once in a while, we like to go through the Scripture and pull out different books or passages and bring some helpful insight where there's possible confusion. We do a series called "Dazed and Confused" - in particular, Romans 8:28 would be a great one that we could do. Today we are covering probably the most read, if not the second most read book in the Bible. I guess you've already seen the title of the podcast so you already know; it's already a giveaway. We're going to talk about Proverbs and actually, connected with Proverbs, we'll explain how Ecclesiastes goes with it. If someone has grown up in a Christian household, they probably have read Proverbs and Psalms in rotation more than any other book probably 50 times more than any other book because they're simple. You don't have to read an entire chapter of Proverbs; you can read four or five Proverbs in a day, have enough wisdom in there for you to try and apply, fail, and come back the next day.

There's quite a few of them; the same thing with the Psalms until you hit Psalm 119 where everybody freaks out and tries to break it up into sections. But what we're going to really unravel and expose is how pietism and legalism change the purpose in the design of Proverbs; you end up losing the value of it. You end up putting pressure into Proverbs in your own life and you personalize Proverbs in ways that Proverbs, we're going to argue, was really never designed to be internalized. It was actually supposed to be designed to push you out of yourself.

Before we get started, I thought it would be fun to choose our favorite proverbs. I wanted to give you my favorite proverb. We'll talk about this a little bit: the Proverbs 31 woman. There are all of these pressures that are put on women. It's printed in every room in my house to remind my wife and to remind my daughters of what God expects them to be. I think that it's interesting that there are certain proverbs that we don't seem to apply and we don't seem to think there's much wisdom in them. So I want to take Proverbs 31, specifically how it's always addressed to the woman and how she's supposed to be. I'm going to read two verses at the beginning of the chapter, verses 6 and 7, and this is what the proverb says: "Give strong drink to the one who is perishing, and wine to those in bitter distress; let them drink and forget their poverty and remember their misery no more." That is a proverb. I did not make that up. Some of you are grabbing your Bibles right now because you don't believe what I just read. (That's ESV by the way.) It's is in there.

So, Justin, give us some relief, my friend. You've been preaching through Proverbs; let's help the listener and the reader get some clarity on what to do with Proverbs. If you've been listening to Theocast for a while - you're enjoying the cross, legalism is bad, pietism is bad - it will seem like Proverbs is just jam-packed full of pietism. Where's the release valve and how do we turn Proverbs from being guilt-driven to actually finding joy?

Justin Perdue:

There's a lot to do just by way of setting the table, and that's what we're going to spend the next chunk of time doing, and then we'll consider the book from a higher level. Proverbs is often poorly represented. For most of us, as you've just alluded to, the book has not been something that's been very life-giving or encouraging. A lot of times, if we're honest, we don't even know what to do with it because - especially for those of us who are reformed and have maybe never heard it taught - it's sadly not preached very often for some of these reasons that we're talking about. Because people are like, "I'm not quite sure what to do with this," because there's just all of this imperative, exhortation, wisdom, and the like. And it's going to surprise none of our listeners who have been with us for a while that we want to begin talking about Proverbs by discussing some high-level theological categories.

We'll start with the redemptive-historical framework of the Bible where we understand the main point of the whole Bible: all of Scripture to be God's plan of redemption that He has accomplished through Jesus. That's really important as we come to Proverbs when we consider even the covenantal framework of the Bible. In the beginning of the Scripture in the early chapters of Genesis, we see that God made a covenant with our first parents, Adam and Eve. He told them things that they were to do and he gave them a prohibition that they were not to eat of this one particular tree and Adam and Eve, as we know in Genesis 3, broke that covenant that God had made with them; therefore, the curse and judgment came. That covenant is referred to theologically as the Covenant of Works. Had Adam kept the covenant that God made with him, he would have lived on in perpetuity and perfect relationship with God. But given that covenant was broken, not only did judgment come, but in Genesis 3:15 God made another covenant with Adam and Eve and thereby all of Adam's posterity that we call the Covenant of Grace, where He promised a Redeemer who would come. Underneath that Covenant of Grace are a number of other covenants subservient to it; this begins with the Noahic Covenant in Genesis where God promises to sustain the world, but also the covenant God made with Abraham where He promises to make out of Abraham a people, that every nation would be blessed through Abraham's promised seed, and that Abraham's people would have a land forever.

We know that those things are ultimately fulfilled through Christ and will be consummated in the new heavens and the new earth. There is also a covenant that God made with Moses in which he gave the Law, which we understand to be a reissuing of the Covenant of Works, not formally, but with respect to what God requires, it's terms, and how we are to live. And then God also made a covenant with David that one of his sons would sit forever on the throne of righteousness; it is in that particular era of the Davidic Covenant that we find Proverbs. In fact, David's son Solomon wrote the majority of the Proverbs. It's helpful for us to hold all of that in view in terms of redemptive history and where we're situated in the Bible.

Jon Moffitt:

That was a great overview. For those of you that are new to Covenant Theology, welcome to the intro. We have some renovations on our website and awesome books. Just go to our website, go to "Recommended Reading" and there are some books you can read there.

The hardest part of reading Old Testament literature, specifically something like Proverbs, is that we always read it encapsulated as if it's its own book. The Scriptures are a library and in this library that holds books happens to be Proverbs. If you were to walk into a library, you have fantasy, you have history and then you have wisdom - and so we're going to grab wisdom. But that's not how it was written. It wasn't written disconnected from the story of redemption that started in Genesis and is now flowing all the way through the book of Revelation.

So when you think of Proverbs, you have to look at it in its historical setting, which is taking place during the time of David underneath the Davidic Covenant. If you don't understand the Davidic Covenant, this is vitally important: there's a promise given to David that one of his sons is going to sit on the throne and perfectly obey the Law. And when he obeys the Law perfectly, he will earn the eternal kingdom. He will earn the right passage to God's kingdom forever. So Solomon is born, and then Solomon thinks this is him so he builds the temple. Of course, God clarifies again, "No, you don't understand. It's definitely not you. Look at your life." He needs perfection. He needs absolute perfection. And so from that moment on, you hear the stories of this king who lived right in the eyes of God but was imperfect. This King was horrible. It was up and down and up and down. And this is why we're waiting for the coming King when you finally get to Matthew, right? You're waiting for the coming King. And what does Jesus do as the King, the Messiah, the King of the Jews? He perfectly obeys the Law and therefore earns rite of passage into the eternal kingdom for all of the people of God - not just the Jews.

Justin Perdue:

The greater David who is to come, the Davidic King, the Messiah would fulfill the Law for his people's sake. It's the very clear witness of Scripture that his obedience within be representative for and be counted to all of his subjects. And he, through his righteousness and obedience, would bring his people into the kingdom of God forever. So it's important that when we go to Proverbs, we keep all of that in view because the Mosaic Law is still a thing, right? And so we're under the Law and the people are looking for the Messiah, the Christ who is to come, who would fulfill the Law and sit on the throne forever. So you cannot read Proverbs divorced from those redemptive-historical realities or you will go all kinds of astray.

Jon Moffitt:

At this point in history, you have the promise given to Adam and Eve. The Law we know already exists because it's the first five books of the Old Testament. David would have known of the Law; he even says, "I love Thy Law," in his Psalms. The Abrahamic covenant consists inside that Law; it's in Genesis. So they understand that from Abraham there is to come a seed; it even says through Judah, there is to come a King, and from that King, all the nations will be blessed. And so they understand these promises because they lived under the Law. The Law was read to them as a people. It was a part of their culture as the Jewish nation. So the Messiah is not foreign to them. So when you read Proverbs, you're not reading it disconnected from the history, from the Law, and especially from the promises of the Messiah. Because Jesus actually comes and every command that you see, every wisdom literature that's written in there - Jesus is the final fulfillment of that.

Justin Perdue:

We don't need to bury the lead, right? As I'm preaching through Proverbs 1-9, I am very clear, redundantly so, that Jesus is wisdom personified. He is wisdom fulfilled. He is wisdom consummated, wisdom provided. Whenever we see all of those things described in Proverbs, we should be seeing Christ in those regards. But then inevitably, we're dealing with another thing that we talk about a lot at Theocast, which is the Law-gospel distinction because the book of Proverbs is full of imperatives. Just like the Law goes where Solomon will write to his proverbial son and say, "Son, keep my commandments and you will live."

And we look at that and we say, "Oh my goodness, this sounds just like Moses when Moses says to do these things and you will live by them." There are a lot of that in Proverbs where we have to parse Law and gospel to help people realize that the uses of the Law are in full effect.

As we come to Proverbs and look at these imperatives, some of it is wisdom (as you and I were talking about before we even came on). Then there are promises attached to some of the commands. When we see that, we should think first use of the Law where we're told do these things and we'll live; we assess ourselves in light of that: we have not done what we're commanded to do and we look to Christ who has done it for us. The second use of the Law is to restrain our corruption, right? So when Solomon will write to his proverbial son he says, "Do these things, son, and your life will go well."

Jon Moffitt:

Or do not walk in the streets where you're going to be tempted at night.

Justin Perdue:

Correct. Don't hang out with people who plan and do wickedness all the time. It'll wreck your life. The adulterous, right? "Do not go there, son, because it will absolutely destroy your life." And so that's the second use of the Law which is the restraint of our corruption because we see that there are promises associated with doing good, and there are punishments and suffering associated with doing evil. It curbs our corruption. In the third use of the Law in Christ Jesus, we see a guide for our living - but it's Christ who has done it. We're safe, we're good with God, we've been reconciled to Him, and now we can consider these things in thinking about how we love God and also how we love our neighbor. There is nothing in Proverbs that is not vertically oriented in terms of love to God or horizontally oriented in terms of love to neighbor. Proverbs is packed full of stuff that makes you useful to your neighbor. You will be a better neighbor if you think in these ways and apply some of these things. But they're not to be just internalized and turned into this hyper introspective thing that we often do, thinking that if we just take these things to heart, our lives are just going to have this nice clean upward trajectory all the time. That's not the promise of Proverbs at all.

Jon Moffitt:

You dropped some massive categories in here. I want to unfold them a little bit just for the listener that might be new. If you are new to Reformed theology and to Theocast, and you hear Law-gospel distinction, you are probably saying, "I think I know what that means, but I'm not sure." It's imperative for you to properly understand scripture; it's critical to understand that there are ways in which the Bible presents itself. So a law is God's commandment for you to obey, and then if you do that, you are then accepted in His eyes. And if you do it perfectly, you're accepted in His eyes and considered righteous and shall live. Do this and live right. As an example, the 10 Commandments states, "do or do not do" - and the obvious of those is you're acceptable in the eyes of God. The gospel has no "do" and it has no "should" because that's not good news. So the Law is always "do" or "should do", the gospel is always "done"; receive. So the gospel is good news. Jesus has accomplished the Law. Not only has he accomplished it, but did it on your behalf - and that's what we receive. We receive as the good news, one, forgiveness of our failure of the Law, and two, we receive the righteousness of Christ. That's the gospel. So when we say a Law-gospel distinction, when you read Proverbs, you have to have that in your mind.

Because what we will do is we think, "If I do this, God will accept me." That's actually Law, right? You have to be careful there; you cannot turn that into the gospel. Also, the three uses of the Law which we have, we have brothers who would say they don't agree with us, specifically like our Lutheran brothers, which I love, and even some of our reformed brothers that would say we don't believe in the three uses of the Law. And I would say they do - they just don't verbalize it that way. Because if you practice church discipline, you believe in the third use of the Law.

Justin Perdue:

I know for a lot of our people, Jon, they've never heard of the three uses of the Law as they come to CBC. They're learning this for the first time. In preaching a sermon recently, they're hearing this language of the three uses of the Law - first, second, and third use of the Law - and they go, "I've never heard that before, brother. Where is this coming from?" To try to help people, comfort them, and ease their minds a little bit, I said, "We could talk about the history of it and all the rest some of their points in time. But just think about how you live with your brothers and sisters in the church. And how you talk all the time. The three uses of the Law are clearly in use and in view for you." For example, when you're dealing with a brother and sister in the church who is in sin, and you say to them, "Look to Jesus. He is your righteousness." What is that? That's the first use of the Law. Yes, you have failed. Look to Jesus who has done everything perfectly for you. That's first use. Second use. Whenever you look at somebody and you say, "Brother, do not go there. What you're doing is dangerous. It's going to wreck your life." What is that? That is the second use of the Law. It's restraining human corruption. And the third use: whenever you look at one another and you, in Christ Jesus, plead with one another, pray together that God would give you grace, that you might live unto Him, that God would keep you from sin, that we would conform our lives even to what God says is good and bad, we're acknowledging the third use of the Law as the guide for our living. Whether we want to acknowledge these categories formally or not, we all talk this way, think this way, plead this way, pray this way in the church. And so all we're trying to do is put handles on that for people. This is not new to us. This is very old.

Jon Moffitt:

As we try to help point you to confessions and Reformers to help you understand that this is not even a denominational movement; these are men trying to unpack and unfold Scripture, which is our final authority. It's just helpful to use. For instance, we use things the word "Trinity" to help explain very complicated concepts. I have to say one word and you immediately understand what I'm saying. So when we say Law-gospel, it's just another way of saying a word like "Trinity". It helps clarify categories for us right away.

I want to go back to what a comment you had made. If we can keep the three uses of the Law and Law-gospel distinction, and more importantly a redemptive-historical understanding (meaning that the Bible is about redemption and it unfolds through history), when we look at Proverbs and Ecclesiastes, there is wisdom in there that is not attached to promises that we can hang our hat on. For instance, out of reading Proverbs 31:6-7 where he gives an exact command, he's saying, "Go do this." If I don't obey that imperative, am I in sin if I don't get give strong drink to those who are perishing? Because you and I have experienced congregants who are perishing; am I in disobedience because I didn't take a bottle of wine or bourbon into the hospital and give it to the person? Do you see what I'm saying? When you get so hyperactive about obeying Scripture, yet we actually don't think about what we're doing. You would say, "Well, Jon, no." But then you'll go to another proverb and say, "If you don't do this, you're in sin." Let's understand the context here. Israel, unfortunately, had a horrible history of falling in pact with paganism. Over and over again, they would go into captivity, they would worship false idols, they would get into all kinds of sexual and cultural sins that were just debauchery. You've got a wise man who was blessed by God with wisdom saying, "Son, the world's pretty messed up. I need to give you some wisdom here. Some common sense for the day."

Justin Perdue:

Common sense for the day in light of God's truth. I want to make this comment now before we move forward. We've already referenced Ecclesiastes a few times. Ecclesiastes was written by the same man who wrote the majority of Proverbs and it's critical that we hold those two books in tension. Ecclesiastes is a very honest treatment about life under the sun in a fallen world, and the futility and the toil that we often encounter in our day-to-day lives. The fact that death is real, and the fact that death tramples on every good thing that we have, that every good thing we have in life at some point will be a memory; it will just be gone. It's important for us to hold Proverbs and Ecclesiastes in inappropriate tension and not cancel the one with the other. In thinking about that, it's important to remember some of the things that Proverbs will not do for you. If you read the Proverbs and take them to heart and apply them appropriately and all the rest, it will not do the following: Proverbs will not deliver you from the fallenness of the world, it will not guarantee you good circumstances, it will not deliver you from all suffering, it will not keep you from the toil that characterizes life under the sun, it will not keep you from ever knowing heartbreak, it will not deliver you from pain and sorrow altogether and will not keep you from groaning (I think about Romans 8: you will groan the entirety of your days on earth as you await the redemption of your body). Also, Proverbs will not deliver us from the struggle against sin. We will still fight our corruption and we will not be delivered by Proverbs from weakness. It's really important that we realize these things and that we are not guaranteed, in abiding by proverbial wisdom, that things will never fall apart in our lives.

Not trying to be like a broker for Satan's doubt here at all, but it's important that we hold scripture together and not be irresponsible in the way that we approach Proverbs. We uphold it for what it is: it's wisdom in light of redemptive history. There are promises that are made in it that are ultimately fulfilled in Christ in our place. There is guidance for our living and all that, that's certainly true, and we're taught the difference between wisdom and folly, the difference between righteousness and evil. And we're taught how to be all kinds of good for our neighbor. In looking at Proverbs, we can learn much from it but we ought not turn it into something that it was never intended to be.

Jon Moffitt:

Understanding the difference between wisdom and promise, there are things in here that are helpful: "Trust in the Lord with all thine heart; and lean not unto thine own understanding. In all thy ways acknowledge him, and he shall direct thy paths." That's a great promise.

Justin Perdue:

Trust in the Lord and not yourself is good counsel.

Jon Moffitt:

That's wonderful. But there are other sections of Scripture where you need to understand the context and what I call general wisdom. If you have children, you do this with your children. If you have employees, you do this with your employees. You give them some general counsel of saying the general rule of thumb is this is not helpful, this is not wise.

I'm teaching my son how to hunt. I got him a shotgun and I'm giving him some rules that in general, if he applies those rules, he'll be safe. But it's not a guarantee that he's never going to get hurt. And those are the things that you have to be careful with. When it comes to the gospel, there's nothing that separates you from that promise; that's a guaranteed promise. Understanding that Jesus is the final fulfillment of all wisdom and promise, that everything that you have ever been commanded to do, including what's in the Proverbs, is fulfilled by the ultimate, which is Christ. So understanding where the context is - if you read that, it releases the pressure of everything that's in Proverbs thinking, "Unless I do this, I'm going to be an unwise, foolish person that God's never going to bless." Wrong. You have all blessings in Christ Jesus. The final promise and fulfillment is here. When you read Proverbs now you read it in light of what Christ has done for you. The promise is kept by God. Then understand that a lot of these instructions are helpful for me to be a better neighbor to my wife or my children to the congregants. A lot of what is said in Proverbs is reiterated by Paul in Ephesians and Galatians: because it's about temperament and patience and graciousness.

Justin Perdue:

Romans 12 and following are another section. It's very proverbial. I might look at a few verses in sections of Proverbs really quick and just make some comments that might be helpful to the listener. I want to begin with Proverbs 1:7, which is a very famous verse for good reason, that reads this way in the ESV: "The fear of the Lord is the beginning of knowledge; fools despise wisdom and instruction." The first comment on the latter piece is it is important for us to know that that in our natural state, born into a state of sin, we do not like instruction and wisdom; we are opposed to it. We need to start there and that's important. But that first piece, "The fear of the Lord is the beginning of knowledge," let's ask ourselves what that might mean. The fear of the Lord, the reverence of the Lord, would entail what? First of all, it would entail knowing who the Lord is. We know something of His character and His nature and His holiness. Then in knowing and fearing the Lord, we would know and understand what He requires, which we've already discussed. It's laid out for us perfectly in His Law that He requires perfect fulfillment in obedience to that Law. And so in knowing who God is and knowing what He requires, I then assess myself and I am undone - I'm ruined before him and I am immediately driven outside of myself to Christ who has met God's standard and fulfilled God's Law perfectly for me so that I might dwell with this Holy God forever in perfect relationship with Him. So right out of the gate in Proverbs, we get this very redemptive-historical, the first use of the Law thing going on.

As we make our way over into chapter 3, I just want to briefly touch on what you referenced, Jon. Proverbs 4:5-6: "Trust in the Lord with all your heart, and do not lean on your own understanding. In all your ways acknowledge him, and he will make straight your paths." Trust in the Lord and not in yourself. That's a wonderful exhortation because first of all, trust Christ in the gospel and not your own righteousness. When the Proverbs uses the language of straight paths, there's often the juxtaposition of the path of the wicked and the path of the righteous. The path of the wicked are those who are going to be removed from the land and cut off - that's what Solomon even says. The path of the righteous are those who will inherit the land. How should we understand that? Again, we're talking about the righteousness of God counted to sinners by faith in the Messiah. We cannot escape any of those things. Even chapter 16:6 where we read, "By steadfast love and faithfulness iniquity is atoned for." Whose steadfast love is that and whose faithfulness by which iniquity is atoned for is that?

I just want to be very clear here: people are asking, "Is Jesus in the proverb?" You better believe he is. He's all over the place as our righteousness and atonement, and as the fulfillment of everything described by way of wisdom for God's people. And I would argue that if the beginning of knowledge is the fear of the Lord, you could put right beside that the beginning of wisdom is trusting Christ. At the bottom of wisdom is trusting Jesus to do for you what you could never do for yourself; relying upon him alone for your standing before God.

Jon Moffitt:

I want to bring a couple of famous Proverbs that are used ones used by parenting classes or parenting books. Proverbs 22:6, "Train up a child in the way he should go; even when he is old he will not depart from it." It seems like people have tried that Proverbs and it doesn't seem to work so either they didn't train up their child right or the proverb is wrong, or maybe we're not understanding the proverb. But Proverbs 22 is chock full of all kinds of interesting instructions. Let's keep reading it. Verse 12, "The eyes of the Lord keep watch over knowledge, but he overthrows the words of the traitor." "He who loves purity of heart, and whose speech is gracious," and this is a fun one, "will have the king as his friend." These general rules of thumb - what is the meaning? You have to understand that these are what we call general principles of wisdom. For instance, I tell my child, "if you don't speed, you'll be safe." That is if the people around him do not speed, are not drunk and they don't hit him.

Justin Perdue:

That's exactly the Ecclesiastes piece that we've been bringing up over and over again. Take Proverbs 22:6, it says, "Train up a child in the way he should go; even when he is old he will not depart from it." And then this same Solomon is going to come in Ecclesiastes and say, "In a Genesis 3 world, things fall apart and go badly." Or, like you just said, if you drive by the speed limit and be an attentive driver, you will be safer. True. But then in Solomon, in Ecclesiastes, he is going to say, "But there are a lot of really bad drivers out there on the road and you could do everything right and still be in a car wreck."

That's not to say that like the wisdom in Proverbs are not right and good and true - they are. But then Solomon again is going to come, put his arm around our shoulder and say, "But it's not always going to be clean and it's not always going to go this way." There will be things that fall apart because life under the sun is full of toil, futility, and vanity because of the curse. I jumped on a joke about Ecclesiastes and Solomon there is talking in a way that we are very uncomfortable within the church. We read Ecclesiastes and we're like, "You shouldn't talk like that." He says, "I'm just describing things the way they are." "Well, you shouldn't say that." "Okay, maybe not, but this is how things really happen. I'm just calling it like it is." "It shouldn't be that way." And then Solomon's like, "I agree with you, but it is this way. So now, what are we going to do?" And I think it's important that we hold these things in tension to where we apply Proverbs in an appropriate way. Like you had been wonderfully describing, Jon, it's general wisdom to be applied and realize, like that verse about raising your kids, you could do everything right and things could still go poorly in your child's life. And it's not that you have been unwise. It's just that so much depends on grace, the fallenness of the world is real, the power of sin and corruption is real, and therefore we're constantly looking outside of ourselves to trust the Lord. Even in our best efforts to apply wisdom, it's not infallible.

Jon Moffitt:

Even at the end of Ecclesiastes, you scream, "Where's the Messiah?" When you finish reading Ecclesiastes, he says this is the end of the matter: Fear God and keep His commandments for this is the whole duty of man for God will bring every deed into judgment with every secret thing, whether good or evil. That's how he ends. And you're going, "Where's the hope, Solomon?" He's like, "It's called the Covenant of Grace. It's called the promise of the Messiah."

Justin Perdue:

It's called Christ is coming.

Jon Moffitt:

We need to move into the members podcast. I think we can speak a little bit more about Ecclesiastics and then maybe even throw in songs of Solomon. We’ll see how that all comes in, just one book after the other. But it's been a wonderful conversation. If you want to participate with us as we continue with this conversation, they go from anywhere from 20 to 40 minutes depending on what the topic is. That's our membership podcast. It's just a simple way for us to continue the conversation and that's where we relax a little bit more. It's not as prim and proper. It's for those who want to jump around the table and enjoy. Often we will answer questions that we get from our listeners. You can join that by going to Theocast.org and look for our total access membership - there is a 14-day free trial. Most importantly, what that membership does is it actually supports us so that we can get this message out to more people around the world through the podcast, articles, and books. We have more books coming out as well as our transcripts. So you can go and read those as well.

Thank you for listening. We'll be speaking to you next week.