CRITICAL NOTES.—
Proverbs 12:28. No death, literally “no-death,” i.e., “immortality.”
MAIN HOMILETICS OF Proverbs 12:28
I. There is a way of righteousness in the world.
1. This fact is universally recognised. Men regard each other as moral and responsible beings. The doctrine of necessity will not do for every-day life. In all positions and conditions, man is met with the assumption that there is a “way of righteousness,” and his fellow-men deal with him accordingly. Man could not be held accountable for his actions if a right way of life did not exist, in which it was possible for him to walk.
2. This fact is confirmed by conscience. Bad actions are followed by remorse, and good deeds bring gladness to the soul. If there were no way of righteousness, how could this be the case?
3. It is revealed to us by God. The Bible sets forth two paths, in one of which man must walk, it foretells a day in which God will judge men, and will hold them guilty who have refused to walk in the way of righteousness after it has been made known to them. Where there is no way of righteousness there can be no transgression, and, consequently, no penalty.
II. The way of life implies—
1. A beginning. All ways or paths have a starting-point, all methods or plans of life date from some point of time.
2. An object in view. If men walk in a certain road it is presumed that they have some purpose in view.
3. An end or goal. So the way of righteousness. Its beginning is “repentance towards God and faith in our Lord Jesus Christ;” the object at which it aims by “patient continuance in well-doing” is “glory, and honour, and immortality;” its end is “eternal life” (Acts 20:21; Romans 2:7), for “in the pathway thereof is no death, or immortality” (On this subject see also homiletics on chap. Proverbs 4:18).
OUTLINES AND SUGGESTIVE COMMENTS
From life being said to be in the way of righteousness, I should urge the lesson that the deeds of the hand have a reflex influence upon the state of the heart. There is life in spiritual-mindedness, and it serves to aliment this life to walk in the way of obedience.—Chalmers.
And life, in any sense, is a sweet mercy, a precious indulgence. Life natural is but a little spot of time between the two eternities, before and after, but it is of great consequence, and given us for this purpose, that glory may be begun in grace, and we have a further and further entrance into the kingdom of heaven here, as Peter saith (2 Peter 1:2). Christ hath unstinged the first death, and made of a postern to let out eternal life, a street-door to let in eternal life. Surely the bitterness of this death is past to the righteous; there is no gall in it; nay, there is honey in it, as once there was in the corpse of Samson’s dead lion. And for the second death there is no danger, for they shall pass from the jaws of death to the joys of heaven. Yea, though hell had closed her mouth upon a child of God, it would as little hold him as the whale could Jonah; it must, perforce, regurgitate such a morsel.—Trapp.
“Righteousness” which is the very path of the righteous man, is itself eternal life. All men have a “way,” and this implies that all men have an “end.” The Psalmist had before announced (Psalms 1:6) that “the way of the ungodly shall perish;” that is, not only shall they not reach their end, but their very way shall die down and perish. They shall cease to take an interest in it. But this passage goes deeper. It says the path of righteousness is life itself, and then, contrasting them with the wicked, it says, “their way is a path,” i.e., it leads somewhere; and then implies that all other ways are “a death!” These are striking truths. Immortality is a path. It travels the ages. It begins among believers. It is itself its destiny. Impenitence is “a death.” It travels nowhere. The very mind of the impenitent can announce no terminus for his way-worn tread.—Miller.
NOTE.—It will be seen from the foregoing remarks that Miller translates the latter clause of this verse, “The way is a path, not a death.”
HOMILY ON THE ENTIRE CHAPTER
On the true wisdom of the children of God as it ought to appear
(1) In the home, under the forms of good discipline, diligence, and contentment;
(2) In the State, or in the intercourse of citizens, under the forms of truthfulness, justice, and unfeigned benevolence (Proverbs 12:12-22); in the Church, or in the religious life, as a progressive knowledge of God, a diligent devotion to prayer, and striving after eternal life (Proverbs 12:23-28).—Lange’s Commentary.