CRITICAL NOTES.—
Proverbs 13:6. Sinner, literally “sin,” hence Miller reads “wickedness subverts the sin-offering,” and Zöckler “wickedness plungeth into sin.”
MAIN HOMILETICS OF Proverbs 13:6
OVERTHROW BY SIN
For Homiletics on the first clause of this verse see on chap. Proverbs 11:3; Proverbs 11:5-6.
I. The person overthrown—the sinner.
1. To be a sinner implies the existence of a law. Where there is no law there is no transgression. The sinner here spoken of is a transgressor against moral, Divine law.
2. There may be sin against a law which is in existence but which is not known. A man may not know of the existence of a law, and thus may sin ignorantly.
3. But the sinner of the Bible is one who, if he does not possess a written revelation, does possess a “law written in his heart”—his conscience. (See Romans 2:14-15.) Though the guilt is incomparably greater when a man sins against both conscience and revelation, yet he who transgresses the law of the first only is a sinner, and there must be overthrow in both cases, because moral transgression contains within itself the elements of destruction.
II. His overthrow.
1. For a man to be overthrown by breaking a law, that law must be good. There have been laws that common integrity has compelled men to transgress, and men have been rewarded by the Great Lawgiver for the transgression. There are still laws in force in the world, the violation of which is a proof of moral courage. But the sinner here doomed to overthrow is a sinner against a law to which his own conscience bears witness that it is holy and just, and good (Romans 7:12).
2. The breaking of this law must overthrow a man, even if no power were ever put forth against him. Sin debases a man by the law of cause and effect. Nothing can prevent a man who throws himself over a precipice from finding the bottom of the chasm—nothing can keep a sinner from sinking lower and lower in the moral scale. The first man finds a bottom—comes to the end of his fall—he who sins keeps sinking lower and lower while he continues in sin.
3. The law against which the sinner transgresses is backed by the highest authority, and by the greatest power of the universe. It represents the greatest Being. Sin is not directed against an abstraction, but against a person. He who has promulgated it is a living personality, and has all power to enforce its penalties. The Almighty God is against the sinner. Must he not then be overthrown?
4. The sinner can be placed in such a position as will justify him from the guilt of his past transgressions, and will enable him to keep the law in the future. The Lawgiver has Himself provided this way of escape. He Himself gives the power to obey. Hence he who sins against this law sins against mercy too, and doubles his condemnation, “is overthrown,” not by God’s law, but by his rejection of God’s method of deliverance from the guilt and power of sin.
OUTLINES AND SUGGESTIVE COMMENTS
Wickedness is ruin.
1. It exhausts a man’s property, whether much or little. Sin is a very expensive thing; a person cannot commit it to any extent, but at a considerable loss, not of time only, but of substance. The passions are clamorous, exorbitant, and restless, till gratified, and this must be repeated. The case of the prodigal is in point, he wasted all his patrimony in riotous living.
2. It blasts his reputation. Sin can never be deemed honourable on correct principles; yet while sinners possess means of supporting themselves in their vices, they still keep up their name and rank in the world; not in the Church of God, or in the estimation of heaven. But when the means of supplying fuel to feed the fires of foul desire and towering ambition fail, then their outward splendours go out into darkness. (See Proverbs 10:7; Proverbs 24:30).
3. It destroys health. Intemperance undermines the best constitution; it is a violence done to the physical order of things; it renders a man old in constitution, while he is young in years.
4. It hastens the approach of death. Wicked men frequently do “not live out half their days” (Psalms 55:23), “for when they shall say, Peace and safety, then sudden destruction cometh as a thief in the night” (1 Thessalonians 5:3). Sometimes their passions hurry them forward to the commission of crimes which terminate in the most disgraceful exit.
5. It effects the damnation of the soul. A sinner “wrongeth his own soul” (Proverbs 8:36). He quenches the Spirit of grace, neglects the salvation of the gospel, till he goes to his own place. “The wicked shall be turned into hell” (Psalms 9:17).—Theta, from Sketches of Sermons.
Righteousness keepeth the upright, so that, though belied or abused, he will not let go his integrity (Job 27:5). David’s “feet stood in an even place” (Psalms 26:12). The spouse, though despoiled of her veil and wounded by the watch, yet keeps close to Christ (Song of Song of Solomon 5). Not but that the best are sometimes disquieted in such cases; for not the evenest weights, but at their first putting into the balance, somewhat sway both parts thereof, not without some show of inequality, which yet, after some little motion, settle themselves in a meet poise and posture.—Trapp.
As he walketh safely in the way who hath a faithful convoy with him, so he is most sure of a faithful convoy who is a strong convoy unto himself. Righteousness alone is a puissant army, and he cannot perish whom righteousness preserveth. But how can he escape who is beset in the way by his own villany. The Hebrew is, that wickedness overthroweth sin. When a sinner is grown settled in sinning, he justly getteth the name of sin, and such an one it is that it is here spoken of.—Jermin.
“Righteousness,” that good claim in law which merit gives some of the creatures. Our righteousness comes to us as the merit of Christ. The condition of our being held righteous is faith and new obedience. Therefore, if one is obedient, or, as this verse expresses it, “is upright” or “of integrity in the way,” “righteousness keeps guard over him.” Once righteous, always righteous. Having the proof of our righteousness now, that righteousness, or good standing in the law, shall guard us for ever; while sin, becoming equally perpetual, does not only not guard us, but (another intensive second clause) rejects what guard we have; that is, as it is most evangelically expressed, “subverts” or “overturns” the sin-offering. This word, sin-offering, instead of allowing such an interpretation (see Critical Notes) has it in all preceding books. “Sin” is the rare rendering. Some of the most beautiful Scriptures, that are Messianic in their cast (Genesis 4:7), are ruined by the translation “sin.” Leviticus never has the translation “sin” even in the English version.—Miller.
There is more bitterness following upon sin’s ending than ever there was sweetness flowing from sin’s acting. You that see nothing but well in its commission will suffer nothing but woe in its conclusion. You that sin for your profits will never profit by your sins.—Dyer.