CRITICAL NOTES.—
Proverbs 15:24. The way of life is above, etc., rather “An upward path of life,” etc. Hell, Sheôl, as in Proverbs 15:11.
MAIN HOMILETICS OF Proverbs 15:24
THE UPWARD AND THE DOWNWARD PATH
I. The existence of a place of retribution stated as a fact. The word Sheol, here and elsewhere translated hell, signifies first the place of all departed spirits, whether they be saints or sinners. Those who dwell in Sheol are those who have quitted the relations and conditions of time and sense, and who dwell in a world invisible to human eye. But the connection of the word here makes it necessary to understand it as having reference to a place of retribution. That there is such a place beyond death is suggested by analogy, and affirmed by the Word of God. In every city and centre of human life we find a place of retribution inhabited by those whose characters are supposed to merit such a dwelling. All nations upon the earth find it necessary to have their prisons—to have places in which to confine those whose crimes call for their separation from their more virtuous fellow-creatures. The existence of such places is as much a fact as the existence of men upon the earth. Hence we might have inferred that there was such a place for like characters in the world which is beyond our vision, but which men, both good and bad, are continually quitting this world to inhabit. The existence of such an abode seems to be imperatively demanded, when we consider that some of the worst of the human race never find their way to a prison in this world, and it seems a merciful proceeding towards the offenders themselves that their course should be arrested in another life. The Book of God tells us that there is such a place—that the dwelling of the “devil and his angels” is the destination of those who quit this world in a state of unforsaken and unforgiven sin (Matthew 25:41).
II. There is a hell of character as well as a hell of place. That which renders a serpent an object of abhorrence is the poison in its sting. That which makes hell, either in devils or men, is enmity against God. This is the fuel that feeds the undying flame that cannot be quenched—this it is that constitutes the misery of the place of retribution. This mental hell has an existence in time as well as beyond it. Christ taught us that He considered such a disposition a mental Gehenna when He said, “Ye serpents, ye generation of vipers, how can ye escape the damnation (condemnation) of hell?” (Matthew 23:33).
III. There is the hell of confederation against God and goodness which is made up of individuals belonging both to the visible and the invisible worlds. Every kingdom has its place of central government, but its dominion may extend over many countries. The divisions made by mountains and seas do not make it any the less one kingdom. The centre of the kingdom which exists in the universe in opposition to the kingdom of God, has its seat of government in the unseen world, but it numbers among its subjects all who are at enmity with God and His children, whether in time or beyond it. Although the place of central government, “the gates of hell” (Matthew 16:18) is in Sheol, its influence is mighty upon the earth.
IV. That to escape from all these is the aim of the truly wise man. He desires to escape from retribution hereafter, and to be freed from the misery of being in opposition to God in the present life. He does this by obtaining a right relation to God and to His law. Our physical relationships have much to do with our physical well-being—to be in relation to those who are vicious or diseased is to be in a wrong relation so far as bodily health is concerned. Our social and political relations are most important to our comfort and well-being, and are more subject to our own will than are our physical relationships. We may be unwillingly related to an evil social or national law, but we may also stand in an antagonistic relation to a good law, and then the change of relationship is in our own hands. Every sinful man stands in a wrong relation to God’s holy and good law, and the aim of the wise man is to fall in with the conditions offered to him, by which he may come into right relationship to this law. These conditions are revealed to him in the Divine revelation—by accepting the atonement of Christ, he is delivered from the guilt of his transgressions and so escapes the hell of retribution; by the same act, followed by a life of communion with the ascended Saviour, he is freed from all that makes hell within him, and escapes all the snares laid by the tempter for his spiritual ruin. This relationship with Him, who is the fountain of all moral and material life, places him in a new position in the universe—lifts him from the dominion of sin, which is death, into the kingdom of holiness, which is a way of life, because it leads to and prepares for a state beyond death, which is everlasting life of body, soul, and spirit.
V. Such a change of relationship is the beginning of moral climbing. “The way of life is above,” rather, “leads upward.” The change of relationship is but the first step in a new life. The place of halting to-day becomes the place of departure on the morrow, and each day’s journey places him upon a higher level and in a purer atmosphere. The wise man’s first step is to depart from hell beneath, but his mere escape from retribution is not the whole of his aim—he is always in quest of an increase of love and joy and peace, of a deepening of all holy emotions and a strengthening of all holy habits. He “goes from strength to strength” (Psalms 84:7); his watchword is “not as though I had already attained, either were already perfect” (Philippians 3:7).
OUTLINES AND SUGGESTIVE COMMENTS
All men are travellers, either to heaven above, or hell beneath. The writers of Scripture know nothing of a middle place.… Our everlasting abode must be either in heaven or hell. Salvation from hell is the half of heaven. The threatenings of hell are a fence about the way to heaven, and whilst we are travelling in it they are of great use to make us serious and earnest in pursuing our course; for how is it possible that we can flee with too much speed from everlasting burnings, when our flight is directed, not like that of the manslayer, to a place of banishment, but to a world of happiness.—Lawson.
The way of life is above—of heavenly origin—the fruit of the eternal counsels—the display of the manifold wisdom of God. Fools rise not high enough to discern it, much less to devise and walk in it. Their highest elevation is grovelling. God does not allow them even the name of life (1 Timothy 5:6). Cleaving to the dust of earth they sink into the hell beneath. But the wise are born from above; taught from above; therefore walking above, while they are living upon earth. A soaring life indeed! The soul mounts up, looks aloft, enters into the holiest, rises above herself, and finds her resting-place in the bosom of her God. A most transcendant life! to be partaker of the Divine nature!” (2 Peter 1:4). The life of God Himself (Ephesians 4:18) in humble sublimity, ascending above things under the sun, above the sun himself.—Bridges.
Let “the words spoken in season” (see comments on Proverbs 15:23) be “Lord, I believe, help Thou mine unbelief;” and let the word be genuine, i.e., a turning from Sheol (the figure of the pit— Psalms 9:17), and the man’s joy is won. His path after that shall be upward perpetually.—Miller.
A reference to heaven as the final limit of this upward movement of the life of the righteous is so far indirectly included as the antithesis to the “upward,” the “hell beneath” (hell downwards, hell to which one tends downward), suggests a hopeless abode in the dark kingdom of the dead as the final destination of the sinner’s course of life. Therefore, we have here again the idea of future existence and retribution (comp. Proverbs 11:7; Proverbs 14:32).—Lange’s Commentary.
On the summit of one of those distant mountains—upon whose snowy tops, as they throw back the sunlight, we can look from our Eastern coast—there trickles forth a silvery spring. Near the source there is a slight obstruction in the way of the flow of the streamlet, and the waters are divided right and left. Part trickles down the mountain side towards a river, and thence are borne on to the limitless sea. Part goes the other side, and is lost, ere long, midst the thirsty sands, that are never satiated. Thus divergent are man’s two paths—the shining and the dark one; thus dissimilar their course in life—their close at death. And these two paths are the only ones leading out into eternity.… And when we seek in spiritual union and communion with our Maker the noblest exercise of the soul’s faculties and powers, and there comes to the heart peace, sure and certain, because depending upon the inviolable Word of God, and love springing from the outwellings of the Divine love, and hope reaching into the eternal world, and grasping there at blissful immortality and joy ineffable, and prepared of God—oh! then even the foregleamings of these things, reserved for us, or else already the heritage of the soul—light up a path so shining that earth’s glare and glitter fade, in comparison, wholly out of sight. For into eternity itself do these divergent paths lead. The soul, in choosing the one or the other here, is choosing for the life to come, as well as for the life that now is.—Bishop Perry.
The wise man goes a higher way than his neighbour, even in his common businesses, because they are done in faith and obedience. He hath his feet where other men’s heads are; and, like a heavenly eagle, delights himself in high-flying. Busied he may be in mean, low things, but not satisfied in them as adequate objects. A wise man may sport with children, but that is not his business. Wretched worldlings make it their work to gather wealth, as children do to tumble a snow-ball; they are scattered abroad throughout all the land—as those poor Israelites were (Exodus 5:12)—to gather stubble, not without an utter neglect of their poor souls. But what, I wonder, will these men do when death shall come with a writ of habeas corpus, and the devil with a writ of habeas animam?.… Oh, that they that have their hands elbow-deep in the earth, that are rooting and digging in it, as if they would that way dig themselves a new and nearer way to hell!—oh, that these greedy moles would be warned to flee from the wrath to come, to take heed of hell beneath, and not sell their souls to the devil for a little pelf.—Trapp.
The difference between an earthly man and a heavenly man is this—that the way of an earthly man is under his feet, and the way of a heavenly man is over his head. A fool doth not conceive what this upper way can be, but to the wise man it is the plain way of life. He knoweth that it is by the fall of man that he walketh so low, and he considereth that unless he change his way, and, though against his nature, do make his way above, by having his conversation in heaven, even while his habitation is on the earth, his sin will be sure to thrust him lower still even to the pit of death. Take heed, therefore, of the ways of the earth, they are the way to hell. From whence to keep thee, be sure to keep aloft by fixing thine heart on Christ, who is the way of life, and now is set down in the highest places.—Jermin.