Christian Philosophy: How Christ Fulfills Proverbs 10:16

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Today, as we resume our tour through the art museum that is the Book of Proverbs, we come across yet another picture of the Lord Jesus Christ, the Wisdom of God (1 Corinthians 1:24), wisdom being the subject the Holy Spirit educates Christians in in this book (Proverbs 1:1-2; 2 Timothy 3:15-17; 2 Peter 1:16-21). That portrait which God paints for us is Proverbs 10:16, which reads: “The labour of the righteous tendeth to life: the fruit of the wicked to sin” (KJV).

The proverb’s first clause says that the righteous’s labor tends to life. Jesus Christ is the Righteous (1 John 2:1). So, we know that this proverb is talking about the labor, or work, of Christ. And this work tends to life. As the quotation shows, the word “tendeth” is italicized, and therefore not in the original Hebrew but added by the translators to make it sound clearer. Still, the fact that the translators thought adding “tendeth” clarified what’s being said here, we will go with it. What comes to mind is the Lord Jesus Christ’s life-giving labor, the life He gave being eternal life. Christ’s work of salvation (we may call it His salvific labor) brought about life for all those given to Him by the Father, for all those whom the Father granted faith in His Son (John 6:37-40). So, to sum up our Christ-centered take on the first clause of this proverb: Jesus Christ, the Righteous’s, labor tends to life in that His saving work brought eternal life to all whom the Father would give to Him by creating faith in all those people.

The proverb’s second clause says that the fruit of the wicked tends to sin. In other words, what the wicked produce results in sin, or violation of God’s Law (1 John 3:4). And the wicked are those who live contrary to God’s Law, [1] the perfect personal embodiment of which is the Lord Jesus Christ, for He perfectly fulfilled God’s Law as a Man.

And what about you, reader? Which one of these two pictures most accurately describes you?

[1] See Psalm 1, and the exegesis of that psalm in this sermon: https://illbehonest.com/truly-psalm-1-man