The Aroma of Life and the Stench of Death Text: Proverbs 10:7
Introduction: The War Over Monuments
We live in a generation that is obsessed with the past, but only so that it can control the future. Our cultural vandals are busy tearing down statues, renaming buildings, and rewriting history books. They are engaged in a great project of memory-holing, of trying to make the names of certain men rot. At the same time, they are erecting new monuments, not of bronze or stone, but of media adulation and political canonization, trying to make the remembrance of their chosen saints a blessing. They are, whether they know it or not, operating on a biblical principle, but with a completely inverted set of values. They are trying to bless what God has cursed and curse what God has blessed.
The world understands, in a dim and distorted way, that reputation matters. It understands that legacy is a battleground. What it does not understand is that the final verdict on any man's name is not rendered by a committee of historians at Yale, or by a mob with a rope, or by a vote in the Senate. The ultimate arbiter of a man's legacy is the God who made him. And His judgment is not based on shifting cultural mores, but on the unchanging standard of His own righteous character.
Proverbs is a book of applied righteousness. It is intensely practical, dealing with the nitty-gritty of life in God's world. And this verse, Proverbs 10:7, gives us a fundamental law of spiritual reality, a law as fixed as gravity. It is the law of the legacy. It tells us that there are only two kinds of people, and therefore only two kinds of legacies. There is the righteous man, whose memory becomes a source of ongoing life and blessing. And there is the wicked man, whose name, however celebrated it might be for a season, is destined for the compost heap of history. This is not a pious wish; it is a divine promise. It is a description of how the world, under God's governance, actually works.
So we must ask ourselves, what are we building? What scent will our lives leave behind when we are gone? Will it be the sweet aroma of a life lived in faith, or the putrid stench of rebellion? This proverb forces us to confront the end of our story from the beginning.
The Text
The remembrance of the righteous is blessed, But the name of the wicked will rot.
(Proverbs 10:7 LSB)
A Fragrant Memory (v. 7a)
The first half of the proverb sets before us the destiny of the righteous man.
"The remembrance of the righteous is blessed..." (Proverbs 10:7a)
First, who are the righteous? In the biblical dictionary, the righteous man is not a sinlessly perfect man. Righteousness is a relational term. A man is righteous when he is rightly related to God through faith. In the Old Testament, this meant trusting in the promises of God, which all pointed forward to the Messiah. In our day, it means being clothed in the imputed righteousness of Jesus Christ, received by faith alone. This is the root. The fruit is a life that increasingly conforms to God's law out of gratitude. A righteous man is one who has been declared righteous by God and who therefore walks in righteousness.
The proverb says the "remembrance" or "memory" of such a person is blessed. The Hebrew word for blessed, berakah, is rich. It means more than just "fondly remembered." It means their memory is a source of active good. It is a benediction. When people think of this person after they are gone, it is like a fresh breeze. Their example encourages the fainthearted. Their wisdom continues to instruct the living. Their faithfulness inspires future generations to take up the same cause. Think of the memory of the martyrs, or of the Reformers, or of a godly grandmother. Their lives are a perpetual sermon. Their legacy is a well from which others continue to draw living water.
This blessing is not automatic, and it is not primarily about worldly fame. Many of the most righteous saints are unknown to the world. But they are remembered by God, by the church, and by their children. Their name becomes a household word for faithfulness. When a father tells his son, "Be a man like your great-grandfather," the memory of the righteous is being a blessing. This is the spiritual inheritance that is of far greater value than any amount of money. A good name, one that is remembered for its integrity and faith, is a multi-generational blessing. It is part of the covenant promise that God will show love to a thousand generations of those who love Him and keep His commandments (Exodus 20:6).
A Putrefying Name (v. 7b)
The second half of the verse presents the stark, and frankly, disgusting, alternative.
"...But the name of the wicked will rot." (Proverbs 10:7b LSB)
The contrast is absolute. The wicked are those who are not rightly related to God. They are in rebellion, living for themselves, suppressing the truth in unrighteousness. They may be overtly monstrous, like a Nero or a Stalin, or they may be respectably wicked, like a godless CEO or a progressive politician who labors to dismantle God's created order. Their defining characteristic is that they have set themselves against God and His Christ.
The proverb says their "name" will rot. The name here represents their entire reputation, their public identity, their legacy. And the verb is vivid. It will rot. It will putrefy. It will decompose like a dead body left in the sun. It will become foul, a source of corruption and disgust. This is a process. For a time, the wicked may flourish. They may be celebrated, lauded, and have stadiums named after them. Their books may top the bestseller lists. But God is never mocked. The decomposition has already begun, even if the world is spraying air freshener all around it.
History is the story of God patiently taking out the trash. The names of tyrants become curse words. The ideologies of rebels become cautionary tales. The monuments to their pride are eventually toppled, not necessarily by mobs, but by the steady march of God's providence. Even when the world tries to preserve the name of the wicked, it cannot escape the stench. No one names their child Jezebel or Judas. Why? Because their names have rotted. The memory of their lives brings a curse, not a blessing. It serves as a warning, not an inspiration.
This rotting is a divine judgment. Psalm 9:5 says of God, "You have rebuked the nations, You have made the wicked perish; You have blotted out their name forever and ever." God is in the business of historical sanitation. He ensures that, in the long run, evil does not have the last word. The arc of history is long, but it bends toward the compost pile for the ungodly.
The Ultimate Legacy
This proverb is not simply a moralistic observation about being a good person so people will say nice things at your funeral. It is a deep theological truth rooted in the gospel. It forces us to look beyond the immediate and consider the eternal.
There is only one name, one remembrance, that is an ultimate and eternal blessing. That is the name of the Lord Jesus Christ. He is the truly Righteous One. He lived the only life that was a pure, unadulterated blessing. And yet, the wicked tried to make His name rot. They crucified Him, buried Him in a tomb, and posted a guard. They tried to make His legacy one of shame, failure, and death. They wanted His name to be a historical footnote about a failed Galilean revolutionary.
But God overturned their verdict. On the third day, God raised Him from the dead, and in so doing, declared that the memory of this Righteous One would be an eternal blessing. God has highly exalted Him and given Him the name that is above every name (Philippians 2:9). His name is the source of all blessing, all salvation, all hope.
Our choice, then, is this: will we be united to Him by faith, or will we remain in our wickedness? If we are in Christ, our names are written in the Lamb's Book of Life. Our legacy, however small or unsung in this world, is eternally secure in His. Our remembrance will be a blessing because we are associated with the Blessed One. Even our sins, which deserve to rot, are buried in the depths of the sea, and we are remembered by God for Christ's righteousness alone.
But if we reject Him, we are choosing the path of putrefaction. To stand apart from Christ is to be wicked in the biblical sense. And no matter how successful, or powerful, or acclaimed you are in this life, your name is destined to rot. You can build the tallest tower, put your name on it in giant gold letters, and endow a thousand foundations, but it is all just perfume on a corpse. The rot is inevitable.
Therefore, the application is simple and direct. First, repent of your wickedness and trust in the Lord Jesus Christ, so that your name might be bound up with His. Second, having been made righteous in Him, live righteously. Build a legacy of faithfulness. Invest in the things that will be a blessing to your children and your children's children: faith, integrity, love for the truth, hard work, and cheerful hospitality. Live in such a way that when you are gone, your memory will be a sweet aroma, a testimony to the grace of the God who saved you and whose name is an everlasting blessing.