Two Paychecks, Two Destinies Text: Proverbs 10:16
Introduction: The Inescapable Audit
The book of Proverbs is intensely practical. It is God's inspired manual on how to live skillfully in His world. It does not deal in abstractions, sentimentalities, or pious fluff. It deals in the hard, unyielding realities of the universe God has made. And one of the foundational realities of this world is that it runs on a fixed moral economy. There is an accounting. There is a payday. Every action, every word, every thought is an investment, and every investment yields a return. You cannot opt out of this economy any more than you can opt out of gravity.
Our secular age is dedicated to the proposition that you can. It is a grand, and ultimately suicidal, experiment in pretending that you can sow thistle seeds and reap a harvest of figs. Our culture wants to live like the wicked, breaking every one of God's created ordinances for life, family, and society, and yet still receive the paycheck of the righteous. They want the stability, prosperity, and happiness that only obedience to God can produce, all while spitting in the face of the God who gives them. They want life, but their every effort is an investment in death.
This proverb, like so many others, presents us with a sharp, binary contrast. There is no middle ground, no third way. There are two kinds of people in the world, the righteous and the wicked. They are on two different paths, they perform two different kinds of labor, and they receive two entirely different kinds of wages. This is not complicated, but it is profound. And it is a truth that we must have hammered into us, because our sinful hearts are constantly trying to negotiate a different deal with God, a deal where we can get the wages of life while doing the work of sin. But God is not mocked. The books will be balanced. The paychecks will be issued. And what this verse tells us is that your life's work is either compounding into a glorious inheritance of life, or it is accumulating a debt that will end in utter ruin.
The Text
The wages of the righteous is life,
The income of the wicked, punishment.
(Proverbs 10:16 LSB)
The Righteous Man's Reward (v. 16a)
The first clause sets before us the destiny of the righteous man.
"The wages of the righteous is life..." (Proverbs 10:16a)
The first thing we must establish is, who are the righteous? In the ultimate sense, there is none righteous, no not one (Romans 3:10). Righteousness is not a native human product. It is not something we manufacture through rigorous moral effort. The righteous man of Proverbs is the one who has been justified by faith. He is the one who fears the Lord, which is the beginning of wisdom (Proverbs 9:10). His righteousness is an alien righteousness, gifted to him through faith in the promised Messiah. So, we are not talking about a man who is sinlessly perfect, but rather a man whose life is oriented toward God, who trusts in God's provision, and who walks in God's ways by grace.
Now, what does this righteous man do? He labors. The word for "wages" here presupposes work. This is not a picture of a man sitting in a pious stupor, waiting for a heavenly handout. The righteous man is diligent. He works with his hands, he builds, he plants, he serves, he creates. And the result of all his labor, his "wages," is life. This is a comprehensive word. It certainly includes eternal life, the ultimate reward of the redeemed. But Proverbs is not an otherworldly book in a gnostic sense. This "life" is a rich, robust, flourishing existence here and now. It means health, prosperity, a good name, a stable family, joy, and peace. It is shalom. The labor of the righteous, done in faith, produces a harvest of blessing that touches every area of his existence.
This is because the righteous man is working with the grain of the universe. God has built certain cause-and-effect relationships into the very fabric of creation. Honesty tends toward prosperity. Diligence tends toward provision. Faithfulness in marriage tends toward a happy home. The righteous man, by walking in God's statutes, is simply living in accordance with the manufacturer's instructions. And when you follow the instructions, the machine works. His every act of obedience is an investment that pays dividends of life, compounding over time, for him, for his children, and for his community.
The Wicked Man's Paycheck (v. 16b)
The second clause gives us the stark and terrible contrast.
"...The income of the wicked, punishment." (Proverbs 10:16b LSB)
Just as the righteous man labors, so does the wicked man. The wicked are not idle. They are often very industrious. They scheme, they plot, they build their enterprises, they pursue their pleasures with great energy. The word "income" here suggests produce or revenue. The wicked man is also making investments and getting a return. He is building a portfolio. But what is the final return on all this godless effort? The Hebrew is literally "for sin." His income leads to sin. Other translations render it "punishment," which is the necessary end of sin. The two are inextricably linked. The wages of sin is death (Romans 6:23).
The wicked man is working against the grain of the universe. Every act of rebellion against God's law is an act of cosmic vandalism. He thinks he is getting ahead by cheating his neighbor, but he is poisoning the well of trust from which he must also drink. He thinks he is finding freedom in sexual license, but he is destroying the family, the bedrock of all social order. He thinks he is building a tower of wealth through greed and exploitation, but he is building it on a sinkhole. All his apparent profits, all his short-term gains, are simply accumulating as evidence against him. His income is not an asset; it is a liability. It is a debt that accrues interest, and the final payment is ruin.
Notice the parallelism. The righteous man's labor results in life. The wicked man's labor results in more sin, which in turn results in punishment. His very "success" becomes his condemnation. The more wealth a wicked man accumulates, the more rope he has to hang himself with. His prosperity gives him the means for greater indulgence, greater arrogance, and greater rebellion, all of which store up greater wrath for the day of judgment. His paycheck is poison. It may look like a feast, but it is a feast of death.
Conclusion: The Great Exchange
This proverb forces a choice upon us. We are all laborers. We are all earning a wage. Every day, with every decision, we are contributing to one of two outcomes: life or punishment. You cannot do the work of wickedness and expect the wages of righteousness. You cannot serve sin and expect God to pay you with life. The universe is a closed system in that respect; the moral laws are as fixed as the physical ones.
The antithesis is absolute. The righteous man's work leads to more life. The wicked man's work leads to more sin. And this is where the gospel crashes in with its glorious news. For we were all, by nature, wicked. We were all working for the paycheck of punishment. Our accounts were deep in the red. We had earned death, and we were due to be paid in full.
But on the cross, Jesus Christ performed the great exchange. He who was perfectly righteous, who had earned the infinite wages of life, took upon Himself our liability. He took the punishment that our wicked income had accrued. He was paid our wages. And in return, He offers us His righteousness. He offers to credit our bankrupt accounts with His infinite merit. "For our sake he made him to be sin who knew no sin, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God" (2 Corinthians 5:21).
When we accept this gift by faith, we are declared righteous. But it doesn't stop there. We are then empowered by His Spirit to begin to do the labor of the righteous. We begin, imperfectly but truly, to sow seeds of obedience. And God, in His grace, rewards this new labor with the wages of life, both now and in the age to come. The choice before you, then, is simple. Whose payroll are you on? What is your labor producing? Examine your paycheck. Is it life, or is it punishment?