The Great Divide: Favor and Futility Text: Proverbs 12:2
Introduction: Two Ways to Live
The book of Proverbs is not a collection of folksy platitudes for self-improvement. It is not a series of inspirational quotes for your coffee mug. It is a book of divine wisdom that cleaves reality in two. From the very beginning, the Scriptures have laid before mankind two paths, and only two. There is the way of the righteous and the way of the wicked, the way of wisdom and the way of folly, the way of life and the way of death. There is no third way, no neutral ground, no demilitarized zone. You are on one path or the other.
Our text today is a razor sharp expression of this fundamental antithesis. It draws a line in the sand with the authority of God Himself. It presents us with two kinds of men, who receive two kinds of responses from the Almighty. This is not complicated, but it is profound. Our secular, therapeutic culture despises such sharp distinctions. It wants a God who is endlessly affirming, a God who never condemns, a God who is more like a doting grandfather than a holy King. But that is not the God of the Bible. The God who reveals Himself in Scripture is a God of perfect justice and infinite love, and His love and His justice are not at odds. They meet at the cross, but they are both on full display right here, in the heart of wisdom literature.
This proverb forces us to ask a fundamental question: What does it mean to be a "good man"? Our culture defines goodness by sentiment, by niceness, by being "true to yourself." But God's definition is radically different. And secondly, what is the ultimate end of a man's life? Is it to find favor with his peers, to build a name for himself, to achieve his personal goals? Or is it to obtain favor from Yahweh? And what about the alternative? What is the destiny of the man who lives by his own wits, his own cunning, his own "evil schemes"? The world may call him a captain of industry, a shrewd operator, a winner. God has another name for him, and another destiny entirely. This proverb is a diagnostic tool. It shows us where we stand, and it shows us the ultimate trajectory of our lives.
The Text
A good man will obtain favor from Yahweh,
But a man of evil schemes He will condemn.
(Proverbs 12:2 LSB)
The Good Man and God's Good Pleasure
Let us take the first clause:
"A good man will obtain favor from Yahweh..." (Proverbs 12:2a)
First, we must demolish the modern, sentimental definition of a "good man." The Bible is clear that "None is good but God alone" (Mark 10:18) and "no one does good, not even one" (Romans 3:12). So, this proverb cannot be describing a man who is good by his own bootstraps, a man who, through sheer moral effort, makes himself pleasant to God. That is the religion of Cain, the religion of the Pharisees, and the religion of secular humanism. It is the lie that we can, by our own performance, curry favor with a holy God.
So who is this good man? The New Testament gives us a portrait in a man like Barnabas, who was called "a good man, full of the Holy Spirit and of faith" (Acts 11:24). Goodness, in the biblical sense, is not a natural human quality; it is a supernatural gift. It is the fruit of the Spirit (Galatians 5:22). A good man is a man who has been made good by an act of God's grace. He is a man who has been justified by faith, and is now being sanctified by the Spirit. His goodness is not his own; it is the imputed righteousness of Christ and the infused life of the Spirit.
This good man "will obtain favor from Yahweh." This word "favor" is the Hebrew word for grace. It is God's unmerited blessing, His covenantal smile, His good pleasure. This is not to say that the man earns God's favor by his goodness, but rather that his goodness, which is itself a gift, is the channel through which God's favor flows. God is pleased to bless the character that He Himself has created. Psalm 112:5 says, "It is well with the man who deals generously and lends; who conducts his affairs with justice." This is the practical shape of goodness. It is not an inward feeling; it is outward action. It is a life of open-handed generosity and unwavering justice because that is the character of the God who has remade him.
Ultimately, this points us to the one truly good man, the Lord Jesus Christ. He is the beloved Son, in whom the Father is "well pleased" (Matthew 3:17). He alone perfectly obtained the Father's favor. And the glorious news of the gospel is that when we are united to Him by faith, we are brought into that same circle of favor. God's favor is not a reward for our performance, but a gift received through our union with His Son. We are "accepted in the Beloved" (Ephesians 1:6).
The Schemer and God's Condemnation
Now we turn to the dark side of the couplet, the stark contrast.
"But a man of evil schemes He will condemn." (Proverbs 12:2b)
The contrast to the "good man" is not simply the "bad man." The Hebrew is more specific. It is the "man of evil schemes." This is the man who lives by his wits, his cunning, his manipulations. His mind is always working, always calculating, always devising plans to get ahead at the expense of others. The world often praises such a man. He's a "go-getter," a "shrewd negotiator," a "mastermind." But God sees the heart, and what He sees is a heart that "devises wicked plans" (Proverbs 6:18), which is one of the things He calls an abomination.
This man is the fool of Proverbs. He is the scoundrel described in Isaiah, whose "devices are evil; he plans wicked schemes to ruin the poor with lying words" (Isaiah 32:7). He trusts in his own intellect, his own strategies, his own ability to control outcomes. He is, in the final analysis, his own god. He believes he can outsmart reality. He thinks he can out-maneuver God. He is the architect of his own little universe, and he expects everyone else to be a bit player in his drama.
But the proverb delivers a crushing verdict. This man, with all his cleverness, will be condemned by God. The word for condemn means to declare guilty, to hold liable for punishment. All his intricate plans, all his carefully constructed schemes, will ultimately come to nothing. In fact, they will boomerang. The psalmist tells us that the wicked are caught in the very traps they set for others: "The nations have sunk in the pit that they made; in the net that they hid, their own foot has been caught" (Psalm 9:15). Their own devices become the instruments of their destruction. They will "eat the fruit of their own way, and have their fill of their own devices" (Proverbs 1:31).
This is the terrible irony of sin. The man who schemes to secure his own future is the one who guarantees his own ruin. He builds his house on the sand of his own cleverness, and God's judgment is the storm that will wash it all away. He will stand before the Judge of all the earth, and his portfolio of brilliant schemes will be exposed as a pile of filthy rags.
Conclusion: The Wisdom of the Cross
So we are left with this great divide. The man made good by grace who receives the favor of God, and the man of clever schemes who receives the condemnation of God. This is the central choice of human existence: will you live by grace, or will you live by your schemes?
The ultimate scheme of man was the scheme to put the Son of God on a cross. The religious leaders, the political rulers, they all devised their wicked plans. They thought they were being clever. They thought they were eliminating a rival and securing their own power. They were the ultimate men of evil schemes. And in their wicked scheming, they accomplished the very plan of God for the salvation of the world (Acts 2:23).
This is the glorious foolishness of the gospel. God took the most evil scheme of man and turned it into the fountain of all grace and favor. On that cross, Jesus took the condemnation that all our evil schemes deserved. He was condemned in our place. And in exchange, He offers us the goodness and favor that He alone earned.
Therefore, to be a "good man" is to abandon all your own schemes. It means to stop trying to save yourself, justify yourself, or secure your own future. It means to repent of your own cleverness and to trust in the finished work of Jesus Christ. It is to come to God not with a resume of your accomplishments, but with the empty hands of faith. When you do that, He makes you good. He fills you with His Spirit. And He pours out upon you the immeasurable riches of His favor, not because you are a good man, but because you belong to His good Son.
The two ways remain. Will you be the schemer, trusting in your own devices and heading for condemnation? Or will you be the good man, trusting in Christ alone and receiving the favor of Yahweh, now and forever?