The Civic Barometer: Righteousness and Groaning Text: Proverbs 29:2
Introduction: The Inescapable Theology of the Public Square
We live in an age that is pathologically allergic to definitions and distinctions. Our culture has embraced a kind of sentimental goo where everyone is right, all paths lead to the same destination, and the most grievous sin is to suggest that one thing is good and another is not. This is particularly true in the realm of civil government, where a secular myth of neutrality has been carefully cultivated. The idea is that the state can be a dispassionate umpire, making no ultimate judgments about good and evil, righteousness and wickedness. The state, we are told, is just about managing pragmatic realities, like roads and taxes, and should leave all the God-talk to the private sphere.
But the book of Proverbs, and indeed the whole counsel of God, treats this notion as the incoherent foolishness that it is. The Bible knows nothing of a neutral public square. It knows nothing of a government that can successfully rule without a god. The only question is which god it will be. Will it be the Triune God of Scripture, or will it be the bloated, self-deifying god of the state, Demos, or Mammon?
This proverb is a diagnostic tool. It is a piece of divine political science that cuts through all the fog and nonsense. It presents us with a stark, binary choice. There are two kinds of rulers, two kinds of governments, and they produce two very different results in the populace. This is not a suggestion. It is not a helpful hint. It is a statement of fixed reality, as certain as the law of gravity. It is a law of God's moral universe. You cannot have righteous rulers and a groaning populace, and you cannot have wicked rulers and a genuinely glad populace. The one necessarily follows the other. This proverb is a civic barometer, and it tells us what the spiritual weather is.
We must therefore disabuse ourselves of the idea that politics is a dirty, godless business that Christians should avoid. No, politics is simply the public application of your theology. It is discipleship in the public square. And if we, as Christians, abdicate our responsibility to speak God's truth into this realm, we do not create a peaceful neutrality. We create a vacuum that will be filled by a far more sinister theology, a theology that will inevitably cause the people to groan.
The Text
When the righteous increase, the people are glad, But when a wicked man rules, people groan.
(Proverbs 29:2 LSB)
The Politics of Joy (v. 2a)
The first clause sets before us the ideal, the goal, the standard for all civil order.
"When the righteous increase, the people are glad..." (Proverbs 29:2a)
Now, we must define our terms as God defines them. Who are "the righteous"? In our therapeutic age, "righteous" might mean well-intentioned, or nice, or someone who recycles. But the biblical definition is far more robust. The righteous man is the one who is rightly related to God through faith, and who consequently is rightly related to God's law. Righteousness is conformity to a standard, and that standard is the revealed character and will of God. A righteous ruler is not simply a moral man in some generic sense. He is a man who fears God and understands that he is a minister of God, a deacon, appointed to punish evil and praise good (Romans 13:4). He knows he did not create justice; he is a steward of it.
Notice the verb: when the righteous "increase." This points to more than just a single good man on the throne. It speaks of a culture of righteousness that is growing, multiplying, and taking hold in the halls of power. It speaks of a critical mass, a societal momentum. When men who fear God and hate covetousness are in positions of authority, from the dog catcher to the senator, a certain kind of society is built.
And what is the result? "The people are glad." This is not the fleeting happiness of a tax rebate or a new government program. The Hebrew word for glad, samach, means to rejoice, to be joyful. It is a deep-seated contentment that comes from living in a society where justice is predictable, where your property is secure, where laws are sane, where evil is punished swiftly, and where you are free to work, build, and worship without the arbitrary interference of a tyrannical state. This gladness is the fruit of stability. It is the joy of a well-ordered world. When righteousness is the foundation of the civil order, the people flourish. They can plant trees whose fruit their grandchildren will eat. This is the political vision the Bible holds out for us. It is not a utopian fantasy; it is the promised result of covenant faithfulness in the civil realm.
The Politics of Anguish (v. 2b)
The second clause presents the grim and unavoidable alternative.
"But when a wicked man rules, people groan." (Proverbs 29:2b LSB)
The contrast is absolute. The "wicked man" is the polar opposite of the righteous. He is the man who does not fear God. He is a law unto himself. He may be a blatant, hedonistic tyrant, or he may be a smiling, bureaucratic technocrat who believes in his own good intentions. But because he has rejected God as the source of law, his rule will inevitably become arbitrary and oppressive. He defines good and evil based on what benefits him, his party, or his ideology. Justice becomes a tool for consolidating power and punishing enemies.
When such a man, or such a class of men, rules, the result is that the "people groan." The word here is a visceral one. It is a sigh of anguish, the sound of a people under a heavy burden. This groaning is the sound of a nation being slowly crushed. It is the groan of the businessman buried under mountains of arbitrary regulations. It is the groan of parents who see their children being catechized into godless ideologies by the state schools. It is the groan of the poor who are trapped by inflationary monetary policy that devalues their labor. It is the groan of a populace that knows, deep down, that the system is rigged, that the law is a weapon, and that their leaders are liars.
This groaning is the necessary consequence of godless rule because when you remove God's law as the standard, you do not get neutrality. You get raw power. Might makes right. The state becomes the ultimate authority, and when the state is ultimate, it will eventually demand total allegiance. It will become a jealous god, and it will crush all rivals. The wicked ruler promises security and delivers servitude. He promises equality and delivers misery. He promises heaven on earth and creates a very serviceable imitation of hell.
Application: The Salt and the Groan
So what are we to do with this? This proverb is not here to make us fatalists. It is here to make us faithful. It diagnoses the problem so that we might apply the cure.
First, we must recognize that the political state of our nation is a direct reflection of its theological state. You cannot have a righteous government emerge from a people who have abandoned the righteous God. The groaning in the public square is an echo of the apostasy in the pulpit and in the pews. If we want righteous rulers, we must first be a righteous people. Revival precedes reformation. The church must repent of its cowardice, its worldliness, and its pietistic retreat from the world. We must preach the whole counsel of God, which includes what God has to say about the civil magistrate.
Second, we must reject the lie of neutrality. Christians must engage in the political process, not as partisans of left or right, but as ambassadors of the King of kings. We must support candidates and policies that align with biblical righteousness and oppose those that do not. This is not about creating a "perfect" society. It is about being faithful stewards, applying God's unchanging standard to the problems of our day. We are to be salt, and salt is a preservative. It stings when applied to a wound, and it resists corruption.
Finally, we must understand that our ultimate hope is not in a political savior. The ultimate righteous ruler has already come. Jesus Christ is the King. He is ruling and reigning right now, putting all His enemies under His feet (1 Corinthians 15:25). The groaning of our current political moment is the groaning of a world in rebellion against its rightful Lord. But it is also the groaning of creation, eagerly awaiting the final manifestation of the sons of God (Romans 8:22-23).
Our task, then, is to live out the reality of Christ's kingdom in every sphere, including the political. We work, we preach, we vote, we build, and we pray for the increase of righteousness, knowing that as the gospel advances, it brings not only salvation to the soul but also gladness to the city. We labor to replace the groaning of tyranny with the gladness of a people whose God is the Lord.