Proverbs 16:2 Commentary and Bible Study

A man’s evaluation of himself is not reliable because he is not willing to scrutinise his conduct and motive as carefully as he should. Self-examination is something that only the Christian can do properly and even he is making progress in this discipline over the course of the Christian life. Although the convert confesses all known sins at the start of the Christian life and turns away from all that he discovers, even he does not see the full depth of his depravity at the start. But the unconverted have a bias towards themselves which springs to their defence when they detect they are being judged. Therefore they can come to entirely the wrong conclusion about themselves and they are pure in their own eyes. So then, if they know that they have lied, they refuse to see the damage that has been done to their souls. They convince themselves that circumstances arose that forced them to lie; they had to protect someone, or they saw some good that would come out of their lie which justified it. They will not face up to the full wickedness of what they have done. They deny that they have become liars and blame others around them or blame circumstances for their breaking God’s commandments. If circumstances were different, the world would see the nice side of them. They continue to disassociate their character from their acts, and even the proudest of men is capable of counting himself as humble, if that is what he wants to be.But the Lord judges according to righteousness. The language is of course figurative, but no less true for that reason. How can a precise weight be assigned to something as hard to grasp as the spirit of a man? This is something totally beyond man’s skill, but the Lord who created man, body and spirit, is able to read and understand the heart of every person that has ever lived. He sees every devious thought process within the heart, and is not taken in by any false excuse. He listens to the protests of innocence from the disobedient, and judges their guilt precisely, assigning each one the perfect punishment for their acts, just as he dealt with Adam and Eve in the garden when he listened to their self-excusing (Genesis 3:9-19). He knows whether Abimelech is guilty and what he can take credit for and what he cannot take credit for (Genesis 20:3-7). God’s judgment at the end of the world of every one who has ever lived, will be beyond criticism.