Proverbs 17:15 Commentary and Bible Study

Injustice is an abomination to the Lord (the word is also used of physical repugnance), but this is more than injustice for the individual in mind has a two-fold policy which amounts to a campaign to overturn justice and to establish an alternative moral regime. He both justifies the wicked and condemns the righteous because the one is not complete without the other as far as he is concerned. Taken separately these two actions are as bad as each other for both amount to a hatred of God’s justice. To justify the wicked is not something that a person can do accidentally: it is a deliberate attempt to contradict the Lord and to say he is wrong when he condemns the wicked. He should not have said that their behaviour is evil, harmful, contrary to his holy standards, liable to death. On the contrary, says this one, it is harmless, profitable, pleasurable, and God should not have put any obstacle in the way of those who wish to live like this. But to condemn the wicked is equally bad, for these are God’s children whom he has justified and in whom he finds no fault. Their sanctification in this life remains incomplete, but in comparison to unbelieving men and women they are altogether clean. They fear sin and avoid it; they worship their Creator and recognise him as God over their lives; they trust his word as a perfect revelation of his truth to mankind; they are separate from the world and its sinful pleasures; and they speak unashamedly of God’s work in their hearts.The motivation for this always comes from a love of sin, but it is coupled with a hatred of God and his standards, and all who wish to follow them. The wicked cannot leave the righteous alone for their presence is an offence to them so that they are determined to bring them down. They feel the smart of living among the righteous for their holy lives condemn the world as Noah did his generation.Within the church there may arise some who secretly resent having to follow the narrow way. A situation comes about in which they are inclined to dispute some matter and to cause trouble, and those who are similarly minded rally to them and take their side. They reveal that they are out of sympathy with those who wish to preserve pure worship, or to observer the Lord’s Day, or to remain separate from the world, or to mount a witness to the lost. To justify themselves, they have to defend their views and this usually involves a campaign to overturn the standards of the Lord and to establish their own contrary standards.