Proverbs 21:16 Commentary and Bible Study

The man described here is not someone who has never known the truth or never claimed to belong to the people of God, but is one who at one time professed faith, attended the place of worship, and was accepted among the people of God as one of their own. This turning away from the truth is a particularly aggravated sin because it is the verdict of one who claims to have known the experience of a believer from the inside and who finds fault with God, and says that he prefers the way of the world and its pleasures to the way of the Lord. He brings the way of the Lord into disrepute and is a powerful witness in support of those who reject the Lord and look for justification for their rebellion. The truth is of course that this one never knew salvation, never experienced the new birth, never was a child of God, but in rejecting the outward form he has still done all that he can to bring shame upon the Lord.The final end of such a one is death. The word translated ‘the dead’ refers to the dead spirits, shades, ghosts in the abode of the dead. They are an assembly but not an assembly in this life. Having left the living assembly of those who worship God, there is nowhere else for them to go but to the assembly of the dead, and having arrived in that assembly, there is nowhere else for them to go.