# 457 The Proverbs – ‘A manual for living’ (MSG). Proverbs 20 (3). Being realistic about oneself.

The writer of proverbs asks a very important question here in chapter 20. He asks:

⁹ Who can say, “I have kept my heart pure;
    I am clean and without sin”?

Goldsworthy comments on this verse that it is “Not so much a theological statement about original sin as an experience-based recognition of the impossibility of knowing ourselves completely.” (# 53)

Other verses on a similar theme of our inmost being (vv. 27,30 NIV) are:

⁶ Many claim to have unfailing love,
    but a faithful person who can find?

¹¹ Even small children are known by their actions,
    so is their conduct really pure and upright?

²⁷ The Lord’s light penetrates the human spirit,
    exposing every hidden motive. (NLT)

³⁰ Physical punishment cleanses away evil;
    such discipline purifies the heart. (NLT)

The problem of humanity’s struggle with sin, rebellion, self-centreness, pride, hatred, and much more is well recorded in the Bible. Some religious literature dispenses with this ugly side of mankind, such as one major religion which teaches that all the “prophets’ were sinless. This is not a realistic understanding of the facts and we know this from our own experience of dealing with our own struggles and seeing the struggles of others around us.

During his life on earth Jesus exposed this truth a number of times and one of those times is recorded in John 8 as follows:

Jesus returned to the Mount of Olives, ² but early the next morning he was back again at the Temple. A crowd soon gathered, and he sat down and taught them. ³ As he was speaking, the teachers of religious law and the Pharisees brought a woman who had been caught in the act of adultery. They put her in front of the crowd.

⁴ “Teacher,” they said to Jesus, “this woman was caught in the act of adultery. ⁵ The law of Moses says to stone her. What do you say?”

⁶ They were trying to trap him into saying something they could use against him, but Jesus stooped down and wrote in the dust with his finger. ⁷ They kept demanding an answer, so he stood up again and said, “All right, but let the one who has never sinned throw the first stone!” ⁸ Then he stooped down again and wrote in the dust.

⁹ When the accusers heard this, they slipped away one by one, beginning with the oldest, until only Jesus was left in the middle of the crowd with the woman. ¹⁰ Then Jesus stood up again and said to the woman, “Where are your accusers? Didn’t even one of them condemn you?”

¹¹ “No, Lord,” she said.

And Jesus said, “Neither do I. Go and sin no more.” (John 8:1-11)

As William Barclay says in his commentary on John’s Gospel, “It was a first principle of Jesus that only the man that is without fault has the right to express judgement on the fault of others. [see Matthew 7:1 and 7:3-5] … One of the commonest faults in life is that so many of us demand standards from others that we never even try to fulfil ourselves; so many of us condemn faults in others which are glaringly obvious in our own lives… The qualification for judging is not knowledge – we all possess that; it is achievement in goodness – [and] none of us possess that.” (William Barclay, The Gospel of John, The Saint Andrew Press, 1955)

As Paul says in Romans 1:

You, therefore, have no excuse, you who pass judgment on someone else, for at whatever point you judge another, you are condemning yourself, because you who pass judgment do the same things. (Romans 2:1)

The Good News is though that just as Jesus didn’t condemn the woman accused of adultery, because He was willing to go all the way to the Cross, to take the punishment we deserved for out sin and rebellion against God, He is also willing not to condemn us, who trust in him, for our sin.

Paul explains it in Romans 8 as follows:

Therefore, there is now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus, ² because through Christ Jesus the law of the Spirit who gives life has set you free from the law of sin and death. ³ For what the law was powerless to do because it was weakened by the flesh, God did by sending his own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh to be a sin offering. And so he condemned sin in the flesh, ⁴ in order that the righteous requirement of the law might be fully met in us, who do not live according to the flesh but according to the Spirit. (Romans 8:1-4)

So, in answer to the writer of Proverbs question, ⁹ Who can say, “I have kept my heart pure;
I am clean and without sin”? – none of us can! But Jesus has made the way for us to experience forgiveness, true freedom, life in abundance, a right understanding of our inmost being, and a right relationship with God leading to eternal life. God is so good!