"Whoever conceals his transgressions will not prosper"
A closer look at Proverbs 28:13.
13 Whoever conceals his transgressions will not prosper,
but he who confesses and forsakes them will obtain mercy. - Proverbs 28:13 (ESV)
Introduction
Mercy and grace.
Early on in my faith journey I was given the definitions below for grace and mercy:
Grace is getting something we don’t deserve
Mercy is not getting what we do deserve
When we experience God’s grace, we are receiving something that we in no way deserve. We are receiving His unmerited favor.
On the other hand, as sinners, we deserve God’s wrath. That is what we should get for what we have done. But when we experience His mercy, we are not getting what we do deserve.
In his book Systematic Theology, Bible scholar Dr. Wayne Grudem provides a very good definition of God’s mercy:
“God’s mercy is his goodness toward those in distress.” - Dr. Wayne Grudem, Systematic Theology
Because of our status as sinners, and because of God’s status as God, we have no right to demand either of these. But we need them. In today’s verse, Proverbs 28:13, will tell us more about how we can experiencing God’s mercy.
“Whoever conceals his transgressions will not prosper”
There are three key words in the first line of this proverb that we should understand.
The first is “conceals,” which means to hide something, to cover something over or to make sure it is not seen.
The second is “transgressions,” which is also translated as “sins” in other versions of the Bible. A sin means to fail to meet God’s standard of perfection. Sins can be done in word, deed or thought - or a combination of all three - and we commit sins by doing something we should not do, or by not doing something we should do.
“Prosper” is the last word and it means to thrive, flourish, to be successful or do well.
Given these definitions, the SBTR translation of this would be something like, “A person is not going to do well by covering up their sins.” However, there is an appropriate context for understanding this verse, and if we get it wrong, it can throw off our entire worldview.
The Right Context
When we view this verse through the wrong context, we interpret things around us incorrectly. For example, if our friend Joe has a fancy new car, a home in the best neighborhood, a pretty wife and cute kids, we can falsely assume that Joe’s prosperity indicates that he is right with God. We can incorrectly assume that Joe does not have transgressions or sins in his life or that things he may be doing wrong are not sins.
We can also look at Joe’s cousin, Sue. She’s a widow with an unreliable car, a house in disrepair and she’s battling breast cancer. When we view Proverbs 28:13 through the wrong perspective, we look at Sue and think she must have sinned big time. We may incorrectly assume that she has done something to offend God.
Of course these examples are not the correct way to interpret what today’s verse is saying and we can see other examples like this in Scripture. For example, Psalm 73:3 says:
3 For I was envious of the arrogant
when I saw the prosperity of the wicked. - Psalm 73:3 (ESV)
The writer of this Psalm observed other people prospering. Things were going well for them. But this did not mean that they were right with God. They were not. They were wicked. They made a practice and lifestyle of sin.
The prosperity discussed in Proverbs 28:13 is not necessarily talking about the blessings we obtain in the here and now*. Though we are blessed over and over in our everyday lives walking with the Lord Jesus Christ, the view of this verse is more long-term and speaks of something more important that prosperity in our everyday lives.
“But he who confesses and forsakes them will obtain mercy”
The second line of this proverb is a complete contrast to the first line:
“But he who confesses and forsakes them will obtain mercy.”
Rather than concealing transgressions, or sin, in an attempt to get ahead, the second line talks about something completely different and better. Instead of leaning into sin in an attempt to gain prosperity, our approach to sin should be to “confess” them and “forsake” them.”
“Confessing” means to admit that we are wrong about something and in this context means to admit that we sinned against God. When we “forsake” sin it means that we quit it or leave it entirely. We give it up and move away from it.
This approach to sin leads to an incomprehensible benefit. When we approach God acknowledging that we are wrong and that we have sinned, and when choose to leave our sin behind and turn away from it, then we are in line to “obtain mercy.”
“Obtain Mercy”
As we mentioned above, Grudem defines God’s mercy as:
“God’s mercy is his goodness toward those in distress.” - Dr. Wayne Grudem, Systematic Theology
It is God who gives mercy, just like He gives grace. It is His decision. It is up to Him. We cannot earn these things and we cannot demand them.
And we experience His mercy in different ways.
For example, those who belong to God and those who do not can both experience His mercy at the same time. As Jesus Himself tells us in Matthew 5:45, “For he [God] makes his sun rise on the evil and the good, and sends rain on the just and on the unjust.” Both the saved and the not saved experience a type of God’s mercy when the sun shines or when the rain falls.
Another way to view this is to consider that though all have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God (Romans 3:23) and all deserve God’s wrath, His wrath is not on display concurrently as each sin is committed. When God holds back this just wrath, His displaying His mercy.
Yet though all have sinned and fallen short of His glory, God wants to forgive us. He wants us to be reconciled to Him. He wants to fellowship with us eternally. Though we have sinned and deserve His wrath, He has made a way for us to experience His mercy and grace through His Son Jesus Christ:
21 For our sake he made him to be sin who knew no sin, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God. - 1 Corinthians 5:21 (ESV)
The wrath of God is justified against our sin. But “for our sake he made him to be sin who knew no sin.” This is the Apostle Paul’s way of telling us that Jesus took our place. Instead of being in a position of owing a sin debt we could not possibly pay - but would spent eternity trying - Jesus took our place. When He suffered and died on the cross at Calvary, He became sin though He was sinless “so that in him we might become the righteousness of God.”
Instead of receiving eternal punishment, He provides an opportunity for us to experience His mercy.
God provided a way for us to have His mercy and as 2 Peter 3:9 says, He desires for us to experience it:
9 The Lord is not slow to fulfill his promise as some count slowness, but is patient toward you, not wishing that any should perish, but that all should reach repentance. - 2 Peter 3:9 (ESV)
We are in need of mercy and God is willing to give us mercy, so the question becomes how do we get it? And this leads us right to the last line of today’s verse, Proverbs 28:13:
“But he who confesses and forsakes them will obtain mercy”
The writer of this proverb describes the actions that lead to God’s mercy, confessing and forsaking.
Confess
To confess is to admit something. In this case, it means to confess that we are guilty of sinning against God. In word, deed or thought - or maybe a combination of all three, we sin. Sometimes we sin by doing too much of something and sometimes we sin by not doing enough. And when we sin we have committed cosmic treason against the Most High God. We haven’t just broken one of a syrupy grandpa’s made up rules, we have sinned to the point that we were the reason God sacrificed His only son on the cross.
Our sin is a big deal. And until we admit or confess that we have sinned, we don’t really understand that we need Jesus as our Savior.
Forsake
To forsake means to abandon or desert something forever. It means to give it up and leave it behind us. And that is the expectation for us related to sin.
If we confess that we have sinned, that confession does not mean a whole lot if our attitude and disposition towards that sin does not change.
Sin displeases God. Again, sin is the reason for Jesus’ death on the cross at Calvary! Even one simple sin is enough to violate God’s standard and create the reason for Christ’s suffering and death. Therefore, our attitude toward sin has to be one of abandonment.
Confessing our sin and forsaking our sin are also ways to describe repentance. And it is with an attitude of repentance that prepares us to receive God’s mercy. We don’t earn this mercy via our confession and we don’t deserve this mercy though we may stop sinning. Rather we become ready vessels to receive what God has to give. this is what Paul helps us to understand when he writes Romans 2:4:
4 Or do you presume on the riches of his kindness and forbearance and patience, not knowing that God's kindness is meant to lead you to repentance? - Romans 2:4 (ESV)
We don’t “presume” that God owes us His mercy despite Him being kind, forbearing and patient. Instead we understand that God, in His kindness, is the one leads us to repentance - confessing and forsaking our sin. He is the one who gives us His sweet mercy.
God is Ready to Forgive
When our hearts are ready to receive God’s mercy, God is ready to forgive us.
No matter what we have done. No matter how egregious or how horrible. No matter what the worldly consequences might be. No matter how badly things are destroyed or broken.
No matter what.
When God has led us to repentance and prepared our hearts to confess our sins and to forsake our sins, then He is ready to receive us, to forgive us of our sins and ready to fellowship with us eternally. The Apostle John details this good news for us in 1 John 1:9:
9 If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness. - 1 John 1:9 (ESV)
Whether we are coming to Him for the very first time and don’t really know how to say what we need to say, or whether we are coming to Him for the 9,999th time, this promise made by God holds true. If we will confess our sins, if we will admit that we are wrong and that He is right, He will do the hard work. He will provide forgiveness to us through the work of His Son Jesus on the cross. If we will confess our sins to Him, He is faithful, He will cleanse us of all our unrighteousness and allow us to fellowship with Him now and forever.
* God is indeed the Giver of all good things. If we have a relationship with Him through His Son Jesus Christ, we are blessed - and these blessings flow in many ways. It is not impossible or out of the ordinary for God to bless us for being obedient to Him - and those blessings are often in the here and now. But we must not automatically correlate near-term blessings with the overall meaning of this verse.