His Honor Deserves An Honest Response

*Who would *answer honestly, *of the inward ability, *that I could purify *my own heart, *as though I am cleansed *from my sin *to be an expiation? (MAST)

Proverbs 20:9 (NKJV)

9 Who can say, “I have made my heart clean, I am pure from my sin”?

*[Who would] interrogatively, whose. But because of the back-to-back Hebrew verbs, in both the third and first person, a linking verb is added to help understand how the verbs are interacting in the construct. This interrogative pronoun leads the whole construct from beginning to end; however, it is a first person rhetorical question in response to some who appear to be equating Solomon’s throne with the exclusivity of Heaven’s throne. So this is a rhetorical finger pointing at the foolish son (or future king) who would believe that an earthly throne equals the glory that only belongs to the Almighty. Those who sit upon this throne have to show that they are worthy of it, but not by deeds of fleshly power but of an answer of a good conscience concerning the spiritual purpose of the Hebrew Law.

So “who would” answer the question of moral cleanness with the answer of freewill? Someone who believes that it is within a man to do what is morally pure. But that’s not the heart of this rhetorical question. Solomon is systematically setting his sons up for the revelation of our moral inability. The following verses are applications of this very question. This earthly throne doesn’t compare to the throne of glory. In all of her beauty and elaboration of its purpose, she still cannot transcend the greatness of God’s throne (Pr.20:10). In comparison to the deeds of God’s throne, the gold standard is no standard at all! If deeds are what make a man worthy of the throne, look to the foolishness of children in the innocence of their deeds (Pr.20:11). Surely, it’s foolishness to believe that a man can give himself a hearing ear and a seeing-eye (Pr.20:12). So while this is spoken in the first person, the question is designed to cause those of us, in the third person, seeking the wisdom of the throne, to self-examine. In the second portion of the construct, in conjunction with this interrogative, the verb is first person, restating the interpretive point of this very question; without observing the mood and tense of the verb, it could be translated, “how can I make my heart clean?”

*[answer honestly] literally, to believe within oneself, or to answer with the self. Who would honestly say Solomon is morally pure to have the right to sit as king on the throne of Israel? That’s the basis for this rhetorical question. An assumption that a king earns the right to rule as king. The root of this verb can also mean, to command. Who can say in his heart, “I have commanded my way to rule upon this throne?” The verb conjugation is imperfective, meaning, this answer is acting upon itself from the inside out to create its own completion. He literally presents himself as the answer. But as this formation of the construct is acting out of the imperfective, it is speaking of the verb which follows that is acting in the perfective. It’s as if he is stating, “How is moral ability the answer to my sanctified heart?” How is a man the answer to his own questions? Or it could be translated: “Who has commanded me to purify my heart?” The rhetorical answer to this one is the Most High; but the obvious is surely not Solomon, a man born in sin.

*[of the inward ability] literally, to be morally clean. But the Piel stem and the perfective are creating the verb action that I will labor to answer in the next clause. However, what is being demonstrated here is the foundation of the rhetorical answer, which is a heretical belief in the power of free will. This is to say that a man can climb the steps to this throne using, what some call, the moral law like they are moral apprehensions of a process in obeying outward tests. It’s like an entrepreneur saying, “If you work hard enough, you can do anything your heart dreams up.” But this is said for the negation of one’s own true ability to accomplish it in himself (Jn.19:30). It’s the offering of false hope and encouragement to a fool who lacks the aptitude or genuine skill to achieve it (Matt.27:42;Mk.15:31;Lk.23:35). A well-read king, such as Solomon, would have understood the spiritual applications of Job (Job 33:9). He would have labored to understand the meaning behind God’s purpose in Job’s afflictions, and the response to Job’s complaints about those afflictions. Job is a representative of all of us who are born in sin. No matter our Protestant tradition, we seek to answer correctly all the spiritual questions our traditions throw at us. Still, Job is given to show us that the reason (that is) within man alone (which is not to be confused with the spiritual image of Christ) is not sufficient to find acceptability with God. A man cannot command his way through outward conformity to the will and law of God in order to find favor in God (1 Jn.1:8).

*[that I could purify] Again, this is born out of the verb, to be morally clean, in the first person and Piel stem as the rhetorical answer to the assumption of free will (moral ability). When we speak against this term “free will,” we are not saying that the will doesn’t make its own choices but that the will isn’t free to satisfy God’s justice. The human will is incapable of making a choice that is good in the sight of God because God has imputed the will to the slavery of sin (Jn.8:34). Therefore a man is unable to answer honestly (out of his own heart) what is clean and unclean in God’s sight (Deut.12:8-9;Jdg.17:6;21:25). The man born in sin is not given the ability to discern good and evil from his own faculty of reason (Gen.2:17;3:5,22). This was the willful sin of Adam that was imputed to every soul that enters life through him (Rom.5:12-14). Life in Adam is (not good) because God is not the author of sin (Ps.14:3;53:3;Rom.3:12;Matt.19:17). This speaks volumes against those who believe that you can reach entire sanctification while being confined to the body of sin or that you could never fall into a particular sin again.

*[my own heart] There needs no explanation of translation here. Who can bring a clean thing out of an unclean thing? No one! (Job 14:4). Consider the filthy space of the womb that gives birth to a child. Does a child ever come forth clean (Gen.3:16)? The purpose of this at birth is to symbolize the filthiness of sin’s conception in God’s sight (Rom.7:13), but we always look beyond reality to hope in our own imagination of sin’s creation (Gen.6:5;8:21;Lk.1:51).

*[as though I am cleansed] Again, the interrogative pronoun leads the construct here. But it also joins the first person verb stems, zikkiti and taharti, which both have the same verbal action and similar meaning but differentiate between the inward and ceremonial cleansings. So Solomon is pointing out that only a fool believes he has the power to judge between right and wrong with the eyes of his own heart (Pr.12:15;21:2). The verb stems make the distinguishing actions of this clause join together for the interrogative answer. The Piel stem proposed the bringing about of this Qal stem. It is a question that mocks the theology of the faith healers that propose that you can command your way with positive thinking. The reality of sin cannot be cleansed in this way! It’s like the Bethel Reading song “No Longer Slaves,” declaring themselves children of God, but having no evidence of it, singing that they were chosen from the womb, while the womb testifies of sin and death. Election, therefore, has never been nor ever will be from the womb but is from before the foundation of the world; before sin; before we have done any good or evil (Rom.9:6-13). Our earthly parents may set us apart from the womb to learn the fear of the LORD, but we will never choose to fear the LORD unless we have been loved by Him from before the foundation of the world (Jn.6:70;15:16). Are you able to love His sovereign person based on that revelation of Himself? Few there are that choose to fear Him, and that only because He overcame them by His irresistible grace, nailing Himself down to the cross as the only substitute for sin.

*[from my sin] There needs no explanation for translation here. It’s straightforward and simple. But the Hebrew word for sin needs to be expounded on more in the next clause, which is the purpose for the extended translation. We just can’t end this with the basic understanding of sin. The original Hebrew demands more.

*[to be an expiation] literally, sin-offering. The context is Solomon’s seat of justice. Solomon is sarcastically saying that just because he sits upon this throne, as a small representation of the throne of Heaven’s glory, that he is still not free from the sin offering (Jn.8:36). He, too, must continue to offer for his sin (Rom.6:16). Apart from the expiation, his throne is still a sin to him. His seat upon this throne is not his justification. His expiation, (i.e., this sin-offering), is his justification and sanctification. Therefore his judgment seat is not the expiation of the court of Israel’s foolishness. In fact, it’s the opposite. There is a greater need, even for him, to be expiated because of the foolishness of his seat. This seat was only given because of the hardness of Israel’s heart. He, and his court, is not God’s offering for sin, but God’s sword against it (1Cor.6:1-7).