Wounds For Wound, She Is Cleansed Of Evil

*Her gaping cuts *serve to scour evil *from the stripes *of the bowels *of his darkness. (mast)

Proverbs 20:30 (NKJV)

30 Blows that hurt cleanse away evil, As do stripes the inner depths of the heart.

*[Her gaping cuts] literally, wounds on top of a wound. The Hebrew nouns here, however, are imaging the effect from an inside perspective of the Hifil stem of the feminine verb action. They are not imaging the cause of the wounds externally as blows or strikes but are describing the image of a battered body laid open and bare to cause an additional effect on all those who look on her nakedness (Ps.51:2, 5-7).

It could literally be translated as ‘wounds for wound, she is cleansed from evil.’ But what I believe the verb chosen wants us to see here is the evil that flows out of her wounds, the sin that gives life to the core of her being (Ps.51:3, 5; Eph.5:6; Rom.2:5). The absence of the life of the Spirit in the soul is the wrath of God as it abides in the soul that sins (Rom.1:18-19; Jn.3:36). The vessel that is full of iniquity is full of God’s wrath. Again, the absence of the life of the Spirit of God in the soul is the wrath of God (Eph.2:1-3), for, by nature, we are children of wrath without God (Eph.2:12; 4:18; 1Jn.5:11; Rom.8:9). These aren’t mere bruises that have turned blue from the result of the blood not being able to surface, being trapped under the darkness of her skin. No, this evil will be (is) entirely poured out so that an actual cleansing and sanctifying effect can take place. It is an emptying out of the image of her sin in Adam’s likeness (Rom.8:3-4; Matt.16:17; 5:48).

All of the nouns and the one verb are stemmed together in the feminine function except for one masculine noun that attributes the darkness to him, which is antecedent to the theology built around Adam’s fall in these Proverbial bullet points. Therefore she fell into sin through him. It is his darkness, but these are her wounds (Isa.53). He takes the responsibility for her sin, so Solomon rightly substitutes the cause of her sin to the darkness hidden in the bowels of Adam (Eph.5:6). This, then, is nothing less than a picture of Christ standing in to take her punishment in open shame as her substitute, to purge out and scrub away her evil (Ps.51:3). They are her wounds by virtue of her own merit (Rom.6:23), but she is cleansed by watching them be forced upon someone innocent of her evil image, taking on the likeness of her corrupt blood that spills over into darkness and death (Lev.1:15; Ps.23:4; Jn.1:29; 19:34).

That is how God empties us of the depths of our impurity (Isa.64:6). Therefore this injury (Acts 2:37; 7:54), because of the sin that pierces through to the core of her heart like a sword (Heb.4:12; Rom.3:9-20; 1Cor.15:56), is opened wide enough that the lifeblood of her sinful existence pours out into death (Rev.5:6, 12; 13:8; Ezk.16:9; 32:6; Jn.19:34; 1Jn.5:6, 8; Matt.3:3-17). Therefore, again, as ‘wounds for wound,’ the stripes of Christ heal the wound of her sin (Ps.19:7; Jer.8:11; 1Pet.1:23; Jn.19:1; Mk.15:15).

*[serve to scour evil] literally, to make bright. The Hifil stem of this verb construct causes the formation of the nouns to act as an addition verb. So the causative nature of the Hifil stem, in conjunction with the nouns, shows the cause of the nouns by the additional definition of the action of the verb ‘to scour.’ Therefore the nouns’ serve’ the purpose of the verb, which is to cleanse away evil. The verb can also be translated ‘to polish’ (Pr.27:17).

Again, if we go back to the original image, demonstrated by the open wound of sin, that was left by the removal of the Sword of the Spirit, the very Word of God (Heb.4:12; Eph.6:17), we find that those wounds (plural) that were made to make this known are the cause of this cleansing (Isa.53). So there is a polishing of this Sword and the sheathing of it back into our soul that fills the gaping wound of sin (that is, our dead image rotting in the grave) with the light of Christ’s life as the means of the soul’s healing from the power and life of sin being drains out (Ezk.21:9-17; Rom.3:9-20; Jn.3:14-15; 12:32). The life of sin was left to drain out by the removal of that Sword of life in the fall of Adam (Heb.4:12; Gen.3:24), but it is that same Sword (the law) as it is thrusted into Christ that gives the soul back its life in God (Matt.26:52; Lk.2:35; Jn.18:11). Figuratively applied to us, as king Saul had to fall upon the only sword that would grant him forgiveness, by the Word of the Lord (1Sam.31:4; 2Sam.1:22; Isa.55:11), we too must fall upon the sword of the Word as the only means that the hand of the Spirit will bless for our spiritual life (1Sam.31:5; Rom.6:4, 8; 2Tim.2:11; Jn.6:53; 1Cor.15:50).

Therefore this sword cleanses from the inside out (with the light) of Christ’s life (Jn.8:12). By means of emptying the soul of its darkness (through the pouring out of Christ’s life into death), the soul then is able to be a polished sword in the hand of God (1Pet.1:23; 2Tim.2:21). It scrubs the filthy soul absolutely clean from all its sin (Ps.51:6-12). It transforms its evil nature in all of its corruption into the purity of Christ’s likeness and image by forging a new soul from the two-edged blade that alone has the power to defeat the enmity of God (Acts 13:37; Rom.1:23; 8:21, 29-30; 1Cor.15:33, 42, 50, 53-54; Eph.2:15-16). The whole body now is full of light when the inner man treasures Christ (Matt.6:19-24; Lk.11:33-36), for the image of that [new] man is created in the glory of Christ (Eph.4:20-24; Gal.2:20; Rom.7:9, 13-25), which is seated far above all earthly principality (Eph.1:20-23; 2:6), but wherever sin still lives in the Christian, we continue to war against the darkness of our evil days by polishing this Sword daily (Eph.6:10-17; Pr.27:17; 1Cor.15:31-33).

But where does that leave those who are not seated with Christ (1Pet.4:17-18)? Where the things of earth are highly valued (Lk.16:15), signifying a person’s worth in the world among men, God utterly detests (Matt.5:13). So by falling upon the sword of the Lord (the law of God) (Matt.21:44; Lk.20:18), we cleanse ourselves from all evil; (that is), the soul that acknowledges the depth of the wound in each of us, that the nature of sin’s corruption left (Col.2:13; Eph.2:5), to the very core of our being, is imputed to the cross with the wounds of Christ that cover the multitude of sins that are erupting out of its bottomless pit like lava (Matt.12:34; Lk.6:45; Pr.10:12; 1Pet.4:6-10; Rom.5:17-21; Rev.9:11; 13:3, 12; 1Thess.5:3; Jer.6:14; 8:11; Jn.14:27).

*[from the stripes] literally, the scourgings. Picture the back of a man gashed open by the sharp edge of a whip. And not just any whip. Think of a whip with multiple cords with razor-sharp bones or metal tied to them being dragged across the back, ripping off the flesh down to the bone. That’s the depth of the wounds here, as they are laid on top of each other one by one, wound for wound. It would literally look like the flesh was scoured free of all its skin (1Cor.15:50; Heb.2:12; 9:13-14). But this is how the light of Christ was ordained to shine in the midst of the darkness (2Pet.1:19; 2Cor.4:6). Here the shroud of darkness in Christ’s flesh is unveiled to reveal the power of his bright shining light. Here the flesh is scrubbed clean of all that defiles the inner man with its darkness and is left open to the power of Christ’s life (Ex.20:21; Dt.5:22; 2Sam.22:12; 1Kgs.8:12; Job 12:22; Isa.42:16; Mal.4:2; Matt.4:16; 2Cor.3:12-18; 4:3-6; 1Jn.1:5).

These stripes work for us an eternal weight of glory in putting off the old man and putting on the resurrection body (Rom.8:23; Eph.4:21-24; Col.3:9-11). These first, however, begin in us by the imputation of our sins to the innocence of Christ’s life (2Cor.4:7-10). But this same discipline continues to be implemented in us when God afflicts us to learn his statutes (Ps.119:71). When we are afflicted for righteousness’ sake, we must remember that God deals with us as sons (Heb.12:5-11; Rev.3:19). We must not think that we shall escape with no discipline when Jesus carried the weight of all of our sins put together. We suffer for our own sins, whereas the purity of Christ’s robe was stained with the blood of all our sins put together to make our heavenly garments spotless and white as snow, but our suffering teaches us obedience in the present (Isa.1:18; 53:4-6; 64:6; Dan.7:9; Rev.6:11). Therefore even as the sufferings of Christ taught him obedience, we too learn obedience through our sufferings in this life (2Cor.4:11-18; Heb.5:6-10).

*[of the bowels] conjunctively, from his bowels. Again, theologically this is tied to the imputation of Adam’s sin to Eve’s offspring (Gen.3:20). The sin that came gaping from her womb carried death into full-term (Gen.3:15; Rom.6:23; 1Cor.15:26). But as sin was imputed to the whole of Adam’s image (Gen.4:25; 5:3), sin was also fully imputed to (the death) of Jesus of Nazareth, the king of the Jews (Lk.3:23, 38; Matt.28:6; Col.1:15-23; Jn.18:33, 39; 19:3, 14, 19-21). So as the life of one man is poured out into death because of this gaping wound of our sin in Adam, acting as the federal head over the life hidden in his bowels (1Cor.15:22), (that is, the life that now is ours in the flesh, born of his darkness) (Eph.2:3; 5:8; Gal.2:20), is poured out into death, being imputed to the king and head of the chosen ethnicity of the race of his death (Dt.28:13; Jn.4:22), the holiness of the spiritual race of his glory is imputed to those who believe by his resurrection life (Jn.3:16; 11:25; Rev.21:24). So it is from the bowels of Adam’s darkness that the power of sin flows (Rom.2:15; 1Cor.15:56; Acts 26:15-18). But light has not come into this world through the first Adam but the last. The last Adam, who defeated death (1Cor.15:45-49, 53-57), has come down to us from the image that is above (Jn.8:21-24, 28-29, 37-38), in whom there is no darkness at all (1Jn.1:5; Jn.1:3-11; 8:12; 2Tim.1:10). But his death, according to the flesh (Phil.2:5-11; Rom.8:2-4), is for the light of life that is poured out from the glory of heaven into our hearts (Rom.5:5; Mal.3:10; Lk.23:46; Jn.2:16-21; 14:2; Matt.25:24-30), for it is God who has made the true light to shine in the darkness (2Cor.4:3-6).

*[of his darkness] literally, a dark room. The Hebrew noun is acting as an adjective in construct to the previous noun. Together these nouns make up a phrase, the innermost parts of the heart. You could say it speaks to the deepest recesses of the soul as it is biologically ‘felt’ in the human senses of the bowels. It’s expressing the heart as the seat of sin and darkness. It describes the control center of man as a dark room that has no light of life to have fellowship with God. The only thing that comes out of this control center is sin and death (Matt.12:31-37; Lk.6:39-49), the filth of world (Zeph.1:17; Mal.2:3; Lam.3:45; Jer.16; 25:33; Isa.5:25; Job.20:7; 2Kgs.9:37), because it’s all darkness with no light (Jn.1:5, 11-14; 3:19-21). This is why the next bullet point of Solomon’s Proverbial outline speaks to the heart of the regenerate nature of the new birth as the sovereignty of Yahweh reigns over the heart of the king (Pr.21:1). The Lord must dwell in the heart to be the controlling agent of righteousness (Phil.1:11; 2Cor.5:21). Every way of a man is righteous in his own eyes, but Yahweh weighs the hearts. God knows the depth of Adam’s sin, that it offers nothing righteous or good in yield to Him (Matt.25:26, 28). What returns to God must be what God sowed of his own light of life (Isa.55:11; 1Cor.15:45; Jn.1:12-13; 3:1-8; 1Pet.1:23). Where there is no Spirit of Christ (Rom.8:5-11), there is no life in God’s image (Eph.4:17-24).

[Wounds for wound, she is cleansed of evil by stripes that pour out darkness from his bowels] (mast)