Whoever is generous to the poor lends to the Lord, and he will repay him for his deed.
The Christian people, whether through the medium of the church or elsewhere, has been the single greatest source of charity in history, albeit with the aid of Christianity’s unrivaled long-term productivity. So have many pagans observed, and many pagans have been called to Christ via the charity of His people. And this charity, while imperfectly given, has the immense advantage over the welfare state: it is not built on theft. It is instead built on relationship with God.
Our relationship with God is covenantal at the root. That means each party in the relationship has duties, has rewards for fulfilment thereof, has (if capable of nonfulfillment) curses for the nonfulfillment of those duties. All this is bound to the parties by the strongest and deepest of ligatures, down to the very life, as symbolized by blood and sealed by the life of Christ. The pagan has only the covenant of works, established at creation: the duty to obey His law, bound by virtue of our status as His creation and His image, the promise of blessing in fulfilling that law, the promise of damnation for breaking it.
The Christian has, built upon and averting the damnation of that covenant of works, the covenant of grace. God, in this covenant, binds us to Him by the sacrifice of His Son (Heb. 10), who in fulfillment of His Self-appointed (Father-appointed) duty took our sins upon Himself and made us His children (Rom. 8:16). We, then, have covenantal duties, primarily the duty of holiness, in which He aids by sanctifying us, another part of the duty He assumed, the God who does not change (Num. 23:19) or break His promise (Gen. 17; Ps. 110:4). Unlike the covenant of works, wherein man by sinning receives the fullness of damnation, in the covenant of grace Christ bears all the judgement of our sins within the covenant, ensuring our salvation, preserving us through grace, including discipline.
Relationship with the Lord pervades the Christian’s life. All things are to be towards Him and His glory (Col. 1:16-17, 3:23); this is the duty of the covenant son (Is. 64:7-8). In summary, this duty is to love the Lord with heart, mind, soul, and strength (Deut. 6:5; Matt. 22:36-40), a duty to which the love of neighbor is component (Mark 12:28-34).
Proverbs 19:17, today’s verse, frames charity as part of our relationship not just with man but with God. Generosity, giving without requiring return, is an act not just of love to man but of love to God, and God does not receive our duty without fulfilling His. But what is His duty?
As declared in Scripture, a part of His duty (His joy; His Divine free will) is to curse our sin and to bless our righteousness, fostering the second and disciplining the first to grow us towards full holiness (Eph. 2:21; Heb. 12:5-6; 1 John 1:9). He promises this to us in the covenant. So true generosity, not long-minded cupidity, receives an eternal blessing, a repayment not in monetary kind but in the blessing which rewards righteousness (Ps. 5:12).
Note that caveat: ‘not long-minded cupidity.’ Generosity made under a calculation of investment, motivated centrally by a hope for profit, is unrighteous. We properly work towards and eagerly anticipate the reward He gives us (Deut. 26:11), but always we recognize that its meanest part is His work entirely (2 Cor. 10:17). Matthew 10:40-41 establishes, meanwhile, the proper motive for generosity: to receive a man according to his relationship to God, the righteous as righteous, the prophet as a prophet. Even the wicked man, with wisdom, as the image of God which he is. Charity must come from love of Him first, love which motivates, includes, and engulfs proper love of each other man, including the self (proper love excludes idolatry). This verse in Proverbs is an encouragement, not the central reason for charity.
Always our lives are built on relationship with Him. Our covenantal duties are undertaken because we in covenant with Him, and they in that nature reap the reward He promised as His covenantal duty. Yet they are entirely reliant on the strength and ability and desire granted by Him in fulfilling the covenant (John 3:1-8). So we should recognize that charity is ultimately an imitation of Him (Eph. 5:1), of Him who gave us this covenant of grace and called us into it, who gives us wherewithal to live by it.
God bless.
Sanctuary Functional Medicine, under the direction of Dr Eric Potter, IFMCP MD, provides functional medicine services to Nashville, Middle Tennessee and beyond. We frequently treat patients from Kentucky, Alabama, Mississippi, Georgia, Ohio, Indiana, and more... offering the hope of healthier more abundant lives to those with chronic illness.
Colson Potter writes copious fiction and nonfiction, including a weekly Proverbs post and his blog at Creational Story.
