Proverbs 15:19 ESV
The way of a sluggard is like a hedge of thorns, but the path of the upright is a level highway.
[https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=proverbs+15%3A19&version=ESV]
‘The path of the upright is a level highway,’ the proverb states, and this conjures to mind images of ease, of walking in comfort, of a life of pleasantness. An instant later, reality obtrudes. Life is not easy. Even for the pagan, life means pain. For the Christian, whom the world hates with a hate inveterate (John 7:7-8), life is doubly hard. Yet every word of Scripture is true, God-breathed, useful for His people, and so we must understand this passage, not merely sidestep it as we are wont to do with difficult bits of Scripture. How can the path of the upright be a level highway, when life is for the upright so difficult?
Scripture promises no easy life to the Christian, neither in the Old Testament or in the New. It is of himself that David says, “I walk through the valley of the shadow of death…” (Ps. 23:4). It is of Himself that Christ says, “[The world] hates me because I testify about it that its works are evil” (John 7:7). Unregenerate man cannot abide the Christian, for the Christian is a perpetual reminder of the Christ he hates (John 15:18-19). On this earth, too, we must deal with the impact of our own flawed hearts; while He has made us anew, we are still on this earth drawn to sin, though ever less, still bringing upon ourselves His discipline (and discipline, however good, is never pleasant (Heb. 12:5-6)).
This promise of a ‘level highway’ seems a contradiction of reality, then. Even Matthew 7:14, part of a passage which seems at first similar, sounds so different when it says, “For the gate is narrow and the way is hard that leads to life, and those who find it are few.” The promise of a ‘level highway’ is surely of a good and easy path, a well-made way of righteousness, and Christ’s own words seem to contradict this. Yet note that I have said, ‘seem.’ God does not contradict Himself; this is a paradox, apparent contradiction, actual agreement.
See, we have an innate tendency to judge this passage in worldly terms. Thus, when we hear ‘level highway’, we think of material prosperity, physical and emotional safety, and the other niceties of this life. It’s an old thought-pattern and one fostered by our modern nanny-state, by our tendency to place safety above responsibility. That’s not the Biblical definition.
We can break down this ‘easy road’ into two parts- and both, honestly, require us to drop the word ‘easy’. It’s not precisely wrong, but it’s got connotations that just don’t work.
First, we have the eternal perspective. In the eternal perspective, life is prologue, the first word of an epic, the first frame of a film. The ‘level highway’, from this perspective, is the life which is to come, the life given to the upright (and denied to the damned). This life we shall not call ‘easy’, though it shall be without hardship or pain; it is glorious, too full and too rich to be diminished by a thin term like ‘easy’. Of this great existence John speaks in Revelation 22:3, saying, “No longer will there be anything accursed, but the throne of God and of the Lamb will be in it, and His servants will worship Him.”
Second, we have the narrow path of which Christ spoke, the path which leads to that eternal end. This road is, as a rule, exceptionally difficult. The world is set against it; the self is molded to dislike it (for all the heart is changed (Rom. 7:17-20). Every single act of virtue is harder than the corresponding act of vice, at least in the short term. To be a sluggard, as Prov. 15:19 contrasts with the path of the upright, is easier in the now than to act with wisdom. That such acts of vice are self-destructive, bringing ultimately only despair, is not in doubt, but this doesn’t make the Christian’s life any easier. Yet in Christ we can have peace.
This is the paradox of the Christian’s life on this earth: to be a Christian is without a doubt to invite suffering in this world, in the pattern of Christ, the most tormented of men, and to be a Christian is simultaneously to have peace excelling all comprehension (Phil. 4:7). For the first, we have already seen, can intuit easily enough. For the second, it is a testament to our utter blindness that it does not overwhelm us. If we truly saw the goodness and glory of God, if we saw merely its shadow, if we were to open our eyes a fraction as fully as we shall in the life to come, we would be overcome, would have that peace, that triumph, which an omnipotent Father brings, which a faithful Mediator assures, which a sanctifying Spirit bestows (Rom. 8:17; 1 Tim. 2:5; John 14:26). We do not, and we suffer for it.
To have that peace, though, even in a fragment of its full potential, is the blessing which makes a Christian’s path a ‘level highway’. Paul says as much: “What then shall we say to these things? If God is for us, who can be against us?” (Rom. 8:31). The answer to that question has two sides again. Who can be against us? The world, the flesh, and the devil, all three, dread foes beyond our might to match (Eph. 2:1-3). If He be with us? All the foes sin musters are dust to His might; His word alone matters, His Word alone speaks, His Word alone is assurance beyond all hope. In Him we can have “the peace of God, which surpasses all understanding” (Phil. 4:7). So may we remember the words of the hymn:
“Let your arms enfold me:
those who try to wound me
cannot reach me here.
Though the earth be shaking,
every heart be quaking,
Jesus calms my fear.
Fires may flash and thunder crash;
yea, though sin and hell assail me,
Jesus will not fail me.”
(Jesus Priceless Treasure, by Paul Gerhardt)
God bless
Written by Colson Potter
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.
