A false witness will not go unpunished, and he who breathes out lies will not escape.
I might, as I have probably done in other parts of this series, focus on the ways in which God has woven this into the earth, and to some extent, those mechanisms will appear here. But today I’d have us look in a different direction. I would have us turn our eyes upon a deeper level of reality, upon what underlies this proverb. Why does the false witness receive his punishment (Deut. 19:18-19) in the end? Why does the liar never escape? The Lord is His name, and He is greatly to be praised.
The fundamental pretense of modernity (not merely ‘nowadays’ but the historic-theological-cultural era) is that causation is merely mechanical. As I have shown in a little more detail here, this heresy is not new to mankind. It is in fact the fundament of the occult and of ancient paganism. The modern, however, takes it a step farther than the old pagan typically dared to, and the modern has integrated this step farther into his life to a remarkable extent.
That extra step is simple: whereas the ancient pagan saw the gods as generally mechanical in their interactions with him but fundamentally personal (just as he himself was personal), the modern sees a world where cause produces effect without any ‘person’ whatsoever being involved. We say, ‘Weight falls,’ without the slightest qualm as to the connection between weight and falling, whether it needs a personal mediator or agent. Power exists without reference to authority.
The Christian, when he applies Scripture thoroughly, sees a different world entirely. The reason for every causal relationship—actual, potential, or incarnated—is to his open eyes the Creator of this world, the first cause not only by order but directly of everything. A causes B because God willed it to be so; He is the true cause as ordaining all (no, this does not make Him a sinner; it is not wicked for God to decree that a man sins (1 Sam. 2:25)). All cause is decreed by God; all power is within His power and authority.
This reality being affirmed to us by His word (Matt. 10:29), we can say with confidence that “the false witness will not go unpunished,” and that “he who breathes out lies will not escape” (Prov. 19:5). We know, after all, that the effects of these lies are ordained by God. We know, though not by the sort of mechanical observation which humanist science makes the only true knowledge, that God has made sin the cause of downfall.
Nor is this merely a theological or eschatological or soteriological statement. The curse of sin manifests itself in this world, universally though with imperfect visibility (Deut. 28:15; Jer. 17:5). In some, cursed in ways we regularly fail to appreciate, this curse is a rot in the heart, making their sweetest moments as ash, both in the manner of the addict, for whom each high is the prelude to an even deeper desire which blots out the pleasure, and more directly, as they cannot take true joy, knowing not Him (Gal. 5:22). In others, the results are more blatant.
Too often we despair at the prosperity of the wicked. The Psalms testify to us of this tendency, with poems like Psalm 10 and Psalm 73. Why do the wicked prosper? Isaiah asks the same question in chapter 57. In truth, if we look across the wicked, if we compare them to the righteous, we find that the wicked are indeed cursed, even in this life. The land they till gives them more thorns for their sin, as is the implication in the curse given to Adam: “Because you… have eaten of the tree…, cursed is the ground because of you; in pain you shall eat of it all the days of your life” (Gen. 3:17-19).
So Isaiah does not speak with mere bravado when he challenges his foes, saying, “But you, draw near, sons of the sorceress, offspring of the adulterer and the loose woman” (57:3) (and remember the connection drawn to magic above). He instead gives them a declaration of their fate: “When you cry out, let your collection of idols deliver you! The wind will carry them all off, a breath will take them away” (v13). They shall be destroyed, both in this life (visibly or invisibly), and in the next. The cause of their destruction is their sin, for God is the ordainer of all cause, and He is just.
The upshot of this can go in many directions. It can be a warning to us to refrain from lying. It can be an encouragement against despair in the face of evil’s triumph. It can be a warning to call the sinner towards repentance. All of these are true and good. All of them, though, spring from what we should remember perpetually: God means every part of His creation, including each of us and everything we encounter. He wove the strands, direct and indirect, which are already working ruin upon the sinner, with threads laid within the foundation of the world and by His direct work (overlapping categories); He works the causes, both His direct decree and the indirect causes He wields within that decree, which bring us to His side in joy and in glory. On this should rest our every step, having the true Sabbath of the redeemed.
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.
