Commentary on Selected Proverbs

                                                 Proverbs 24:12 (KJB)

God knows the heart of every individual human much better than they know it themselves. God creates every living human in His image which means every human has a good nature. Genesis 1:31; Genesis 1:27 (KJB). Evil humans suppress their good natures, and they may commit very cruel and evil acts. But God keeps their souls, and even every evil person has done some good in their lives that God gave them to do. Isaiah 26:12 (KJB). Jesus taught that God will reward even the smallest good work. Matthew 10:42 (KJB). If God should ever cast any living human into an eternal lake of fire, then that human could never receive any rewards for his good deeds at all. Only living humans can receive rewards. In fact, the Bible teaches that God will cast only dead humans into the lake of fire, and He will give rewards to all of His living humans for their good works. But God must raise all living humans back to life so that He can give them rewards. Revelation 20:5; Revelation 20:11-15; Revelation 22:11-12; I Corinthians 4:5 (KJB).

Jesus taught that He would not judge any human while He was in the world, not even for their unbelief. Jesus taught that He would reserve His judgment of humans until His final judgment in the end of the world. John 12:47-48 (KJB). Jesus judged only the Devil and all evil as He hung on the cross. Jesus judged no humans on the cross because He suffered and died on the cross to save all of humanity from eternal death and the evil that causes it. John 12:31-32; John 6:32-33; I John 3:8; Hebrews 2:9-18 (KJB). Both salvation by grace and the salvation of the rest of humanity can be seen in these verses. Jesus utterly destroyed the Devil and his power of eternal death to save all of His living humans alive. I Timothy 1:10; Luke 20:38 (KJB).

No living human can be saved from eternal death except through faith in the power of Christ to save them. Habakkuk 2:4 (KJB). But God has made certain that He will cause every living human to return to faith in Him as their Savior of their own free will. Christ will save some living humans by His grace while they are still alive in the flesh, and He will save the rest of His living humans confined to the regions of death when He appears to them in the end of the world. In the majesty of His appearance, He will cause them all to repent and return to the faith that He put into them when He created them in His image. Christ will then raise all of His living humans from their graves to eternal lives on His new earth, and He will cast their dead and evil natures into the lake of fire. Revelation 5:11-14; John 5:24; Revelation 20:5; Revelation 20:11-15; Revelation 21:1-5 (KJB).

Proverbs 24:12 agrees completely with Christ's final judgment in the end of the world. God will "render to every man according to his works" since He judges every man. Christ will judge every evil and dead nature of humans and cast them into the lake of fire, and He will return all of His repentant, living humans to life, and He will reward them all for their good works. John 5:28-29; Revelation 22:11-12; Ecclesiastes 12:13-14 (KJB).