At thy right hand there are pleasures for evermore (Ps. 16: 11)
“For a just man falleth seven times, and riseth up again: But the wicked shall fall into mischief” (KJV).
“For a righteous man may fall seven times And rise again, But the wicked shall fall by calamity” (NKJV).
Proverbs 24:16
In this fallen world, the difference between a righteous and an unrighteous man is not whether they fall or not, but rather what they do when they fall. What is their reaction to the fact of having fallen? We are told that the characteristic of a righteous man is that he keeps getting up again after he sins. He gets up seven times. In contrast, when a wicked man falls into sin, he is falling into his native environment.
All men sin, whether saints or sinners. Saints sin and sinners sin. “For there is not a just man upon earth, that doeth good, and sinneth not” (Eccl. 7:20). But this does not mean that there is no difference between them. Far from it. The righteous recoils from the sin that affects him. He detests it. The ungodly man treasures it, and that is why he is headed for calamity and mischief.
We have another testimony to this same truth in 1 John.
“Whosoever abideth in him sinneth not: whosoever sinneth hath not seen him, neither known him” (1 John 3:6).
Taking all of Scripture together, this cannot be saying that a righteous person never sins. That would contradict what John said just a few chapters earlier. “If we say that we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us” (1 John 1:8). We should read this verse as contrasting inconsistent ways of abiding. This means that the person who abides in Christ cannot abide in sin. He may fall into sin seven times . . . but each time gets up again. He cannot abide sin, in either sense of the word.
