My son, if thou be surety for thy friend, if thou hast stricken thy hand with a stranger, thou art snared with the words of thy mouth, thou art taken with the words of thy mouth (Prov. 6:1–2).
Why would one be denied a loan? The simple answer is that the creditor’s evaluation of them is that they are either incapable of repaying or potentially going to be unwilling to repay. The risk is just too high to loan the money. So, occasionally a creditor will demand a cosigner…that is an individual or institution willing to incur upon themselves the risk, so that the creditor can provide the loan with less risk.
This type of co-signing is generally looked down on by the Bible. A co-signer may have a higher estimation of his friend or family member than the creditor does, so he is willing to take the risk on himself. He believes that the creditor has not correctly estimated his friend or family member’s ability or willingness to repay the loan. So, he takes on the risk himself. He has his name on the loan. He becomes surety for his friend. That’s the topic of this proverb. Solomon points out that this makes one bound (or in his words snared or trapped) by this situation. Anyone who has been surety for a friend who didn’t pay the loan, knows why Solomon calls this a “snare.”
I am tempted to say that putting your name down for another is a bad idea in every case, but there are a few reasons why it may be morally acceptable and perhaps even morally comendable.
One might honorably co-sign in the name of charity. The co-signer may know the risk is great but is willing to pay the price if necessary to see his friend achieve his life goals. In this case he is simply giving someone a hand up. This was Christ’s motivation in laying down His life for His friends (John 15:13). He became surety for us (Heb. 7:22). He cosigned on our sin debt. And he paid it with his own resources. And praise be to God for this because we sure couldn’t pay the sin-debt ourselves.
Co-signing is essentially what some insurance does, but these institutions are paid for it. The common PMI insurance lessens the risk to the creditor so that the individual can get a home loan. This type of cosigning insurance gets paid for taking on the risk. This allows lenders to bear more risk and fund riskier innovations or projects, or to offer a home loan to someone with no down payment and with little or even no work history.
In today’s society, the government often operates as co-signer. The government backs loans. Much of welfare is essentially co-signing and this is generally what governmental subsidies are as well. But for what purpose does the state engage in co-signing? What is their motivation? The insurance company incurs risk for profit. But why would the state incur risk? Well, its not profit rather its for political favor and political support.
When the State backs a loan, the tax payers are forced without consent to offer surety, to co-sign for others, even to co-sign for rank pagans who have little to no intent to repay the loan. This is one back door method of wealth redistribution, graft and theft. This is one way the powerful steal from the poor and one way the poor steal from the working and tax paying poor. All of it done by governmental force. All of it done in the name of loving neighbor.
Our entire society is engaged in violating this principle of wisdom here in the proverbs. We are all on the hook. Our entire society is snared as our government continues to offer up tax payer money as surety for loans. Only time will tell what the outcomes of this will be for us as a society. But one outcome is already apparent: we are snared. We are taken. We are (and this is where the imagery of being snared and taken is from) enslaved.
Christ made himself surety for our inabilities and our incapability of paying off our sin debt. He incurred the debt. However, the difference between Christ and the State is that one is creator and the other creation. One has infinite resources intrinsic to himself, the other finite resources all of which are taken from others—not intrinsic. Christ cosigned. Christ became surety for us. And Christ paid the debt we were not able to pay. But he did so with his own……not what was stolen. This is why Christ is a savior and liberator, and the messianic state always a tyrant and slave master.
This brings us back to our original point. If you have sufficient resources and are willing to pay off the debt of a friend, then incurring the risk of co-signing is okay to do as charity. But, make sure you are prepared to pay the debt if needed. Make sure you have the resources to follow through. Otherwise avoid the trap.
