Proverbs 16:4

For himself. Does this passage mean that in God's plan He created wicked men upon this earth for the purpose of eventually punishing and destroying them? This text has been used to support the dreadful doctrine of reprobation, which teaches that God deliberately created some men to suffer eternal punishment. The first clause literally translated reads, "God made everything with respect to its end [or answer, or response]." The word here translated "himself" is translated "answer" in chs. 15:1 and 16:1. This rendering suggests that the writer is speaking, not of the doctrine of reprobation, but merely of the eternal and unchangeable order of things that causes sin to bring suffering and death.

God made man upright, but when man sought out many inventions and sinned (Eccl. 7:29), he made himself suited only to destruction in the day of the consummation of all things. Those who use their free will and choose to be reborn (John 3:3, 7), become fitted for eternal life and will eventually inherit a purified world (2 Peter 3:13). God made everything to meet the fate for which it had become suited—in the case of man, by his own choice, and the rest of earthly creation by its innocent involvement in the ruin that man has brought. Thus the Lord assures us that He has foreseen and prepared against every eventuality. There will never be an immortal sinner, saddening heaven by his suffering throughout eternity (see on Ex. 4:21).