We have seen so far, in our work through Ecclesiastes, that the issue at hand is the issue of meaning.
1:1, 1:14, 1:17, 2:11, 2:15, 2:17, 2:23, 3:9, 3:19 12:8
Where does one find meaning?
As we’ve looked at Ecclesiastes we have tried to advance the idea that this search for meaning is taken up by the Preacher as one speaking alternately with the voice of the Covenant breaker and with the voice of the covenant keeper — though the preponderance of the speaking is with the voice of the covenant breaker. This accounts for the meaninglessness that often surrounds his conclusions. Meaninglessness is found because he is giving us the perspective of life from the position of the man who lives apart from God.
One reason we have advanced this idea is because, as we have noted, there are times periodically in the book when the gloom lifts and we see that life does have meaning. At those times we have suggested that the Preacher reverts to speaking in the voice of a Covenant keeper. He reverts to one who lives life in light of the God who alone can give meaning. Such examples that we have come across thus far are found in,
2:24-26, 3
And so the book of Ecclesiastes is about the search for meaning. But the search is conducted in such a way that meaning is seen to be impossible apart from the Covenant God who has revealed Himself in the Scripture. As we said the book forms a kind of negative apologetic as it repeatedly shuts the door of finding meaning apart from God. It does this with the purpose, I believe, of revealing that meaning can be had but only by presupposing and serving God.
Christ and Ecclesiastes
In our series thus far we have also tried to advance the truth that with the coming of Christ meaning can only be found in Christ, “in whom are hidden all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge” (Col. 2:3). If the Old Covenant Preacher could speak of finding meaning because of the reality of the covenant God, how much more so is this the case when the fulfillment of the ages has come in Christ who Scripture explicitly teaches is our “Wisdom from God” (I Cor. 1:31).
We have tried to emphasize that in and because of Redemption we are set on the sanctificational path of epistemological self consciousness. This is merely to say that we become, by God’s grace alone, increasingly wise and self aware that we need to look to Christ in order to find and have ongoing Wisdom / Meaning. This idea of being epistemologically self conscious is merely to say that because Christ is the Truth, and we are rightly related to Christ by being united to Christ, we become carriers of the truth / wisdom / meaning virus.
This is what is implored in all of Scripture
Proverbs 3:13 Blessed is the one who finds wisdom,
and the one who gets understanding,
14 for the gain from her is better than gain from silver
and her profit better than gold.
Proverbs 4:7 Wisdom is the principal thing, therefore get wisdom; and with all thy getting, get understanding.
What else is behind the call in Corinthians to “take every thought captive to make it obedient to Christ” save this idea of understanding that wisdom / truth / meaning can only be had in relation to Christ?
James tells us that God dispenses wisdom to those who ask. Elsewhere we are told that we are to have this mind in us that was also in Christ Jesus. The mind that was in Christ Jesus is the mind of wisdom / meaning / understanding.
As Christians our minds are to be renewed (Romans 12) that we may prove what is the good, and acceptable and perfect will of God. How else can we do that except by being able to locate meaning?
All this to say, that what we are looking at in Ecclesiastes, in terms of this issue of meaning is not unrelated to the work of Christ for His people. Christ has Redeemed us to the end that we might be meaning identifiers. We see the spin of this World and because we are in Him who is Wisdom we see what the enemy is trying to do with the spin and we see the real reality behind the spin. We are not the foolish virgins. We are the wise virgins who keep their epistemological lamps trimmed.
All of that said in order for us to see the Macro issues regarding meaning. Yes, we are in Ecclesiastes but the issue of meaning as found in Ecclesiastes relates to Christ and who we are in Christ.
This then takes us to the issue of Evangelism. Men today are much like the Covenant breakers that we hear in the voice of the Preacher in Ecclesiastes. They are men who are given over to finding meaning apart from Christ.
This idea of the search for meaning has not been unique to the ancient book of Ecclesiastes
In our own time
Queen — Nothing really matters
Anyone can see
Nothing really matters
Nothing really matters to me
Kansas — Dust in the Wind
All we are is dust in the wind
Dust in the wind
Everything is dust in the wind
Same old song
Just a drop of water in a endless sea
All we do
Crumbles to the ground though we refuse to see
Finding meaningful meaning apart from Christ can’t be done. Some will spend years — even decades — trying to find meaning apart from Christ. The elect among them will come to the realization that one can’t discover truth apart from Christ of Scripture who is the embodiment of Truth. To these people we must hold out Christ as not only the one who can save their souls (and their souls need saving) but also as the one in whom they can find meaning.
Let us pause to consider here that what we are speaking of has significant implications. We are not only talking about individuals being Redeemed to find truth / meaning in life, though that is absolutely foundational. We are also talking about civilizational impact. Should enough men and women, in any given culture, bow to Christ, who is God’s Wisdom, that culture and civilization is renewed also unto abundant life. There is a decrease in the patterns of the culture of death. There is an increase in interpersonal harmony in family, workplace, and Church. As men bow to Christ and find meaning there is a return to pursuit of the Good, the True, and the Beautiful.
Ecclesiastes and Civilization
As we turn to Ecclesiastes 3:16 – 5:7 we have to do with the relation of the legal / moral order to the matter of meaning. Man tries to set up justice and what he finds instead is wickedness and iniquity (3:16). The covenant breaker has these huge aspirations for a “just social order,” but as he seeks to implement that order apart from the God of the Bible while dependent on his how autonomous law word — a autonomous law word that is riddled with sin — all that can come about is wickedness and iniquity where there was supposed to finally be justice and righteousness.
I am reminded of the various Communist Revolutions which always promised justice in place of the systems they were overthrowing. I cite a couple of their versions of legal order justice to make the Preacher’s point about
In the place of justice
Wickedness was there
And in the place of Righteousness
Iniquity was there
After the Revolution was in place — this Revolution to overthrow the Bourgeoisie law order — there was issued a edict
“There is no such thing as a woman being violated by a man; he who says that a violation is wrong denies the October Communist Revolution. To defend a violated woman is to reveal oneself as a bourgeois and a partisan of private property.”
And another …
“By virtue of this present decree … all woman become the property of the nation…. The distribution and maintenance of nationalized women, in conformity with the decisions of responsible organizations, are the prerogative of the group of Saralof anarchists … All women thus put at the disposition of the nation must, within three days after the publication of the present decree, present themselves in person at the address indicated and provide all necessary information … Any man who wishes to make use of nationalized woman must hold a certificate issued by the administrative council of a professional union, or by the Soviet of workers, soldiers, or peasants, attesting that he belongs to the working class.”
Men apart from God, whether in the times of the preacher or in the 20th century find little if any justice or righteousness in their legal – moral orders erected apart from God and His Christ. Man apart from God is forever crying out for social justice, and fairness, but when he gains the whip hand what he institutes is oppression and social injustice.
So here again, in 3:16-17 we see the negative apologetic of the Preacher at work. Speaking in the voice of the Covenant breaker he speaks of the attempt to set up justice and righteousness but instead what is found is wickedness and iniquity.
Ecclesiastes & Judgment
In vs. 17 we hear the voice of the Covenant keeper again. Yes, times of injustice masking as justice arise but in the end God will judge the righteous and the wicked.
17 I said in my heart, God will judge the righteous and the wicked, for there is a time for every matter and for every work. (cmp. vs. 15)
Man may think he gets away with injustice and wickedness where God requires justice and right judgments but there is a time when these matters will be set straight.
(By the way, the mentioning of “For there is a time,” with reference to God’s judgment in vs. 17, indicates that 3:1-9 is indeed dealing with God’s times and not man’s times.)
Comparison Between Men & Animals
In vs. 18 we continue to hear the voice of the Preacher as covenant keeper. God is testing men who are outside the covenant. Here you have these men setting up these legal orders and moral orders in order to have “justice” apart from God and what transpires is wickedness and iniquity. God is testing them that they may see that justice apart from God turns men into animals. The Preacher is not saying here that men and animals have are qualitatively the same. He is merely noting that man apart from God are LIKE animals.
And the 20th century has provided for us all the empirical evidence we need to see that man’s inhumanity to man can be just as red in tooth and claw as the Animal Kingdom.
1915 – 1918 — Turkish Armenian genocide — 1.5 million
Turks slaughter Armenians
1932 – 1933 — Soviet Ukrainian Political famine (Holdomar) — 7 million
Communists slaughter Christian Ukrainians
1932 – 1939 — Soviet White Russian Purge — 11 million
Communist Russians exterminated non Communist Russians. The tales are gruesome.
1937 – 1938 — Japanese Rape of Nanking — 300,000 killed
1938 – 1945 — Nazi Holocaust with accounts of the death total anywhere from 4-6 million Jews. Slavs and Gypsies
1944 – 1953 — Soviet Gulag Archipelago — 29 million killed
1949 – 1957 — Maoist Counter Revolution Repression — 3 million Chinese killed by the Chinese Gov.
1958 – 1961 — Mao’s great leap forward — 38 million
1966 – 1976 — Mao’s cultural Revolution — 3 million more
1949 – 1976 – Maoist Laogai camps — 27 million
1975 – 1979 — Khmer Rouge — 2 million
Abortuaries in US since 1973 — 60 million
When we talk about the dangers of man forgetting God … when we talk about the possible eclipse of muscular Biblical Christianity these are the truths and realities we are talking about. When man forgets God man becomes like an animal, and like the animal creates a “red in tooth and claw” world.
So, the Preacher is not saying here that man and animals are the same. He is merely speaking of how the covenant keeper becomes animal like in his behavior apart from God. There is another similarity between men and beasts and that is they all die. When the preacher says that man has no advantage over the animals and that all go to one place, and that they are all dust, the point of commonality is that both man and beast perish. Who can deny that? The point may be that for all his strutting in setting up legal and moral orders, man like the beast dies.
So the similarity is that they are both mortal. However there is dissimilarity mentioned in the following verses.
“This verse is not a continuation of the thought of the preceding verses. They have shown in how far man and beast are alike. Now there comes a statement in how far they differ.” (H. C. Leupold)
21 Who knoweth the spirit of man that goeth upward, and the spirit of the beast that goeth downward to the earth?
The Preacher will re-affirm this in 12:7
7 then shall the dust return to the earth as it was, and the spirit shall return unto God who gave it.
vs. 21 returns us to the idea captured in vs. 17. Man, once dead, will be judged by God as his spirit returns to God.
H. C. Leupold has accurately rendered its thought:
“There are not many who take to heart as they ought to the fact that the spirit of man goeth upward, and that the spirit of the beast goeth downward to the earth.”
Michael Kelley makes a connection regarding the Teacher’s observation that the Spirit of man goeth upward,
“The covenant people especially must be reminded that God will bring every activity of man into judgment, for it is the Preacher’s way of saying, as Hebrews 9:27, “Just as man is destined to die once, and after that to face judgment….”
However we must note that for those in Christ, the eschatological judgment of the end time has already fallen on them in Christ. Christ received our judgment and so we have no fear of condemnation (penalty after judgment). Should there remain any further final judgment upon those in Christ it is a judgment that will vindicate their vindication in Christ Jesus. Their judged works, likewise being imputed with the righteousness of Christ, will be testimony to their completely gracious salvation.
In vs. 22 the Preacher continues with his Covenant keeper voice,
v. 22— “…there is nothing better for a [covenant] man to do than to enjoy his work….”
If we connect the work he is to enjoy with the context we might conclude that he is to enjoy his work of establishing God’s righteousness in the legal – moral order. However, the enjoyment of our work — an enjoyment that defies the despair of the covenant breaker (16) — can only come in the context of covenant keeping.
Rejoicing in his own work seems to be the cure for a angst about the future. Man, the covenant keeper, also has eternity set in his heart but the work he can do can only be for his generation. He cannot see what will happen after him. So, covenant keeping man rejoices in his own work and doesn’t let the unknown future dissipate his current joy.
