Category: Sermons

II Cor. 5:14f

I.) Preliminary Considerations

A.) Clearing up the “all.” (14f)

First off, we have to understand that this letter was written to the believing Church. Paul is not addressing unbelievers but he is speaking to believers here. The audience thus constrains us to hear the “all” language in the context of a believing community. The “all” then, given the context, points to believers.

Scripture consistently teaches that Christ died for all the subjects of Redemption. Christ died for all who died when He died. (“If one died for all, then all died.”) This is the principle of Covenant headship that is spoken of in Romans 5. All in Adam die in Adam and All in Christ are made in alive in Christ. The apostasy of Adam was the apostasy of all united to Adam. The work of Christ was the work of all united to Christ. The simple meaning here then is the death of Christ is the death of His people.

(Compare to Romans 5 “all” language.)

In this verse we would note that the ones for whom Christ died are the same “all” who died with Christ as a result of Christ’s death as mentioned at the end of the same verse.

So the answer to who the “all” is who died is the “all” who were made alive.

That St. Paul in this very letter does not embrace a Universal Atonement is seen in what he said earlier,

But if our gospel be hid, it is hid to them that are perishing (4:3)

Here clearly the Apostle understands that the Gospel has a hidden quality and the hidden quality of it is towards those who are perishing. Clearly no idea of universality is present.

Earlier in II Corinthians this lack of “allness” is also hinted at.

14 Now thanks be unto God, which always causeth us to triumph in Christ, and maketh manifest the aroma of his knowledge by us in every place. 15 For we are unto God a sweet aroma of Christ, in them that are saved, and in them that perish: To the one we are the aroma of death unto death; and to the other the aroma of life unto life. And who is sufficient for these things?

So what is the difference in the aroma? It is that some catch the aroma as perishing while others catch the aroma as being saved.

All of this thus is suggestive that the “all” in chapter 5 is a “all” that is restricted by the design of the atonement.

B.) Impact of Being part of the All for whom Christ died (15)

The Holy Spirit goes on to say here that the consequence of having died in Christ is that we are now alive in Christ and so living unto him is the pivot point of our lives. (Romans 6)

This is consistent with what St. Paul said earlier of himself when He said that Christians make it their goal to please God. Paul can even say in Ephesians

“For we (Christians) are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus unto good works, which God hath before ordained that we should walk in them.”

Charles Hodge waxes eloquent here on this point

“He only is a Christian who lives for Christ. Many persons think they can be a Christian on easier terms than these. They think it enough to trust in Christ while they do not live for Him. But the Bible teaches us that if we are partakers of Christ’s death, we are also partakers of His life; if we have any such appreciation for His love in dying for us as to lead us to confide in the merit of His death, we shall be constrained to consecrate our lives to His service. And this is the only evidence of the genuineness of our Faith.”

Charles Hodge
19th Century American Theologian

If we are, along with St. Paul to make it our goal to please him … if we are to live unto Christ then it is absolutely essential that Christ be known. Many are those who would insist that they are living unto Christ but they live unto a Christ of their own imagination.

Now having dealt with these introductory matters we want to consider two significant impulses of this passage.

I.) Eschatological Impulse

“If anyone is in Christ He is a new creation.”

Dutch Theologian Ridderbos says of this text, “This is the main theme of Paul’s ministry and epistles.”

We would add it is part of the theme of how it is that the new creation (God’s Kingdom, God’s New World Order) is penetrating into and rolling back this present wicked age.

This idea of a “New Creation” is a motif consistent with Old Testament promises. Isaiah wrote of the new creation future. There God speaks of a coming new creation,

“For, behold, I create new heavens and a new earth: and the former shall not be remembered, nor come into mind.”

Again in chapter 66 God speaks of God making a new heavens and a new earth. In Christ that new heavens and new earth have been created.

St. Paul is saying here in II Cor. 5 that the one in Christ has already now been placed in that new creation Kingdom that we might also be styled as “God’s New World Order.”

Paul says much the same thing with slightly different language when in Colossians he can say,

3 Who hath delivered us from the power of darkness, and hath translated us into the kingdom of his dear Son

That Kingdom of God’s dear Son is the New Creation and as we are placed in the New Creation we ourselves are now “New Creations.” The old has past. The New has come.

Paul speaks of this theme again in Colossians 3, speaking of how believers,

have put on the new man, which is renewed in knowledge after the image of him that created him:

The Believer then is part of this new creation community which Ezekiel recognized as once being a valley of dry bones but now a army brought to life from the dead. God has brought us up out of our graves when Christ Himself was brought out of His grave and has placed us in the future eschatological age to come with Christ … a future age that is impacting and leavening this present evil age. This new creation is the Rock that Daniel saw in his vision that rolled over all other Kingdoms that was placed in its way. This new creation is the mustard seed that became a great tree so that all the birds (nations) found a place to nest. This new creation come is the leaven that works itself through the whole.

This explains why for Paul in his preaching in the book of Acts the twin themes were the Resurrection of Christ and the Kingdom of God. Because of the Resurrection of Christ the Kingdom of God (what Paul often styles as the “new creation”) has arrived and is a hurricane force that has every intent of sucking everything in its path into its vortex to remake it consistent with the new creation Hurricane.

Now, why is this Eschatological impulse that we have noted here important?

Simply because the nowness of the “new creation” has been so long buried and continues to be buried underneath the flotsam and jetsam of those in the Church who would rather over emphasize the “not yetness” of the new creation. They accuse us who preach this nowness of a “over-realized” eschatology, by which they mean that our expectations of what Christ intends to accomplish before His return is to high to the point of being dangerous. They cast their eyes upon the landscape and they see how Christians are marginalized and they say, “Thus it has ever been, thus it is now, thus it will ever shall be. Amen,” completely ignoring the triumph of the Gospel and of Christianity in periods throughout History.

They thus make a virtue out of the expectation that the gates of Hell shall prevail. Their theology is all Crucifixion and no Resurrection and Ascension. They see the “not yet” of our Reformed Hermeneutic as corporeally incarnating itself into all of reality and all of our living but the “now” victory of our Reformed Hermeneutic in their sermons, books, and tours is all “spiritual,” which is to say, not only that it has no present tactile reality anyplace beyond the Church, but that it never will have any present tactile reality anyplace beyond the Church.

They conclude that those of us who desire to speak up regarding the “nowness” of the Kingdom and the certain incremental victory of the new creation over this present wicked age are a positive harm upon the Church.

Really, though the disagreement here is only one of differing eschatology. When Postmillennialists read the Scripture they see the triumph of Christ in space and time. When amillennialists read the Scripture they also see the triumph of Christ in space and time but then they end up defining “triumph” quite differently.

Now having spent some time here we want to consider the

II.) Soteriological Impulse

Reconciliation is the bringing together of two parties who have hostility towards one another.

The necessity of Reconciliation presupposes the existence of a barrier of enmity that needs to be removed.

In Christian theology the Reconciliation that needs to take place is both a Reconciliation of God to man and of man to God. The main emphasis of what St. Paul is speaking of here is God’s reconciliation towards man though the reciprocal idea of man’s reconciliation to God also can be gleaned.

Man’s main problem is that God needs to be Reconciled to him. God is justly at war with man because of His sin and something had to be done to provide a basis for God to be reconciled to man. That something that needed to be done God did Himself by incarnating and sending the 2nd person of the Trinity — the Lord Christ — to be the one who would remove The Father’s just hostility to His elect by taking upon Himself the Father’s just hostility towards sin.

In this text what is primarily spoken of is

A.) Objective Reconciliation (God being reconciled to man)

1.) The Author of the Reconciliation

God Himself — Paul says “… All things are of God who has reconciled us.”

Here we note that the chief and only actor in our reconciliation and salvation is God. This is why Biblical Christians will talk about “Salvation being all of God.” God took the initiative to reconcile His people. God did all the saving and He did it in the provision of Christ.

Who, Paul teaches here is,

2.) The Basis of our Reconciliation ?

Yes, God is the author of our reconciliation but He elected to provide that reconciliation only through Christ. This explains why Biblical Christians insist on the absolute necessity of a known Christ in order to have peace with God. There is no concourse with God apart from the person and work of the Lord Jesus Christ.

Christ is the one who extinguished the necessary and just opposition of God that was a immovable force set against us.

The plain meaning, thus, is that through Jesus Christ, God established the basis of agreement between men and God as estranged, removed the barrier to the sinner’s approach to Himself, and accepted the work of propitiation in Christ.

3.) The Preached Word of our Reconciliation (18, 20f)

Paul says here that he was set aside unto the ministry of reconciliation. By this he means that it is his calling to make known that God’s has been propitiated. Paul lets men know that God himself has appeased Himself in the appearance of Himself in the person and work of the second person of the Godhead.

4.) Reconciling the World to Himself.

Here I think we need to see that the reconciling work of Christ accomplished on the cross was designed so that in the outworking of history what would eventually come to pass was the salvation of the whole cosmos (“World”). In Christ’s death all things were reconciled in principle and definitively but that reconciliation was to take place progressively in history and culminate in all things being reconciled finally in the consummation of all things. The redemptive effects of Christ’s death was accomplished at the cross and those same redemptive effects continue to extend out into the future so that the all things that were reconciled in principle and definitively in the death of Christ are progressively reconciled as the future unfolds. The final end of Christ’s work is the reconciliation of the World that was accomplished in principle and definitively in the work of our Lord Christ in his Cross work.

Conclusion

Missionary Impulse (20f)

1.) Not reckoning their trespasses to them

2.) Based on the fact that God has provided His reconciliation to men because of Christ men now are responsible to be reconciled to God.

3.) Become the righteousness of God in Him

Objective — Based on the fact that Paul says that God counted Christ as being sin for us, I understand when Paul talks about our becoming the Righteousness of God he is referring first to the reality that because Christ’s righteousness is counted as ours we are said to be the righteousness of God.

Subjective — Becoming.

We become what we have been freely declared to be.

Introduction

Conversation with Friend concerning preparing the Church for what looks to be coming

Article by one of the Church’s Theologians on living as Exiles

Any honest appraisal of the era that we are currently living in includes the idea that Christians are and that the Christian belief system is being pushed to the margins of our culture. In my estimation a good case can be made that as the perverted are being allowed out of the closet, the Christian is being shoved into the closet, being required to keep silent now as perversion previously had been. Our cultural absolutizing of Science and the technological as the arbiter of all truth has resulted in the claims of Christianity being seen as worthy of derision. Belief in the supernatural is made to look fairly tale-ish compared to evolution. Abortifacients, no-fault divorce, and now the push to the accepting of sodomite marriage have made orthodox Christian sexual ethics look pass’e, out of date, and mean. In some cultural circles to even espouse a traditional Christian mindset is to invite charges of “hate crimes.”

Of course we are not the first ones to have to live with Christianity being seen as culturally unacceptable. The book of Hebrews gives us insight into some early Christians who were exiles among their own people. In the book of Hebrews the congregation is informed to bear the reproach of Christ. They are reminded that given their times they have no continuing city and they are told to seek the city to come.

We will look closer at that theme in just a moment but for now we want to consider other options that some Christians will choose in order to avoid being marginalized in this culture and in order to avoid becoming cultural outcasts.

Obviously one tactic will be to compromise,

I.) Biblical Christianity will be reinterpreted through a different grid

The result of this will be that what was once seen as beyond the pale, will now be seen as needful to support if one is to be seen as “Christian.

This is happening already.

Over the past decade, evangelical support for same sex marriage has more than doubled, according to polling by the nonpartisan Public Religion Research Institute. About a quarter of evangelicals now support same-sex unions, the institute has found, with an equal number occupying what researchers at Baylor University last year called the “messy middle” of those who oppose gay marriage on moral grounds but no longer support efforts to outlaw it.

This compromise and reinterpretation is seen especially among the Church’s young people under 35. Among that age group just slightly less than 50% now support same-sex marriage. Reflecting that homosexual student organizations have become to crop up at various “Christian” colleges across the nation including Wheaton College.

Even some of the most prominent evangelicals—megachurch pastors, seminary professors and bestselling authors—have publicly announced their compromise on this subject recently. In April a fairly prominent Pastor in Ann Arbor let the world know that he had “seen the light” on the issue and was now recanting his former views.

This tactic of compromise has been a time honored maneuver in the Church over the decades and even centuries. On another subject it was seen again most recently in a well known Church publication. In this article, compromise was being urged on in the way that the Scriptures define Adam and Eve.

“Adam and Eve: Traditionally we’ve been taught that Adam and Eve were the first human pair, Adam made out of dust and Eve from one of Adam’s ribs. But sustaining this doctrine is extremely difficult when we take seriously the human race as we know it today sharing ancestry with other primates such as chimpanzees. Where in the slow evolution of homo erectus and homo habilis and homo sapiens do Adam and Eve fit? We will have to find a better way of understanding what Genesis tells us about Adam and Eve. . . .”

We could spend the whole morning elucidating compromises in Church history. It is sufficient to understand that one way of avoiding the Hebrews counsel to be willing to bear the reproach of Christ is to compromise the faith in order that we may remain “relevant” to our culture.

II.) The Scriptures themselves warn against this turn to compromise when Paul spoke to the Ephesian Elders,

“I know that after my departure fierce wolves will come in among you, not sparing the flock; and from among your own selves will arise men speaking perverted things, to draw away disciples after them.”

In the letter to the Hebrews the author likewise warns against this temptation to compromise by giving them the example of Moses,

“24 By faith Moses when he was come to age, refused to be called the son of Pharaoh’s daughter, 25 And chose rather to suffer adversity with the people of God, than to enjoy the [z]pleasures of sin for a season, 26 Esteeming the rebuke of Christ greater riches, than the treasures of Egypt: for he had respect unto the recompense of the reward.
27 By faith he forsook Egypt, and feared not the fierceness of the king: for he endured, as he that saw him which is invisible.”

And then the author of Hebrews, sets forth the Lord Christ as an example as one who did not compromise to gain relief from the threat of cultural irrelevance and exile.

“…let us run with patience the race that is set before us, 2 Looking unto Jesus the author and finisher of our faith, who for the joy that was set before him, endured the cross, despising the shame, and is set at the right hand of the throne of God.”

III.) Exile in the OT as a Pattern

Being exiles is not a theme that is that foreign to Scripture. Joseph was exiled by His Brothers. Moses was exiled and rejected by Israel. It is not too much to say that the law typologically foreshadows Christ as the rejected and exiled prophet. Jesus came unto His own and His own received Him not. Exile.

And yet Scripture also seems to set forth the pattern that God uses His exiled people to be the means of deliverance for God’s people. Joseph was rejected and exiled but eventually God judged Joseph’s brothers, (Gen. 43:21-22; 44:16) exalted Joseph (Gen. 45:9), and through judgment brought the brothers to repentance (44:16, 18-34, 50:15-18) and all along what they meant for evil God meant for good (50:20). So also with Moses; though Israel had rejected him (Ex. 2:14), God exalted Moses (Ex. 4:16), judged Israel when they grumbled against him (Numbers 14:1-23), through judgment brought them into the Promised Land (Dt. 2:16), and made his glory known (Ex. 14:4, 34:6-7, Num. 14:21).

The pattern is fulfilled in Jesus who was rejected and exiled, with the book of Hebrews informing us that Jesus suffered outside the gate, while despising the cross and enduring the shame. He was a exile. And yet we know that God exalted this rejected exile and that through the judgment that fell on Him, His people are delivered as they trust in Christ alone. The Lord Christ is the fulfillment of all the previous typological OT prophets who were rejected and exiled and yet finally were vindicated and used as the means by which God’s people would be delivered.

III.) Exile in the NT and in Church History

However, that which was true about Christ as being rejected and exiled is true not only about the OT saints who anticipated Him but it seems that in some epochs of History it is also true about those that belong to Christ. They likewise are a rejected and exiled people. Whether we speak of the Apostles in the New Testament,

9 For I think that God hath set forth us the apostles last, as it were appointed to death: for we are made a spectacle unto the world, and to angels, and to men. 10 We are fools for Christ’s sake, but ye are wise in Christ; we are weak, but ye are strong; ye are honourable, but we are despised. 11 Even unto this present hour we both hunger, and thirst, and are naked, and are buffeted, and have no certain dwelling place; 12 And labour, working with our own hands: being reviled, we bless; being persecuted, we suffer it: 13 Being defamed, we intreat: we are made as the filth of the world, and are the offscouring of all things unto this day.

or whether we look at the congregation of the Hebrews here, or whether in history we consider the Huguenots, Covenanters, or the Puritans, God’s people have in their History this living their lives as those considered exiles.

Of course this sense of exile has not been the burden of Christians in the West for some time. The West was built by the Christian faith of Christian men and women. The Christian faith dwelt in the hearts, hearths, and homes of the West. This was so true that they often refer to the West as “Christendom.” This Christendom was never utopia but it was a place where Christian beliefs and mores could be found in wide acceptance. Christ was seen as the Redeemer and Savior of His people. God’s law was seen as the standard, not only for personal ethics, but also for the ethics that were enshrined into the laws and institutions of the West. Confessing Christ was seen as necessary and required for holding different political offices. Being Christians Mothers and Fathers, raising a Christian family, giving the children who would eventually arrive a Christian education was seen as the the goal of every newlywed young Christian man and wife. The Christian Church with its Christian worldview echoing from the pulpit, and ensconced in a myriad of weekly publications was the predominant molder and shaper of the culture. Exile was not a familiar theme.

That time has gone into eclipse and now we must reckon with the fact that we live, as the congregation did in the book of Hebrews, as Exiles.

IV.) Well how shall we successfully live as Exiles in this Brave New World

A.) First, we realize that our status as exiles has no need to be the only theme among Christians. There is currently a theology in the Reformed Church in existence that wants to absolutize the theme of exile so that any suggestion of building successful Christian culture is seen as Triumphalism or as a dastardly theology of glory. We understand because of our own antinomian unfaithfulness we are living in an age of Exile but there is no reason to absolutize this Exile as if it is the norm for all times and places. Scripture speaks repeatedly of the Triumph of Christ in time and space. The Kingdoms of this world are shattered by the rock cut out of the Mountain that rolls over the Kingdom statue. The Knowledge of the Lord will cover the earth as the waters cover the sea. The Kingdom of heaven leavens all. The mustard seed of Christianity becomes a great tree in which all the Nations (Birds) find refuge.

There is something altogether unseemly in a theology that says “we’ve always lost, we are losing now, and we will only ever lose, though spiritually speaking that losing is really winning. If we want to be faithful we have to see ourselves as perpetual exiles in every generation.”

Continuing on with addressing how to successfully live as Exiles …

B.) Church and Worship

1.) For Exiles Church and Worship becomes a haven where identity is reinforced.

I’m convinced that this is one reason why the author to the Hebrews can tell this congregation of Exiles to,

23 Let us hold fast the profession of our faith without wavering; (for he is faithful that promised;)
24 And let us consider one another to provoke unto love and to good works: 25 Not forsaking the assembling of ourselves together, as the manner of some is; but exhorting one another: and so much the more, as ye see the day approaching.

As Exiles a way to maintain or identity and also a way to continue to fight is to have our identity reinforced in the gathering of the saints for Worship. In worship we walk out of the liturgies of the world which would shape us consistent with the belief systems of the zeitgeist and we walk into the liturgy of the Church where the centrality of Word and Sacrament permeates the whole of the rest of the liturgy.

In our worship the Word informs the Liturgy and during the dance of worship our identity in Christ is underscored and so we rejoice at being Exiles for and in Christ. In the Word Christ is championed as being the great reconciler between God and man and in whom we find a peace with God that the zeitgeist can never offer. In the word Christ is our great liege Lord to whom all our loyalty gladly belongs. In the Word Christ is seen as the one in whom are hidden all the treasuries of Wisdom and knowledge which reminds us of the zeitgeist follies we walked out of in order to enter the sanctuary.

So important is Worship that Dr. Peter Leithart can ask and then answer his own question by observing,

“Christians in the US are entering a period of crisis that will lead to martyrdom…

How do we prepare? Not by military exercises or organizing militias. We prepare by learning to use finger-weapons, not hand-weapons, which is to say, by learning to battle with musical instruments. We prepare by training our bodies as musical instruments, by learning to sing lustily, especially by learning to sing God’s songs.”

Via the singing of God’s songs … via the Heart of Christianity communicated via Reformed Liturgy … via the emphasis that one finds in Reformed Sermons of a Christian worldview that takes captive every thought to make it obedient to Christ the Exile and marginalized retain their Christian identity.

Now, I would never contend that Worship is the only means of living successfully as Exiles but I would contend that it is one of the means of resistance. Via Biblical Worship we are washed of the foul false word and liturgies of the zeitgeist and we are re-oriented by the Word and Sacrament as they inform our Liturgy and so we are able to once again find ourselves rooted and grounded in Christ. This simple but beautiful Worship where the Word saturated Liturgy finds us Welcomed by the God who reminds us of His law every week. This Liturgy where upon the hearing of God’s law God’s people confess their sin and then find comfort in God’s absolution of their sin and the turning away of His judgment because of the finished work of Christ. Then because of this pronounced absolution God’s people are reminded of their resurrection in Christ. This liturgy where God speaks to His people through the voice of His spokesman who brings to God’s people from the Holy desk both the harmony and disharmony of Law and Gospel.

C.) And then out of that worship we fight

The visible Church is the Church militant and like Peter on that 1st pentecost we continue to command all men everywhere to repent. And so we contend for the crown Rights of the Lord Christ.

The Dutch theologian Kuyper could say here,

“When principles that run against your deepest convictions begin to win the day, then battle is your calling, and peace has become sin; you must, at the price of dearest peace, lay your convictions bare before friend and enemy, with all the fire of your faith.”

We wrestle against principalities and powers. We take captive every thought to make it obedient to Christ. We put on the whole armor of God. We study to show ourselves approved, workmen who needeth not to be ashamed. We are ready to give an answer of the hope that lies within us. We have our minds transformed and renewed to think God’s thoughts after Him on every subject under the sun. As Exiles we are witnesses to the Nations until the Nations are converted to Christ.

Conclusion

re-cap

There are different disciplines that one is introduced to when one attends Seminary. Two of those disciplines are Systematic Theology and Biblical Theology. Both of these disciplines are based on the Bible. Biblical Theology as discipline came much later and labeled itself “Biblical Theology.” It was a good marketing move.

We are going to spend just a little bit of time seeking to help you get a laymen’s understanding of the two because the understanding of these distinctions, at least at a rudimentary level, should be owned by the Laymen as much as the Seminary Student.

When we consider Biblical Theology, which we will be emphasizing today, we find that according to one Professional Biblical Theologian,

“Biblical Theology seeks to explain the worldview behind the statements we now find in the Bible. Biblical Theology attempts to elucidate the metanarrative embraced by the Biblical authors.”

James M. Hamilton Jr.
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Because this is so Biblical sermons may not focus on one text but instead might seek to be longitudinal as the sermon seeks to give some aspect of the metanarrative soil out of which a particular Biblical truth grows.

One of the most well known Biblical Theologians has offered,

“Biblical Theology, rightly defined, is nothing else than the exhibition of the organic process of supernatural revelation in its historic continuity and multiformity.”

Geerhardus Vos
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Systematic Theology, for example, examines and organizes revelation systematically and logically, whereas Biblical Theology operates historically.

Example — Systematic Theology has this great dense, complicated and tangled Forrest of God’s Revelation before it. It looks at this Forest of Revelation and it asks the question, “How can I best organize all this truth so that it is understandable and digestible?”

And it concludes that the best way it can do that is to break it up into categories and sub-categories and sub sub-categories wherein it can be understood. So for example one might rightly see that the Forest of God’s revelation deals with “Soteriology” — “The Doctrine of Salvation,” and so one creates the category of “Doctrine of Salvation” with sub-categories under that of Redemption, Reconciliation, Propitiation, Expiation, Sacrifice, Blood, etc. The one might take one of those sub-Categories of the Category of Soteriology and break it down even more. In doing so there idea is that there will be ever increasing exhaustive understanding of what Scripture teaches on any one subject.

As we’ve hinted at already, the Discipline that is called “Biblical Theology,” does not ask the question that Systematic Theology asks. As we just noted Systematic Theology asks the question “How can I best organize all this truth so that it is understandable and digestible?” The discipline of Biblical Theology on the other hand asks the questions, “How did this Forest of God’s Revelation grow into the Forest it did and what are the main themes we can see in this Forest as this Forest grew?”

So systematic theology is concerned with the finished product of God’s Revelation whereas biblical theology is concerned with the unfolding process, growth, and final culmination of God’s Revelation. Now, if you were to think about it awhile you would realize that there is overlap between the two and that the two imply one another but this is the general way in which these two Disciplines are considered.

The concept of the organic nature of revelation is prominent in Biblical Theology. Good Biblical Theology traces the organic growth of revelation as it is God’s Interpretation of the work of God’s Redemption. The great events in the history of redemption were accompanied by the corresponding revelation of God to explain the meaning of the acts of Redemption. Biblical Theology understands that,

“the heart of divine truth, that by which men live, must have been present from the outset, and that each subsequent increase consisted in the unfolding of what was germinally contained in the beginning of revelation. The Gospel of Paradise is such a germ in which the Gospel of Paul is potentially present; and the Gospel of Abraham, of Moses, of David, of Isaiah and Jeremiah, are all expansions of this original message of salvation, each pointing forward to the next stage of growth, and bringing the Gospel idea one step nearer to its full realization.”

G. Vos

Now, I offer this painfully brief backdrop in order to spend a little time with you this morning looking at a theme that is constructed in a Biblical Theological fashion.

What we want to consider this morning is the process in Scripture by which the theme of the anti-thesis is begun and then traced throughout the Scriptures.

Of course the first mention of this warfare between the two competing seeds is found in the passage read this morning. What this passage teaches us is,

1.) I will put enmity (warfare) between the two seeds

There will be perpetual conflict placed between the people of God (seed of the Woman) and the people who oppose God (seed of the Serpent). This conflict is both between the people of God collectively and the enemy and the Champion of the people of God (Christ) and Satan.

2.) Bruising … and Crushing

This conflict will eventuate into ultimate deliverance (Salvation) for God’s people (God’s representative will crush the head of God’s opponent) but that ultimate deliverance will come via judgment (God’s opponent will strike the heel of God’s representative before that opponent is crushed.)

3.) On the belly … eating dust

Complete humiliation and total condemnation for the seed of the serpent.

So these three themes we want to trace organically and longitudinally through Scripture to see how this acorn theme in Genesis 3 grows into a mighty Oak through the rest of Scripture. In doing so we are seeking to let the Scripture interpret itself as God’s Revelation repeats and magnifies a theme that it begins in Genesis 3.

We need to keep in mind as we examine these themes that later Revelation can use different phrases and words to enlarge and expand upon the original idea.

I The Theme of Smiting and Broken Heads of Enemies

A.) Law

Numbers 24:17 I shall see him, but not now: I shall behold him, but not near: there shall come a [a]Star of Jacob, and a Scepter shall rise of Israel and shall smite the [b]coasts of Moab, and destroy all the sons of [c]Sheth.

This is the third oracle of Balaam concerning Israel. We see the language of “smiting” in reference to Moab (one of the early enemies of God’s people). The 1599 Geneva Bible interprets the “Coasts of Moab” as standing for the “Princes of Moab.” It is Balak, the Prince of Moab, as the seed of the Serpent that will experience the Smiting. King Balak has dismissed the prophet Balaam in frustration, but Balaam departs prophesying, consistent with the Genesis passage of a time when the seed of the Serpent “Moab” will have its head crushed by the seed of the Woman.

B.) Prophets

Judges 4:21

21 Then Jael Heber’s wife took a [a]nail of the tent, and took an hammer in her hand, and went softly unto him (Sisera), and smote the nail into his temples, and fastened it into the ground, (for he was fast asleep and weary) and so he died.

5:26 She put her hand to the nail, and her right hand to the workman’s hammer: with the hammer smote she Sisera: she smote off his head, after she had wounded and pierced his temples.

Judges 9:53

53 But a certain woman cast a piece of a millstone upon Abimelech’s head, and brake his brainpan.

Here we see this promise to crush the seed of the Serpent’s head is quite literal.

1 Samuel 17:491599 Geneva Bible (GNV)

49 And David put his hand in his bag, and took out a stone, and slang it, and smote the Philistine in his forehead, that the stone sticked in his forehead, and he fell groveling to the earth.

Isaiah 1:4-5

4 Ah, sinful nation, a people laden with iniquity: a [a]seed of the wicked, corrupt children: they have forsaken the Lord: they have provoked the [b]Holy one of Israel to anger: they are gone backward.
5 Wherefore should ye be [c]smitten anymore? for ye fall away more and more: the whole [d]head is sick, and the whole heart is heavy.

Here God refers to His enemies reminiscent to the language used in Gen. 3 (seed of the wicked) and speaks of the smiting that has taken place. God smites His enemies.

Isaiah 7:8-91599 Geneva Bible (GNV)

8 For the head of Aram is Damascus, and the head of Damascus is Rezin: and within five and [a]threescore years, Ephraim shall be destroyed from being a people.
9 And the head of Ephraim is Samaria, and the head of Samaria is Remaliah’s son. If ye believe not, surely ye shall not be established.

Here the context is that Syria and Ephraim are the “seed of the serpent,” opposing God’s seed and God is promising that His and His people’s enemies shall be destroyed.

Isaiah 28:31

3 They shall be trodden under foot, even the crown and the pride of the drunkards of Ephraim.

The head of the seed of the serpent is crushed as it is trodden under foot.

Jeremiah 23:19

19 Behold, the tempest of the Lord goeth forth in his wrath, and a violent whirlwind shall fall down upon the head of the wicked.

Jeremiah 30:23

23 Behold, [a]the tempest of the Lord goeth forth with wrath: the whirlwind that hangeth over, shall light upon the head of the wicked.

Habakkuk 3:13 Thou wentest forth for the salvation of thy people, even for salvation with thine [a]Anointed: thou hast wounded the head of the house of the wicked, and discoveredst the foundations unto the [b]neck, Selah.

Habakkuk 3:13 From the top to the toe thou hast destroyed the enemies.

C.) Wisdom Literature

Psalm 68:22-24

21 Surely God will wound the head of his enemies, and the hairy pate of him that walketh in his sins.22 The Lord hath said, I will bring my people again from [a]Bashan: I will bring them again from the depths of the Sea: 23 That thy foot may be dipped in blood, and the tongue of thy dogs in the blood of the enemies, even in [b]it.

Psalm 74:12-14

12 Even God is my king of old, working salvation [a]in the midst of the earth.
13 Thou didst divide the sea by thy power: thou brakest the heads of the [b]dragons in the waters.
14 Thou brakest the head of [c]Leviathan in pieces, and gavest him to be [d]meat for the people in wilderness.

This is a reference to God’s victory at the Red Sea. As we shall see in just a bit “dragon” and “serpent” are synonymous terms. When God defeated Egypt he defeated the seed of the Serpent and God’s people were saved.

Psalm 110:6

6 He shall be judge among the heathen: he shall fill all with dead bodies, and smite the [a]head over great countries.

Now we have yet to look at similar themes consistent with Gen. 3:14-19 but what we have learned so far is that,

1.) God destroys His Enemies and those who oppose His people.

We need to keep this in mind as we live in times that are increasingly characterized by a preponderance of God’s enemies. We need to remember the Genesis promise of God that He would crush His enemies. This promise extends beyond the Cross. While it is true that ultimately God’s enemies were crushed in and by Christ’s finished work on the Cross we still look for God’s enemies to continue to be crushed after the Cross.

Romans 16:20

20 The God of peace shall tread Satan under your feet shortly….

Epoch by epoch God’s enemies arise and epoch by epoch God eventually crushes the seed of the Serpent under the feet of His people. Time and again throughout history it has seemed that the seed of the Serpent was getting the upper hand, but then God hears the groanings of His people and arises to bring forth a champion to crush the enemy. Often the seed of the Serpent has been used has cleansing judgment against the seed of the woman as just judgment against their rebellion against God but always God arises and crushes His and our enemies.

Of course this gives us great hope. It should also give us patience, endurance, and optimism. God will arise. God will not let either His name of His people to be continually trod upon.

2.) There is a permanent animosity between the competing seeds.

Naturally there is a temptation to want to make friendship with the World in order to purchase some relief from the pressures of the seed of the serpent. We should be careful of this. Our identity is in Christ and we must maintain that identity even in the face of growing warfare against the Saints. Certainly we must be wise about all this. We must pray for Wisdom. We must walk circumspectly. However, having said all that we can do nothing that would be a mar upon our identity we the seed of the woman.

3.) God’s Glory is seen in the context of this contest as His salvation is seen in the context of judgment

II The Theme of Broken Enemies

(Note that as the serpent is licking the dust of the ground there is reason why it is so often spoke of these broken enemies being trod under foot.)

A.) Law

Exodus 15:6, Numbers 24:8

6 Thy [a]right hand, O Lord, is glorious in power: thy right hand, O Lord, hath bruised the enemy.

8 God brought him out of Egypt: his strength shall be as an unicorn: he shall eat the nations his enemies, and bruise their bones, and shoot them through with his arrows.

B.) Prophets

I Samuel 2:10, II Samuel 22:39, 43, Isaiah 14:25, Jeremiah 13:14, 23:29, 48:4, 51:20-23

1 Samuel 2:10

10 The Lord’s adversaries shall be destroyed, and out of heaven shall he thunder upon them: the Lord shall judge the ends of the world, and shall give power unto his [a]King, and exalt the horn of his Anointed.

2 Samuel 22:39

39 Yea, I have consumed them and thrust them through, and they shall not arise, but shall fall under my feet.

2 Samuel 22:43
43 Then did I beat them as small as the dust of the earth: I did tread them flat as the clay of the street, and did spread them abroad.

Isaiah 14:25

25 [a]That I will break to pieces Assyria in my land, and upon my mountains will I tread him under foot, so that his yoke shall depart from [b]them, and his burden shall be taken from off their shoulder.

Jeremiah 13:14

14 And I will [a]dash them one against another, even the fathers and the sons together, saith the Lord: I will not spare, I will not pity, nor have compassion, but destroy them.

Jeremiah 23:29

29 Is not my word even like a fire, saith the Lord? and like an hammer, that breaketh the stone?

Jeremiah 48:4

4 Moab is destroyed: her little ones have caused their cry to be heard.

C.) Writings

Psalm 2:9, 72:4, 89:23-24, 137:9, Daniel 2:34-35, Job 34:22-25

Conclusion,

Now see what we have done this morning. We have taken one theme in Scripture and we started with its point of origin and just by moving through Scripture we have seen how God’s revelation expanded on that theme in the context of God Redemption. This is Biblical theology.

You can use this same technique to study any number of Biblical themes.

1.) the promise of God’s Kingdom and
2.) the building and expansion of God’s Law
3.) the idea of the covenant
4.) the spilling of blood for Atonement

I Samuel 8 — Israel Rebels against God

That this is rebellion is hinted at here but is stated explicitly in I Sam. 10 and I Samuel 12

17 ¶ And Samuel [k]assembled the people unto the Lord in Mizpah, 18 And he said unto the children of Israel, Thus saith the Lord God of Israel, I have brought Israel out of Egypt, and delivered you out of the hand of the Egyptians, and out of the hands of all kingdoms that troubled you. 19 But ye have this day cast away your God, who only delivereth you out of all your adversities and tribulations: and ye said unto him, No, but appoint a king over us. Now therefore stand ye before the Lord according to your tribes, and according to your thousands. (Compare I Samuel 12:6-18)

I.) The Turn Away From God To the Nation (I Samuel 8:4-9)

What Israel is rejecting here is not Samuel so much as it is God. God had been their King as was made evident in God’s triumph over Pharaoh. The Exodus account tells of how God’s Kingship over Israel was mightier that Pharaoh’s Kingship over Egypt. That the Hebrew children recognized this is seen from their acclimation of God’s rule over them in Exodus 15:16-18.

17 “Thou wilt bring them and plant them in the mountain of Thine inheritance, The place, O LORD, which Thou hast made for Thy dwelling, The sanctuary, O Lord, which Thy hands have established. 18 “The LORD shall reign 24 forever and ever”

But now as the I Samuel 8 text teaches, “they have cast me away, that I should not reign over them.”

And so not desiring God to reign over them they desire a King like all the pagan Nations around them.

We need to keep in mind that this turn away from God’s Kingship was at the same time a turning away from God’s law. The Hebrews of Samuel’s time had no desire to be ruled by God and His Law Word. They desired a different standard by which to be ruled.

Now we want to make clear here that it is not the idea of having a King that is a problem. We know this because in Dt. 17 God speaks about the coming day when there will be a King and he lays down certain provisions for that Kingship.

15 Then thou shalt make him King over thee, whom the Lord thy God shall choose: from among thy brethren shalt thou make a King over thee: thou [j]shalt not set a [k]stranger over thee which is not thy brother. 16 In any wise he shall not prepare him many horses, nor bring the people again to [l]Egypt, for to increase the number of horses, seeing the Lord hath said unto you, Ye shall henceforth go no more again that way. 17 Neither shall he take him many wives, lest his heart [m]turn away, neither shall he gather him much silver and gold. 18 And when he shall sit upon the throne of his Kingdom, then shall he write him this [n]law repeated in a book, by the [o]Priest of the Levites. 19 And it shall be with him, and he shall read therein all days of his life, that he may learn to fear the Lord his God, and to keep all the words of this Law, and these ordinances to do them: 20 That his heart be not lifted up above his [p]brethren, and that he turn not from the commandment, to the right hand or to the left, but that he may prolong his days in his kingdom, he and his sons in the midst of Israel.

II.) The Consequences of that Turn From God to the Nations

A.) The consequences that Samuel lists are basically a move to centralization.

The Hebrew children are going to move from a decentralized Government (Judges) to a Centralized Government. Another way of saying this is that they are going to be ruled in a viciously top down fashion.

Calvin puts it this way,

Samuel warned them “that the King who will reign over them will take their sons for his own purposes and will cause much plundering and robbery.”

In this description Samuel gives we recognize that what the Hebrews have before them is the promise of being enslaved to the State.

I Sam. 8:17 “… and ye shall be his servants.”

The whole Nation will be organized so that instead of being the servants of Yahweh they will become the servants of the King. Each person becomes an agent for the State. What develops then is what a Political leader of the 20th century coined,

All within the state, nothing outside the state, nothing against the state.

Benito Mussolini

Along the way Samuel mentions the issues of Taxation, (8:15-17)

B.) Taxation

Now either what is happening here is that this tenth is being taken by the King from what belongs to the Lord,

Leviticus 27:30-32 / / Dt. 14:22, 28

30 Also all the tithe of the land both of the seed of the ground, and of the fruit of the trees is the Lord’s: it is holy to the Lord…. 32 And every tithe of bullock, and of sheep, and of all that goeth under the rod, the tenth shall be holy unto the Lord.

Now if the King is not stealing from the Lord then what he is doing is creating a Tax Burden for the people.

In short the King will steal from them so what they think is their property is not really their property but instead belongs to the State.

1st edition of “The Institutes” Calvin commenting on Taxation,

“Taxes are not so much private revenues as the treasury of the whole people, or rather the blood of the people and aids of public necessity; to burden the people with which without cause would be tyrannical rapacity.”

Samuel’s point to the people is that they are turning away from the Liberty that comes from having God and God’s law as their King to the taxation Tyranny that comes from throwing off God.

Calvin in his sermon on this text noted,

“A tyrant rules only by his own will and lust, whereas legitimate magistrates rule by counsel and by reason so as to determine how to bring about the greatest public welfare and benefit.”

Calvin decried the oppressive custom of magistrates’

“taking part in the plundering to enrich themselves off the poor.”

Of course what the Hebrew Children are demanding in a Centralized system stands in contrast to the decentralized system that they previously knew.

In the Book of Judges we see that there is no king, no palace, no standing army. When Israel is attacked, a volunteer army is assembled. In part, this army is supplied by the families of those who fight (see 1 Samuel 17:17-22). There is no superfluous court bureaucracy to support or a administration that specializes in redundancy for which to pay. The previous system was decentralized and comparatively cheap. The new pagan system that they were demanding was to make slaves of them.

Application

I hope that you note as we move through this that today we have now much of what was promised in I Samuel 8. We ourselves, not being satisfied with God’s reign, have broken down and dispatched the kind of decentralized Government that we once had. We ourselves have demanded, both in years long past and still today, that we have a Government that is tyrannical and that taxes to the point wherein the 10% tax the Hebrew children were forced to pay would be met with shouts of joy by us today were we to return to that level of taxation.

And to this, the response we often get in our Pulpits today is at best deafening silence on these issue. Failing the silence we hear that we should be satisfied with our tyranny — and this by a wrong interpretation of Romans 13 that Knox, or Goodman, or Viret and any number of other Magisterial Reformers would have recognized. Sometimes what we get from the modern pulpit is so bad that it is suggested that this kind of tyranny is a positive good.

Our Reformed forefathers did not think that way.

I introduce Calvin here because I want people to see that these ideas I champion in terms of Biblical Civil Government are merely what I and we have inherited from our Reformed past. A Reformed past that had a great deal to say about Government and how it should be structured.

Calvin noted,

“the Lord does not give Kings the right to use their power to subject the people to tyranny. Indeed when Liberty to resist tyranny seems to be taken away by princes who have taken over, one can justly ask this question; since kings and princes are bound by covenant to the people, to administer law in truest equality, sincerity and integrity; if they break faith and usurp tyrannical power by which they allow themselves everything they want: is it not possible for the people to consider together taking measures in order to remedy the evil?”

Calvin was aware that there were extremes to avoid. He desperately did not want to come across as an anabaptist but he also realized that only God’s authority was absolute and because that was so he asked the question ” is it not possible for the people to consider together taking measures in order to remedy evil.”

Even when Calvin did call for submission to Governments, Calvin’s calls to submit to the governor were not without limit. God established magistrates properly

“for the use of the people and the benefit of the republic.” Accordingly, kings also had charters to satisfy: “They are not to undertake war rashly, nor ambitiously to increase their wealth; nor are they to govern their subjects
on the basis of personal opinion or lust for whatever they want.” Kings had authority only insofar as they
met the conditions of God’s covenant. Accordingly, he proclaimed from the pulpit,

“[S]ubjects are under the authority of kings; but at the same time, kings must care about the public welfare so they can discharge the duties prescribed to them by God with good counsel and mature deliberation.”

“Calvin preached that “there are limits prescribed by God to their power, within which they ought to be satisfied: namely, to work for the common good and to govern and direct the people in truest fairness and justice; not to be puffed up with their own importance, but to remember that they also are subjects of God.”

Calvin even went so far as to write in a Lecture on Daniel 6:22

‎”For earthly princes lay aside their power when they rise up against God, and are unworthy to be reckoned among the number of mankind. We ought, rather, to spit upon their heads than to obey them.”

John Calvin,
Commentary on Daniel, Lecture XXX Daniel 6:22

“We ought, rather, to spit upon their heads than to obey them.”

Where would you hear that in any pulpit in America today. Instead what we get is the necessity to obey even in the face of earthly princes who are rising up against God.

“The nature of wicked princes is much like to warthogs, which if they be suffered to have their snouts in the ground, and be not forthwith expelled, will suddenly have their snouts in all the body; So they if they be obeyed in any evil thing be it ever so little will be obeyed in all at length.”

John Ponet
Magisterial Reformer

‎”When therefore the supreme ruler has become a tyrant, he must be deemed by his own perjury (as against the covenant document with the people) to have freed people from their oath, and not to the contrary, when the people assert their rights against him.”

Vindiciae Contra Tyrannos
(Thought to have been written by a one or two men … both of whom were Calvinists)

“As often as the Magistrate commands anything that is repugnant EITHER to the worship which we owe unto God OR to the love which we owe unto our neighbor, we cannot yield thereunto with a safe conscience. For as often as the commandment of God and men are directly opposed one against another, this rule is to be perpetually observed; that it is better to obey GOD than men.”

Theodore Beza
Calvin’s Successor in Geneva

“Resistance to tyrannical governors was, according to (Calvinist Pierre) Viret, a legitimate act of self defense. He even endorsed the use of disinformation if the tyrant were persecuting as analogous to resisting a band of robbers. If the political leader acted like a criminal, Viret thought he should be treated like a one, and the citizens were justified in resisting him.”

The Political Ideas of Pierre Viret
Robert Dean Linder — p. 131

IV.) Now as to why God relented in giving them a King

a) A first reason God gives them a King despite it being a sinful request is that this is often the way that God deals with sinners. In Romans 1 we read repeatedly that “God turned them over.” God often punishes sin by turning people over to that sin they desire as prioritized over God.

b.) As we consider a 2nd reason why God gave them a King despite the sinfulness of the request we must remember the problem here is not so much the idea of a King as the desire to have a King to be like the rest of the Nations. The sin is in their being dissatisfied with God’s Kingship not in the idea of a King in and of itself. After all, they could have asked for a King who would rule them according to God’s law word. But they didn’t. They asked instead for a King to judge them like all the nations.

Israel was supposed to be unique. It was supposed to be a nation that was a light to the Nations. It was supposed to be a theatre of God’s grace for the Nations to look to and envy. The Nations were supposed to be envious of Israel because she was ruled by God’s law. Now, Israel wants to be like the Nations around her. Here is the sin in the request for a King.

That the problem wasn’t the idea of Kingship itself we note that God had earlier made stipulation as to what Godly Kingship would look like (Dt. 17).

1.) No King allowed who did not arise from their own kin
2.) He would not be allowed horses so as to make offensive war
3.) He would not lead them back into bondage
4.) He shall not accrue to himself great hordes of gold
5.) He shall be busy attending to God’s law seeking to understand and implement it.

So even though they were rejecting God, God gives them a King determining that the role of King would be anticipatory of the coming great King Messiah. The Lord Christ would be the true King of which all previous Kings would be pale representation. The Lord Christ would be earnest for the Father’s glory. The Lord Christ would protect God’s people and lead them into safety. The Lord Christ would give Himself in order to save a people. The Lord Christ would be busy attending God’s law.

So in giving a King in the face of this rebellious request God was creating a Template that only the Lord Christ could fulfill.

Conclusion — Recap

Text — Ecclesiastes 2:1 – 3:9
Subject — Quest
Theme — The quest for meaning
Proposition — In Ecclesiastes 2 – 3:9 the teacher goes on a quest for meaning and finds two dead ends in his quest.

Purpose — Therefore having gone on a quest, with the Teacher for meaning this morning and having found three dead ends in a quest for meaning let us praise God that because He has united us to Christ, we walk in the ways of the covenant and so find meaning where the Teacher, speaking as a covenant breaker, could not find meaning.

Introduction

As we begin to examine Ecclesiastes again, we emphasize again that only in the covenant … only as in Christ can we find meaning. Because Christ is the answer to our sin problem, Christ is the answer to our epistemological problems. Those in Christ can find meaning in all that the teacher couldn’t find meaning in, because in Christ they have a person who can bring all the different parts of our lives together to make a meaningful whole. Because we are united to Christ “in whom are all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge hidden,” (Colossians 2:3) we can have and find meaning. Because we are in covenant with God, “in His light we see light.”

The problem of man outside of Christ who desires meaning is that he is seeking to find meaning all the while defying the one, who alone, can give meaning.

For example, just this weak I was corresponding with someone I hadn’t spoken to in 30 years about this issue of finding meaning. I suggested, as I am teaching here, that meaning can only be found by presupposing God.

The response I received from this old acquaintance was,

“Isn’t it possible that knowledge and meaningful experience naturally evolve from consciousness and require no other preconditions? That knowledge and meaningful experience were not created and set out for consciousness to acquire but rather are created by consciousness?

Here we hear the voice of the covenant breaker that we so often hear in Ecclesiastes. Meaning is not derivative or dependent upon God but naturally evolves from consciousness. Meaning is created by one’s own evolved consciousness. Thousands of years later men are still evading God in order to have meaning independent of God.

And through the voice of the teacher in Ecclesiastes man outside of covenant with God continues to look for meaning.

In Ecclesiastes the Teacher’s purpose it to make clear that man’s life in the world is without foundation if he refuses to reckon above all with God.

We remember from last week that in the Teacher’s “burden of God” statement (1:13) the Teacher is acknowledging God from the outset as the one who is the source of his task and the one, in whom alone, his task can find traction. So, this heavy burden imposed by God is imposed for a discernible reason … it is imposed to challenge man’s self proclaimed autonomy from God.

And the book continues from here both as one who speaks as one trying to escape this burden of God by knowing autonomously and one who embraces this divinely sanctioned burden by knowing as one who thinks God’s thoughts after Him.

These words … “What a heavy burden God has laid on men” thus become a sort of thematic string we find throughout the book. To quote Michael Kelly from his commentary “The Burden of God”

“Each major section of the book … shows this theme returning again and again in order to underscore God’s absolute predominance over the life of man. It is this fact with which humanistic man in his wisdom does not wish to reckon, but which the book will make plain that he must. Man in his rebellion would dispense with God. the Teacher’s purpose is to make clear that man’s life in the world is without foundation if he refuses to reckon above all with God. Because man stands under God’s curse he must be made to take account of the fact that it is God Who is both the cause of the condition that troubles his life as well as the solution.”

And so to the covenant breaker this heavy burden imposed by God is a burden that will break him and send him flying into despair, but to the covenant keeper this heavy burden imposed by God is bearable because the work of finding meaning can be successful to the one in covenant.

This morning we are taking a look at three areas the Teacher explores in terms of finding meaning. In these areas of pleasure, labor, and wisdom, that we are looking at this morning, the Teacher does not communicate that these are evil in and of themselves (vs. 10). The point emphasized here is that these otherwise good gifts have no meaning if they are taken up as having meaning in themselves alone. He comes to this conclusion as a Son of the Covenant viewing the areas as one who has been given covenant eyes to see what the conclusion of the Covenant breaker must be.

I.) Humanist Wisdom Pursues Meaning in the Context of Pleasure And Finds A Dead End (2:1-3, 10)

Hedonism — This is a school of thought that teaches that the achievement of pleasure is the highest good. We often hear it capsulized in the idea of “eat, drink, and be merry.”

That Hedonism was thought to be an answer for meaning can be seen in an ancient Egyptian song. The following is a song attributed to the reign of one of the Intef kings before or after the 12th dynasty, and the text was used in the eighteenth and nineteenth dynasties.

Let thy desire flourish,
In order to let thy heart forget the beatifications for thee.
Follow thy desire, as long as thou shalt live.
Put myrrh upon thy head and clothing of fine linen upon thee,
Being anointed with genuine marvels of the god’s property.
Set an increase to thy good things;
Let not thy heart flag.
Follow thy desire and thy good.
Fulfill thy needs upon earth, after the command of thy heart,
Until there come for thee that day of mourning.

Likewise the Teacher might have written,

He built his soul a lordly pleasure house
Wherein at ease he did dwell
He said, “Oh my soul make merry and carouse”
Dear soul, for all is well”

For the Teacher this meant Mirth, Spirits, and in vs. 10 he says he did not with-hold from His heart any pleasure. Yet weighing knee deep in this pursuit he concludes that there is no meaning apart from God.

Proverbs 25:16 is an interesting verse … “If you find honey, eat just enough – too much of
it, and you will vomit.”

In other words, even good things, in abundance, will eventually make you sick.

Of course we have seen this pursuit of finding meaning in pleasure continue full steam in the latter half of the 20th century. Hugh Hefner built his Playboy Empire. Drugs and Alcohol have proliferated in pursuit of a pleasure that allows one to drop out from this reality. Multiple Marriages combined with Multiple divorces have characterized our culture’s mad pursuit of pleasure. The gaming industry which is a multi-billion dollar industry is pursued in the name of pleasure. Our obsession with sports and entertainment outlets to the neglect of all other considerations reveals that 21st century man is still characterized as one who seeks to find his or her meaning of life in the pursuit of pleasure.

Now, pleasure, in and of itself, is not evil, as it is practiced consistent with God’s Law-Word, but pleasure will not give meaning if it is pursued as an end in itself as the Teacher tells us.

And yet we continue to embrace pleasure as a way to find meaning.

Ravi Zacharias says something that we here in this wealthy nation should take special note of:

“I am absolutely convinced that meaninglessness does not come from being weary of pain; meaninglessness comes from being weary of pleasure.”

II.) Humanist Wisdom Pursues Meaning in the Context of Work Achievements And Finds A Dead End (2:4-11, 17)

Many have been the men who have emptied themselves into their work. They are commonly referred to as “workaholics.” The Teacher toyed with finding meaning in just such a manner but the end was despair.

I suspect we are seeing this kind of thing repeated today.

A news release from The Conference Board reported in its most recent periodic poll that only 45 percent of workers in the U.S. were satisfied with their jobs, the lowest level in the 23-year history of the poll.

I suppose there could be a host of reasons why workers in the US are not satisfied with their jobs. One of those thought certainly could be the reality that ultimate meaning can’t be found in ones work.

The Teacher found here that what initially gave a rush finally, in the end, failed to fulfill.

“At age 45, Hughes was one of the most glamorous men in America. He courted actresses, piloted exotic test aircraft, and worked on top-secret CIA contracts. He owned a string of hotels around the world, even an airline – TWA – to carry him on global jaunts.

Twenty years later, at age 65, Howard Hughes still had plenty of money – $2.3 billion to be exact. But the world’s richest man had become one of its most pathetic. He lived in small dark rooms atop his hotels. Without sun and without joy. He was unkempt: a scraggly beard had grown waist-length, his hair fell down his back, his fingernails were two inches long. His once-powerful 6’4” frame had shrunk to about 100 pounds.

This famous and powerful man spent most of his time watching movies over and over, with the same movie showing as many as 150 times. He lay naked in bed, deathly afraid of germs. Life held no meaning for him. Finally, emaciated and hooked on drugs, he died at age 67, for a lack of a medical device his own company had helped to develop.”vii

A Chinese billionaire who converted to Christianity was asked “Why did you convert?”

This was his answer — “All my life I have spent my time climbing the mountain of wealth and success and when I finally got to the top…I looked around and nothing was there.”

Jesus once said, “What good will it be for a man if he gains the whole world, yet forfeits his soul?” (Matthew 16:26)

III.) Humanist Wisdom Comes To Some Conclusions Regarding Wisdom & Folly Apart From God (2:12-16)

Even for the Covenant breaker (the Humanist) their Wisdom will discern a difference between Humanist Wisdom and total Humanist folly (14), even though as sons of the covenant we might say the difference is only one of degree. Be that as it is the Teacher, speaking with as one with Humanist Wisdom begins to despair.

By introducing the idea of death, quite apart from saying anything about God in vs. 16 the Teacher has brought us to the end of anything called Wisdom that does not reckon with God. Wisdom, so called, apart from God ends in death just as folly apart from God ends in death. Apart from God, when matters are viewed in the long term there is no advantage whatsoever in being comparatively Wise as juxtaposed with the fool.

And so, we see that apart from God there is no meaning. The fool is as well served as the so called wise. Only by viewing life in light of God can we find meaning.

His despair deepens as he reaches conclusions regarding Wisdom as that Wisdom exists apart from God (17-23) and here we begin to see a muscular Nihilism in his despair. Nihilism is the denial that there is any meaning with the presence of a general mood of despair at a perceived pointlessness of existence that one may develop upon realizing there are no necessary norms, rules, or laws. Nihilism then is what we read in vs. 17-23.

The Teacher says that given these truths of man without God He hates life (17). Already he has lost patience with this pursuit.

RJR has said at this point,

“Even as patience is associated with hope, so by implication the loss of hope means impatience. When we have no hope, both waiting and tribulations become meaningless to us, and we cannot patiently endure them.”

So the Teacher has lost hope speaking with the voice of the covenant breaker and in losing hope he has lost all patience and in that loss of patience he declares his hatred for life.

And well he should. Man apart from God should hate life. This is the end of all men who try to live with themselves as their God when they consistently follow that philosophy to its bitter end.

However, what often happens with this kind of man is he seeks to bring that hatred to everyone else. He hates life and so all the world must hate as well.

In 2:24-26 the Teacher shifts from his exploration of man’s end and man’s conclusions as one apart from God (2:14-23) to a few words regarding life having meaning if one is a Son of the covenant who understands life in light of God. The only answer to the despair of 2:14-23 is to reckon with the reality of the God of the Covenant. 2:24-26 reveals that the pursuit of meaning in the context of pleasure and labor, can only be found if one presupposes the God of the Bible.

So, in 2:24-26 we see the deep clouds of depression part and the sunlight of hope enters again. If man will reckon with God … if man will live in light of God man can have hope. If man will receive his pleasure and labor as from the hand of God (24) and understand them in light of God man no longer has to be one who hates life. Man’s life can have meaning but only as one who lives as submitted to God. The Teacher can have enjoyment like no other because he receives what he receives from the “hand of God.”

Notice when God is submitted to, the pleasure and the labor that found so much despair suddenly change to matters that find joy unspeakable.

Vs. 26 gives us a strong hint that the way we are understanding the text is correct. God deals with His covenant people in one way and he deals with those outside the covenant in another way. The last phrase in vs. 26 “this too is meaningless … a chasing of the wind” refers then to God’s non arbitrary judgment upon the efforts of the sinner … efforts that have been chronicled earlier.

Conclusion

Re-cap