What Has Existed Will Be

Whatever exists now has already been, and whatever will be has already been; for God will seek to do again what has occurred in the past.
I saw something else on earth: In the place of justice, there was wickedness, and in the place of fairness, there was wickedness.
I thought to myself, “God will judge both the righteous and the wicked; for there is an appropriate time for every activity, and there is a time of judgment for every deed.”
I also thought to myself, “It is for the sake of people, so God can clearly show them that they are like animals.”
For the fate of humans and the fate of animals are the same: As one dies, so dies the other; both have the same breath. There is no advantage for humans over animals, for both are fleeting. Both go to the same place, both come from the dust, and to dust both return. Who really knows if the human spirit ascends upward, and the animal’s spirit descends into the earth?
So I perceived there is nothing better than for people to enjoy their work, because that is their reward; for who can show them what the future holds? (Ecclesiastes 3:15-22)

The Preacher’s meditations become no less unsettling over time. More has been revealed since his time; nevertheless, his core exhortation endures.

The Preacher’s main themes involved everything as hevel: vain, futile, even absurd, and all human pursuits as ultimately chasing after wind (Ecclesiastes 1:2, 14). He recognized history as cyclical: things come and go, and there is really nothing new on the earth (Ecclesiastes 1:3-10). Despite our protestations we and all we have done will be forgotten on the earth (Ecclesiastes 1:11). The Preacher considered pleasure, wisdom, and labor, and saw the futile end of all of them; none of them could provide humans with ultimate meaning (Ecclesiastes 1:12-2:26). There is a time and season for everything under heaven: the things we enjoy as well as the things we would assiduously avoid (Ecclesiastes 3:1-8).

In Ecclesiastes 3:9-22 the Preacher considered God and man. God has made everything beautiful in its time; humanity has the spark of eternity yet cannot and should not know what will be (Ecclesiastes 3:9-11). Humans should truly enjoy the gifts God has given them: to find happiness in relationships and joy in their labor, and to eat and drink well (Ecclesiastes 3:12-13). God’s work endures forever; humanity cannot enhance or diminish it, and thus should revere God (Ecclesiastes 3:14).

The Preacher continued his meditations regarding God and man in Ecclesiastes 3:15-22. In a way he returned to his theme in Ecclesiastes 1:3-10: what exists now also existed in the past, and what will take place also took place in the past, for God will do again what was done in the past (Ecclesiastes 3:15). Thus the Preacher saw the cyclical nature of the creation as a very deliberate and specific plan of God, and such a perspective will usefully guide us in our understanding of Scripture and God’s purposes in time. For example, not for nothing would Jesus show a vision to John regarding the things that would be, yet in terms of what had previously happened in Israel: beasts, whore Babylon, a “new heavens and a new earth” (cf. Revelation 13:1-22:6). God has seen powers rise and then has judged said powers; so it has been, thus it is, and so it will be until the Lord Jesus returns. To this end history can provide an analogue for the future: while specific contexts change, the general tenor and nature of events play out consistently at different points in time.

The Preacher saw something on the earth: wickedness in the place of justice and fairness (Ecclesiastes 3:16). On account of this he concluded God would judge the righteous and the wicked since there was a time and purpose for every effort (Ecclesiastes 3:17). Perhaps this is part of what led the inspired editor of the Preacher’s homily to conclude as he did in Ecclesiastes 12:13-14, how humans would do well to fear God and keep His commandments, since He would judge everything. This is one of the rare times in which the Preacher indulged himself with meditations beyond life “under the sun,” and thus worth highlighting all the more. Inversion of justice into injustice represents a profound moral travesty and a constant plague within human societies. Societies seem to cultivate a group of people who leverage authority and law to aggrandize themselves at the harm of others, and manipulate the “halls of justice” in order to justify themselves and to provide cover for their oppression. Such injustice makes our blood boil whenever we see it happen to ourselves, those we love, or in situations in which we can look “objectively”; and yet how often do we tolerate some level of injustice when it works to our benefit and favor? The Preacher did not trust in earthly corrections to such injustice; instead, he entrusted himself to the confidence God would make right all that went wrong, and to make straight all which humans made crooked. Such injustice does not merely affect humanity; it offends the structure of the universe which the Creator has made, and the Creator has ways to bring His creation back into alignment.

Yet even as the Preacher entrusted ultimate judgment to God, he continued to explore what such things might mean “under the sun”: God allows all such things to remind humans how they are animals (Ecclesiastes 3:18). Humans and animals live on account of the breath of life, and they both will expire on account of the corruption of the creation (Ecclesiastes 3:19-20). The Preacher wondered how he could know whether the spirit of man went up to God while the spirit of animals went down into the earth (Ecclesiastes 3:21).

We have a strong impulse to emphasize how God made humans in His image and gave them dominion over the animals (Genesis 1:26-27), and how in Christ our souls go to heaven to be with the Lord until we share in the day of resurrection (Philippians 1:24-25, Revelation 7:9-17). Yes, in Christ we have more coherent revelation regarding the nature of life after death, and some distinctions which should be made between humans and other animal life. Nevertheless, we do well to sit in the Preacher’s discomfort for a moment. While we are made in God’s image, God did make us as part of the creation, in the animal kingdom, among the primates. He breathed the same breath of life into animals and humans (Genesis 1:30, 2:7). Scientific understanding through DNA has confirmed this understanding: we are made of the same “stuff” as the creation, with similar structures to other animals, and are a part of God’s glorious creation. Humans are animals; humans may aspire to be more than animals, and should not justify animalistic impulses because they are animals, but they remain animals nonetheless. Animals live and die; humans live and die. Despite all our grandiose pretensions, we remain the creation, not the Creator.

And thus the Preacher recapitulated his argument: people should enjoy the work they do, for such is their reward, for they cannot know what the future will hold (Ecclesiastes 3:22). If God visited us and granted us the ability to see what would happen in humanity in future generations, what benefit would we gain from it? We imagine we would see our future descendants and all the wonderful technologies and things they might enjoy. Yet would we not perceive how we would most likely be forgotten, and all of our works with all the time and energy invested therein demonstrated as fleeting? Would our descendants not exasperate us by repeating many of the same mistakes we did, and following after the patterns of behavior we thought long ago perished?

We can understand how many find the Preacher depressing and distressing. He certainly knew how to take humanity down a notch. Nevertheless, we do well to appreciate his wisdom and learn the appropriate humility which comes from recognizing the value in his meditations. We do well to keep an eternal perspective on our lives and all we do. How much of what we are and do proves fleeting, and yet in the moment how much of ourselves do we invest in such things? How can we live so as to glorify God in Christ and obtain life in Him, so that our labor is not in vain?

Ethan R. Longhenry

What Has Existed Will Be | The Voice 12.29: July 17, 2022

God’s Work, Man’s Work

What benefit can a worker gain from his toil? I have observed the burden that God has given to people to keep them occupied. God has made everything fit beautifully in its appropriate time, but he has also placed ignorance in the human heart so that people cannot discover what God has ordained, from the beginning to the end of their lives. I have concluded that there is nothing better for people than to be happy and to enjoy themselves as long as they live, and also that everyone should eat and drink, and find enjoyment in all his toil, for these things are a gift from God. I also know that whatever God does will endure forever; nothing can be added to it, and nothing taken away from it. God has made it this way, so that men will fear him (Ecclesiastes 3:9-14).

If life under the sun is futile, absurd, and a chasing after wind, what benefit or value can remain?

The Preacher has set forth many challenging truths in his discourse so far: all of life is futile and absurd (Ecclesiastes 1:1-2). Time is more cyclical than linear; what has been done will soon be forgotten (Ecclesiastes 1:3-11). All pursuits under the sun are like chasing after wind: a never-ending and ultimately futile task (Ecclesiastes 1:12-13). The three main pursuits of mankind cannot deliver on their promises: pleasure (Ecclesiastes 2:1-11), wisdom (Ecclesiastes 1:14-18, 2:12-17), and labor (Ecclesiastes 2:18-26) all ultimately prove futile and a chasing after wind. A time and a season exist for all things under the sun: yes, those things we enjoy, but also those things we work diligently to avoid (Ecclesiastes 3:1-8).

The Preacher established such things in order to compel the hearer to consider many of the vain pretenses under which he or she pursues existence. The hearer will naturally find what the Preacher establishes abhorrent; yet such contempt, disgust, and/or hostility stems from the exposure of such pretenses. Humans want their lives to matter and to be full of meaning. In their corruption, and in the face of death, humans are easily tempted to invest in various earthly projects in order to find that meaning and to make their mark on the creation. Who among us wants to believe we will be forgotten within a century, most likely left as an entry with a birth and death date on some future descendant’s family tree?

While the natural human within us wants to resist the Preacher’s message, we do better to heed his wisdom. Yet we can understand why many would find him nihilistic to this point: if life is so meaningless, then why bother? Thus the Preacher would go on to provide exhortation about what can be enjoyed about life and work in Ecclesiastes 3:9-22; and he began by speaking of God’s work and man’s work in this creation.

The pericope (or section) began asking again what benefit a worker can gain from his effort (Ecclesiastes 3:9). To answer it the Preacher made appeal to God and His work: God has given labor to humans to keep them busy (Ecclesiastes 3:10). The Preacher confessed how God made everything beautiful in its own time and way (Ecclesiastes 3:11). God has made the creation so that mankind cannot ascertain how God has begun it or how it continues, or even how long they will live (Ecclesiastes 3:11). The text maintains vagary about what God has placed in the human heart: we can read the text, along with the ASV, as saying God has placed eternity in man’s heart, or, along with the NET, as saying God has placed ignorance in man’s heart (Ecclesiastes 3:11).

We may have a preference regarding which way we want to read the text in Ecclesiastes 3:11, yet either would make for robust theology and reflection. God has made mankind in His own image, and God is eternal (Genesis 1:27, Revelation 1:4). Humans indeed have eternity in their hearts: we have strong intuitions that there is more to living than this life. Cultures throughout time have expected some kind of afterlife for a part of themselves which was not consigned to physical death. Yet even though we might have intuition of eternity, we remain woefully ignorant regarding the spiritual realm and its operations. We do not know how long we will live, let alone how things will turn out for us.

Many decry and lament such ignorance; they believe they would like to know how their lives will turn out. We might understand such a desire for a moment, but upon reflection we can hopefully understand how terrible it would be. Generally we humans want to know things in order to master them; we might imagine we can find out how things will happen so we can make corrections or whatnot. But if we changed some matters of our existence which we would not have otherwise changed, would it not change our trajectory, thus invalidating whatever we were shown would take place? Such is the time traveler’s dilemma: if we could travel back in time in order to change a circumstance or event, then the reality in which we would exist would reflect the changed circumstance; how could we then know the circumstance or event needed changing? We thus cannot master what would happen. To know our end could easily paralyze us into fatalism. We understand and sympathize with the anxiety regarding the unknown regarding the future; yet such an unknown also allows life to have its vitality. Despite what we may think, ignorance regarding our end under the sun remains bliss.

The Preacher confessed how God’s works will endure forever, without addition or elimination; God has made the creation thus to give mankind reason to fear and revere Him (Ecclesiastes 3:14). And God’s gift to mankind is life (Ecclesiastes 3:13). God has not given us the pretensions of the institutions, powers, and principalities over this present darkness; God has not given us the delusions of eternal satisfaction of pleasure, wisdom, or labor. But God has given us the ability to enjoy the creation He has made, to eat and drink, and to find some enjoyment in the work we do (Ecclesiastes 3:12-13).

The Preacher again devastates human pretension. No matter how much effort we put into this creation, we cannot add to or take away from it. There is as much created stuff at the end as there was in the beginning; we may have changed its form, eliminated life, built up the things we call “development,” but it is all still made of the basic elements of the creation which God has made. When it is all said and done, God will purge it by fire and reconstitute it all according to His good plan and purpose (Romans 8:18-25, 2 Peter 3:1-13). We remain part of the life cycle of this planet; we have not withdrawn ourselves from it, and we never will. Here the Preacher affirmed, in his own way, what Paul would set forth in Romans 1:18-20: the creation testifies to its Creator. We should fear and revere God because He made it all, we are merely part of the system He created, and we cannot find any lasting form of meaning or purpose outside of Him. If we try to find meaning or purpose in His creation, we give the glory due the Creator to His creation, and He will give us over to such debased thinking, and we will prove miserable (cf. Romans 1:25).

Thus we can strive for what endures forever through what God has done in Christ. But when it comes to life under the sun, we do best to “stop and smell the roses.” The “little things” we can enjoy in life remain the only joys we can fully expect to enjoy. We should enjoy the warmth of the sun and the majesty of what God has made. We should enjoy the taste of the food and drink with which God has blessed us. We should rejoice, cherish, and laugh with our family, friends, and associates with whom we share life. We need to find what we can enjoy in our labor and effort so as to make it worthwhile. The “little things” are ephemeral indeed. Yet so are we! Let us enjoy what God has given us to enjoy in His creation, and may we invest our hopes of eternity in His Son, the Lord Jesus Christ, and obtain the resurrection of life in Him!

Ethan R. Longhenry