# 511 Ecclesiastes – In search of meaning in life. 9:1-6 A common destiny for all… or is there?

If you are still continuing to read this Blog on Ecclesiastes, which you obviously are, then let me stop and congratulate you! Well done! Having completed the Psalms and Proverbs, I didn’t quite know what a challenge Ecclesiastes was going to be. Although I did have my suspicions!

Well, just for a little while longer the challenge continues and as C Wright suggests “This [next] chapter is probably the most starkly negative of the whole book, coming just before the final section. And yet, amazingly it also contains the most positive of all the life affirmations. It is a chapter of immense, yawning contrasts.” (# 60)

To be honest, it does actually begin with a positive statement:

So, I reflected on all this and concluded that the righteous and the wise and what they do are in God’s hands…

Well, that’s not such a bad thought!

Consider the following concerning this truth:

“In God’s Hand: Core Insights

• Absolute Sovereignty – God holds every circumstance; nothing falls outside His grip. Remember the former things, those of long ago; I am God, and there is no other; I am God, and there is none like me.  (Isaiah 46:9-10)

• Personal Care – A hand is not only strong but gentle; it both governs and guards. Surely it is you who love the people; all the holy ones are in your hand. At your feet they all bow down, and from you receive instruction. (Deuteronomy 33:3)

• Fixed Security – What He holds cannot be snatched away.  I give them eternal life, and they shall never perish; no one will snatch them out of my hand.   (John 10:28-29)

• Purposeful Timing – Our “times” are set and known by Him. My times are in your hands; deliver me from the hands of my enemies, from those who pursue me.  (Psalm 31:15)”
(What does “in the hand of God” imply about our life’s uncertainties?)

Qoheleth continues:

 … but no one knows whether love or hate awaits them. ² All share a common destiny—the righteous and the wicked, the good and the bad, the clean and the unclean, those who offer sacrifices and those who do not.

As it is with the good,
    so with the sinful;
as it is with those who take oaths,
    so with those who are afraid to take them.

³ This is the evil in everything that happens under the sun: The same destiny overtakes all…

Now that’s a bit disturbing, if true. But is it true or just the “truth” as far as Qoheleth’s experience and understanding had brought him so far?

The following prayer by the psalmist may help:

 Guide me in your truth and teach me, for you are God my Savior, and my hope is in you all day long. (Psalm 25:5)

So, what does the Bible teach concerning this thought that The same destiny overtakes all?

Well, even though the full picture is not revealed in the Old Testament, most of the authors would not totally agree with Qoheleth on this issue. But the full revelation of the truth is revealed in the New Testament and that in the life of Jesus. For example:

One day some religious leaders came to question Jesus and their introduction is interesting. They said: “Teacher, we know that you speak and teach what is right, and that you do not show partiality but teach the way of God in accordance with the truth.  (Luke 20:21)

Then John in his Gospel writes concerning Jesus: The Word became flesh and made his dwelling among us. We have seen his glory, the glory of the one and only Son, who came from the Father, full of grace and truth…For the law was given through Moses; grace and truth came through Jesus Christ. (John 1:14 & 17)

And then the words of Jesus himself:  

“I am the way and the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me.  (John 14:6)

All indicating that we can therefore believe what Jesus then says, and therefore about this question, The same destiny overtakes all?  And here is the answer:

 ¹⁶ For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life. ¹⁷ For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but to save the world through him. ¹⁸ Whoever believes in him is not condemned, but whoever does not believe stands condemned already because they have not believed in the name of God’s one and only Son.  (John 3:16-18)

The wonderful (and tragic) reality is that the same destiny [does not] overtakes all.

Death is not the end as Qoheleth suggests below:

⁵ For the living know that they will die,
    but the dead know nothing;
they have no further reward,
    and even their name is forgotten.
⁶ Their love, their hate
    and their jealousy have long since vanished;
never again will they have a part
    in anything that happens under the sun.

Because of Jesus’ incarnation, his life and teaching, his suffering and death, his resurrection and ascension to heaven, we are longer in the dark and so now know without a doubt concerning the truth about the destiny of mankind, one way or the other. The only question now, is which will you choose?

Romans 6:23 summarizes these two destinies perfectly: 

“For the wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord.”

Have you accepted God’s gift of eternal life in Jesus?