Why is God’s justice not enforced instantly?
Context: After defining the problem that man tries in vain to straighten himself (Ecc 1), and that life remains ’empty’ because of the resulting lack of friendship with God (Ecc 2), the book addresses what God is doing about it. Ecc 3 answers that God has made “everything beautiful in its time”, but that His justice is not enforced instantly because God still has work to do first. However, man cannot find out by his own wisdom what this work is and what God has “prepared for those who love him”.
Outline for study leader: Chapter 3 begins with 7 verses, where each describes a pair of contrary activities in order to emphasize how always both of them are inevitable in due time (vv2-8). Since the meaning of this poetic form and why Kohelet created is not spelled out, interpretations will vary: The one interpretation favored here is that in due time means the right time, and that the whole argument is about how every human being can deduce and feel from observing the created order that also a final judgment must be inevitable and on time (v17). However, until then, God is working on a project that is so inconceivable that we can learn about it only if God chooses to reveal it.
This reasoning in Ecc 3 consists of seven insights from rational observations what man cannot do, i.e. in contradistinction from God who can: I perceived…, I saw…, I said in my heart… (vv10, 12, 14, 16, 17, 18, 22). The gist of it is that irrespective of cultural background, we have a sense of eternity from which we can rationally infer that we are accountable to God in a final judgment in due time (vv2-8 + v17); however, God’s plan of salvation, namely how we can be created new in Christ to partake in His eternal life, is inconceivable and hidden to us: As stated also elsewhere throughout the Bible (Isa 64:1-4; 1Cor 2:8-9), reason cannot deduce from anything we know or find out by ourselves what this work of God is (v11). Therefore, this redemptive work of God for our reconciliation in time before a final judgment (v17) will first require a time for one to come: One “who can bring man to see what will be after him” (v22), showing through his own death and resurrection how we can become partakers in that eternal life. Not by our own merits (v9), for even our best works are polluted by wickedness (v16). Nor by ascetic abstinence from pleasures that are a gift of God (v12-13). But only by the work of God himself (v14), as a free gift that can only be received by faith in Him (as Kohelet is about to show in the next chapters, Ecc 4-6).
Read Ecclesiastes 3
Warm-up: Western culture is no longer permeated by a sense that God exists and that He will administer perfect justice in a future final judgement of the world: Why not? Is such doubt only a modern trend, or was it already around in the days of Ecclesiastes, v18?
1) How does your own perspective on life compare with Kohelet’s conclusion that there is a time for everything?
- Does he simply say that all these things must happen, like it or not, or rather that there is a right time for each of them, v11?
- If v17 states that “there is a time for every matter” (ESV), does that include injustice (v16) and natural disasters (v3), or what?
- How did Kohelet dare to believe and affirm in v11 that “God has made everything beautiful in its time“, and in a context that seems to explicitly include every kind of suffering that befalls mankind?
2) vv9-23 describe 7 ‘theological’ insights from pure reasoning (i.e. no need for special revelation): I perceived…;I saw…; I said in my heart…. (vv10,12,14,16,17,18,22). What are they all about?
- How does v11 compare the result of man’s own labor to the outcome of God’s work? What can man not do?
- Does v11 claim that we cannot know anything at all about God with certainty (cf Ecc 8:17)?
- What sphere of theology is singled out as being beyond natural philosophy so that we can know nothing about it, v11 (unless God chooses to reveal it)?
- Read Isa 64:1-4 and its citation in 1Cor 2:8-9. Is the meaning that the work of God cannot be known at all, or only that man cannot find it out by himself?
3) At least in translations based on the Septuagint, v21 sounds as if Kohelet perhaps questioned even the possibility of a life after death. How can we know that he didn’t? cf Ecc 12:7
- Does v21 say that we can have no life after death at all, or that we cannot be sure about it on our own?
- Hint: “Who can bring him (man) to see…”, v22?
- Did he mean that not even God can reveal it to man, v21-22 (cf Ecc 8:7; 10:14)? Or simply that we need someone who can give us eyes to ‘see’ this eternal life?* cf Jn 9:3; 9:32-33; 12:49-50
- How did Jesus answer the question “Who can bring…”, Jn 5:46-47; 8:43; 10:25-26 How did Jesus make God’s work known, Jn 1:18; 6:29; 1Cor 1:26-31; 2:18? [The NT makes fully known what the OT only revealed in types, cf Col 1:25-26, and what believers such as Kohelet in the OT eagerly awaited, but could not yet receive: Heb 11:39-40]
4) What other limitations of man was Kohelet aware of, vv16-18?
- v16: What is the ‘place of righteousness’ where he found wickedness? cf Jer 22:3; 1Cor 1:11; Eph 5:3
- v17: How did Kohelet cope with his observation that wickedness is so pervasive? What ‘evidence’ led him to conclude that God’s justice cannot possibly be evaded, v17b? [No special revelation; purely by a universal logic or ‘natural’ theology, cf vv2-8 with Ro 1:18-20]
- v18**: How does Kohelet’s rational conclusion compare to pantheistic notions that all are divine, and to ancient cultures which worshipped at least their heroes as gods? What shatters any such claims to a divine status, v18? cf Ps 82:6-7.
5) Personal and application
- What experiences in your own life may resonate with any of Kohelet’s observation that all the things he mentioned in vv2-8 necessarily must come to pass?
- What are your own views about the hereafter?
- What convinced you, or what makes you doubt that perfect justice one day will be administered by God?
- Does Ecc 3 give you more clarity or certainty about these matters? Why or why not?
*Since the entire chapter contrasts man’s limitations against the unlimited power of God as the giver of all we need, Kohelet surely does not deny that God can be humbly asked to reveal to us what He sees fit to reveal, also about eternal life.
**Of various translations of v18, the Jubilee Bible 2000 grasps the meaning well: “I said in my heart concerning the estate of the sons of men that God might manifest them and that they might see that they themselves are beasts one to another”. Suffering from injustice, we are forced to face the consequences of our sin, which prove that we are not divine. Until the time comes for God’s justice, God endures our injustice. Instant administration of God’s justice would leave no one time to repent (cf Ro 2:4; Acts 17:30), and to learn by faith in Him to overcome evil with good (Ro 12:21). In other words, we would have no time to learn that which the book of Ecclesiastes seems to be all about.
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