Anyone who’s been reading and keeping up with the series on Ecclesiastes should know by now that the world we live in is a wicked, fallen place full of sorrow, sadness, anger, pain, hatred, and more, and it is only by the good will of God that we have the good, kindness, peace, love, and joy that we have. But a fact that believers try to avoid thinking of sometimes is that the presence of the goodness of God does not mean that evil disappears while we are still living in imperfection.
We hear it all the time in questions like, “Why do good things happen to bad people?” and “Why do bad things happen to good people?” We don’t like coming to terms with the fact that imperfect life on this Earth is a dichotomy of good and bad. We don’t get one in a vacuum. Having both is a futility of this world that we just have to live with, as Solomon details in Ecclesiastes 8: 11-15.
Verse 11 speaks directly to our fallen human morals. “Because the sentence against a criminal act is not carried out quickly, the heart of people is filled with the desire to commit crime.”
We’re a people who take a mile when given a foot. It’s a disturbing symptom of life after the fall that we do not adhere to the law of morals, but the moral of laws. In other words, we live within the letter of the law and not the spirit of it, such that if something is not expressly prohibited, we often act as though it is inherently allowable.
Think about it this way, if you will: Say a teenage boy’s parents expressly forbid him from having a party inside the house when they leave for a weekend anniversary celebration. The boy understands the rule, so the parents leave and come home expecting to not have the house destroyed from a party. When they return home, the front yard looks as though a tornado went through it, and the back yard is filled with trash from what was clearly a party. The parents find the boy to punish him for breaking the rule, but he proudly exclaims, “You said I couldn’t throw a party inside the house, so I threw one outside!”
Here’s the thing about that situation; even though the rule did not expressly forbid parties outside the house by letter, the spirit of the rule was that there should be no parties that would destroy the house. What’s saddening about it all is that punishment must still be meted out for the breaking of the rule, and this creates a separation because the punished does not feel as though he did anything wrong.
Okay, I’m getting really wordy about this, but the point I want to make is that we treat the rules God wrote for us the same way. We pretend as though His laws apply by the letter and not the spirit, and if that doesn’t work, we stretch the letter of the law to “allow” ourselves to sin. And then we pretend that we’ve done nothing wrong, that we’re good people, and we deserve Heaven and not punishment for our wrongdoings. And falsely believing we’re good is what got us into the mess of good things happening to bad people and bad things happening to good people.
Verses 12-13 say, “Although a sinner commits crime a hundred times and prolongs his life, yet I also know that it will go well with God-fearing people, for they are reverent before Him. However, it will not go well with the wicked, and they will not lengthen their days like a shadow, for they are not reverent before God.”
If you’re not paying really close attention, these verses seem like they contradict each other, but they don’t. First, let’s settle the good versus bad debate here. It’s Paul in Romans who tells us that no one is good, but Solomon kindly settles what qualifies as the standard for character judgment: God-fearing. Notice that “good” doesn’t exist in these verses, but that we have the separation of being “reverent before God,” and “not reverent before God.” But there’s a third distinction: sinner. Note that one who is a sinner and one who is reverent before God are not mutually exclusive. They can exist in the same person (because we all sin).
So, the first thing Solomon says is that a sinner commits crimes and prolongs his life. How does that work? Well, he doesn’t say that sinners prolong their lives by committing crimes or because they commit crimes. It just says that both can exist: a sinner could live a long time or a short time. We know that objectively: people can die before they are born, sadly, or they can live to be over 100. So, in this way, there is little distinction between the Earthly length of life belonging to a sinner who is reverent before God and a sinner who is not reverent before God, affirmed by Solomon’s qualifying statement, “yet I also know that it will go well with God-fearing people.”
And now I’m about to get giddy because the imagery in verse 13’s metaphor is astounding. Take a moment to just think about how shadows work; as the day goes on, they grow longer and longer until, eventually, everything is covered in shadow, making it, for all intents and purposes, infinite. (You may have to finagle with your understanding of nighttime to reach this conclusion, but remember that the darkness of night is effectively the shadow of the Earth.) So, how does this really cool image of shadows apply?
Think of it like this: one who is not reverent before God counts down the time on his life. Each day he lives, his lifetime grows shorter by a day. But for the God-fearing, life is measured additively. For every day they live, their life is lengthened by a day, exactly like a shadow, which, for every moment it exists, grows longer. Eventually, the life of one who is reverent before God becomes like the shadow of night, all-encompassing. In other words, eternal!
Since I’ve gotten you all excited about cool imagery and eternal life like me, it’s time to come back down to Earth because, even though this ultimate truth of eternal life is the case, we still live in a fallen world that hurts sometimes, and Solomon knows this, too.
Verse 14-15 say, ‘There is a futility that is done on the earth: there are righteous people who get what the actions of the wicked deserve, and there are wicked people who get what the actions of the righteous deserve. I say that this too is futile. So I commended enjoyment because there is nothing better for man under the sun than to eat, drink, and enjoy himself, for this will accompany him in his labor during the days of his life that God gives him under the sun.”
It’s sobering to remember that bad things are going to happen to those who love God and good things will happen to people who choose to be evil. Sometimes, it may even seem like the world is attacking believers, and Satan will try his best to make it seem that way. He wants fearing God to look as unappealing as possible.
But I, along with Solomon, encourage you to avoid dwelling on the punishments and rewards other will receive. Instead, focus on what the Lord has given you to enjoy here and do what He has called you to do. Life is so much more enjoyable when you don’t constantly wonder about the effects of the fall and instead just strive to do all you can for the kingdom.