A sermon preached at Covenant Presbyterian Church of Fort Smith, Arkansas on June 18, 2023.
Moreover, I saw under the sun that in the place of justice, even there was wickedness, and in the place of righteousness, even there was wickedness. I said in my heart, God will judge the righteous and the wicked, for there is a time for every matter and for every work. I said in my heart with regard to the children of man that God is testing them that they may see that they themselves are but beasts. For what happens to the children of man and what happens to the beasts is the same; as one dies, so dies the other. They all have the same breath, and man has no advantage over the beasts, for all is vanity. All go to one place. All are from the dust, and to dust all return. Who knows whether the spirit of man goes upward and the spirit of the beast goes down into the earth? So I saw that there is nothing better than that a man should rejoice in his work, for that is his lot. Who can bring him to see what will be after him? (Ecclesiastes 3:16–22).[1]
“For everything there is a season, and a time for every matter under heaven (3:1), Solomon says, all of which is upheld, directed, disposed, and governed by God’s “most wise and holy providence.”[2] This does not mean that the child of God knows or understands everything. Though God has “put eternity” into our hearts, we cannot “find out what God has done from the beginning to the end” (3:11). Such is our human limitation: how we see often lacks a providential perspective, and even what we see is jaded by “the remnants of sin abiding in every part” of our flesh.[3] We see, for example, injustice in the world and unrighteousness seems to run rampant, but does this imply that God is neither just nor righteous?
The psalmist declares,
the LORD sits enthroned forever;
he has established his throne for justice,
and he judges the world with righteousness;
he judges the peoples with uprightness (Ps. 9:7-8).
Justice and righteousness are his divine attributes, defined in him, and therefore perfectly administered by him. And we, who are made in his image, share in these attributes, not perfectly, but innately. Every human being desires justice, at least personally, and knows right from wrong, whether admitting it or not. But the communicable attributes we share with God are tainted by our sin nature. We desire justice but often pervert it. We know righteousness but often deny it. The problem of injustice and unrighteousness in this life under the sun is not a problem with God but us: “for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God” (Rom. 3:23).
The Universality of Sin
The most cataclysmic event in the history of the world was in the quiet of Eden, when “our first parents fell from the estate wherein they were created.”[4] As a result, “all mankind, descending from [Adam] by ordinary generation, sinned in him, and fell with him, in his first transgression,”[5] leading us all “into an estate of sin and misery.”[6] We need not search for evidence of this but are constantly reminded of the universality of sin. Yet, because we are made in God’s image, we share attributes that are contrary to our sin nature.
For example, consider our justice system, which is often represented symbolically by Lady Justice. You’ve seen the symbol before: She is blindfolded, in her right hand she holds balanced scales, and in her left hand a sword. The blindfold represents impartiality, the scales represent the balance of justice, and the sword represents the power of the law. The image implies that we expect that our courts then will be fair, impartial, and based on the rule of law. It is a common societal desire.
In fact, Solomon prayed for it. On the day of the dedication of the temple, he prayed that God would uphold justice in Israel, “repaying the guilty” with like kind evil and “vindicating the righteous by rewarding him with like kind righteousness” (2 Chron. 6:23). In other words, Solomon prayed that Israel as a nation would be characterized by justice and righteousness, because he knew what they were capable of, as are we. Though the ideal is Lady Justice, and so we should pray, in this life we often see less than justice, lacking righteousness. Solomon “saw under the sun that in the place of justice, even there was wickedness, and in the place of righteousness, even there was wickedness” (3:16). As justice is what is right and righteousness is the quality of being right, both according to God’s holy standard, then wickedness is the antithesis of both. And, in the very place that you and I expect to find justice, in the place where we expect wrongs to be righted, Solomon saw the opposite.
What Solomon saw is wrong and troubling, even disconcerting, but it happens in this fallen world, even in ancient Israel. Isaiah warned,
[Woe to those] who acquit the guilty for a bribe,
and deprive the innocent of his right! (Isa. 5:23)
Micah lamented in his day that both “the prince and the judge ask for a bribe” (Micah 7:3). This is not to say that we should accept wickedness in place of justice and righteousness. Through the means of God’s appointment, we should strive for justice, we should promote righteousness (righteous judges are an example of God’s favor upon a land). Solomon is not advocating that we acquiesce, accepting wickedness as the new norm. He is simply observing what is common in a world full of sinners, life under the sun.
This is where Solomon is directing us: How do we live in this kind of world, where the law presumably protects the righteous and punishes the wicked, and yet wickedness can pervert the course of justice? The answer is not if but when justice will be served, but make no mistake about it, Solomon says, “God will judge the righteous and the wicked.” Just because there is injustice and unrighteousness in this world, just because wickedness perverts right from wrong, does not change the fact that God sees it, hates it, and will judge it, all of it. What we must remember is that he will do it according to his timing, the right time, “for there is a time for every matter and for every work.”
Sometimes we will see evidence of this in our lifetime. When we see, for example, our courts ruling in justice and righteousness, there is reason to rejoice. But ultimate justice will be served on Judgment Day, where every, single wrong will be righted, where the righteous One will judge justly. Solomon teaches us to direct our hearts toward this certainty, even when it seems like justice and righteousness have been perverted by wickedness in our day. Moments of injustice or unrighteousness in this life can feel eternal, but they are not.
The Certainty of Death
God formed man from the dust of the earth, and yet created him, “in his own image” (Gen. 1:27). As the pinnacle of creation, God has made man “a little lower than the heavenly beings,” “crowned him with glory and honor,” gave him “dominion” over creation, and put “all things under his feet,” including all living creatures (Ps. 8:5-8). Yet, despite such glory, privilege, and vocation, man wanted more, to be more than man, to be like God. And so, as our Shorter Catechism puts it, “Our first parents, being left to the freedom of their own will, fell from the estate wherein they were created, by sinning against God.”[7] He who was created with glory and honor above all the creatures of creation would now die like them. He who was made from dust would return to it, dust to dust. In this sense, Solomon says, “All go to one place,” that is to the dust of the earth.
It’s really quite humbling, isn’t it? We were created in God’s image yet with the same living breath and imminent death as a donkey. We are quite proud of our prowess, our dominion, our accomplishments (even our brains and opposable thumbs), but as the psalmist says it soberly,
Man in his pomp will not remain;
he is like the beasts that perish (Ps. 49:12).
My grandparents are buried at a cemetery, my dog is buried in my backyard. One is a place of respect and honor, the other out of convenience, but they are all buried nonetheless, returning “earth to earth, ashes to ashes, dust to dust.”[8]
It is this stark reality that reminds us that if we look at life through the lens of this life under the sun alone, we are left to the vanity of worldly vision. Empirically speaking, for example, you cannot observably discern “whether the spirit of man goes upward and the spirit of the beast goes down into the earth” (3:21), or vice versa. What happens after death is not observed but revealed.[9] There is then a sense of mystery in life that can only be lived by grace and trust in what God has revealed to us in his Word. Though God has put “eternity into man’s heart” (3:11), we will never understand it all, which should humble us but also lead us to better acknowledge and accept this common life we share with others.
The Commonality of Life
There is a commonality of life that we often forget. How quickly I forget that the man I insult is made in the image of the God who loved and saved me. How easy it is to degrade those with whom I disagree, behaving beastly. How often we create walls of hostility with others, forgetting that we are all made from dust and return to dust. In this age of divisiveness in which we live, it would be healthy for us all to remember the common life that God has given us, emphasizing the shared attributes we share.
For example, consider the gifts of talent and skill that God has uniquely given you to use for your enjoyment in service to others to the glory of God. In his common grace, God has given every man, woman, and child gifts to be used and developed in exercising dominion, in working and keeping creation. What are your gifts? Are you putting them to work? As God has gifted you uniquely, there is a personal delight in using your gifts, especially in serving others, which is what work should be. Or, to paraphrase Martin Luther, God doesn’t need your gifts, but your neighbor does, even today. The legacy you leave may be neither monumental nor memorable but the blessing you give and the enjoyment you gain will be.
But in this common life we share, we must not forget to share what will meet our neighbor’s greatest need. For, ‘just as it is appointed for man to die once, and after that comes judgment, so Christ, having been offered once to bear the sins of many, will appear a second time, not to deal with sin but to save those who are eagerly waiting for him” (Heb. 9:27–28). Judgment Day awaits us all; no one will escape it. The question is not will it come, or even when will it come, but in whose righteousness will I stand before the Judge, mine or my Mediator?
It is true that “all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God,” yet equally true that we “are justified by his grace as a gift, through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus, whom God put forward as a propitiation by his blood, to be received by faith. This was to show God’s righteousness, because in his divine forbearance he had passed over former sins. It was to show his righteousness at the present time, so that he might be just and the justifier of the one who has faith in Jesus” (Rom. 3:23-26). It is true that in ourselves we have been weighed in the balances and found wanting, and yet equally true that “For our sake he made him to be sin who knew no sin, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God” (2 Cor. 5:21). It is true that “the wages of sin is death,” but equally truth that “the free gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord” (Rom. 6:23). It is true, just like the beasts of the earth, we are from dust and will return to dust, but for all who believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, we are dust bound for glory.
[1] Unless referenced otherwise, all Scripture quotations are from The Holy Bible, English Standard Version (Wheaton: Crossway Bibles, 2001).
[2] “The Confession of Faith” 5.1, The Westminster Confession of Faith and Catechisms (Lawrenceville: PCA Christian Education and Publications, 2007), 19-20.
[3] “The Larger Catechism” Q. 78, Ibid., 217-218.
[4] “The Shorter Catechism” Q. 15, The Westminster Confession of Faith and Catechisms (Lawrenceville: PCA Christian Education and Publications, 2007), 364.
[5] Ibid., Q. 16.
[6] Ibid., Q. 17.
[7] Ibid., Q. 13, 363.
[8] “The Burial of the Dead,” The Book of Common Prayer (Huntington Beach: Anglican Liturgy Press, 2019), 261.
[9] Benjamin Shaw, Ecclesiastes: Life in a Fallen World (Edinburgh: The Banner of Truth Trust, 2019), 37.
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