Ecclesiastes and Redemptive History
The key to understanding the book of Ecclesiastes is understanding it in its place in redemptive history. Now redemptive history is a term that biblical scholars throw around sometimes, and preachers too. Redemptive history, or salvation history, means the the history of God’s intervention in human history to redeem the human race from sin and death. This really begins in the book of Genesis and runs throughout the entire Old Testament and the history of Israel, all the way up through the coming of Christ and beyond. Redemptive history is the story which the Bible bears witness to, the story of God entering the world of space and time to pursue the lost human race and bring them back to Himself.
I don’t think that you can fully understand a book (or a passage) of the Bible unless you understand it in its proper place in redemptive history. To do that, you have to see small passages within the big picture of the Bible, within the grand scope of redemptive history. Some of the major events in redemptive history are the exodus of Israel from Egypt, the exile of Israel (to Babylon and Assyria), the coming of the Messiah, the crucifixion and resurrection, the establishment of the new covenant, the coming of the Spirit at Pentecost. These are decisive events which played a significant role in God unveiling his special plan to redeem the world. So when we read different passages of the Bible, we need to take into account these major events, and view the Bible passages in this grand scope to see its full significance for us.
One easy example would be the Old Testament law. When I read Leviticus, I see God giving commands for making sacrifices to him. These commands are very elaborate and detailed, with specific sacrifices for specific occasions, with particular animals and particular rituals. If someone just read that by itself, they might be tempted to go out and kill some animals. But if you read that it the context of redemptive history, then you know that when the Messiah came, he fulfilled the Law, which means that it finds its completion and fullest expression in his person and his teachings. The Old Testament sacrifices were fulfilled in Jesus, the perfect Lamb of God and the sacrifice for the sins of the world. So we no longer have to do sacrifices today. Therefore, a “redemptive history” perspective on Leviticus makes it clear that the detailed, meticulous instructions are not for us today, but were for the people of Israel at a particular time in redemptive history, a time prior to the revelation of the full and perfect sacrifice of Christ. God is the same then as He is now–He is pure and holy, and sin is an offense against His perfect righteousness, and yet He wants to make provisions for sinful human beings to be in relationship to Him. But in making these provisions, God’s plan unfolded gradually, over a period of time, which included a period of a sacrificial system leading up to the time of the ultimate sacrifice of the Son of God.
Later, I’ll show how this redemptive history perspective sheds light on the Psalms, and then how this redemptive history unlocks the mystery of one of one of the most enigmatic books ever written–the book of Ecclesiastes.
A Rabbi’s Thoughts about Human Nature
The Scriptorium pointed me to a fascinating article in Newsweek that is available online, written by Rabbi Marc Gellman:
Here are some of my thoughts about this article. The rabbi says that based on what surprises you more–terrible evil or incredible good–you can determine your beliefs about human nature. He says that you cannot be be surprised by both equally. Some people are more shocked by Sadaam’s atrocities than they are shocked by Autrey’s heroics.
While I love the central thrust and the direction the rabbi is going in this article, I want to nuance it a bit and provide a slightly different angle. I want to say that Christianity, properly understood, makes the best sense of the Sadaams and Autreys, and that the person who has read and understood the Bible correctly has a unique insight into human nature. The historic Christian doctrine of imago dei teaches is that humans were created in the image of God, and originally were created good. However, the doctrine of original sin is that humans, while created good, rebelled against their Creator and fell from that goodness. The result of this fall was the entrance of sin, death, and evil into God’s good creation. Sin and evil taints every aspect of the world, and this is the world into which we have been born.
Now original sin has infected every part of life–including human nature. None of us escape it. However, Christianity has historically taught that original sin has not completely destroyed the image of God in humankind–it has only tainted it. There are still remnants of the image of God in man, though it is marred and polluted by sin. Therefore, men and women are capable of amazing, godlike feats. Humans can perform acts of great courage, or create incredible works of art, or come up with brilliant thoughts and ideas. This is the image of God, which is still within every human being. However, humans are also capable of great evils–murder, selfishness, hatred, pride.
The error is to draw a line in the sand and put all the “good guys” on one side and all the “bad guys” on the other. The fact is, we are all “good guys” and we are all “bad guys.” The line runs straight through the middle of our souls. We are all on the one hand capable of terrible evil and on the other capable of great good. Though some evils are certainly worse than others, the fact is we are capable of doing evil itself, and that is the problem.
I am not surprised by the Sadaams of this world, because I know that people, deep within their core, are evil. Evil has sunk down deep into the souls of men and women, and has infected their hearts. “The heart is deceitful above all, and desperately wicked. Who can know it?” the Hebrew prophet says (Jeremiah 17:9). At the same time, I am not surprised at the Autreys of this world, because they represent a ray of light shining through the darkness, the image of God shining through the evils which pollute it. There are still remnants of it left.
The good news of Christ is that he came to clean us up. He came to restore us to our original glory. Christ came to destroy sin and death, and to restore the image of God in us to its original perfection. He conquered sin and death at the cross, and he offers to us something wonderful if we believe in him–he offers to us restoration. This restoration begins with forgiveness and cleansing, making us right before God. Then a process begins by which he systematically and gradually begins to transform us, getting rid of sinful thoughts, actions, and habits and replacing them with good thoughts, actions, and habits. This process goes on until the day that we die. It is not completed in this life. The day we see Jesus, God brings this process to completion, and we are finally made whole and complete. We are re-created in the image of God.
This is the answer to all the problems of the world. This is the answer to the conflict in the Middle East. This is the answer to the war in Iraq. This is the answer to the countless homeless people who are hungry and suffering. This is the answer to the hateful acts against humanity that occur in this world every day. God has seen all of the evils in the world, and He has brought about a solution which strikes at the root of all of these problems–original sin. He has brought a solution in the person of Jesus Christ, and anyone who wants to can experience freedom from the bondage that is experienced by every person, family, and society in this world. Freedom is available to all. It is available to the Autrey’s of the world as much as it is to the Sadaam’s of this world. “Whoever is thirsty, let him come to me and drink. Whoever believes in me, as the Scripture says, out of his innermost being will flow rivers of living water.”
Ecclesiastes and the Green Mile
I get the most out of the Bible when I pick a book and set up camp for a few weeks. That way I can read the book several times, journal about it, and munch on it over a long period of time. I have found that when I do this, the truths of Scripture seep into my mind and heart more deeply.
A couple weeks ago I pitched a tent in the book of Ecclesiastes. I’ve read it about four times now, in addition to looking at some outside helps for additional perspective (a commentary by Tremper Longman, an essay by Ed Curtis, and a book by Peter Kreeft). I plan on wrapping up my study within the next week or so, and so I’ll post some of my thoughts on the meaning and relevance of Ecclesiastes in the next several days.
But before that, I wanted to say something about the central theme of Ecclesiastes, and its relation to a movie I just saw. One of the main messages of Ecclesiastes is the meaninglessness of life apart from God. The author of Ecclesiastes (traditionally viewed as being Solomon) performs an experiment to search for the meaning of life “under the sun.” Everything he tries (money, pleasure, work, philosophy) proves to be empty and futile. The world seems to be a place full of things which promise much but deliver little. It is a very grim and pessimistic view of the world.
How does such a pessimistic book end up in the Bible? But doesn’t this contradict the Christian message of hope? One answer I have heard is that Ecclesiastes provides a great dose of realism to our perspective on the world. If we are honest with each other and with ourselves, the world is full of pain and futility. Even if the glass is half full, that does not negate the fact that it is also half empty. The difference between optimism and pessimism, then, is which point you focus on. But if you want to justice to everything in reality, you have to acknowledge that there are many evils in the world.
A few days ago I watched a movie called the Green Mile, which stars Tom Hanks and tells the story of a group of guards and soldiers on death row. As I watched this movie, I realized that it was commenting on some themes that were very close to the themes of Ecclesiastes. If you were to sum up the overarching theme of the movie in a word, it would be this: the horrific and unbearable nature of evil in the world. In watching the Green Mile, you visually experience several stark evils which are representative of the evils in the world. (What follows contains mild movie spoilers, so be ye warned.)
I would say this happens through three different characters. The evil character Percy not only gets on everyone’s nerves, but he continuously exhibits and acts out a self-centeredness and a hatred of others which is utterly repulsive and blood curdling. Percy is so bad that it seems impossible to imagine someone more evil. That is, until you meet Wild Bill, who is on death row for the rape and murder of two little girls. (It is interesting that this movie shows stark evil on both sides of the fence–both inside and outside the prison cell.)
The third character does not portray evil through people hurting one another, but through a natural evil–the evil of sickness. It is the warden’s wife, and she is a sweet and delicate woman whose body is violated by cancer. The movie portrays the cancer as something which is offensive and wrong and in need of remedy.
But the Green Mile not only contains a vivid portrayal of the evils of hatred, murder, and sickness. It magnifies them through an angelic character, John Kofe, who is unjustly condemned to death row. Kofe’s character, who is lovingly simple and gigantic, possesses a unique ability–he is hypersensitive to evil. It is almost as if he has a sixth sense which enables him to feel the evils of the world more forcefully. As human beings, we are really oblivious to much of the evil in the world, except that of our own experience and the experiences of those we know. Add to that the evils we hear of around the world, but those we feel to a lesser degree. But what if we really and truly felt all of the evils which are going on around us? John Kofe describes it as pieces of glass being crammed in his head all the time, every day. Through the character of John Kofe, we are able to see the evil of evil. Without giving away the ending too much, the movie’s conclusion may leave you with a strange taste in your mouth, and a somewhat bleak outlook on the world.
So the question becomes, is the world really as bad as Ecclesiastes and the Green Mile make it out to be? This question is an important one. The answer to this question, I submit, redeems the book of Ecclesiastes to be very Christian and very profound. The Bible wants us to be realistic about the world that we live in. It is only when we view the world honestly, through the dark eyes of Ecclesiastes, that the gospel makes sense.
And what about the Green Mile? Perhaps what we have is a film which captures deep truths about reality in a powerful, visual form. That is, after all, what artists created in God’s image are able to do –they create an experience which provides a window into some corner of reality. Maybe the makers of the Green Mile stumbled onto something true about the world, something which has been attested by God in the book of Ecclesiastes.
(Disclaimer: The Green Mile is Rated R, containing offensive language and sickening violence, as you can easily infer from my remarks above. It is not a family movie, and you probably should only watch it if you are in the right frame of mind and with the right people.)
