As we do studies like this, one thing I find helpful is to look at resources that help summarize or outline the main points and flow of the book. One way of doing this is by looking at the introductory notes in a study Bible. Another way that I've come across in the past couple of years is a series of overview sermons preached by Mark Dever at Capitol Hill Baptist Church. I was able to listen to his message on Ecclesiastes, Wisdom for the Successful, before we started studying Ecclesiastes, and I listened to it again today, after finishing our study.
I found his concluding comments to be quite helpful when left with the mire of meaninglessness that the Teacher points out throughout Ecclesiastes. He begins by looking back at the phrase we've seen so often in the book - "under the sun":
It occurs twenty-eight times in this short book, and it refers to life as viewed entirely from the perspective of this earth, a life considered apart from God. Such a truncated and circumscribed life, of course, is meaningless. "All come from dust, and to dust all return" (3:20).
Friend, can you see how the Teacher's honesty about sin, the Fall, and its consequences helps us understand why the world is like it is, and how we should respond to it? Hear him! This world is a bad place for your final investment! It was not made for that! As long as you keep trying to cobble together meaning from the scraps of this world, the Teacher of Ecclesiastes will pursue you and point out the paltry and passing, flimsy and fleeting nature of your materials. There is more to life than what we find under the sun, and God has not made us to be satisfied with this world alone. As the Teacher says, God has "set eternity" in our hearts (3:11). Yes, our lives are lived out under the sun, but our hearts' desires stretch infinitely beyond the horizon. Eternity goes beyond the sphere of what is under the sun.
Throughout the book we read of him who dwells in the heavens, above and beyond the sun. The book is not as faithless as it is sometimes made out to be. In the last few verses, we read, "Now all has been heard; here is the conclusion of the matter: Fear god and keep his commandments, for this is the whole duty of man. For God will bring every deed into judgment, including every hidden thing, whether it is good or evil" (12:13-14).
Some people feel that these last verses of the book spoil it. The real message is stark, but it's honest, brave, and commendable, perhaps even necessary to survive in the world. Maybe these last verses were just tacked on, they've thought.
But I don't think so. These verses bring us to the ultimate message of this book: only with God do we have a clear and true perspective that gives meaning to life. That is the perspective we must have.
For life to have meaning, we need what lies beyond it. We need judgment (cf. 8:10-13; 12:14); and we need hope. It is because God the Author will finally evaluate what we do that life has meaning. In the same way that a book cannot read itself, you and I cannot give meaning to our own lives. We were created by someone bigger than us, for his purposes and for his ends. Only from him can we learn meaning and truth.
When we view our lives from his perspective, what do we see? What do we see when we turn away from our self-centered, beneath-the-sun perspectives and adopt the Teacher's own God-centered perspective? We see, first, our rebellion against God. This becomes evident as soon as we stop measuring "success," "fair," "good," and "valuable" from our own vantage point and begin using God's standards. Second, we see the promise of judgment that our rebellion requires. But third, we learn in the Scriptures, marvelously, that God is not only holy, he's loving; and he has given his Son to die on the cross and take upon himself God's judgment for the rebellion of all those who will ever repent of their sins and believe in him!
CONCLUSION
So is futility final? No. Ecclesiastes was never meant to be a substitute for the whole Bible. As we have seen, some of these cynical sayings, taken by themselves, can be confusing and even appear false. To know the truth of God, we need the full revelation of God himself that he gives us in the whole Bible.
So, I ask again, is futility final? Outside of the answer that is found in Christ, there is no final answer to the futility of life. Only God's revelation of himself in Jesus Christ assures us that there is something beyond the sun and beyond the grave. In that sense, the good news that we as Christians have to share is the key to getting "beyond the sun." Christ came to live, die, and rise again in order to bring us forgiveness of sins and a restored relationship with God. This good news is the key to getting beyond and over the sun and to gaining the life full of the meaning and purpose that God intended for us. The afterlife is not an old Christian dogma that we can simply push aside. The afterlife, says the book of Ecclesiastes, is essential to this life and to understanding the truth of who God made us to be. And only through Jesus Christ do we see the death of death and the birth of a new life that will endure forever.
"Therefore is anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; the old has gone, the new has come!" (2 Cor. 5:17).
"Always give yourselves fully to the work of the Lord, because you know that your labor in the Lord is not in vain" (1 Cor. 15:58b).
We will find meaning only when meaning extends beyond this life and world. Only eternity with God makes a life "successful" and "worth living." And we will find such meaning only in Christ!
You can download the sermon here or read it as a part of Dever's book The Message of the Old Testament: Promises Made.
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