Ecclesiastes Chapter Three, Universal Seasons

 Ecclesiastes 3:1 To everything there is a season, a time for every purpose under heaven: [2a] A time to be born and a time to die;

The universality and inclusiveness of the preacher’s statement may be gleaned with the first portion of verse 2. There is a time to be born, that moment that brings every individual into this world. It is universal in the sense that everyone shares this entry into existence.

Conversely, there is also a time to die. Granted, there will be a group of believers alive on the earth to experience what Christians refer to as the Rapture: an event that precedes the seven year tribulation period in which the church is removed from the earth prior to God returning His attention to Israel and dealing with the world system through His earthly people as highlighted in Revelation. Apart from this singular moment in history, however, all people must suffer death. Just as we share the commonality of being born, we all partake of that exodus known as death.

So when the preacher states that for everything there is a time and season for every purpose under heaven, it is completely inclusive, starting with our entry into existence, and finishing with the final breath man takes. Note, however, that the preacher does suggest that every item on his list is purposive. He expressly states that there is a purpose for every action under heaven. This time, of course, the preacher stops addressing human life as under the sun, focusing a little closer to his Creator by citing how man’s actions, which do have purpose or meaning, are done under heaven.

Citing Ecclesiastes 3:17, we read, “I said in my heart, “God shall judge the righteous and the wicked, for there is a time there for every purpose and for every work.” Moreover, the preacher cautions his readership that while what man’s life entails and the works he commits to are in fact purposive under heaven, they are for a season. Nothing under heaven, or under the sun, is meant to endure of itself. The earth itself and all the material universe will eventually expire according to Joshua, David, and Paul. Even Darwinian science, so contrary to the Bible and convoluted even amongst its own champions suggests the same. The laws of thermodynamics are in fact written to explain the nature of energy in the universe and its decline toward entropy.

The preacher further defines time as “a season.” Like the four seasons we experience every year, nothing stays forever, but arrives, thrives, dwindles and then is no more. As being born and dying encapsulates the human experience on an existential level, everything else that further defines human life falls into the time or season of these momentous events. It is not shocking that the preacher begins with birth and death, since they are the bookends that would open and close the chapters of our lives, be it a long or short one. Verse 2 also begins the contrast of what people might perceive as a positive and a negative aspect to existence. In our study verse it is life (positive) and death (negative). However, Christians know that death does not have to be expressly negative as the Apostle Paul taught, “We are confident, yes, well pleased rather to be absent from the body and to be present with the Lord,” 2 Corinthians 5:8. Death, which all men live in terror of, becomes a junction through which the believer may pass through into the immediate and conscious presence of Christ our Savior and God the Father.