Ecclesiastes Chapter Seven, A Balanced Life

Ecclesiastes 7:15 I have seen everything in my days of vanity: There is a just man who perishes in his righteousness, and there is a wicked man who prolongs life in his wickedness. [16] Do not be overly righteous, nor be overly wise, why should you destroy yourself? [17] Do not be overly wicked, nor be foolish: why should you die before your time? [18] It is good that you grasp this, and also not to remove your hand from the other; for he who fears God will escape them all.

The preacher confesses that his own life is vain. He makes an umbrella statement, that in the duration of his vain life, that he has seen, “everything.” It reminds me of the cliche New York cabbie saying that he has seen everything in regards to city life. Of course this is a gross embellishment, referring to the wild diversity of metropolitan life and the many people one comes into contact with. The preacher is saying something of the like. He has, in his reign, observed and dealt with many differing types of people from various walks of life. As the king of the greatest national power of its time, this is to be expected.

Nonetheless, he regards his rule and observational wisdom, achievements and influence vain, or pointless, without merit or purpose. Reflecting from the view of life under the sun, this is a natural outcome to reach. Why? Because life apart from God providing the framework for meaning individually and universally has nothing to offer humanity. There is no “why” to anything in existence. Life itself and intelligent thought is nothing more than a long series of cosmic accidents, somehow perfectly and impossibly timed. Why did inorganic matter become organic matter? Don’t know. Why did simple, unthinking, primordial life develop into sentient, emotive, complex life? Don’t know. Why did matter come into existence at all from a theoretical Big Bang? Don’t know, and stop asking these questions, because purpose is irrelevant and in fact an illusion that people project onto the directionless, blind, endlessly long processes that brought human life and indeed the entire universe into existence.

Any personal effort mankind makes to develop or project relevance into what he accomplishes is quickly and effortlessly swallowed by the gaping void of Darwin’s monster and the cultural and moral relativism that very naturally sprang from it. Even in the preacher’s lifetime he correctly surmised that divorcing God from His creation left the creatures adrift in a milieu of subjective searching for a purpose to life that can only be briefly and superficially applied to the individual. It is whitewashing, if you will, masking the absence of any answers that provide comfort from the sensitive seeker, leaving man to wander alone, pondering his meaning, working from the intellectual framework of a worldview that doesn’t permit actual meaning to intrude. It is maddening. So in that sense, vanity or futility certainly apply when defining life. It serves no purpose, has no meaning, passes off the world stage, and vanishes into obscurity and irrelevance, if relevance was ever truly real to begin with.

Moving on, what has the preacher seen in his days of vanity? The first is the righteous man that perishes in his righteousness. Meaning, he perishes because he is righteous. The preacher is speaking of a man whose convictions made him cleave to his ideals, and his ideals, contrary to an opposing party or force, compelled him to resist in his ideologies, even unto death. I would hold the Lord Jesus Christ up as the ultimate standard bearer of cherishing righteousness in the face of adversity, but this is not necessarily what is meant in this passage. The religious leaders of His time were largely hypocrites, saying one thing and doing another, but compelling the masses to follow their every utterance for fear of excommunication. The Pharisees and Sadducees practiced self-righteousness, straining out gnats and swallowing camels, in Jesus’ own words. Leaping ahead to verse 16, the preacher suggests that people should not be overly righteous or wise. In other words, his solution for the righteous suffering for their faith is to moderate it. Fanatics, radicals and those burning with zeal are most likely to suffer for their beliefs. Conversely, those that are so passionate are likewise most likely to suffocate adversaries with their worldview, not knowing (or caring) when to speak or keep silence, and finding a certain pride in their highly polished and practiced beliefs. Now do not mistake me; there is nothing wrong with being zealous and passionate. But to those that are, temperance and prudence ought to be added into that mix, lest the fruit of passion overwhelm the seat of reason and we become our own faith’s enemy by vomiting dogma when we should be practicing love and charity.

Returning to verse 15, the preacher also observed the wicked man whose wickedness prolongs his life. Despite this observance, the preacher counsels such a man in verse 17 that one ought not excel at being evil or practicing foolishness, so that we do not die before our time. In Psalm 73, Asaph writes, “I was envious of the boastful, when I saw the prosperity of the wicked,” Psalm 73:3. This nearly caused Asaph to follow suit in a pursuit of evil, verse 2. The wicked belong to the world; or rather, the world system erected by Satan, the god of this world. Jesus, when addressing His own brothers, told them, “your time is always ready. The world cannot hate you,” John 7:6, 7. He finishes this amazing admission by telling them, “but it hates Me because I testify of it that its works are evil.” The world accepts its own, unregenerate people, whom the brothers of our Lord belonged to at that time. Asaph, upset when he observed the fortunes of the wicked, wrote, “Behold, these are the ungodly, who are always at ease…surely I have cleansed my heart in vain, and washed my hands in innocence,” Psalm 73:12, 13.

The wicked appear to prosper, while the righteous’s end is that of a wicked man, according to wisdom. The final end of the wicked, no matter their length of days, is separation from God in the Lake of Fire. God is patient with the wicked, and we were all once in this throng. Peter wrote of God’s forbearance, “the longsuffering of our Lord is salvation,” 2 Peter 3:15. The wicked have only earth and its pleasures for the very finite time they draw breath. The counsel of the preacher stands, urging men not to lose themselves in wickedness, lest by doing so they lose their lives as a consequence of their deeds. “The soul who sins shall die…But when a righteous man turns from his righteousness and commits iniquity…all the righteousness he has done shall not be remembered; because of the unfaithfulness of which he is guilty and the sin which he has committed, because of them he shall die,” Ezekiel 18:20, 24. No matter how it may appear, the sinner is not “getting away” with anything. Because they have not trusted in Christ for their eternal salvation, they remain in a state of spiritual death, reflected by their worldview and conduct. For many, certain sins lead to premature death, or dying, “before your time.” The Apostle John wrote, “There is sin leading to death…All unrighteousness is sin, and there is sin not leading to death,” 1 John 5:16, 17. Drug abuse, alcohol abuse, sexual perversion, committing murder or theft, etc. Any of these could lead to fatal outcomes. A homeowner might find you in their house and kill you in self defense. You might overdose on a drug or get fatal alcohol poisoning or die in a DUI. You may contract an incurable and lethal STD, or face the wrath of a jealous spouse if adultery is involved, etc.

The preacher states that perceiving and understanding these things is good. The cost of one’s beliefs can be death, even today in many countries. Are those Christians who do not confess Jesus Christ out loud for fear of death to be seen as less righteous than those who do so with the certainty of death involved? While Paul berated Demas for abandoning him (see 2 Timothy 4:10), it does not mean Demas was unsaved; it merely meant that his conviction was overturned by a fear of death when Paul’s end became clear, much the same as Peter when he denied the Lord thrice. Paul’s zeal led him to glory, witnessing for the Lord Jesus Christ, but it also led him to execution under the rule of Nero. This is one way the passage may be construed. We must count the cost of following Christ, for it can be quite steep. Another is this: there are many Christians today whose faith is not the humble example of the Lord Jesus Christ, but the inflated righteousness of an offended saint who will not tolerate the wicked to be a part of their lives. But if we, the saints, do not dwell in the lives of the lost, our efficacy and witness are moot, and our righteousness is revealed to be not from God but from pride. We insulate ourselves in what we perceive as holiness, and will not let anyone “profane” come near, for fear of being perceived to be like them.

As for wickedness, we must understand that deviation from what is good is sin. Indulging in sin instead of obeying what is good is wickedness. While a concession is given by the preacher, knowing that mankind is by nature both foolish and wicked, he affirms that we must not delve into it; we may enter it from time to time as temptation and fleshly weakness wins a battle against the Spirit, but this should not be the norm. The caveat that encapsulates this passage is that the one who fears God (a reverential fear) will escape these things. We shall escape the snare of being overly, or unnecessarily righteous, that is puffing up with righteousness when the saint oversteps the bounds of their faith by dictating to others instead of appealing in love. And the one that fears God will know how their God disdains sin, and abhors its practice. To make oneself repugnant to the Creator is certainly a dangerous practice, and it leaves us vulnerable to the natural, cause-and-effect relationship that many sins have in regard to our health and safety. In the summary of this wonderful letter, the preacher reminds his readership, “Fear God and keep His commandments,” Ecclesiastes 12:13. A holy fear of God compels His children to obey, avoiding the pitfalls of hyper-fanatical righteousness and profligate living.