Ecclesiastes Chapter Three, Permanence

Ecclesiastes 3:14 I know that whatever God does, it shall be forever. Nothing can be added to it, and nothing taken from it. God does it, that men should fear before Him.

The preacher frames his understanding of God in extremely laudatory tones. God is all powerful, or omnipotent. Whatever Elohim chooses to do, no one can withstand it, and nothing can be added to it; neither can anyone take away from it. Among the things God has done is this: “Of His own will He brought us forth by the word of truth, that we might be a kind of firstfruits of His creatures,” James 1:18.

So much more can be said of this matter. For those that try to add to His work, Scripture has a scathing rebuke: “Do not add to His words, lest He rebuke you, and you be found a liar,” Proverbs 30:6. Though this proverb is from the famous book Solomon wrote, it hails from a chapter written by an enigmatic fellow named Agur. It is a rebuke to anyone who believes himself clever or capable enough to expand upon revealed truth in a way that distorts what is said to confirm their own belief. This is heterodoxy, which manifests in writing in the form of eisegesis. Eisegesis, the opposite of exegesis, is reading one’s own beliefs into the text, rather than extracting what is said by virtue of context and theme. In other words exegesis permits the text to speak for itself and the author tries his best to stay out of its way, so to speak. Whereas eisegesis inserts the author’s views into the text itself and reshapes what is said to expand upon it. In turn it mutates the intention of the text, becoming something the text was never meant to say.

That is unfortunately how many well meaning Christians have created the travesties of conditional salvation, baptismal regeneration, Calvinism’s tenets, word of faith ideology and pentecostal doctrine, or that Jesus is not God, salvation is not simply believing the message of the gospel, et al. Cults such as Seventh Day Adventism, Jehovah’s Witnesses, Mormonism, or Roman Catholicism would not exist if not for the perversion of eisegesis corrupting the biblical text.

A warning similar to Agur’s is found at the end of Revelation. In Revelation 22:18, 19, John testifies that anyone defiling God’s word by attempting to add or subtract from it will have curses upon them, or their place in the Book of Life removed. The folly of attempting to undo what God has done is twofold: first, it is pointless. What God does cannot be altered by man. Second, it is blasphemous to assume God needs assistance, with the unspoken assertion that God erred and needs correction. The false doctrines that proliferate in Christianity date back to the concept that men want to shift the burden of what is done to men. Men must do what God claims to have done in terms of the spiritual life. God was remiss, or wrong, in what He said and certain very clever and gifted men must come along and clarify what was ACTUALLY meant.

Of God we read, “If I were hungry, I would not tell you; for the world is Mine, and all its fullness,” Psalm 50:12. Or as Paul quotes out of Job 41:11, “Or who has first given to Him and it shall be repaid to him?” Romans 11:35. The aforementioned verse from Job concludes as the Psalm did, “Everything under heaven is Mine.” Or as Paul elegantly worded it, “For of Him and through Him and to Him are all things, to whom be glory forever. Amen,” Romans 11:36.

The fear the preacher mentions is not servile fear, but godly reverence. The acts, done with permanent and powerful efficiency, are meant to goad men to seek God. Our purpose under the sun will never be known until and unless we find God. If we live and die without Him, we have also lived and died without purpose. God’s love reveals His desire for men not to perish, but to be saved, 2 Peter 3:9. He expressed this clearly through His prophet when He said, “I have no pleasure in the death of the wicked, but that the wicked turn from his way and live. Turn, turn from your evil ways! For why should you die, O house of Israel?” Ezekiel 33:11.

Several items may be clearly understood in this verse. There is a God who acts in our world. When He chooses to act, the deed is forever, congruent with the duration of His life. What He does cannot be added to or taken from by any person or force outside of Himself. Neither will He choose to alter what He has done, since it is done “forever.” God acts to arrest the attention of a wayward race bent on taking the broad road to destruction. Humbling ourselves beneath the righteous hand of such a God is good for man, not in this lifetime alone but in the one to come.