CHAPTER 7

We have noted some of the features with which chapter 7 opens, and we must now give attention to the teaching

of the whole section, chapters 7 to 12, and this will demand that we give a more detailed examination of the `better'

things already enumerated as well as the larger unfolding that occupies the bulk of the remaining chapters.

The first `good thing' we have learned, is a good name. The name covers all its outgoings. By nature all have

the name of Adam, and the very first `good thing' is to exchange that name for the better name of a child of God.

Koheleth may not have personally understood the full evangelical meaning of his own statement, the statement

being increasingly true as one ascends the scale of fuller knowledge and personal faith in Christ.

It is, however, necessary that we appreciate the radical change indicated by the possession of the `good name',

otherwise the remaining `good things' will not be understood. The second good thing which Ecclesiastes records is

apt to sound `a hard saying', and only those who have tasted the sweets of the new name can heartily endorse his

`The day of death (is better) than the day of one's birth'.- To the unsaved reader these words will be sufficient to

confirm his opinion that Koheleth was a pessimist. To the enlightened believer the same words will reveal him as a

spirit-taught optimist. From the viewpoint of Ecclesiastes what is this present life? It is summed up in the words

`Vanity and vexation of spirit' to all those who have not reached the `conclusion of the whole matter' (12:13,14).

This present life is expressed in the synonymous clause `all the days of his vain life which he spendeth as a shadow'

(6:12). At the end of that life there is the `one event', and the `one place'.

`As he came forth of his mother's womb, naked shall he return to go as he came, and shall take nothing of his

labour, which he may carry away in his hand' (5:15).

The flesh profiteth nothing. This life can only be blessed and purposeful when it is viewed as a place of

discipline and training, fitting one for true service and life that is life indeed in resurrection. The day of our birth

ushers us into a sphere dominated by the law of sin and death. We are at birth `sown in corruption', dishonour,

weakness, merely a natural (soul-ical) body. Resurrection changes all this. We shall be raised in incorruption,

glory, power, and with a spiritual body. The first state is connected with Adam (1 Cor. 15:45, Eccles. 6:10, Heb.),

the second with Christ.

If these facts are appreciated in any degree, we shall also appreciate the words of Ecclesiastes `the day of one's

death is better than the day of one's birth'. At death the pilgrimage ceases, the lessons are over, the discipline done.

For the believer, sin's punishment, power and presence will have for ever passed away. The death which has fallen

upon him shall never fall again. The present life with all its blessings and pleasures and opportunities is a life spent

in corruption, and in the sphere of a curse. Such a condition cannot be immortal. Flesh and blood cannot inherit the

kingdom of God, neither can corruption inherit incorruption. This being so, even though the mind and heart shrink

from the valley of the shadow of death, one can see that it is a necessity (`change' will be the equivalent for the

living saints) if we would enter into the full blessedness of redemption.

Ecclesiastes is under no false idea that death is a `friend' or a `bright angel'. That is left to the unbeliever in his

endeavour to hide the terror of the last enemy. The believer taught by the Scripture is under no illusions as to death.

Job could even dare to speak of `worms destroying his body' when he knew that his Redeemer lived. Paul can speak

of death and the grave without softening either awful word, because resurrection had robbed them of their sting and

their victory. Ecclesiastes teaches that the only ones in this life who can `enjoy' any good in it, in the true sense, are

those who have faced its transient character, realised the fact that this is not their rest but their school, and who,

knowing that life in its fulness cannot be entered till they awake satisfied with Christ's likeness, set their mind on