Ecclesiastes 11:8 KJV
But if a man live many years, and rejoice in them all; yet let him remember the days of darkness; for they shall be many. All that cometh is vanity.
Solomon could see that there was something after death but in his present state of faithlessness he could not see anything good beyond the grave. Vanity and darkness could refer to lifelessness, cessation of being, but I don't think this is what he meant because he spoke of many years. There is this concept of time even after the grave. There is no doubt that the man without God, as was the rich man of Luke 16, though he fares well in life, will find hell to be darkness and vanity.
What Solomon never comes up with is that there is the possibility of joy beyond imagination on the other side of the grave. This is the hope of the child of God; not merely a decent life now but a glorious life eternally.
Though Ecclesiastes never gets us there, it does point to the hopeless situation of the moralist, religionist and Old Testament Jew. Without Jesus Christ the best any man could ever know is a prosperous and long life, but always with the underlying sensation of vanity and darkness beyond the grave.
Jesus is the light that makes the darkness of the grave the entrance into immeasurable blessing.
But if a man live many years, and rejoice in them all; yet let him remember the days of darkness; for they shall be many. All that cometh is vanity.
Solomon could see that there was something after death but in his present state of faithlessness he could not see anything good beyond the grave. Vanity and darkness could refer to lifelessness, cessation of being, but I don't think this is what he meant because he spoke of many years. There is this concept of time even after the grave. There is no doubt that the man without God, as was the rich man of Luke 16, though he fares well in life, will find hell to be darkness and vanity.
What Solomon never comes up with is that there is the possibility of joy beyond imagination on the other side of the grave. This is the hope of the child of God; not merely a decent life now but a glorious life eternally.
Though Ecclesiastes never gets us there, it does point to the hopeless situation of the moralist, religionist and Old Testament Jew. Without Jesus Christ the best any man could ever know is a prosperous and long life, but always with the underlying sensation of vanity and darkness beyond the grave.
Jesus is the light that makes the darkness of the grave the entrance into immeasurable blessing.
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