Your Super Righteousness is Meaningless in a Paradoxically Broken World Apart from Jesus
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I just don’t get the paradox...
I just don’t get the paradox...
A paradox is a self-contradictory statement or situation that in reality is true. It’s something that should not happen, but in reality it does and its hard or impossible to explain. On the surface, when I read Eccl 7:15, there is a part of me that does not get the paradox.
In my vain life I have seen everything. There is a righteous man who perishes in his righteousness, and there is a wicked man who prolongs his life in his evildoing.
The paradox is not hard to see. You can identify it in the form of a question. Why would someone who lives her life doing the right thing perish in her righteousness, and she who lives wickedly prolong her life? How can that be? Where is the justice in that? But we see it in the scriptures, right?
Just after the Fall in the Garden of Eden, righteous Able is slaughtered by the hands of his unrighteous brother, Cain (Genesis 4:1-10). The paradox is righteous Able dies while wicked Cain lives a long life with his family. You see the paradox a little later in the Old Testament when Naboth refuses to sell his inheritance, which is a right thing in God’s eyes, to King Ahab and Jezebel had him murdered for it (1 Kings 21:11-14). The paradox of righteous Naboth is murdered for following God’s ways while wicked King Ahab gets the vineyard and continues to live. In the New Testament, young Stephen is stoned for preaching the good news of God’s salvation to his people (Acts 7:59). The paradox of righteous Stephen fulfilling the Great Commission by preaching rightly about Jesus, while the wicked people who stoned him suffer no recourse for their actions.
We also see the paradox in our contemporary world. Think about your English Bible for a second. How did you get it?
Who translated it from the Greek and Hebrew for you to read it in your heart language? The man’s name was William Tyndel. His desire was that every common person who spoke English could read the scriptures for themselves. He was strangled and burned at a stake for doing such a noble thing.
Diedrich Bonhoeffer was a German theologian who stood up to Hitler and the Nazis. He rebuked the Lutheran Church for trying to partner with the Nazis, compromising the gospel. He shot by a firing squad by the Nazi’s just before the end of the war. Jim Elliot, with four other men, moved to South America to reach the unreachable for the gospel. All five of them were speared to death by three violent Woadni tribes people.
What makes this tension even more uncomfortable in verse 15, is we read scriptures that say things like,
“Honor your father and your mother, that your days may be long in the land that the Lord your God is giving you.
or
You shall walk in all the way that the Lord your God has commanded you, that you may live, and that it may go well with you, and that you may live long in the land that you shall possess.
Scriptures like these seem paradoxical in light of what we experience in our broken world. In other words, maybe we are asking God, why do you allow such injustice in this world? Why do you allow tragedy to strike the vulnerable and the innocent, while it looks like the wicked prosper? It makes you cry out with the Psalmist:
Behold, these are the wicked; always at ease, they increase in riches.
All in vain have I kept my heart clean and washed my hands in innocence.
For all the day long I have been stricken and rebuked every morning.
It appears to us that living a righteous life in this world is vanity, a mirage, a hevel upon hevels, meaningless. Solomon recognizes this in verse 15, and then he offers two ways people will respond to this paradox. Either you will see this paradox and decided to live a super-righteous life trying to please God in order to manipulate him to give you long life, or you will throw all caution to the wind and live a life of hedonism.
Your Super Righteousness will not save you (Eccl 7:16)
Your Super Righteousness will not save you (Eccl 7:16)
Don’t be excessively righteous, and don’t be overly wise. Why should you destroy yourself?
This is an odd thing to say. What does Solomon mean when he says, “Don’t be overly righteous?” When he says, “Don’t be overly wicked,” is saying its ok to be a little wicked?
First off, Solomon is not advocating that you be wicked in the slightest bit. He has already said that wicked living is foolish living, and the fool always perishes (See Proverbs)
What Solomon is doing here is giving you a principle for how to live wisely in this life. Essentially, he is saying to his readers, as Duane Garrett says, “Don’t be a fanatic.”
One way we respond the the paradox in this broken world is to be excessively zealous for righteousness. Its what Sidney Greidanus calls Super Righteousness. You set a goal of to live a perfectly righteous life, and in doing so you believe you because you’ve done so, God is obligated to give you long life and prosperity. There are several obvious problems with this philosophy of living.
First of all, you cannot ever achieve perfect righteousness. Solomon makes this clear in
Surely there is not a righteous man on earth who does good and never sins.
He also alludes to it in
Your heart knows that many times you yourself have cursed others.
Your own heart is guilty of cursing others when you have been offended. Michael Fox is right to says, “Straining for perfection is presumptuous, a refusal to accept human limitations.”
Secondly, when you choose to live a perfect life of perfection the effect of doing such a thing is blind fulness to your own sin.
Jesus constantly confronted the Pharisees about this very thing. He would call them blind guides.
You blind guides, straining out a gnat and swallowing a camel!
“Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you clean the outside of the cup and the plate, but inside they are full of greed and self-indulgence.
Their pursuit of perfect piety blinded them from seeing their hypocrisy. Jesus has to teach us to take the log out of our own eye before we seek to remove the speck in our brothers eye. The pride of believing we can achieve perfect righteousness blinds us to our sin.
Finally, God will not be manipulated by your works. You cannot bargain with God, not can you demand that he bind himself to a contract with you. The Lord is in the heavens and he does what he pleases (Psalm 115:3). God has ordained you days in his book, every one of them (Psalm 139:16). God works everything in your life for your good and His glory (Romans 8:28-29).
The Pharisees could not understand this truth. They really believed their zeal for God’s law would keep them from the paradox of brokenness. jesus confronted their belief as a form of pride. Solomon warns such zeal for Super-righteousness will destory you (Eccl 7:16). He says of pride
Pride goes before destruction, and a haughty spirit before a fall.
Religious zeal, or being a fanatic will bring your destruction in a paradoxically broken world.
Your Excessive Wickedness will not save you (Eccl 7:17)
Your Excessive Wickedness will not save you (Eccl 7:17)
Don’t be excessively wicked, and don’t be foolish. Why should you die before your time?
Here is the other side of that coin. If your zeal of righteousness is not going to cut it, your other solution to the paradox we live in is to throw all caution to the wind and live a debauched life in sin. It is not hard to see the logic here. Paul points out that if Jesus is not risen then
If in Christ we have hope in this life only, we are of all people most to be pitied.
and
If I fought wild animals in Ephesus with only human hope, what good did that do me? If the dead are not raised, Let us eat and drink, for tomorrow we die.
If my Super-righteousness is not going to save me, I should embrace the world, embrace the pride of my eyes and the lust of my flesh. Solomon says to do this will destroy you. He warns, “Why should you die before your time?”
The Bible does warn you. If you decide to live wickedly, you could suffer death quickly.
In just a little while, the wicked will be no more; though you look carefully at his place, he will not be there.
and
A worthless person, a wicked man, goes about with crooked speech,
winks with his eyes, signals with his feet, points with his finger,
with perverted heart devises evil, continually sowing discord;
therefore calamity will come upon him suddenly; in a moment he will be broken beyond healing.
Think of the lifestyle of the Mobsters or thugs. Consider the lifespan of drug dealers. How many have been killed violently at such a young age because of their commitment to wickedness?
Duane Garrett wisely says,
“While some sin in everyone’s life is inevitable, those who embrace evil as a way of life are destroyed by it.” Duane Garrett
Excessive wickedness is not the answer to the riddle of the paradox of living in this broken world.
In verse 18, Solomon offers the beginning of our solution. He says
It is good that you should take hold of this, and from that withhold not your hand, for the one who fears God shall come out from both of them.
You need to take the one, that is do not try to be super righteous or super wise. First of all, it is impossible. Second, in the end you will be disappointed. At the same time you need to not let go of the other. That is, do not choose to live in excessive wickedness, as if to throw your life into the wind. That is a fools errand and you will perish sooner than later. The truth is, to live in this paradoxical world you must fear God. For us, to fear God is to surrender your life to Jesus. Jesus is the One who changes your heart from a heart of stone to a heart of flesh. He is the one who gives you the desire and ability to obey God’s commands and restrain your wickedness. Jesus is the super-righteousness you need to stand in the presence of a Holy God.
Jesus, not your super righteousness or excessive wickedness, solves the paradox we live in this broken life.
Jesus, not your super righteousness or excessive wickedness, solves the paradox we live in this broken life.
Paul also says to us in his letter to the Corinthians that Jesus is your wisdom from heaven that came to give you righteousness, sanctification, and redemption. He is is the one who brings the balance you need to not live zealously for righteousness like that of the Pharisee, or to live in the zeal of sin. Jesus is the anchor to both sides of the tension of our brokenness and our redemption. Jesus is the mystery revealed in how God is going to reconcile and restore all things past, present, and future; making every wrong right. Jesus is the wisdom we need to last in this paradoxically broken world.
Solomon does not mention or allude to Jesus in the remaining verses. I am not arguing that. What I am saying is on this side of the cross, we know that Jesus is our wisdom, our sanctification, and our redemption that Solomon alludes to in verse 19-29. On this side of the cross, loving Jesus, surrendering your life to Jesus is how you fear the Lord. So when Solomon says fear God, to us that is surrender your life to Jesus. With Jesus in mind, Solomon offers you five ways to live wisely in our paradoxically broken world.
Jesus helps you live in the strength Wisdom brings (Eccl 7:19)
Jesus helps you live in the strength Wisdom brings (Eccl 7:19)
Wisdom makes the wise man stronger than ten rulers of a city.
Solomon helps us understand the strength on wisdom in your life. He compares it to ten rulers of a city. The rulers of a city were the powerful, wealthy, decision makers. In our day, it would be comparable to presidents and prime ministers, or whatever noble that rules a nation. Solomon uses the number ten to show how great the power wisdom holds. Ten rulers is likened to super power or super-strength. But Solomon uses the comparative, stronger, to bring home his point even more. Ten rulers are a mighty force in this world. Wisdom gives even more strength than that to those who are wise, who fear the Lord. Jesus empowers you to discern and restrain your wickedness and the evil in this world.
Jesus helps you recognize the redemption you desperately need (Eccl 7:20-22)
Jesus helps you recognize the redemption you desperately need (Eccl 7:20-22)
There is certainly no righteous man on the earth who does good and never sins.
Don’t pay attention to everything people say, or you may hear your servant cursing you,
for you know that many times you yourself have cursed others.
The strength wisdom provides is necessary. Solomon points out the same reality Paul identifies in Romans 3:23
for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God,
Sin is universal. Every son and daughter of Adam, that is all of humanity, is born with a sinful nature and rebels against God. That is what Solomon means when he says, “There is certainly no righteous man on earth who does good and never sins.” Because sin rules the world, wise men are needed to retrain sin. Take for example what Russia is doing to the Ukraine.
Vladimir Putin has declared war on Ukraine for no just reason. By all appearances, he is using his strength and authority as the ruler of a nation as means of wickedness. If wise nations do not rise up with wise solutions, Ukraine will not be the only country to suffer death and destruction. Wisdom must redeem wickedness and bring reconciliation and restoration. That is the message of the cross.
The cross is the place where God’s perfect mercy and justice meet to redeem his enemies. Sinners are hostile to God. Paul is clear about this in
For the mind that is set on the flesh is hostile to God, for it does not submit to God’s law; indeed, it cannot.
Those who are in the flesh cannot please God.
All of us are naturally hostile to God, like Russian is to the Ukraine. Solomon even brings it closer to home when when says, ‘even you have cursed people in your heart.” Therefore, even you being his enemy we deserve his wrath. His justice demands that he destroy every one of us. For the wages of our sin, what our hostility to God deserves, is death. Jesus warns everyone about the coming judgement. He spends more time talking about hell in the New Testament than he does heaven. Don’t be afraid of the one who can kill the body. Be terrified of the one who can destroy both body and soul in hell.
But God, in his supreme wisdom, provided another way to restrain evil, to end the hostility between He and His fallen image bearers. Remember what Paul says in
And because of him you are in Christ Jesus, who became to us wisdom from God, righteousness and sanctification and redemption,
God sent his Son, Jesus, to become wisdom, righteousness, and sanctification, and redemption for us. Wisdom understands the only way to restrain evil is to redeem sinners. The cross is God’s wise solution for our sin. the cross is God’s solution for faithful living in this paradoxically broken world. The cross is the place where his perfect justice and abundant mercy meets to redeem sinners to himself, bringing peace and unity between God and man. He transfers sinners out of the kingdom of darkness and into the kingdom of light. Then to the awe of all of heaven, God wisely keeps redeemed sinners on earth to live our their new redemption, helping others be reconciled and restored to God and each other, bringing peace. The only thing that will bring true peace to Russia and the Ukraine is the gospel of Jesus Christ. Pray that God will send wise men and women as missionaries to Russia and the Ukraine who will bring the peace of the gospel to both countries. Pray that God will raise up the believers who are there in Russia and in the Ukraine to be wise and bring gospel solutions to that end the wickedness.
Jesus helps you live in the wisdom of recognizing the tension between faith and mystery (Eccl 7:23-25)
Jesus helps you live in the wisdom of recognizing the tension between faith and mystery (Eccl 7:23-25)
I have tested all this by wisdom. I resolved, “I will be wise,” but it was beyond me.
What exists is beyond reach and very deep. Who can discover it?
I turned my thoughts to know, explore, and seek wisdom and an explanation for things, and to know that wickedness is stupidity and folly is madness.
Being human and living in this paradoxically broken world means that we have to live in a degree of mystery. Biblical wisdom begins by accepting that there are mysteries that will never be revealed to us on this side of heaven. Moses says to us
“The secret things belong to the Lord our God, but the things that are revealed belong to us and to our children forever, that we may do all the words of this law.
We have limits to our understanding because we are human and God has chosen to only reveal what he feels is necessary. The prophet Isaiah reminds us
For as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways and my thoughts than your thoughts.
and Paul says
Oh, the depth of the riches and wisdom and knowledge of God! How unsearchable are his judgments and how inscrutable his ways!
Wisdom learns to live in the tension by faith. God is good and He is a good father. The cross is the ultimate example of God’s love and care for you. Nothing enters your life apart from his sovereign will. Paul encourages you to remember:
“For who has known the mind of the Lord, or who has been his counselor?”
“Or who has given a gift to him that he might be repaid?”
For from him and through him and to him are all things. To him be glory forever. Amen.
And when this world seems like God is absent or does not care, or worse, that he has lost interest on you, remember these words:
What then shall we say to these things? If God is for us, who can be against us?
He who did not spare his own Son but gave him up for us all, how will he not also with him graciously give us all things?
Who shall bring any charge against God’s elect? It is God who justifies.
Who is to condemn? Christ Jesus is the one who died—more than that, who was raised—who is at the right hand of God, who indeed is interceding for us.
Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Shall tribulation, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or danger, or sword?
As it is written, “For your sake we are being killed all the day long; we are regarded as sheep to be slaughtered.”
No, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us.
For I am sure that neither death nor life, nor angels nor rulers, nor things present nor things to come, nor powers,
nor height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord.
Jesus helps you live in the wisdom of watching for the snare of sin (Eccl 7:26-29)
Jesus helps you live in the wisdom of watching for the snare of sin (Eccl 7:26-29)
And I find more bitter than death the woman who is a trap, her heart a net, and her hands chains. The one who pleases God will escape her, but the sinner will be captured by her.
“Look,” says the Teacher, “I have discovered this by adding one thing to another to find out the explanation,
which my soul continually searches for but does not find: among a thousand people I have found one true man, but among all these I have not found a true woman.
Only see this: I have discovered that God made people upright, but they pursued many schemes.”
Solomon uses the snare of an adulterous woman to point our how sin traps us. He spends a great deal of time explaining the snares of unfaithfulness in Proverbs. Like an adulterous woman to a foolish man, sin promises pleasure and fulfillment, but in reality it leads to death. Sidney Greidanus says, “Wickedness in this world is a fatal attraction.” Drugs and booze feel good for a time, until they imprison you by the chains of addiction. Gambling can seem as fun as a sporting event until it puts you and your family into poverty. Watching pornography can have the lure of love and romance, until your left in the ruins of your marriage. The snare sin is a death trap.
And if you are tempted to blame God for the sin of the world, Solomon says you need to think again. God made people to be sinless in the Garden. Verse 25 says, “But man has many schemes.” That is, man broke from God’s ways to go his own way. Sin is not God’s fault. Man messed things up, and man is drawn toward sin. You are naturally drawn toward the lust of the flesh and the pride of your eyes. That is why you find yourself in sinful situations. Gossip. Fighting. Embezzlement. Adultery. Murder. Jealousy-Jesus says all of that in you your heart.
Solomon says, the one who pleases God escapes her. That is, wisdom walks in the fear of the Lord watching for the snare of sin. Solomon already said
Ecclesiastes 2:26 (HCSB)
For to the man who is pleasing in His sight, He gives wisdom, knowledge, and joy...
God loves to give wisdom to those who ask him for it (James 1:8). And those who have it, walk in the Fear of the Lord to avoid sin. It is a wonderful circle of life.
Jesus helps you live in the wisdom of the certainty of eternal life He provides (2 Corinthians 5:21; John 10:27-28)
Jesus helps you live in the wisdom of the certainty of eternal life He provides (2 Corinthians 5:21; John 10:27-28)
Consider two ways the wisdom of God gives you certainty in this paradoxically broken world.
Jesus died the paradoxical death.
Jesus died the paradoxical death.
For our sake he made him to be sin who knew no sin, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God.
Jesus was sinless, a perfect human being. He was murdered at the age of 33 by wicked men who abused justice for their own favor. That is the epitome of living in a paradoxically broken world. Even more so, the paradox is deepened when you see that Jesus became sin so that we can have his righteousness. Jesus’s righteousness is the super righteousness you need to be able to be justified and live in harmony with a holy God, and he gives it to all who trust Him for eternal life.
Jesus is your certainty for all eternity... if you are his sheep.
Jesus is your certainty for all eternity... if you are his sheep.
My sheep hear my voice, and I know them, and they follow me.
I give them eternal life, and they will never perish, and no one will snatch them out of my hand.
The sheep are God’s elect. The sheep are those whom God is pleased. The sheep are the wise, and only the wise hear his voice. It is those who fear the Lord. Are you his sheep? Is Jesus your shepherd? If you are, then he has given you eternal life, and you will never perish. For nothing can snatch you out of his hand. Your eternal life ie certain in uncertain paradoxically broken world.
The good will die young. The wicked will seem to prosper. The rain will fall on the just and the unjust, and the sun will rise in the wicked and the righteous. We will suffer trials and tribulations in this life. God never spares us from suffering the effects of sin. Furthermore, We will not always know why we suffer. For the deep things of God are his to know.
Most of our faith is ground in reason and evidence. But there is some degree of mystery. You and I have to grow to a place where we don’t have to understand the paradox. We don’t have to have all the mysteries revealed to us at this moment.
We must trust that God has given us everything we need for life and godliness through the blood of his Son (2 Peter 1:3). Christ is sufficient and has given us the faith we need to keep our eyes on the prize, and to look forward to the resurrection.
When Jesus returns, He will remove the paradox we live. He promises to restore the heavens and the earth and to make every thing right. There will be a day when we live in absolute certainty to such a degree that what we suffer on earth in this life will seem like a momentary affliction compared to his glory revealed. The wicked will perish. The righteous will flourish. God will remove the paradox and replace it with perfection, just has he is perfect, and his Son is perfect, and because we are in Him, we will be perfect. For now live by faith in the paradox for the hope of our perfection in Christ. Amen