Do you want to live forever? Regardless of whether you believe it is possible or not, most of us live our lives in pursuit of this goal. We do our best at our work, we strive to realize our dreams, we do great things, we try to make the world a better place, we want to be good friends or good parents... And while we do these things in part because it makes us happy, most of us would have to honestly say that we also do them because we want our achievements, our memory, our good works, our descendants to live on after us. We seek eternity by means of works that will last long after we are gone. We may be dead and in the ground, but our memory will live on in the hearts of those that knew us or benefit from the things we accomplished.
Ecclesiastes is a book about seeking eternity. Though it only mentions the word once, the idea is present in virtually every chapter of the book. Its characters, including its author, are people who seek wisdom and knowledge, or who build great architectural edifices, or who attain high political offices, or who are very religious and want to do great things for God. Some of them are incredibly innovative. Others have large families given to them to care for. There are men and women, kings and lay people, young people and old people, wise people and foolish people, wealthy nobility and the humble poor. And the vast majority of them are seeking eternity by means of a life well-lived, whatever that may mean to each of them. Sound like any world you know?
Of course, this is also no surprise, because Ecclesiastes tells us that God "has put eternity into man's heart". We are created with a desire for immortality imprinted on our very being. Elsewhere in the Bible, we are told that man was made to live forever. But he has been thwarted by sin and is now universally condemned to death. We who are made with eternity in our hearts now have a 100% chance of dying. But this death sentence does not stop us from seeking the immortality we should have had. You will rarely meet a person who could care less about how they will be remembered. Even those who do great evil are often seeking a name for themselves. Better to be infamous for the rest of human history for some terrible deed than to lie forgotten in an unmarked grave with the vast majority of the human race.
The problem with achieving eternity via long-standing accomplishments (however noble) or via a good name is that we have no guarantee that anything we do in this life will outlive us. You can spend your days toiling to build up your business and have no guarantee that the person who takes over after you won't run it into the ground. You can be a mother who pours her life into her children, giving them every chance at success, teaching them with all wisdom and insight to live a life of godliness and you have no guarantee that they will live on after you as godly, successful people. You can't even guarantee that they will outlive you! And even if we could guarantee good results, "there is no remembrance of former things, nor will there be any remembrance of later things yet to be among those who come after." So, "what does man gain by all the toil at which he toils under the sun?" (Eccl. 1:2, 11). Death comes for us all (another prominent theme in Ecclesiastes), and regardless of what we have done or how often our name is mentioned 500 years from now, we will be forgotten. Think about the handful of names you know from history (out of the billions who have ever lived), and then think about how much deconstruction, reconstruction, reanalysis and "new discoveries!" are part of our knowledge about history. We don't even know those people for who they really, really were.
No, we have no hope of achieving immortality for ourselves, no matter how hard we try. We who are made with eternity in our hearts are doomed to be lost and forgotten to the running sands of time. BUT, "whatever God does endures forever; nothing can be added to it, nor anything taken from it" (Eccl. 3:14). God who put eternity in our hearts also only does that which lasts forever. This means that the only way we will ever live on forever is through participating in God's enduring work. And he invites us into it! In fact, he offers us an exchange: he will take our broken, half-hearted, mediocre, forgettable work, as well as the best, most pleasing achievements we have to offer (which are still just as perishable as we are); and in its place, he will give us the perfect, everlasting, finished work of his son, Jesus. When we admit that we cannot make eternity for ourselves, and instead put all our trust and hope in God's finished and enduring work at the cross of Jesus, then, and only then, do we gain unending life. "And this is eternal life, that they may know you the only true God, and Jesus Christ, whom you have sent." (John 17:3)
This may mean that we live a life that will be forgotten by mankind. It may mean living in a way that doesn't seem very successful to others, and even at many times to ourselves. But it is our only sure hope for eternity, and that makes it a life worth living.
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