What I Don’t Know – Part 4

8. The things the “Preacher” did not understand:

The Book of Ecclesiastes is a veritable treasure trove of “things we don’t under­stand”.

 (a) “[God] has made everything beautiful in its time. He has also set eternity [Hebrew ‘olahm’] in the hearts of men; yet they cannot fathom what God has done from beginning to end” (Eccl. 3:11, NIV).

Man indeed has the capacity — God gave it to him, of course — to understand and appreciate eternal things in some measure, and to imagine an eternal, never-beginning, never-ending Divine Being. Yet we live in a fixed time, whilst He exists above, outside of, and beyond time. Ultimately, in this life and with these limita­tions, we cannot really fathom… we cannot really plumb the depths of knowing and scale the heights of understanding Him. So much remains a mystery to us. “Now we see through a glass darkly” (KJV) — “now we see but a poor reflection as in a mirror” (NIV) — and a very dull, and unpolished metal mirror at that (1 Cor. 13:12). Other men who have no real knowledge of God and His ways are indeed and truly in the dark, but even those of us who know… in actual fact, we know so very little: “What we will become has not yet been made known” (1 John 3:2).

 (b) “Consider what God has done: Who can straighten what he has made crooked?” (Eccl. 7:13).

The “crooked” conditions under which we all live (cp. Eccl. 1:15) were brought about by the original transgression and curse of Genesis 3. This “human condi­tion” cannot and will not be altered this side of God’s Kingdom. But even now, in the midst of a world filled with “crooked” people and “crooked” ways, those who love and serve God can choose, insofar as they are able, to walk in “straight” paths (Psa. 125:5; Prov. 2:10-15). They can also choose not to complain or whine or fret about their lot (Eccl. 7:10). They know that their faith, and their steps, even when they falter, will so please their LORD that He will delight in straightening, at last, all things that are “crooked” for them! And how they will sing, and dance, and run, and shout, when the crooked ways are made straight, and the rough places plain and level (Isa. 40:3,4). “And the glory of the LORD will be revealed” in that day (v. 5).

 (c) “I said, ‘I am determined to be wise’ — but this was beyond me. What­ever wisdom may be, it is far off and most profound — who can discover it?” (Eccl. 7:23,24).

As the Preacher pursued the use of wisdom in a practical sense, he came to dis­cover the limitations of such wisdom, in at least two ways:

1. because the human mind, in its present corrupted state, can stretch only so far (v. 23), and
2. because some wisdom is simply inaccessible, even to the very best of human minds — it is kept hidden in the eternal mind (v. 24).

Wisdom is inaccessible, or accessible only at a steep price: it is as though it were buried far beneath the surface of the earth, or hidden in the depths of the sea (Job 28:12,21, etc. in context; Psa. 36:6). Or, alternatively, wisdom is far above the earth — “too lofty for me to attain” (Psa. 139:6). Either way, “the secret things belong to the LORD our God” (Deut. 29:29). Paul confesses his limitations in understanding the deep things of God:

“Oh, the depth of the riches and the wisdom and the knowledge of God! How unsearchable his judgments, and his paths beyond tracing out!” (Rom. 11:33; cp. 1 Cor. 1:19-25; Job 11:7).

It has been pointed out that the knowledge of any man or woman (or, for that matter, the accumulated knowledge of all mankind) is like a circle that surrounds us. In this analogy, the perimeter of the circle represents the outer boundary, the limit of what is known; beyond that line there is the unknown. As the circle expands, that is, as more is learned — upon any subject, secular or spiritual — it is obvious that the line is still there, and there is still the unknown beyond that line. But now, with the growth of knowledge, and the widening of the circle, the circumference of the circle that encloses our knowledge is growing too. In other words, the more we learn, the more we appreciate how little we know, and how much more there is to learn! Ad infinitum!

Of course, humanly speaking, the best example of this limitation of human knowledge is the ultimate line that our inquiries can never cross. The last line, beyond which is the true unknown, is the line of death. Who can go to explore that dark land and return to reveal all its mysteries? No one.

Man continues to study the workings of the human brain. As time goes by, certain advances have indeed been made — we are told that scientists now understand the fundamental purposes of various parts of the brain itself, and how chemical or electrical stimuli, or a tumor or injury, can disrupt its workings in a particular area, while leaving other functions unimpeded. Even in such instances, scientists are only now beginning to perceive how — even when the work of one functional area of the brain is interrupted — other parts of the brain may go beyond their ordinary functions to take over this other necessary job, as though the human brain is a self-repairing apparatus!

One great hindrance in such study, of course — and it seems to be hinted at in these verses — is this: when we study the human brain, we are using the human brain! And our understanding, such as it is, is limited by the fact that we are studying ourselves, and we simply have no platform higher than ourselves — or separate from ourselves — on which to stand, in order to evaluate objectively what we are and how we work.

(d) “When I applied my mind to know wisdom and to observe man’s labor on earth — his eyes not seeing sleep day or night — then I saw all that God has done. No one can comprehend what goes on under the sun. Despite all his efforts to search it out, man cannot discover its meaning. Even if a wise man claims he knows [‘think to know it’: KJV], he cannot really comprehend it [‘he shall not be able to find it’: KJV]” (Eccl. 8:16,17).

“We cannot find out the work of God in all its fullness — not even with the Scriptures to guide us. Ecclesiastes teaches us that the world is like this: essentially unfathomable and beyond man — and hence frustrating and vain to him. One cannot read Ecclesiastes and fail to come away with this impression. God has made the world like this deliberately so that we may realize the gulf between ourselves and Him, and so that we might seek after Him in order to understand and to have direction. We can go so far in understanding the world by our observations of it and by our experience, but we must remember that this is only ‘so far’ and not all the way. God’s ways are ultimately inscrutable to human view. There will always be things that we cannot fully understand. And if we claim any different — if we ‘think to know it’ — we shall only be deceiving ourselves. For the Preacher tells us that we ‘shall not be able to find it.’ This is because we are man and not God. We must recognize and bow to His supremacy in all things. We must learn to recognize our finiteness and weakness, the dullness of our minds, and learn to place our trust and confidence evermore in Him” [Mark Vincent, “Ecclesiastes: (5) ‘Yes… But…’ ”; Tidings, May 1999].

 (e) “So I reflected on all this and concluded that the righteous and the wise and what they do are in God’s hands, but no man knows whether love or hate awaits him” (Eccl. 9:1).

Almighty God exercises unquestioned control over all affairs of life, but especially and preeminently He holds the righteous in His hands (Prov. 3:6; Psa. 37:5; Phil. 2:13). It may not be possible for even the wise to understand why God allows certain things to happen in their lives (Eccl. 8:17), and sometimes those things are hard and bitter experiences (Heb. 2:8-10; 1 Thes. 3:4; 2 Tim. 3:12). (This would seem to be the “love” and “hate” of this verse: not what the righteous do, but what is done to them, especially as allowed by God.) Nevertheless, the believer has faith that “in all things [whether seemingly good, or seemingly bad] God works for the [ultimate] good of those who love him, who have been called according to his purpose” (Rom. 8:28).

 (f) “As you do not know the path of the wind [Hebrew ‘ruach’], or how the body is formed in a mother’s womb, so you cannot understand the work of God, the Maker of all things” (Eccl. 11:5).

More literally, this ought to read “As you do not know how the Spirit [‘ruach’] enters the body being formed…” The Spirit, or the spirit, of God is the key factor here, as in verses 3 and 4 — where the “wind” or “Spirit” brings clouds of rain and causes trees to fall.

As man does not know exactly how, or exactly when, the fetus is formed in the womb, and the spirit of life enters into it… so man does not know how or when the seed planted will germinate into a crop. “The seed grows up, he knows not how” (Mark 4:26,27; cp. Isa. 55:8-11; 1 Cor. 3:6,7).

In a spiritual sense, these two “miracles” of creation are blended together — in the conversion and rebirth and renewal of a life in the service of God. This was the theme of Jesus’ conversation with Nicodemus:

“ ‘How can a man be born when he is old?’ Nicodemus asked. ‘Surely he can­not enter a second time into his mother’s womb to be born!’…” (John 3:4).

But Jesus explained:

“The wind blows wherever it pleases. You hear its sound, but you cannot tell where it comes from or where it is going. So it is with everyone born of the Spirit” (v. 8).

The Preacher reminds us God is “the Maker of all things”. In this he refers to:

(a) the natural creation of Genesis 1;

(b) the ongoing renewal and life-sustaining power of God;

(c) the spiritual, or new, creation — an ongoing development of God’s family in the world today; and

(d) the final regeneration and renewal of the whole world — including the glo­rification of the saints — at Christ’s coming.

All these actions — some more or less instantaneous, others covering millennia, some open while others are secret and hidden — all these are above and beyond us, even when they concern us most intimately. These are all part of “what I don’t know”, and even if I may believe in the ultimate outcome of the LORD God’s creative activities, I cannot appreciate how He does what He has promised to do. Even when He is working right now, under my very nose, so to speak, with me… even then I cannot truly know what He is doing, and how it will turn out. Using Jesus’ analogy, even though I can feel the wind, and see something of what it accomplishes, I cannot see the wind. And so it is with God’s Spirit, which after all is called by the same Hebrew word (“ruach”) as the wind!

“No man understands just how the child’s skeleton is formed in its mother’s womb, or how the flesh is covered upon its bony frame, or the eyes and ears are fashioned, or the heart and veins are made. Yet all find their appointed place, and function so perfectly in the newly formed fetus. Qoheleth [the ‘Preacher’] thus reminds us that every birth is a marvelous, fantastic, incredible miracle, per­formed by Yahweh, exhibiting the wonder of His wisdom, seen also in the starry vaults of heaven, and the wonders of the earth beneath. Creation bears eloquent testimony to the fact that there is nothing too hard for Yahweh, nothing beyond His power to accomplish. Men should, therefore, put their complete trust and confidence in Him, and not worry needlessly, when adverse conditions appear to frustrate their work. Let them preach, sow the seed at all times, and leave the increase to God (Gen. 18:14; Jer. 32:17; Matt. 19:26)” (R. Krygger, Ecclesiastes: A Devotional Study).

*****

Like the “Preacher” of Ecclesiastes, even after persistent investigation and study and reflection, we still come to realize how little we truly know.

So often is this stressed, and so much is this so, that we may well conclude that one of the benchmarks of human wisdom is the recognition of how little one truly knows!

But… “the man who knows not, and knows that he knows not… that man may be taught.”

And our LORD will teach us (John 6:45)… both what we need to know, and what we may well get along without knowing, at least for now.

But above all, in His infinite wisdom, He can teach us the wonderful lesson — in our so-very-less-than-perfect understanding: “We live by faith, not by sight” (2 Cor. 5:7).

For us, who know so little, there is no other way to live.

*****

It would surely be presumptuous to suggest this completes my survey of “what I don’t know”! But perhaps this is a good enough place to stop for now.

I suggest, dear reader, that you always consider (carefully and thankfully) what you do know.

At the same time, I suggest that you pause once in a while to consider what you don’t know. Paradoxical as it sounds, you may be much the wiser for the exercise.