DEATH, then WHAT?

Ecclesiastes 9:1

¹ Because all this I gave to my heart, trying to figure it all out, how the righteous and the wise and their deeds are in the hand of God. Whether God responds with love or hate, a man cannot know; both are possible with him. ² It is the same for everyone, since the same event happens to the righteous and the wicked, to the good and the evil, to the clean and the unclean, to him who sacrifices and him who does not sacrifice. As the good one fares, so fares the sinner, and someone who swears is just like someone who never promises anything. ³ This is an evil that effects everything that is done under the sun, the fact that the same event happens to all. Also, the hearts of human children are full of evil, and blindness is in their hearts while they live, and after that they go to the dead.

the same event

Religions had taught that after death there would be a reckoning, and all evil punished, and all good rewarded. Solomon saw no evidence of that. He was left with the observable fact that death is the same event experienced by both the righteous and the wicked. He saw this a great evil, because it tended to lull the wicked into a false sense of security, and discouraged those who wanted to do well. It tended to create a world where all the children’s hearts were full of evil.

Jesus brought life and immortality to light by promising to raise the dead, and teaching us about the end-time judgment. Without that light, the whole world would be lost in the despair of inevitable death, with no hope for a future. Solomon posed the question. Jesus gave the answer.

LORD, thank you for the hope of a resurrection unto eternal life through Christ when he returns.