August 25, 2025 - Ecclesiastes 9:1 - "Reflections of the Heart"

Ecclesiastes 9:1

"For all this I considered in my heart even to declare all this, that the righteous, and the wise, and their works, are in the hand of God: no man knoweth either love or hatred by all that is before them."

When Solomon reflects in this verse, he is not beginning with man, but with God. Everything — righteousness, wisdom, every work under the sun — is in the hand of God. That is the starting point of True Wisdom. "The fear of the LORD is the beginning of wisdom: and the knowledge of the holy is understanding" (Proverbs 9:10). Nothing lies outside His sovereign will and rule in Christ, in Whose Hand God the Father has put all judgment (John 5:22).

And yet, here is the problem: if all is in God’s hand, then what righteousness, what wisdom, what works do we truly have to bring before Him? On our own, none. As Solomon himself confesses elsewhere, "For there is not a just man upon earth, that doeth good, and sinneth not (Ecclesiastes 7:20). That is, who does not sin even in the good that he may do in men's eyes. "All our righteousnesses are as filthy rags" (Isaiah 64:6). Left to ourselves, our hands are not only empty but filthy. But the Gospel declares that there is One Who is Righteous. There is One Who is Wise. There is One Whose every work was wholly in the hand of God—Jesus Christ, the Son of God, Who lived in perfect righteousness and embodied the wisdom of God in His Person and work. And when He was delivered up to the cross, what men purposed for evil, God purposed for good. By wicked hands He was crucified — yet it was according to the determinate counsel of God, it was purposed as the means that God would justify those that He gave to His Son from before the foundation of the world (Acts 2:23; 4:28).

At Calvary, Christ took the place of sinners. Our sin as God's elected ones was laid on Him. The cross is where the justice of God and the mercy of God met together (Psalm 85:10). It is there that the declaration of Ecclesiastes 9:1 finds its fulfillment. For if we are counted among the righteous and the wise, it is not because of anything in us, but because we are in Christ, and Christ is in us. " (1 Corinthians 1:30). This is why Paul would write in 2 Corinthians 5:21, “who of God is made unto us wisdom, and righteousness, and sanctification, and redemption:" All is in His hand. Our justification, our sanctification, even our glorification, are in the Hands of the Surety, not by our grip on Christ, but by His grip on us (John 10:28).

Solomon’s reflection is the comfort of those that God the Father has elected, God the Son has redeemed, and God the Spirit has drawn to Him. The righteous, the wise, and their works are from God and in Christ's hand, and therefore they are safe, and nothing can snatch any of His away.

When we look at our lives, with all their frailty, with sin that still clings so closely, with death that looms over each one, we do not look within to discern whether we are loved or hated of God. From the standpoint of earthly circumstances — prosperity or adversity, health or affliction, life or death — one cannot determine God’s eternal love or hatred. Outward events in this world give no certain testimony of one’s standing before God. The wicked may prosper in this life, yet be under the abiding hatred of God, and the righteous may suffer loss, affliction, or even martyrdom, and yet be the objects of His everlasting love in Christ. Therefore, “all that is before them” (what happens in this life) cannot serve as a true indicator of God's love or hatred.

The only way one knows God’s love is not by looking at outward providence but by looking to Christ crucified.

• God’s eternal love is revealed in the covenant of grace, where He chose a people in Christ before the foundation of the world (Ephesians 1:4–5).

• That love is manifested at the cross, where Christ bore the wrath due to His elect and reconciled them to God (Romans 5:8; 1 John 4:9–10).

• The Spirit reveals this love by inwardly witnessing in the elect sinner's heart that he is a child of God (Romans 8:16).

  
  

Therefore, the believer’s assurance of God’s love rests not in fluctuating providences but in the finished work of Christ at the cross. alone.