Ecclesiastes 12:5-8

The four metaphors that appear in verse 6 all describe death. And death was mentioned in the final two clauses of verse 5.

Let us hop back up to verse 5 here, "For man goes to his eternal home." This is something that Protestants like to grab onto to point out that man goes to his eternal home. It seems like Solomon is validating the immortal soul doctrine and going to heaven. But at least some scholars are honest enough to tell them that that is reading their personal beliefs into the text. Instead, they say this phrase "man goes to his eternal home," simply refers to the grave.

Remember, earlier Solomon had downplayed an afterlife for those who are living under the sun, saying, "Man returns to the earth like a dog does," You know, an animal dies and a man dies and they go to the same place. That is in chapter 3, verse 19. He also mentioned in chapter 9, verses 5 and 10 that the grave is devoid of life and knowledge, and that is where everybody is headed. So he has not changed his tune about death and where those under the sun are going. Because they are under the sun, he does not give them the hope of eternal life, because they are not ready for that yet. As a matter of fact, these people are going to be resurrected, yes, from their graves, but they are not going to be given eternal life. They are going to be given physical life.

Remember the Valley of Dry Bones? The bones have to have the sinew and everything put on them, and skin, and breath is put in them. They are given a physical life again, not an eternal life. And so he is maintaining his consistency here by telling people living under the sun, the unconverted, that this life that they have lived in this world at this time does not give them any chance of eternal life. They have done nothing to merit eternal life. God has done nothing for them to give them eternal life. Remember, He has consigned all of them to futility. He has given them over to a debased mind. He said, Okay, live your lives, be part of the world, but I'm not going to work with you until after the Kingdom of God is established in the second resurrection." So they have lived their lives meaninglessly.

Now this does not apply to those whom God has called in this age. Those who are the elect have a great hope for eternal life. But remember, he is first talking to those under the sun and saying, No, that is not an option right now. Eternal life is not an option.

So, our eternal home or our home of long duration, to put it more accurately, is the grave. Because as he says, we will be there a lot longer. Most of us will be there a lot longer than we were alive.

The next phrase there in 12:5, "and the mourners go about the streets," is another allusion to death. You know, in Jewish society especially, there was the practice of professional mourners whom they could hire to go along the streets, maybe in a procession with the body being taken to a tomb, and they would be wailing and crying and making a lot of noise and ruckus. And it was a normal death ritual to do that in the society of the time.

And so he is basically saying that the life has ended and the body is being taken to its eternal home or home of long duration, the grave.

Some of these are more interesting. Verse 6, the cut silver cord and the broken golden bowl in the first two of these clauses, illustrate the destruction of something valuable. Silver is valuable; gold is valuable, and both the bowl made of gold and the cord made of silver are destroyed. Now, they have no value. And that is what he is talking about. That when life ends, all the value is gone. All the value in the person has ended. Put simply, when life ends, a person's worth ceases. There is nothing left of value. What value is a heap of old bones? There is no life in them. It was the life that was valuable, life that God gave. Without God-given life, the body, as it is described in verse 7, it is just inanimate dust that recombines with the earth. And the … . . .