CRITICAL NOTES.—
Ecclesiastes 3:18. That God might manifest them.] The disorders of the present are permitted to the end that God might test, or prove, men. That they themselves are beasts. Not in regard to moral character, but to the common fate of dissolution, awaiting alike both men and beasts. They themselves—i.e., apart from Him who alone hath immortality, and in whose sole right is the gift of it—men, like the beasts, are all included in one sad fate. This thought is expanded in the next verse.
MAIN HOMILETICS OF THE PARAGRAPH.— Ecclesiastes 3:16-18
CORRUPTION IN THE SEAT OF JUSTICE
I. It is a manifest and daring iniquity. History gives a sad recital of deeds of oppression and wrong done in the sacred name of justice. Power and place have been abused to serve the basest passions of human nature. This is a manifest and daring form of impiety.
1. Rulers and judges are in the place of God. Human law has for its chief object the preservation of order, the securing of the best conditions of national prosperity, and the guardianship of public morality. Those who administer the law stand in the place of God, who is the fountain of all law and authority. When these abuse their position, a Divine idea is perverted and dishonoured. A lofty principle of the Divine Government is subjected to a degrading parody. Such a sin is a daring insult to the majesty of Heaven.
2. When they are corrupt, the worst evils follow. The streams of social life are poisoned, the innocent are without defence, and the restraints of wickedness are slackened or broken. But one great evil that follows is the oppression of the righteous. The Church has often come into conflict with the civil power, and the good have been persecuted in the name of law and justice.
II. It is a source of discipline for the righteous. Like other evils, this is overruled by Providence, and made to serve the purposes of discipline.
1. It serves to develop spiritual character. (Ecclesiastes 3:18.) It manifests what is in men. It marks off the brutish part of mankind from those who are moved by high principle and noble aspirations. The good, under every oppression and injury, have the support of conscience—they are strong in integrity. Affliction does but fetch out the hidden lustre of their graces.
2. It serves to cure radical evils in the Church of God. Times of outward ease and prosperity for the Church have some special dangers, the chief of which is pride—a vice easily forced into bloom by the warmth of prosperity; but soon nipped by the keen blasts of adversity.
3. It serves to show to what baseness human nature may come, apart from Divine influence. (Ecclesiastes 3:18.) “They themselves.” Having quenched the Divine light within them, and all better hopes and feelings, some men have become monsters of injustice, and degraded themselves to the level of beasts. In times of persecution, when deeds of cruelty and slaughter have their sanction from the seat of justice, it is difficult to believe that men capable of such fierce brutality have immortal souls. It seems easier to believe that men are but beasts, after all, to be tamed for pleasure, or destroyed for sport.
III. It tends to ripen the world for Divine Retribution. God cannot allow the misuse of the most sacred gifts to go on for ever. Judgment may be delayed, but it will come at last.
1. Our spiritual instincts call for such an interference. There is something within every righteous soul which is prophetic of the time when all the present moral confusion and disorder shall have an end. Christ is the hope of all the oppressed ones—Himself their chief in affliction. The world once looked upon the picture of Herod in purple on the throne, and the purest and loveliest of humanity crucified between two thieves; but the day is coming when the universe shall look upon another picture, wherein shall be a sad reversal.
2. The character of God teaches us to expect it. He is wise, just, and holy, and (though the process to us seems slow) He will maintain the honour of His name. He must make a separation between the righteous and the wicked—thus He will judge both. (Ecclesiastes 3:17.)
3. The appeal of the oppressed from earth to heaven will be heard. (Ecclesiastes 3:17.) “A time there.” The Royal Preacher, as it were, points from the seat of unrighteousness with his lifted finger to heaven—the home of justice. “There”—such is the answer of the persecuted, and the only answer which many souls in their dumb agony could give.
SUGGESTIVE COMMENTS ON THE VERSES
Ecclesiastes 3:16. The advancement of men to places of power and trust in the world, who abuse the same to the oppression of piety and equity, and the promoting of ungodliness and injustice, is a dispensation that, of any other, the Lord’s people had most need to be guarded against stumbling at, and taught how to judge aright of; seeing Satan takes occasion from thence to tempt to corruption of the best to Atheism, or denial of a Providence (Isaiah 40:27), and to join with such men in their sinful ways (Psalms 73:10; Psalms 73:13) [Nisbet].
Wickedness is too obvious and manifest—too weak by itself to succeed. It has to assume the forms of goodness. Hence under the pretence of justice the vilest wrongs have been inflicted.
Corruption in the seat of justice tends—
1. To confuse all moral distinctions.
2. To put to sore trial minds of wavering principle and unstable virtue.
3. To disorganise the frame of society.
4. To retard social progress.
The wisest and best of mankind have suffered fearful evils under the mockery of a trial. Even Christ Himself went from a human judgment-seat to His Cross.
Place and authority do not ensure the integrity of those who possess them. Some of the worst names in history have held the most exalted positions.
The throne which Solomon made was overlaid with the most pure gold; and what did this signify but the esteem and price in which God would have justice to be held, as also how pure the judgments should be that from thence are given? But too often where the seat is gold, he that sits on it is brass; where the place is the place of judgment and righteousness, wickedness and iniquity are found [Jermin].
Ecclesiastes 3:17. The world has a terrible account of injustice and wrong to answer for. God will yet have a reckoning with the children of men.
God is just, though by the impenetrable clouds of Providence that justice may for awhile be hidden. He will clear the scene in the end, and spurn from His presence every form of evil.
The true and good who have been wronged here shall take their case before a higher court.
With two worlds in which to outwork the retribution, and with a whole eternity to overtake the arrears of time, oh! how tyrants should fear for God’s judgments!—and that match which themselves have kindled, and which is slowly creeping round to explode their own subjacent mine, in what floods of repentance, if wise, would they drench it! [Dr. J. Hamilton.]
The vindication of the righteous is as much a proper work of judgment as the condemnation of the sinner. The Avenger is afoot, and will yet overtake all oppressors.
The judgment of God will yet repair all the wrongs of time.
At the sight of the worst oppressions and wrongs, our soul instinctively fastens upon the idea of the judgment, and points to the lofty throne of eternal justice.
As there is a time for every purpose and work, so there will be a time when all things shall be ripe for Divine judgment.
Ecclesiastes 3:18. For a moment the Royal Preacher felt relief in recalling the future judgment. But what care they for the judgment? So brutish are they that they neither look forward nor look up, but are content with their daily ravin. Yes, beasts, I half believe you. Your grossness almost converts me to your own materialism. I wish that God would manifest you to yourselves, and show you how brutish you are living, and how brute-like you will die [Dr. J. Hamilton].
Times of misrule and injustice manifest character by affording scope for human malignity, or by giving opportunity for the integrity of high principle to assert itself.
In human nature, how often the animal has surmounted the rational! Men have made themselves beasts by indulgence in animal pleasures, by their cruelty and rage, and by extinguishing the sense of immortality.
The evil of some is disguised and restrained by circumstances. It wants only a fit opportunity for their vices to attain a maturity of corruption.
Wicked men may see that the dispensations of God, even the most grievous, may contribute much for their good, if they make a right use thereof; for while He is manifesting them to the world, they ought to think that it is done “that they may see themselves to be beasts,” and so may loathe themselves, and thank Him that they are not destroyed, but preserved that they may seek mercy, and a change of their nature [Nisbet].