Cancer Blog #65
By Brian Zimmerman
Begun on July 31, 2021
Email: dyingman1@yahoo.com
My Dying Words
Entry #65– The Authority Over Our Day
November 22, 2022
[Ecclesiastes 8:8] No man has authority to restrain the wind with the wind, or authority over the day of death; and there is no discharge in the time of war, and evil will not deliver those who practice it.
We hear now another familiar message – the limitation of human capabilities. Man may be the crown of creation, but his abilities are nonetheless very restricted. There are 4 limits listed here: the last 2 refer to our capability strictly speaking. The first of those two (“…there is no discharge in the time of war…”) speaks of the inevitability of the evil that is war. When war surrounds us, there is no wishing we could escape. We cannot (as I write the war in Ukraine rages on. Ask the Ukrainians); war is too powerful a force to just walk away. Likewise, the second one (“…evil will not deliver those who practice it…”) addresses the limitations of the force of evil. Unlike God’s arm, the arm of evil is short; it cannot protect us no matter how much we give ourselves to serve it or how afraid we are of it. Evil will not save us, for instance, from the force of war even if it was the cause, nor will it save us from God’s just judgment. That day will come to finish the evil that seems so powerful all around us.
The first two limitations on our human abilities focus more on our authority. The first one mentioned is more a trope than a literal lack of authority. It reminded me of God’s response to Job: what control of creation do you have? Here it’s phrased more in terms of a right: what right have we to stop the wind with wind? God created all things so He has not only the power but the authority to control any and all of creation. To create is to have authority over something or someone. This is one reason why parents have authority over their children. What authority we have over creation, however, is delegated, a gift that God has imparted to us as we did not make creation. We stand not as regents, but as vicegerents in this created order. Which brings us to a fact we have heard from before in this blog, viz., that the day of our death is not ours to choose. Here the writer states we have no authority over it. Not just no power, but no authority, a different sort of wrinkle. We find now, much as with the first limitation, that we live and die in a created order not under our authority or our control. God created us and so has both the power and the authority over our lives, but also over our deaths. Remember that when your terminal diagnosis comes – it is no accident when it arrives from the one who is not only omnipotent, and so can control all things, but who is also the King of Kings, and the Lord of Lords, and so has the authority to give and to take life. It is in His hand, to decide when and how our day of death is to come. He has both the ability and the right. Blessed be the name of the Lord!
Next: The Removal of Death