The Passing of Humanity
H. Macmillan, D. D. Ecclesiastes 1:4-10 One generation passes away, and another generation comes: but the earth stays for ever.… It is profitable, as well as sometimes pleasant, for a traveller, as he advances, by different stages of his journey, to look back on the scenes through which he has passed. It is pleasant to him to call to his recollection scenes which he formerly enjoyed; there is a pleasure also in remembering the rough and stormy passages of his journey, when he considers how he was helped through, them, how he has been delivered out of danger, and brought thus far on his journey. We are all pilgrims. Some of you have lately set out on your journey; some of you have advanced many stages towards the last. We shall, after a few more stages, all of us arrive at the end of our journey: how near we are to our end is uncertain. I. CONSIDER THE REPRESENTATION THE TEXT GIVES US OF THE GENERATIONS OF MEN. For what is here spoken is not concerning one man, or one family of the human race, or one city, or a particular nation, or a certain age. It is true of all nations, of all generations, from the time of Adam and Noah to the present. 1. "One generation passeth away."(1) Look back to the past. Many generations that once existed in this world are gone. Men; famous for their various exploits, are now no more. In the past generations, some rose from mean and low stations to the highest rank; while others fell from posts of dignity to a state of poverty and depression. All of them — high and low, rich and poor, learned and ignorant, kings and their people — all are swept away. In former ages, immense armies of men; one army is said to have consisted of a million; but they have all passed away, and nothing is known of any one of them, except their commander. Nations once great .and flourishing are now almost forgotten: even Babylon can scarce be found. "One generation passeth away."(2) This is true also of the present. The generation to which we belong is moving off the world. There is no continuance, no abiding here. Our old friends and acquaintances are gone, and we all feel that we live in a dying generation. Yes, great and useful men are taken away; parents are taken from children. There is no standing still, even if you live. "One generation passeth away."(3) This is true of all future generations. They all will pass away, and all in the same manner. 2. As one generation passeth away, another cometh. This implies that it is the design of the great Author of our being that, though death has entered the world by sin, the world shall not be depopulated. What a wonderful idea does this give us of the almighty power and infinite wisdom of God! Of His almighty power. — We admire the wisdom and power of God in the creation. But is the power of the Preserver less than that of the Creator? Think of the creatures that swarm on the face of the earth, going away one generation after another, yet all preserved from the time of Noah until now — millions consumed, yet continually replenished. The wisdom of God, too, is apparent in this. For is it not observable that race has so succeeded race, that the world has never been depopulated. Labourers have never been wanting to till the ground; men endowed with talents of various descriptions have sprung up from time to time to carry on the various purposes of society. So in the Church of Christ. The designs of God have been compared to those of a great builder. One man comes and fells a tree and retires; another attained, even had he continued pure and sinless as at the first. He is not merely brought forward to the point from which he retrograded: he is advanced greatly beyond it. Schiller boldly says, "the Fall was a giant stride in the history of the human race." The Deluge affords another illustration of the law we are considering. It was a terrible remedy for a terrible disease. Another retrograde movement, of scarcely less importance, occurred very speedily after this event. The confusion of languages, and the consequent dispersion of mankind, and their separation into distinct nations and races, seems at first sight an unaccountable procedure — hostile to the best interests and wisest processes of civilization; and yet, on the contrary, it has proved eminently helpful in forwarding the progress of the human race by the formation of national feeling, or patriotism, and the full, harmonious development of the "many-sidedness" of human nature. Descending the stream of Scripture narrative, we find that Joseph was sold into slavery as the path to the highest honours of Egypt; and that the latter end of Job, after he had been stripped of everything, was more prosperous than the beginning. When the children of Israel had reached the borders of Canaan, after their long and toilsome wanderings in the wilderness, and the enterprise which had been attended with so much trouble and hardship, and from which they had hoped to reap the richest result, was on the eve of being accomplished, the Divine command was given them to return to the very point in the wilderness from which they started. The immediate cause of this ignominious failure and retreat was, no doubt, their own obstinacy and unbelief. A wise and benevolent purpose lay hid under the apparently harsh and severe judgment, which subsequent events unfolded and explained. The children of Israel, as their conduct too plainly proved, were not as yet in a fit state to occupy the land, and carry out God's intention of supplanting its wicked and idolatrous tribes by "a peculiar people, zealous of good works." In the New Testament we also find several striking examples of this law. The salvation of the world is accomplished through treachery, false witness, and a cross. We are told by the evangelists that the disciples, after the resurrection, went back by the express command of Christ to Galilee, to the scenes and pursuits in which they were engaged when first called to follow Him. The same circumstances were repeated, the same miracles performed, as on the first occasion. This retrogression seems to have been wisely ordered as a preparatory discipline for reinstating them in that office from which, by their shameful desertion and denial of Christ, they had fallen at His death. By bringing them back to the old life, to the beginning of their course, He not only gave them a significant symbol of His willingness to overlook and forget all that had occurred during the interval, but also placed them in more favourable circumstances for the fulfilment of their noble mission as Christ's witnesses and apostles to the world. The careful reader will observe a close similarity between the closing chapters of Revelation and the commencement of Genesis. The first and most prominent doctrine which Christianity teaches is the doctrine of retrogression as an essential element of progress. "Repent, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand," was its watchword when it first raised its voice amid the deserts and mountains of Judea. Repentance is the germinal bud of living Christianity. "Except ye be converted, and become as little children, ye cannot enter the kingdom of heaven." And the beautiful profound truth hidden under this paradox is that not only are the spirit of childhood and the spirit of manhood not inconsistent with each other, but their union is essential to the highest spiritual culture. The afflictions and trials that bring the Christian low contribute in the end to raise him to a higher condition of heavenly-mindedness. They may be regarded as a complication of inverse aids and assistances, by a right use of which the force of spiritual character may be more successfully displayed. And just as the earthquake that fills a wide tract of country with ruins, and the storm that strews our coast with wrecks, or tears down our forests, or destroys life, are links in the chain of the weather which purifies our atmosphere, and supplies the materials of health and vigour to all animated nature, so are suffering and trials the iron links in that golden chain which connects earth with heaven. It is not suffering then glory, but suffering therefore glory. Our light affliction worketh out an exceeding great and eternal weight of glory. Death seems to the eye of sense the saddest and most mysterious of all retrogressions. "Dust thou art, and unto dust shalt thou return," is the beginning and end, the source and destiny of the material part of our being. Death despoils us of all with which we were invested, terminates all the functions and feelings of life, resolves the body into its original particles, and scatters them over the face of the earth. But though to the eye of sense appearing a great loss, an unaccountable retrogression, it appears to the eye of faith, gifted with a keener and farther-reaching vision, a great, an immeasurable gain. The day of death is better than the day of birth, because death is a higher and nobler birth. Nay, the continuity of the path will not be broken, It is no strange and unknown scene upon which the just are ushered at death. The sacred employments of life will continue without pause or interruption amid circumstances the most favourable and congenial. The river that hides itself for a time in the earth, and breaks forth at a distance with a greater volume and a wider channel, does not sever its connection with the former part of its course. One more vision of retrogression, the sublimest and the most awful, reveals itself in dim outlines to our gaze from the pages of Revelation. When the earth shall have served the purpose for which it was created, as a scene of circumstances and temptations for the education of the immortal spirit, it will be reduced, we are told, to the state of chaos from which it sprung. "The elements shall melt with fervent heat, and the earth, and all the works therein, shall be burnt up." And yet this sublime retrogression will be necessary to bring in a better world, where sin and sorrow shall be unknown. The scene of probation passing through this terrible ordeal will become the scene of enjoyment; and earth, purified by the baptism of fire, shall be transformed into heaven. (H. Macmillan, D. D.) Parallel Verses KJV: One generation passeth away, and another generation cometh: but the earth abideth for ever. WEB: One generation goes, and another generation comes; but the earth remains forever.