The Christian Life Alone Is Worth Living

One of the most enigmatic verses in the entire bible is also one of the most intuitively obvious once someone is honest with themselves about the state of this world, the great wickedness that we witness daily, the injustice of war, the corruption of authority, and all other horrors of humanity.

Indeed, this verse captures the natural, Holy, and true response to the violence, sexual perversion, and delusion that we see, experience, and sometimes even partake in in our own shame.

“And I thought the dead who are already dead more fortunate than the living who are still alive. But better than both is he who has not yet been and has not seen the evil deeds that are done under the sun.” (Eccelsiastes 4:2-3, ESV)

What an obvious statement–its almost a truism or a platitude. This verse, more importantly, completely cedes to the Atheist the most poignant criticism against God that there is: God should not have created at all, if the known result was that the elements of His creation would go on to form the molecules of evil and suffering whatsoever.

This criticism is still the strongest in academia today, and it was also my own greatest criticism of a good God. It was what I shook my fist at God for. It was why I cursed him whenever I saw injustice and evil. It was why I resented all that was comforting, sweet, kind, and charitable, because I “knew” it was a fantasy and a lie.

Ultimately was why I laid all of the world’s dysfunction at God’s feet to blame, rather than men. Worse of all, it led me to become a very, very bitter person.

Therefore, you could imagine my surprise when I find that the bible itself completely cedes the premise that it is better to not be born and experience life if that experience includes any form of evil. Moreover, it fascinated me that this book could be inspired, and thus considered infallibly true, by Christians! However, my experience with deep thinking Christians in life and throughout history spared me the foolish and intellectually dishonest exercise of merely chalking it all up to religious doublethink.

However, in my fascination with the book of ecclesiastes as a book considered to be inspired literature, I considered not that it was merely some contradiction or limited human musing as many biblical teachers often lazily claim (my thinking was and is that if the bible is true, ALL of it must be true–infallibility is nonnegotiable).

Now, for many other reasons, the book of Ecclesiastes was the book that led me to salvation in the resurrected Son of God, the Jewish Lord Jesus Christ of Nazareth. However, this verse was the wrecking ball that shattered my criticism.

How so?

Well, as the late Dr. Chuck Missler was fond of claiming, whenever you find a supposed contradiction in the bible our reaction ought to be to rejoice because we are about to learn something!

Therefore, I turned to the only way of solving it that I could think of: making an equation.

Solomon as laid out the following dynamic: To be dead is better than being alive, and better is the one who experienced neither. Therefore I wrote the following:

Life < Death < Unbirth

However, the one who has died has also experienced life with evil, therefore death includes within it life with evil. So, I amended the equation as such:

Life < (Death + Life) < Unbirth

However, with not much else to go on, I left that to continue reading the rest of the book. When I got to the final verse, I found the following:

“For God will bring every deed into judgment, with every secret thing, whether good or evil.” (Ecclesiates 12:14, ESV).

Since I knew from childhood bible studies that Revelation described this judgment as a second death (Revelation 20:6; 20:14; 21:8), I realized that I could then amend the equation for those all man as the following:

Life < (2 x (Death) + Life) < Unbirth

However, all these really proved to me was that the situation was even worse than I originally contemplated. Not did evil make life not worth living, but this was death compounded on itself when all of us are eventually judged for the evil we ourselves did. I felt my despair and cynicism vindicated, but I still didn’t solve how in the right mind any Christian could happy believing this was true!?? And clearly they existed, but I could not find an answer that I found satisfying.

Discontent, I shelved it…and it wasn’t until I found myself reading the words of the Lord himself did I get my answer like a punch in the gut:

“Jesus replied, ‘Very truly I tell you, no one can see the kingdom of God unless they are born again.’” (John 3:3, ESV).

Aha! My equation, Solomon’s equation, was incomplete.

I quickly amended it:

Life < (2(Death) + Life) < Unbirth < (2(Death) + 2(Life))

It was the second birth that changed the math in favor of God’s impetus to create. The second birth was the death of the old wicked sin, and the promise of eternal life in the presence of the Holy. It was the same crucifixion of Christ that made the second birth possible that also paid the cost of the wickedness that tarnished life. Therefore, it is the Christian life alone that is worth living.

Bonus:

In case you are a math nerd like me and need proof that this is even possible, you can also plug in numbers whose value represents moral betterness:

Life = 2

Death = 3

Unbirth = 9

Life < (2(Death) + Life) < Unbirth < (2(Death) + 2(Life))

2 < (2(3) + 2) < 9 < (2(3) + 2(2))

2 < (6 + 2) < 9 < (6 + 4)

2 < 8 < 9 < 10

Living Life < The Judged Life < The Lifeless < Life in Christ