A Word in Season: This is All (Ecclesiastes 12:13–14)

Ecclesiastes 12:13–14 and the Whole Duty of Man

Once he has surveyed all of life, with its highs and its lows, its ups and its downs, its pressures and its pleasures, its expectations and its vanities, its joys and its sorrows, the wise preacher of Ecclesiastes reaches this conclusion in chapter 12 and verses 13 and 14.

Let us hear the conclusion of the whole matter. Fear God and keep his commandments, for this is man's all. For God will bring every work into judgment, including every secret thing, whether good or evil.

What It Means to Fear God as a Child Before His Father

Fear God and keep his commandments, for this is man's all. To fear God is to live before him. It is to feel the weight of his presence at all times. It is to be conscious of his eye upon you, not in a harsh and suspicious way, but as a child who lives before his father and delights to do his will.

There is an awed reverence here. There is a healthy dependence here. There is a constant sense that God is with us and that our lives inwardly and outwardly are laid before him and out of love for him and out of desire to do his will.

The Commandments Written on the Heart Under the New Covenant

With the fear of a son and not of a slave, we set out to accomplish all his commandments. Now, the commandments of God are the same ones as were given at Sinai. They are no longer written on tablets of stone, but they are written by the Holy Spirit on the tablet of our heart, a tablet of flesh.

We are no less obliged to obedience under the new covenant, but all the more so bound to God by bonds of love and affection. The Spirit himself has inscribed upon our souls the obedience that God requires, so that it no longer comes in from outside as a burden and a pressure, but increasingly springs up from inside as our joy and our delight.

Loving God, Loving Neighbor, and Following Christ

And so, in the fear of the Lord, we keep his commandments. We love the Lord our God with all our heart and mind and soul and strength. We love our neighbor as ourselves. We delight to do his will. We want to understand all that it means to be like Christ and to follow his footsteps.

And this is our all. If you boil it down, whatever your state and condition, wherever and however you are living in this world, you are called as a child of God, if that is what you are, simply to fear God and keep his commandments.

The Call to Repentance, Mercy, and Righteousness in Christ

Indeed, that is what you should do, even if you are not a Christian. You should understand who God is and what is your relation to him as both creature and sinner, that you may come before him, that you may seek his face, receive his mercy, and that you may be forgiven for your sins against his commandments and receive in Christ a righteousness that makes you acceptable with God and by the gracious Spirit's work in your soul as a renewed and transformed man or woman walk in his ways.

For this is still your all. And hanging over the whole is this reminder that God will bring every work into judgment, including every secret thing, whether good or evil. There is this awareness in a true fear of the Lord.

There is a consciousness, even when he is our Father, that he is our Holy Father, that he is righteous and pure and good. And there is then for everyone who truly knows this God, this awareness, this recognition that we work out our own salvation with fear and trembling because God is at work in us both to will and to do for his good pleasure and that we will come before him and that we want to come before him having run with endurance the race that is set before us, having finished that race well, that we will come before him with the blessings that he has bestowed upon us to spread before him as the fruits of our labors and give praise to him for the grace which has accomplished any of these things in our lives.

Living for God as Our All

So what is your all? What are you living for? What governs and constrains your life? Where do the pleasures and the pressures come from in the holiest of senses? Do you fear God and keep his commandments?

For this is everything and this is the path of joy and of love.