Is Ecclesiastes Messianic? Preaching Christ from the Vantage of Vanity

Preachers and teachers of God’s Word carry an immense responsibility. We must handle Scripture faithfully with the goal of pointing our listeners always to Jesus, the true hero of the entire Bible.

This goal feels particularly challenging when we open a seemingly dark book like Ecclesiastes. Major themes of Ecclesiastes are futility, meaninglessness, absurdity, and brevity. How then do we faithfully preach Christ from a book that often feels so perplexing?

The New Testament tells us that the Spirit carried men along to give us the Old Testament Scriptures (2 Pet 1:21). So, Ecclesiastes was given for a clear purpose. The book exposes the meaninglessness and confusion of life if this cursed world is all there is. It creates a deep hunger within us for something better, something lasting. Ecclesiastes acts like a goad, a cattle prod (see Eccl 12:11). It pokes and prods the reader to move in the right direction: to walk in wisdom. This wisdom, ultimately, leads us to salvation through Jesus Christ.

We must clearly show our listeners the futility of life without the Messiah. We expose human vanity to push people toward faith. We push them toward the contentment found only in God.

Setting the stage

Before considering how to preach Christ from Ecclesiastes, we must first understand some foundational matters.

Authorship: Solomon

The book begins by identifying the writer as the “Teacher” or “Preacher” (קֹהֶלֶת, Qoheleth). He says that he is the “Son of David, King in Jerusalem” (Eccl 1:1). While there is much debate among scholars, this description points definitively to Solomon.

Solomon’s extensive life experience matches the author’s search for meaning in the book. Solomon was known as the wisest man in the ancient world (1 Kgs 4:29–30). Yet he became a greedy, lustful, idolatrous fool who violated kingly commands (1 Kgs 11; cf. Deut 17:14–20). He indulged every desire. He amassed incredible wealth, married hundreds of wives, and also kept concubines.

Tradition suggests Ecclesiastes is an older, repentant Solomon reflecting on his mistakes. His authority is massive because he truly “had it all and tried everything.”

Genre: wisdom literature

Ecclesiastes fits squarely into the wisdom literature of the Old Testament. The book’s conclusion to fear God and keep his commands (Eccl 12:9–14) echoes Proverbs. Wisdom is living according to God’s design, and Solomon demonstrates that wisdom is better than folly because it protects life (e.g., Eccl 7:11–12).

However, the book does push back on any simplistic view of wisdom, showing that gaining wisdom is only relative. The wise and the fool share the same fate: death (Eccl 2:12–17).

Structure: frame-narrative

Finally, we must grasp something of the book’s structure.

In Ecclesiastes, we find a series of first-person observations made by the Preacher (1:12–12:7) that are framed by the thoughts of a narrator in the conclusion who speaks in the third person. (There is no reason to conclude that it is anyone other than Solomon using a rhetorical device.)

The bleak conclusions found throughout the book will only be understood correctly when wrapped up in this hopeful conclusion (Eccl 12:8–14).

Ecclesiastes’s purposeful pessimism

Is Ecclesiastes pessimistic or is it realistic? The book certainly delivers a very bleak outlook on life. It offers realism about existence in a cursed world.

However, this realism is purposefully given by God. We live east of Eden in a futile, meaningless world. The book’s seeming pessimism aims to drive us toward the only meaningful conclusion: finding satisfaction and contentment in God.

The book’s seeming pessimism aims to drive us toward finding satisfaction and contentment in God.

Core diagnosis: “all is vanity”

The main message of Ecclesiastes is stark: Everything is meaningless without Jesus. Solomon uses the Hebrew superlative form (stacking words) to say life is “hevel of hevels” (Eccl 1:2; 12:8). Life is “as meaningless as possible.”

We need to understand what הֶבֶל (hevel) means, since it is used thirty-eight times in the book. It literally means “breath” or “vapor,” which can imply that life is frail or fleeting. Metaphorically, hevel can convey the ideas that life is vain, futile, pointless, confusing, or meaningless.

Logos’s Precise Search in Bible for every instance of הֶבֶל in Ecclesiastes.

Curtailed perspective: “under the sun”

The Preacher reached this painful conclusion by examining life “under the sun” (Eccl 1:3, 9, 14, etc.). This means he limits his observations to an earthly perspective.

If this cursed world is all there is—no God, no afterlife, no final judgment—then everything we do is meaningless. In so doing, the book exposes the limits of life without Christ.

Ecclesiastes’s major themes—see directly below—then flow from this diagnosis.

Tune into Bobby Jamieson’s interview on the meaning and message of Ecclesiastes.

How Ecclesiastes cries out for Christ

So does Ecclesiastes point to Jesus? Yes, it is fundamentally a messianic book.

Ecclesiastes anticipates the gospel by diagnosing a problem only the gospel can solve. We are morally broken. What is crooked cannot be made straight by us. Our toil yields no profit. We are stuck in a relentless cycle. Then we die. This reveals our acute need for Christ.

Let’s examine some of Ecclesiastes’s major themes—or tensions—and how they resolve in Christ.

1. Life under the curse

Life is characterized by burdened toil. Although Ecclesiastes is never directly quoted in the New Testament, Romans 8:20, which speaks of creation being subjected to futility (Greek ματαιότης), seems to be an allusion to the hevel of Ecclesiastes. Creation itself was subjected to futility because of human sin.

In this way, Ecclesiastes relates to the New Testament by preparing the way for the gospel. It shows the human condition apart from the Redeemer. The New Testament confirms Ecclesiastes’s backdrop of a broken world groaning for rescue in Christ.

2. Trapped between time and eternity

The themes of time and eternity significantly shape the message of Ecclesiastes.

We are haunted by the fleeting nature of time. Time frustrates all of us. Solomon describes the inevitable cycles of life: a time to be born and a time to die (Eccl 3). Every action has an appointed time. The fourteen pairs of opposites (weep/laugh, kill/heal, etc.) in this chapter describe the full scope of human experience.

In this cursed world, this is all there is: These cyclical actions cancel each other out. Nothing is gained. Every birth ends in death, and all our accomplishments eventually dissolve. Life is a rut. Like the movie Groundhog Day, we are trapped in repetitive cycles of monotony and redundancy. Our activity yields no lasting profit or “net gain” (cf. Eccl 1:3).

Yet, God has placed eternity into man’s heart (Eccl 3:11). We know that this life is not all there is. We long for more. We are suspended between time and eternity. The problem is that man cannot find out God’s full plan from beginning to end. Our knowledge is limited.

God uses this tension, frustration, and burden to drive us to him. Jesus entered this miserable world, suffered rejection, and took the curse on himself. This gives us hope even when we suffer uncertainty and disappointment.

Because God is in control and works all things together for our good (Rom 8:28), we can be confident even amidst the futility and confusion. God works both prosperity and adversity into his plan. God mixes joy and pain to conform us into the image of Christ. We trust him because he is sovereign.

3. From mortality to resurrection

Ecclesiastes repeatedly reminds us that death cancels all our labor. Whatever we achieve or accumulate in this life, death renders it vanity (2:18–23; 3:19–20; 9:2–3).

Yet, because of Christ, the final word is not returning to the dust (Eccl 12:7; cf. Gen 3:17–20). Jesus delivered us from death and did not decay. He promises us eternal life and life to the full right now. Our ultimate hope is now resurrection. Thus, in Christ, our daily tasks (scrubbing dishes, changing diapers) become meaningful, as acts of faithfulness in his kingdom (1 Cor 15:58; cf. Matt 25:14–30).

Yet our current mortality still urges us to remember our Creator in the days of our youth (Eccl 12:1). We must avoid postponing enjoyment or repentance. We should contemplate death because it makes life precious and drives us to live wisely. We only have a set number of days. We must seize them (see Eccl 2:24–26; 3:12–13; 5:18–20; 8:15; 9:7–10; 11:9–10).

4. The futility of idolatry

People seek fulfillment in created things rather than the Creator. Good things (pleasure, success, money) turn into bad things when they become ultimate things. We long for satisfaction that money, pleasure, success, learning, and politics cannot give. Solomon proved that hedonism, greed, and knowledge cannot satisfy (Eccl 2). They always disappoint and enslave us.

We can expose the emptiness of these pursuits—the hollowness of the American Dream itself. Scripture reveals that those who chase wealth will never have enough, will attract parasites, and will lose their sleep and security (Eccl 5:10–14).

Instead, fulfillment is found only in being united to Christ by faith. People pursue money, pleasure, and possessions, yet their hearts are still restless. Augustine captured this: “Thou hast made us for Thyself, and our hearts are restless until they rest in Thee.”¹ Fully satisfied in our Creator, we find life everlasting and life to the full.

5. Oppression and injustice

Solomon repeatedly observes oppression throughout the book (e.g., Eccl 3:16; 4:1). The wicked prosper while the righteous suffer (7:15; 8:14). This reality of injustice feels unbearable—an agonizing absurdity of human existence “under the sun.”

Our longing for justice cries out for King Jesus. He will set all things right at the final judgment.

6. The final judgment

And that final judgment is our motivation to trust and obey God (Eccl 12:14).

The reality of judgment is meant to crush us. The Preacher makes it clear that we have all sinned and failed to keep God’s commands (Eccl 7:20; cf. 12:13). We are exposed sinners, and even our secret things will be brought to light (12:14; cf. Mark 4:21–23). Since the wages of sin is death (Rom 6:23), death comes to us all (Eccl 9:2). We face God’s disapproval.

But Christ rescues us by living the perfectly obedient life we failed to live. He took the curse of sin, futility, and death upon himself (Gal 3:13).

7. The fear of God

The true theological bridge from Ecclesiastes to Christ is found in the final instruction: “Fear God and keep his commandments, for this is the whole duty of man” (Eccl 12:13). This fear of God relates directly to following Christ.

We approach God, not with manipulation or rote ritual, but with confident reverence (Eccl 5:1–7). Jesus, the better Priest and Sacrifice, tore the veil, giving us boldness to enter God’s presence. We must draw near, clinging to grace, serving God with reverence and awe (Heb 12:28–29). We obey, not to be accepted, but because we are already accepted in Christ.

8. The greater Solomon, true wisdom

Ecclesiastes looks forward to Jesus, who is the true and better Solomon (Matt 12:42). He perfectly embodies wisdom. The book cries out for a better King who can redeem creation from the curse.

Solomon himself is a negative type. He failed to establish the Davidic kingdom due to his idolatry and rebellion against the law. This failure points forward to the wise King promised in Isaiah 11—Jesus—who establishes his kingdom with wisdom.

Jesus is typified by the “poor wise man” who delivered the city by his wisdom but was despised and forgotten (Eccl 9:13–16). Jesus is the rejected Savior we scorn, the wisdom of God made foolishness to the world.

Likewise, the conclusion mentions that the words of the wise are given by the “One Shepherd” (Eccl 12:11). This title is used exclusively for the Messiah elsewhere in Scripture (Ezek 34:23).

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Practical advice for preaching Christ from Ecclesiastes

So how can we adopt a Christ-centered approach to preaching and teaching Ecclesiastes?

1. Exegetical: A faithful approach must be rooted in exposition. We must accurately teach the text.
2. Theological: We must ask key questions of every text: What does this teach about God? What does this teach about fallen man? How does this text point to Jesus?
3. Canonical: We must faithfully connect the themes of vanity (see above) to the gospel without forcing it. We show that where the Preacher finds failure and longing, Christ provides fulfillment.

Although we prioritize content—imparting knowledge and truth (Eccl 12:9–10)—delivery is also important. Preachers should avoid the following mistakes:

1. Dullness: Do not bore people with the Bible. Preaching should be “logic on fire”—eloquent reason combined with spiritual passion.
2. Self-help: Do not offer mere “moral or psychological pep talks.” Do not linger too long at the “Vanity Fair of Knowledge”; the goal is spiritual action leading to Christlikeness.
3. Legalism: Do not teach that pleasure should be avoided. God is not a “cosmic killjoy.” He created sex, food, and drink to be enjoyed as gifts. We must teach people to enjoy these gifts rightly (without turning them into idols), satisfied in Christ alone (e.g., Eccl 2:24–25). In Christ, we are satisfied and enjoy God’s gifts. This joy is a gift of grace.

Conclusion

Ecclesiastes teaches us that we must turn from our vanity and find our rest and meaning in the One Shepherd, Jesus Christ, who came to “make his blessings flow far as the curse is found,” as Isaac Watts’s hymn put it. In this way, by directing us to Christ, Ecclesiastes shapes Christian worship, gratitude, and hope.

Resources for preaching Christ from Ecclesiastes

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• The Meaning of Ecclesiastes | Bobby Jamieson
• What Is the Meaning of “Vanity” in Ecclesiastes?
• A Greater Solomon: 4 Ways Jesus Surpasses the Wisest King
• On Expository Preaching | David Helm
• Top Preaching Tools & Resources That Belong in a Pastor’s Library