The wisest Israelite king Solomon wrote, “This only have I found: God made mankind upright, but men have gone in search of many schemes” (Ecclesiastes 7:29). He said that this was the only thing that he knew for certain. He was a very widely known among nations in his time, nearly three thousand years ago as the wisest man in the world. “King Solomon was greater in riches and wisdom than all the other kings of the earth. The whole world sought audience with Solomon to hear the wisdom God had put in his heart” (I Kings 10:23). Proverbs, Song of Songs, Wisdom of Solomon, Ecclesiastes, etc. are attributed to him. He said 3,000 wise sayings. The Bible records what he would ask God to give him. Solomon prayed that God would grant him wisdom. God granted him. I Kings 4: 29 records: “God gave Solomon wisdom and very great insight, and a breadth of understanding as measureless as the sand on the seashore. Solomon’s wisdom was greater than the wisdom of all the men of the East and greater than all the wisdom of Egypt”. Jesus himself referred to the Wisdom of Solomon (Matthew 6:29).
Towards the end of his life Solomon, the Philosopher-poet monarch of ancient Israel made that remarkable statement about Man. He knew about God, about mankind and about life and the world. But what he knew about man is absolutely true.
By disobeying God’s command man sinned and rebelled against the Creator. And as a result of that man entered into the realm of death. So goes Biblical theology. Due to sin man, in general, got alienated from God and as such we live in an imperfect world. Due to human greed, lust and selfishness man has fallen short of God’s glory and have to live in such a decadent condition as we experience in our lives. Quoting from many Old Testament scriptures Saint Paul wrote about the human condition in a panoramic picture thus: “There is no one righteous, not even one who understands, no one who seeks God. All have turned away; they have together become worthless; there is no one who does good, not even one”. Their throats are open graves; their tongues practice deceit”.  “The poison of vipers is on their lips.” “Their mouths are full of cursing and bitterness.” “Their feet are swift to shed blood; ruin and misery mark their ways, and the way of peace they do not know”. “There is no fear of God before their eyes”. At a cursory look into this passage in Paul’s greatest of Epistles written to the Christians in the city of Rome two thousand years ago it is bound to appear that this is a very negative picture about human beings in general term. Be that as it may, we cannot avoid seeing the truth about what is said about us, human beings. In the light of God’s holiness and glory the overall human condition under the bondage and tutelage of sin every word in the description is true. Everyday news and views about all that happens in the human world testify to that hard truth. God is too holy and pure for us. No amount of so-called work of righteousness and spirituality is acceptable to God. The great classical prophets in the Bible depict such a picture about all mankind. Prophet Isaiah lamented: “All of us have become like one who is unclean, and all our righteous acts are like filthy rags; we all shrivel up like a leaf, and like the wind our sins sweeps us away.” (Isaiah 64:6).
Injustice and unrighteousness surround us. God made the world perfect and man was perfectly righteous. But they abused their freedom. They did not listen to the life-giving command of their Creator, but they listened to the Evil. Man’s trespass led to condemnation, which shattered man’s right standing before God. What Solomon wrote about in Chapter 7 of Ecclesiastes is unrighteousness, injustice and as such absurdities. We made a mess of the Creation.
However, we need to accept the truth that sin is not just what is seen outside. It is resident in our minds and hearts. And that gets manifested outside. Our hearts are fatally corrupt. Man needs to self-examine the condition of his heart and turn to God, only who can create a new heart and mind in us. Through prophet Jeremiah God said, “The heart is deceitful above all things and beyond cure.” St James wrote: “What causes fights and among you? Don’t they come from your desires that battle within you? You want something but you don’t get it. You kill and covet, but you cannot have what you want. You quarrel and fight. You do not have because you do not ask God. When you ask, you do not receive, because you ask with wrong motives, that you may spend what you get on your pleasures” (James 4: 1-3). G.K. Chesterton, a witty and reputed Theologian was asked, ‘What is the problem in the universe?’ He replied, “I am”. Our problem is our unrighteousness, which resides in our hearts.
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The writer is a Christian Theology teacher and church leader