What does it mean that there is nothing new under the sun?

The first note as to vanity is found in verses 4-11. There is a law of repetition, or circle-movement. It works in the sphere of nature as well as in human life. Generation follows generation; the sun has his circle; the winds too have their currents in which they blow from north to south and south to north; the waters also are subject to the same law. History repeats itself, for the thing that has been, is that which shall be and that which is done is that which shall be done. There is then, no new thing under the sun; nothing is new, all is repetition, a monotonous unchangeableness. Man is in the midst of it; he too is subject to this law. Everything then under the sun is restless, unstable (except the earth itself, which abideth forever: verse 4) hollow and empty, therefore all is vanity. Here is a picture of unrest, weariness, if not melancholy and despair.

Then is there not the enjoyment of novelty? "What has been is what will be, and what has been done, what will be done, and there is not all new under the sun." Granting this is the moral province, seen especially in what has been done; but is there not a matter of which it may be said, See, this is new? Even this has been in, or belonged to, the ages that were before us.

In the book of Ecclesiastes we find the wheel in motion, but that it is the wheel of God's triumphal chariot is not seen. On the contrary, "vanity of vanities" is inscribed upon it; and that God has ordained the wheel is the cause of infinite perplexity. "One generation passeth away, and another cometh; but the earth abideth forever. The sun also ariseth, and the sun goeth down, and hasteth to his place whence he arose. The wind goeth toward the south, and turneth about unto the north: it whirleth about continually: and the wind returneth again according to his circuits. All the rivers run into the sea; yet the sea is not full: unto the place from whence the rivers come, thither they return again. … The thing that hath been is that which shall be; and that which is done is that which shall be done; and there is nothing new under the sun."

Thus "to every thing there is a season," and a season only; but the generations pass, and do not return: if they do, experience, at least, knows nothing about it; and thus the bat's wing of death throws its sombre and sinister shadow over every thing: beyond, "who knoweth?" Here God, who is light, can alone give light; and revelation is our, one source of certainty. Then, indeed, still the wheel turns; but the wheel of destiny becomes the chariot-wheel of God, as in Ezekiel.

The wheel speaks naturally, primarily, of the revolution of time, marked as it is for us by those luminaries which God appointed for "signs" as well as "seasons;" and most significant signs they are: heaven putting thus the stamp of vanity upon the fallen creature, whose dependence upon God it reveals for that renewal of life ever needed by it. "To everything there is a season," and no more; nothing continues at one stay: the day comes out of the womb of night, only to go back into it again. The winter swallows up the autumn fruits. So the generations of men follow one another; and even "history," as is often said, "repeats itself." "The thing that has been is that which shall be, and there is nothing new under the sun." Yet with all this repetition there is a certain progress also: the wheel is moving; not only so, but it is moving on. Whither? There is often a certain betterment as it moves, which is apt to fill us with only too exuberant a hope. The wheel has eyes, in which there seems the light of purpose. And indeed, purpose of a sort is easily seen: the spirit of the living creature at least is in the wheels; the living creature taking on also, as Ezekiel sees, the human form preeminently, as the course of events plainly shows, the large control of things man has, though not alone: for with him, constantly carrying, often controlling, often thwarting him, there works a force, itself under the constraint of law, without which he can do nothing.

"The wind," too, "whirleth about continually, and the wind returneth again according to his circuits." The rivers are ever running to the sea, "yet the sea is not full; unto the place from whence the rivers come, thither they return again," or perhaps better, "unto the place where the rivers go, thither they turn to go." "All things are full of labour; man cannot utter it: the eye is not satisfied with seeing, nor the ear filled with hearing."

Thus nature would teach him, if he regarded it aright, that here, as yet, no abiding rest can be enjoyed. Life is a busy scene. What has been will be, and there is nothing new under the sun. And to complete the picture of vanity, "there is no remembrance of former things; neither shall there be any remembrance of things that are to come with those that shall come after." The obliviousness in Solomon's days of what had gone before was not a feature peculiar to his time. It has, it will, characterize man in all ages. What profit then is there in the labour of man? What has been done will be done again, and what has been effected will be forgotten by the generations which may come after.

But, if death deprives a man of the enjoyment of the fruits of his toil, his life and all that surrounds him speaks of ceaseless and reiterated labour. The work begun is never perfected. Things in heaven and things on earth proclaim this. "The sun ariseth, and the sun goeth down and hasteth to his place where he arose, going toward the south, and turning again to the north" (thus some connect ver. 5, 6). Each day the work is done only to be repeated again the next. Each year, the course it has traversed, is traversed again. "The wind," too, "whirleth about continually, and the wind returneth again according to its circuits." The rivers are ever running to the sea, "yet the sea is not full; unto the place from whence the rivers come thither they return again," or perhaps better, "unto the place where the rivers go, thither they turn to go." "All things are full of labour; man cannot utter it: the eye is not satisfied with seeing, nor the ear filled with hearing." Thus nature would teach him, if he regarded it aright, that here as yet no abiding rest can be enjoyed. Life is a busy scene. What has been will be, and there is nothing new under the sun. And to complete the picture of vanity, "there is no remembrance of former things, neither shall there be any remembrance of things that are to come with those that shall come after." The obliviousness in Solomon's days of what had gone before was not a feature peculiar to his time. It has, it will characterize man in all ages. What profit then is there in the labour of man? What has been done will be done again, and what has been effected will be forgotten by the generations which may come after.

Thus the cycle of which the preacher speaks as illustrating the vanity stamped upon man's passing generations (Ecc. 1) has in it also a higher and more comforting lesson. We find it in this return of Genesis in Revelation. The cycle is no more a mere cycle. It does not, in fact, return unto itself. The revolving earth does not return unto itself. The morning of the new day does, and yet does not, begin again the old one. The cycle is here a spiral rather than a proper circle; and we see this in the plant, the first living thing, as a law of its growth. God's ways do not bring us back again just to the beginning. He does not replace the ruined past. Always a brighter and better thing comes out of it. The new Adam is not the mere repetition of the old. The new Paradise is the Paradise of God, and not of man merely. The new tree of life is of another nature than that by which Adam was to be sustained in the beginning. The revolution of time brings us back so as to contemplate the old beginning, so as to show that it has not been forgotten. But we are now above it, not on the same plane; and thus we can discern how prophecy should spring out of history, the event being always, however, larger than the type, because God's law is always one of encouragement and progress — Adam in the primal Garden come back in a better.

This furnishes a most solemn warning to all who are in danger of being ensnared by an unhallowed rationalism. There is no true security, save in a profound faith in the plenary inspiration and supreme authority of "ALL SCRIPTURE." The soul that is endowed with this has a triumphant answer to every objector, whether he issue from Rome or Germany. "There is nothing new under the sun." The self-same evil which is now corrupting the very springs of religious thought and feeling, throughout the fairest portion of the continent of Europe, was that which laid Eve's heart in ruins, in the garden of Eden. The first step in her downward course was her hearkening to the question, "Has God said." And then, onward she went, from stage to stage, until, at length, she bowed before the serpent, and owned him as her god, and the fountain of truth. Yes, my reader, the serpent displaced God, and the serpent's lie God's truth. Thus it was with fallen man; and thus it is with fallen man's posterity. God's word has no place in the heart of the unregenerated man; but the lie of the serpent has. Let the formation of man's heart be examined, and it will be found that there is a place therein for Satan's lie, but none whatever for the truth of God. Hence the force of the word to Nicodemus, "Ye must be born again."

There is no new thing beneath the sun. The root of all evil is in the heart of every man. Unhallowed combination brings it to its ripe results. The first great demonstration of this, since the drying up of the waters of judgment left the earth to be again the stage of human action, was the building of the tower of Babel (Gen. 11). The next was the union of Jew and Gentile, in order to crucify the Lord of glory (Acts 4:27-28; 1 Cor. 2:8). Another, for which the human and Satanic energies already operating are constructing its appropriate stage, will be the assembling of the nations and their kings in hostile confederacy against the name and power of Jehovah, in preparation for the great day of decision (Rev. 16:14). The time and scene of the last and greatest of these demonstrations are placed beyond the millennial reign of Christ (Rev. 20:7, 10). That era of triumphant righteousness, which will display the glory and disperse the lavish treasures of Divine goodness, to the abundant satisfying of the desire of every living thing, will prove as ineffectual to subdue the intrinsic badness of man's fallen nature, as is the present witness which is borne by the Spirit to the riches of God's grace and mercy in the preaching of the Gospel of His Son. Christ is now despised, where quickening power has not formed the soul anew. He will be feared and obeyed when the just sceptre of His power is wielded in the coming age. But neither grace nor fear persuades the natural man to goodness. The solemn truth of the utter depravity of fallen nature, of the intrinsic enmity of the human will against God, will be allowed its last and most decisive exemplification when the nations who had paid their homage to Messiah, while as the Prince of the kings of the earth He ruled the kingdoms of the world in the manifested glory of Divine dominion, will be seen once more in sudden and unanimous revolt against His people and His name (Rev. 20:9).

But what then did all this do but echo the words which shortly were to come home to him with terrible confirmation as he faced the wild tumult from the castle-stairs, "They will not receive thy testimony concerning Me"? The apostle of the Gentiles must renounce all hope of being God's messenger to Israel; and he who sought it, spite of the burning, uncalculating love that had brought him there, was necessarily out of the path to which God had called him. The testimony to Christ indeed was to be permitted him, though it could but demonstrate once more the hardness of heart to which they could only be given up. The Lord would and does own His faithful servant in a testimony, to which He would not nevertheless have sent him. Over it all He was; and the history of that which follows becomes, as has been said, the prophecy of long centuries to come, in which such scenes would be in principle re-enacted upon a larger scale. History is averred to repeat itself, and the reason is obvious: for man repeats himself; and poor fallen man is in every generation but the reflection of his father Adam. And where God's grace has made a difference, still there remains even here a nature which maintains but too much of the likeness. God's hand has overruled in this case to forecast the future for our instruction; yet even this could not be so impressive and complete if it were not founded upon a similarity of moral elements which in their inter-working present a more than superficial parallel. It is a parallel of causes as well as effects, — fruits and consequences which we can trace to roots and seeds which are in ourselves also, and present grounds of real and profitable self-judgment.