Messianic Rabbi: Solomon Was Wrong; There Is Something New Under the Sun

When I was a child, I remember my mother often saying, “There is nothing new under the sun.” Whenever an event happened that was shocking or tragic, she would give me a knowing grin and say those words.

What she meant by the phrase was that people will always be people. In other words, don’t be surprised when people make bad choices and do bad things because it’s not a new thing; people have been making bad choices and doing bad things since the beginning of Genesis.

However, when Solomon penned the words we read in Ecclesiastes 1:9 (TLV), “What has been is what will be, and what has been done will be done again. There is nothing new under the sun,” the context was much different than my mother’s. Solomon was expressing his boredom with the mundane things of life, which, as a side note, seems humorous to me because Solomon was a super-rich, powerful king with a kingdom that was the envy of all. Yet he thought his life, and life in general, was mundane and boring.

Those words by Solomon have been quoted unquestioningly since they were first written down. But, are they true? Solomon may have believed the statement “There is nothing new under the sun” was true and it may have actually been true in Solomon’s day. But just over 900 years later, there was something new, something different from anything that had ever happened before. Something new happened under the sun, and that something new was the Son.

The truth is that if Solomon could have envisioned the new that would come, he would never have considered life mundane or boring. When I say that Yeshua was new, that doesn’t mean I do not believe He was and is eternal. However, Yeshua was entirely unique in comparison to any other human in history.

While there are many references to G-D interacting and even appearing to men in the Bible, Yeshua didn’t just appear to men; He was born a man. I could spend time providing Scripture verses that express how G-D became flesh and dwelt among us and how G-D was manifest in flesh, or even how all the fullness of the Godhead dwelt bodily in Yeshua. But I will be the first to admit that I don’t understand how the G-D of all eternity became a human being while never ceasing to be G-D. I don’t understand how G-D could be both Father and Son at the same time while always and completely remaining one.

So, rather than try to explain the unexplainable, I want to share something fully understandable and the reason for Yeshua becoming man, and the purpose for something new under the sun happening. I know that many reading this will say that Yeshua came so that we could have atonement and provided a means of redemption, and that is true. But, unfortunately, while absolutely true, that is an incomplete rendering of the reason that Yeshua came. The reason Yeshua came is much more wonderful than simply providing clemency to those who were guilty.

Please don’t think I am making light of the crucifixion and resurrection of Yeshua. However, Yeshua didn’t die just to absolve us of guilt. He did something brand new, something that even Solomon in all his wisdom couldn’t understand and, unfortunately, too many believers today still have not recognized. Yeshua became flesh and lived, died and rose again for a greater purpose than just setting the sinner free. He came to do something that had never been done before. He did something new because it was the only way that He could make us new.

Yeshua came not so we could be simply set free; any king could provide clemency. It took G-D doing something new, something that had never been done before, to provide the opportunity for us to become new. G-D entered into the very framework of His creation so that you and I could become new creations, as we read in 2 Corinthians 5:17:

“Therefore if anyone is in Messiah, he is a new creation. The old things have passed away; behold, all things have become new.”

Maybe the reason Solomon thought life was so mundane and boring was because although he was a king that had everything this world could offer, he couldn’t do one thing that was truly new. Only the King of the Universe has the ability to do something new under the sun and, thankfully, He became the Son so He could do something new. Because Yeshua did something new under the sun, we were able to become something new under the Son. {eoa}

Eric Tokajer is the author of Overcoming Fearlessness, What If Everything You Were Taught About the Ten Commandments Was Wrong?, With Me in Paradise, Transient Singularity, OY! How Did I Get Here?: Thirty-One Things I Wish Someone Had Told Me Before Entering Ministry, #ManWisdom: With Eric Tokajer, Jesus Is to Christianity as Pasta Is to Italians and Galatians in Context.

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