The history of the fall in Genesis
3 teaches us that two civilizations are destined
to arise in the world. God, in Gen.
3:15 calls them
respectively “your offspring“ (referring
to the serpent –the devil) and “her offspring“, referring to Adam and Eve and the gospel promise to their offspring. And so
it is.
In Chapter 4, the story of Cain and Abel makes that first
great distinction in this regard. Abel brings his
acceptable offering of
worship to God. His brother Cain, born from the same
mother, not only brings an unacceptable offering
of worship to his Creator, but he who
also becomes the first murderer in the Bible, and hence the first death is recorded in the
Bible. This is deeply significant for it
reveals the sad fulfilment of Genesis
2:17 of which his parents are the
first cause!
We saw that Cain becomes the prototype
of the ungodly offspring, as it is also recorded that “Cain went out from
the presence of the LORD and settled in the land of Nod “– the land
of wandering.
We saw last time
that the sons of Cain became
a civilization in their own right. Cain
had a wife, and he founded and built a city populated with farmers that
provided food and gifted craftsmen and musicians. We saw
that the sons of Cain did not lack in intelligence and innovation. We also
noted that it was in this first city mentioned
in the Bible that God’s original plan for marriage became distorted when Cain’s
grandson, Lamech married two women (4:19).
Furthermore we have seen
that the story of Lamech, Cain’s
grandson ends with another murder.
The
story of Cain leaves us with an uneasy feeling. Now that Abel the true
worshipper is dead, who shall carry
forward the knowledge and the ideals of true worship? How will the
godly offspring be propagated in
future if there is no future?
This
would indeed be impossible if it were
not for the fact that God kept on
intervening in the history of fallen man! Aren’t you glad that He intervened in
your life? And so, we are told in Gen.
4: 25-26 that Adam and Eve had another son, whom they named, Seth
( lit. appointed ). Eve said : “God
has appointed for me
another offspring instead of Abel, for
Cain killed him.” (Gen. 4:25).
We
are also told in v.26 that
Seth became a father to a son
called Enosh , and during that time
there was a turning to God : ”at that
time people began to call upon the name
of the LORD.” Thus the covenant family, the godly offspring is
preserved at this time.
And so we
come to the 5th Chapter of Genesis and
verse 1 , which begins with
these words : “This is
the book of the generations [1]
(or histories) of Adam”. This chapter follows
Chapter 4 , which contains the history of Cain,
the offspring of the serpent. Chapter 5
is a summary statement of the history of mankind from Adam to Noah , in whose day God will send
judgement on wicked men
in the form of a catastrophic flood.
Chapter 5 also
reveals the beginning of
history of the human family of
the Lord Jesus Christ. All these patriarchs here are mentioned in Luke’s
genealogy of Christ.[2] We note then that Adam and Eve, fallen people though they had become, were
nevertheless the beginning of the sons
and daughters of God, for God had
chosen to include them into his covenant.
In
verse 2 we find a repetition and restatement of the original purpose and design for man,
namely the fact that
man had been created (i) in the
likeness of God and (ii) as male and female (iii) and blessed by God (iv) and
named by God as “mankind” (5:1,2).
Why this repetition? The plain answer is that God’s
original design remains, even after the fall.
In the rest of the chapter (vv 3-
32) we find a record of
the genealogy of the
godly offspring among our pre –diluvian [3]ancestors :
The list begins with Adam (vv.3-5). He lived 930
years and he died. V. 3 gives us an important
insight. Adam fathered Seth, a son in his own likeness, after his image. We need to be reminded that
the image of God in Adam is now a fallen image. This needs to be contrasted with v. 2 !
The pattern follows rhythmically : Life and death! Seth
(vv. 6-8) lived 912 years and
he died; Enosh lived (vv. 9-11) 905 years and he died ; Kenan (vv.12-14) lived 910 years and he died ; Mahalalel (vv.15-17) lived 895 years and he died;
Jared (vv.18-20) lived 962
years and he died; Enoch
(vv. 21- 24) is the grand
exception! He is without years , and he
has no recorded death. He was taken away by God. We will consider this in a
moment. Methuselah (vv.25-27) became the oldest of the patriarchs and he died at the age of 969 years . Lamech - note , another Lamech! (vv.28-31) lived for 777 years and he died. He was the
father of Noah who becomes the
great subject of Genesis
chapters 6 to 10 .
1. The longevity
of the pre-diluvian fathers : There is a remarkable difference
between the age span before the flood and after the flood.
What can be the explanation for this?
Some commentators see the collapse
of the water canopy of Gen.
1:6-8 to be the reason for introducing harsher living conditions for mankind.
The fact remains that the flood in Chapter 6 changed everything. Man’s life
expectancy after the flood drops by 50
% so that the sons of Noah (who lived 950 years – Gen. 9:29) live considerably shorter. Shem
lived 500 years (Gen. 11: 11) and from there we
find another 50 % in the days of Peleg (Gen. 11:19) when the tower of Babel was built, and soon we find Moses saying that 70 or 80 years are
the average for a human life (Psa. 90:10).
On another
level we must affirm that the progressive
advancement of sin has a life shortening effect upon mankind . In some modern countries the average life expectancy has been less than 50 years !
2. The second
observation follows: "…and he died".
The warning about ignoring the commandment in Gen.
2:17 has now become a sad
reality, and the whole world has, as a result,
become a graveyard.
God’s justice and wrath against sin, as
well as His mercy are strongly emphasized in this chapter. Rom. 5:14
affirms that "death reigned from Adam" . The testimony of
Scripture with regard to the
effects of sin and disobedience is clear: “The
wages of sin is death“ (Rom. 6:23)
. God’s mercy is emphasised in the fact that
despite sin He has mercy on who He will have mercy (Rom 9:15,16 which is quoted
from Ex 33:19) . All this in
implied in Genesis 3:15 ! God, the
eternal Creator and the Divine Potter
will redeem for Himself a people
out of fallen humanity for His own glory! From our NT perspective we know
that this elect people, this godly
offspring has come into being not because they were better than
the sons of Cain, but because God
has ultimately justified them in Christ Jesus, the Lamb of God slain before the foundation of the earth!
Enoch [4]!
(vv 5:22-24)
And
now let us consider Enoch, the7th from Adam (Jude 14) of whom no death is reported. Who was this man? Now here is an
interesting observation. Enoch was the seventh man from Adam ,born through the godly offspring
of Seth. He stands in
great contrast to Lamech (Gen. 4:18-24), the
man who is the seventh from Adam through the ungodly offspring of Cain.
In that sense both of these men are pre-figurements respectively of the Christ and of the anti-Christ.
Concerning
Enoch we learn that he did not die. “Enoch
walked with God and God took him”. (Gen. 5:24). The other man of whom this was true was Elijah(2 Kings 2) The expression "he was not" [5] means that he was ‘taken
up‘ ( as explained in Heb. 11:5) . "God took him" [6]
which is the same word as that used in the ‘taking up’ of Elijah in 2 Kings 2:3-5.
Enoch
walked with God[7].
Literally, ‘he lived with God.’ There was an uncommon intimacy between Enoch and God. The Hebrew word used for ‘walk with God’ in our text is also used in Malachi 2:6, where
Malachi speaks of the priestly tribe of Levi, which had a privileged relationship to God. Malachi says concerning Levi: “He walked with me in peace and uprightness and he turned many
from iniquity.” Levi was called by God to be
a priestly tribe. To the
offspring of Levi alone, God gave permission to enter the Holy Place,
to make intercession by sprinkling the blood of the covenant on behalf of the people of Israel, and to speak
with God on behalf of Israel. The other tribes in Israel could not do that, for
they were not appointed to that privileged office.
Now
Enoch lived long before the twelve
tribes had a list
of name , his name appears mysteriously
and out of the ordinary, like
Melchizedek in Genesis 14 ( cf. Hebrews 7).
Now Adam and Eve had the
privilege of intimate communion with God
in paradise, and ever since the fall,
when man is banished out of the garden
there is this perpetual lack of
intimacy. But here is an
exception: Enoch walked with God
outside of paradise. He was a fallen man
like you and me, and he was subjected to the same frustrations as you and me,
and yet he was given the privilege
to have close communion with God. Now this may fill you with holy envy.
You may say: Why can’t I have that ? I
remind you, you will have that. This has been recorded for you and me to encourage us how it shall be once Jesus comes to restore all things. This
is the picture of the fulfilment of the gospel promise. God says to all His
people in Leviticus 26: 11&12: “I will walk among you, and will be your
God, and ye shall be my people.” This,
we saw in our recent exposition
of Revelation was what was promised in Rev.21:2&3 : “And I saw the holy city, new Jerusalem,
prepared as a bride adorned for her husband; and I heard a great voice from the
throne saying, Behold, the dwelling of God is with men. He will dwell with
them, and they shall be his people, and God himself will be with them.”
In the meantime we walk by faith and not by sight. We walk by God’s promises and His grace in the midst of our frustrations and
imperfections . We look to Jesus , the author and finisher of our faith in the midst of our poor worship habits and in the midst of our poor experiences of intimacy with Christ. Remember that Enoch was not a better man
than you who love Christ. He was not a
Christian superman. He was given the ability
to walk with God, just as God gave the tribe of Levi the ability to walk
with Him.
This chapter tells how the race of the godly offspring developed in the days before the
Flood. This offspring
proceeds from and by the grace of
God, and not by the will of man. Man is
dead in his sin; he has become a
fallen being, who in the pride of his heart does not
naturally reach out to His Maker. This text teaches us that God infuses grace into undeserving people .
We observed that death becomes a reality. The world
becomes a cemetery. Sin has ravaging
effect as seen in the decline of life
span. It is seen in the reality of
death.
We look forward to that of
which Enoch points us to: the resurrection body and eternal life, which is what
we were created for by God in the first place.
[1] Hebr. Toledôth
See also 2:4, 6:9, 1:1, 11: :10,27, 25:12,19, 36:1,9, 37:2
[2]
Luke 4 ; Matthew’s genealogy in begins
with Abraham
[3]
Pre diluvian – i.e. prior to the flood
[4] Enoch
(Heb. chanôkh), means, as in 4:17, "beginner."
[5] Hebr. ênénnû
[6] Hebr. laqach
[7] The Hithpael stem
signifies "to walk about"—"to live." The particular
preposition used, ‘eth, denotes "intimacy, fellowship"
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