Advance and Retreat (Pt 1)

We can really learn a lot from reading the Bible. Even the parts that may seem less interesting on first reading, or that we’re tempted to consider irrelevant, often reward thoughtful observation. That’s the case with the genealogies in the last half of Genesis chapter 4 and the entirety of chapter 5. These records reveal the history of Adam’s descendants in such a way that we learn much more than who fathered who. These records reveal the development and decay of culture.

Culture is a current buzzword in a large part of the Christian community. You could say that talking about culture is part of our culture. But talking about it doesn’t mean that we know what we’re talking about. What is culture? Are we supposed to engage the culture or change the culture or create culture? Are we supposed to beware of culture or escape culture or condemn culture? God’s people have been dealing with these questions for a long time, whether setting up society in Israel, surviving exile in Babylon, or enduring Roman rule under Caesar and later under the Pope. Some of you noticed that I switched from Israel to the church without warning, does that mean that there are no distinctions? Should we seek to be one nation under God for real, or should we disentangle from all societal interests to focus only on spiritual interests?

There are many books that address these issues, a couple of them are even good. Richard Niebuhr wrote a well-known book, Christ and Culture. Before him Abraham Kuyper applied the Christian confession of “Christ as Lord” to all spheres, private and public. Luther and Calvin were concerned with church and state governments. Augustine wrote about the City of God and the City of Man, what they hold in common and what causes conflict between them. Whether or not culture is a buzzword among hipster Christians, it has been a big deal for Christians who want to be holy here on earth.

In many ways I’m a cultural kindergartener. I can pull the books off the shelf, thumb through the pages, and look at the pictures. I can trace big lines holding jumbo crayons in my fist, so I can’t give what anyone would call a high culture appreciation of culture.

But I have taken more advanced Bible classes. And before the Church or Israel, before Presidents or Caesars or Kings or Pharaohs, back when men began to multiply on earth, God reveals a lot about the good and bad of His image-bearers. God’s Word tells us about cultural progress and cultural collapse, and even that both can happen together. Advance and retreat, not in the same ways but at the same time.

My concern is not philosophical or missional but exegetical. That is, my concern is with what the Bible says and what that means. In order to get at that meaning we’re going to ask some observation questions at a bird’s eye, paragraph level today before analyzing the same passage verse by verse next week.

What is the point of Genesis 4:17-26?

More specifically, what is the point of the two paragraphs, verses 17-24 and 25-26? Both paragraphs begin with a man and his wife having a kid, and then both paragraphs unfold kid pictures out of the wallet. The shorter, second paragraph only covers three generations but that’s because the same family line will be repeated in full in chapter 5. This prompts another question: Why does Moses include verses 25-26 at all? Why not wait until 5:1 and do the whole thing once?

On one level the point of each paragraph is to provide the early genealogical records of Adam and Eve’s descendants. But that cannot be the final answer because the genealogies are selective, both in terms of which persons are listed and how the persons are described.

We know that the list of persons is selective because of Genesis 5:4.

The days of Adam after he fathered Seth were 800 years; and he had other sons and daughters. (Genesis 5:4)

The only named children of Adam and Eve are Cain, Abel, and Seth. Genesis 5:4 is explicit that there were more, but we could gather implicitly that the first couple had more kids because Cain had a wife (Genesis 4:17). Where did she come from? She was his sister. Restrictions on consanguineous (meaning “of the same blood”) marriage came about later. For what it’s worth, she probably married Cain before he killed Abel. What daughter of Eve would willingly hitch herself to a murderer and then leave her family to wander around with a fugitive?

So not every son, let alone every daughter, is recorded in the family tree. There’s reason to believe that each generation is represented even though not every person in each generation is listed.

Out of all the siblings, why concentrate on Cain and Seth? We need Seth in order to get to Noah. Noah is the final branch in chapter 5, the last descendant named before Adam died. Because of the flood story in chapters 6-9, we know that humanity survived through Noah and he was in the line of Seth.

Cain and his line are included not just because Cain was the first son of Adam but because he and his descendants represent the spread of sin. That’s part of the reason for Genesis 4:3-16. Cain and his offspring embody the offspring of the serpent. Cain and his kind hate and murder. From Cain comes the first polygamist, Lamech (4:19), who disfigured God’s gift of marriage rather than adorn God’s image through the one man and one woman unity in diversity. From Cain comes the first hoodlum, also Lamech, making a name for himself by threats of violence (4:23-24). Wickedness spread in numbers and degree through Cain’s line. His family’s behavior accounts for the reason God judged the entire earth with the flood.

The details Moses selected also distinguish cultures as much as they supply chronology. For example, there is an emphasis through extra attention on the seventh generation from Adam through Cain and Seth. It’s possible that the seventh emphasizes completeness, the epitome of each ancestry. Seventh from Adam through Cain was Lamech, the man who married two women and who boasted to his wives that God’s promise of sevenfold vengeance on anyone who messed with Cain was nothing compared to the vengeance he would enact for himself on anyone who bumped into him. Here is Cain’s murdering spirit gone to seed. Lamech’s violence is the fruit of a culture that started with wrong worship.

The seventh generation from Adam through Seth was Enoch. What do we know about him? “Enoch walked with God” (5:22). And two verses later, “Enoch walked with God, and he was not, for God took him” (5:24). Enoch is the fruit of Seth’s line. And what was significant about Seth? It wasn’t only that Eve saw Seth as a replacement for Abel and associated Seth with the offspring promised in Genesis 3:15. When Seth was old enough to father a son, Seth’s family worshipped the LORD.

To Seth also a son was born, and he called his name Enosh. At that time people began to call upon the name of the LORD. (Genesis 4:26)

To “call on the name of the LORD” points to dependence on the Lord, to fellowship with Him, to worship of Him. The reason Moses gives a starter of Seth’s line before actually listing his line in chapter 5 is in order to contrast two cultures. The point of these paragraphs is to set side by side a culture built on self-sufficiency and another built on worship.

So far so good. Our first bird’s eye fly-over shows the antithesis, the dividing line between the seed of the serpent and the seed of the woman. But a second look shows that it isn’t exactly that simple.

Let’s start with the heritage that followed Seth. Yes, Enoch was the culmination of communion with God. Enoch’s great-grandson was Noah (son of Lamech—a different one, son of Methuselah, son of Enoch). And “Noah was a righteous man, blameless in his generation. Noah walked with God” (Genesis 6:9), just like his great-grandad. But, when the “LORD saw that the wickedness of man was great in the earth” (6:5) and committed to “blot out men whom I have created” (6:7), was the LORD only referring about Cain’s side? Noah had no allies of righteousness which means that not all of Seth’s offspring became godly worshippers.

Let’s return to Cain’s line. Was there nothing admirable in them? Were they all the sinful scum of the earth? Not according to Moses. In fact, it was through Cain and some of his offspring that civilization advanced. We’ll address Cain’s motivation next week, but he built the first city in the Bible (4:17). Then there was Jabal, “the father of those who dwell in tents and have livestock” (4:2). More than shepherds like Abel, these guys started a business moving around and selling or trading their assets. Jabal’s brother Jubal “was the father of all those who play the lyre and pipe” (4:21). These are the first musicians, who invented their own instruments and melodies. The lyre was a stringed instrument and the pipe was a wind instrument. Their half-brother Tubal-cain “was a forger of all instruments of bronze and iron” (4:23). The word “instruments” is better understood as “tools.” But in order to make these tools he developed the first metallurgy, figuring out the science and technology of smelting and forging more complex things from raw materials.

Taking dominion of animals and subduing the earth for sake of music and metallurgy is absolutely image-bearing activity. It is fulfilling the cultural mandate in Genesis 1:28. Yet these cultural advances were produced by the non-worshipping group. Even Lamech expresses his intent to rage and kill in poetic form. This is nothing less than the very first gangster rap. Jubal may have put a bass-string hook underneath it.

Moses doesn’t describe these cultural fruits to prove that business and art and science and industry are worthless, much less wicked, simply because wicked men created them. All of these skills and craftsmanship and commerce carry on through Noah and his family, and God calls His people to worship Him with these instruments and tools later in the Old Testament. These advances are rightly associated with the fulfillment of God’s commission. If Moses wanted to make a clean and easy division, why not give credit to the first believer to do any of these later?

How should we process this?

First, true advances of culture reflect God’s image even if those who develop through inventing or making do not recognize what they’re doing or give glory to God for it. Worshippers can and should give thanks to God for the gifts and for the image-bearing. Even in their sin, all men have dignity as created creators.

Second, worshippers who give thanks recognize God’s common grace in these advances of culture. The imaginative thinking and resourceful creating and successful child-bearing of the proud are still kindnesses from God that men do not deserve. This is grace, though not saving grace. Along with the sun and rain, unbelievers know a measure of joy because of God’s gifts. Those who don’t worship God can still make a helpful contribution because God enables them to. This increases their accountability to Him and it should challenge worshippers to up their game.

Third, cultural development occurs when God’s image is shown more clearly. Cultural decay occurs when God’s image is ignorantly or consciously distorted or denied. That means that unbelievers can and do develop culture in some ways, though they would deny it, and believers may cause culture to decay in some ways, even if unintentionally. It also means that culture can get better and worse in different ways at the same time. Development and decay can coincide, especially if the developments are earthly and the decay is moral. If the developments are moral, rooted in true worship, then earthly decay is less likely and earthly developments are probably not far behind. This is why schools and hospitals and electricity and Bach-like cantatas and Bunyan-like novels came to cultures where the gospel came first. This is why, to take one specific example, Wilberforce was concerned that England learn theology on the way to ending slave trade.

Last, culture, by itself and at its best, cannot save anyone. Culture comes from persons and self-sufficient persons do not invent grace. Grace goes against their culture, and no one is saved without grace. That said, persons saved by faith in Christ through grace will desire to obey, and obedience includes every legitimate part of imitating God. A group of worshippers will want to make and buy and sell and sing and write and govern themselves well for the Lord’s sake. They know that only God saves, and they know that saved men create or reform culture. Salvation begins the restoration of the entire man, it transforms him toward the glory of God’s image. Christians desire, and are commanded (Ephesians 6:4) to pass those fruits on to following generations. “Son, this is who we are as God’s redeemed people. And as God’s redeemed people, this is what we do.”

God established two offspring and they will live on earth together until Jesus returns. While we wait for Him, we worship Him, work for Him, and give Him credit for all the good gifts He gives including our unbelieving neighbors who make great things but must be discipled to call on the Lord and give Him glory as their Maker and Savior.