Or, Life and Death Before the Flood
Scripture: Genesis 5:1-32
Date: October 4, 2015
Speaker: Sean Higgins
I do listen to feedback about my sermons. My kids are still young enough that honesty never seems blunt to them. “Your sermon was really long today, dad.” I get it, sometimes the meaning of the message gets lost if there are too many minutes of message.
Some of you have listened to me talk about the Bible for hours of your life. God bless you. John MacArthur has talked about his 40-plus year preaching ministry as being a death sentence to his congregation. Death might seem better than another sermon on any given Sunday.
No one has probably had more difficulty listening to me preach than Mo. She started listening early on and sometimes wondered if I would ever make it out of a long pause; did I know what to say, would I just sit down? But it isn’t rhetorical flops that are the problem as much as rhetorical blanks. She knows me, she still likes me—by God’s grace, and yet I’m sure at times she’s wanted for my practice to catch up to my preaching more quickly.
She knows more though probably Jonathan has had to listen to more. Sometimes Mo is not feeling well or one of our kids isn’t well or she’s busy serving me some other way than sitting and listening. Jonathan has had to lead singing and then hasn’t wanted to be to obvious getting away, so he stays and listens. Between Sundays and retreats and school assemblies and other events, he’s endured a lot.
Which is why I’m glad for the opportunity this morning. Over six years ago I preached the “book of generations” in Genesis 5 and mentioned many of the things I said last week about how to approach a genealogy. Genealogies are inspired, they are put in place with purpose by the divine and human authors. There are good reasons to give genealogies our attention. We should look at the flow of the book, find the patterns in the passage, and see what exceptions stand out.
I remember asking Jonathan what he thought after that message and he said, in so many words, that it was fine, but he wished I had actually applied the approach and shown the goods from Genesis 5 itself. That stuck with me, and here’s my shot at preaching redemption today.
Last Sunday we did try to observe the place of chapter 5 and made a couple of observations based on the pattern. In terms of flow, the reason for the genealogy is to show the roots of relief. Book 2, beginning in Genesis 5:1, traces the line of Adam through Seth to Noah. It contrasts with the line of Cain through whom sin spread. Through Noah came deliverance from sin. The genealogy in Scene 1 (5:1-32) and the depravity in Scene 2 (6:1-8) prepare us for the flood story (6:9ff) and then the offspring of Noah’s sons who repopulated the planet (10:1ff).
In terms of the pattern, there are ten generations listed not counting Shem, Ham, and Japheth. In almost all of the ten generations we see the following:
Based on the pattern I observed that God’s blessing of fruitfulness continued even after the fall. Part of the reason why ages were mentioned in Seth’s line and not in Cain’s line is to emphasize life. These men lived long and their lives were fruitful especially in terms of offspring. These are signs of God’s favor.
Another observation on the pattern is that God’s judgment of death applied because of the fall. The refrain, “and he died” means that the original warning to Adam about what would happen if he ate from the tree was true and had physical consequences.
Before considering the exceptions, the question is often asked if every generation is included. When men try to calculate a date for creation and the flood from these listed years, do we have all the years mentioned? I believe yes. Counting according to the numbers in the Hebrew text (as opposed to those in the Septuagint and the Sumerian text) there were 1,656 years before the flood. That would mean that Methuselah died in the year of the flood, perhaps in the flood. (Which, working backward from the genealogy in Genesis 11, makes the creation of the world around 4004 BC). It is possible to refer to a king who “walked in the ways of his father [David]” who was not actually an immediate son [of David]. But the years in Genesis 5 make it too specific. The father-had-a-son-and-that-son-had-a-son pattern does not allow for gaps.
What I think may be true is that the son listed in each case may not have been the firstborn son. I say that because it seems surprising that the seed of the woman was found in the firstborn in all ten generations. In the rest of Genesis, God often chose the younger over the older. And none of them had a daughter first? How about Adam in particular? We know that he had two other sons before Seth but they are not named in Genesis 5. Did Adam and Even have no daughter for Cain to marry until after Seth was born? Were all of them old before they had their first child? That said, each one could be the first since the phrase “he had other sons and daughters” always comes after the named one.
We’ve considered the genealogy in the flow of Genesis as well as the pattern for each generation. There are four exceptions to the pattern.
The first exception to the pattern is the first generation. Adam not only “fathered” a son, he “fathered a son in his own likeness, after his image.” Moses recaps the image-bearing prelude in chapter 1, stressing the created nature of man. Man is not self-existent, only God is. Man is not eternal, he was put in time by a Creator. And man is not divine in his composition, sharing some percent of god-ness and man-ness, but he reflects the divine image by imitation.
This levels Mt. Olympus and the pagan pantheon of gods. One of the earliest stories, a popular story around the time of Abram, was the Epic of Gilgamesh. Gil was 2/3rds god and 1/3rd man. He was the offspring of a god and a human and many heroes found in ancient literature were some type of immortal-mortal mix. The more you had of godness, or the more immortal your daddy, the more honorable you were.
However far one pushes back the origin of humanity, says Gen. 5, one never finds anything more than man. Man, even earliest man, never becomes a god. He is simply “earthling.” The chasm between the infinite and the finite is never bridged. (Victor Hamilton, NICOT)
The dignity of male and female is an image-bearing dignity and it applies to every human. Even Cain’s unbelieving line, who threw themselves parades in a culture of self-sufficiency, were reflecting God, although indifferent to it. When Adam had Seth, Seth was in Adam’s image who was made in the image of God. More generations doesn’t dilute the image, it functions as the paradigm of passing on the image. Moses doesn’t repeat it because all the family waters flow from this creational faucet.
Image bearing is about vocation more than composition. The highest point in the development of man is not to achieve divine status, to be deified. Men are elevated as they are blessed by the Creator God and bear His image.
Six more names are mentioned before the next exception. [Download and look at the Kids’ Korner above for a great list thanks to Gail Martin.] Seth fathered Enosh, though we learned about their worshipping ways already in Genesis 4:25-26. We could consider them an exception based on the exceptional fact that they are mentioned twice. After Enosh: Kenan, Mehalel, Jared, then Enoch.
As seventh in line, Enoch compares to Lamech in Cain’s line. Lamech represented the depths of sin, a polygamist murder-poet. Enoch represented the heights of humility. Moses doesn’t say that Enoch “lived after he fathered,” instead, Enoch “walked with God after he fathered.” Because we are tracing the roots of relief we are tracking the seed of the woman. From Seth to Enosh to Enoch, men called on the name of the Lord in dependence. But Enoch enjoyed something special.
Moses does not say that Enoch worshipped more regularly with better offerings like Abel or with longer prayers. To “walk” means to go about one’s life. It is a metaphor for daily conduct. Enoch was not too heavenly minded for earthly good. He walked with God, a tag told twice (verse 22s and 24), meaning that Enoch’s entire life was lived in conscious recognition and enjoyment of the Lord’s presence. He communed with God in whatever he was doing.
This communion is the terminus of the prayerful line as Lamech represented the nature of the proud line. Enoch is also an example for us. He certainly was an example for his great-grandson Noah who is described as a man who walked with God in Genesis 6:9.
Enoch is an exception because he didn’t just live, he walked with God and also because he didn’t die, he “was not, for God took him.” In The Epic of Gilgamesh the gods take Utnapishtim to enjoy immortality after he survived a great flood. Though no comment is made, this opens a window to the idea of eternal life. God took Enoch where?
Between Enoch and Lamech was Methuselah, the oldest known human ever at 969 years. But, while the age is higher than anyone else, he follows the pattern.
Moses breaks the pattern with Lamech by calling attention to the act of naming. All the other fathers had a name for the son; the son’s name is recorded. But Lamech’s reason is given.
“Out of the ground that the LORD has cursed, this one shall bring us relief from our work and from the painful toil of our hands.” (Genesis 5:29, ESV)
The Hebrew word “relief” (nacham) sounds similar to the Hebrew name for “Noah” (nuach) meaning “rest.” Lamech believed. He acknowledged the Lord’s sovereignty and justice in the cursed consequences on the soil. For the apparent prosperity and fullness of life Genesis 5, the problems on earth were real and he desired deliverance. Somehow he believed that Noah would be the relief. So the genealogy has led us to this point in providing the family roots of relief.
The curse on earth due to sin was getting worse due to the increase of sin on earth. We will see the depravity described in the second Scene of Book 2 next Lord’s day. Moses doesn’t record how Lamech expected the relief to come but the earth was relieved of the wickedness as God destroyed all the sinners except for one family in the flood. God the Father also looked forward to giving His Son as a gift who would be destroyed to deliver the world.
Noah is the goal of the genealogy and its final exception. His father prophetically named him. Three of his sons are named, not one. Because chapters 6-9, if not 10 also, are about the environment of the world into which Noah came, along with the story of his righteousness, faith, and obedience, I won’t say much more about him now. He is the end of goal of this genealogy and he is also the end of the beginning, pre-flood while also being the re-founder of the world after the flood. Similarly, after Jesus died for the sin of the world and rose from the dead, He too is making all things new.
The genealogy of Noah shows us that he did not descend from heaven to be the deliverer. He is in a line of faithful men who called on the name of the Lord in front of their sons, who did the same when they had sons. Noah had a heritage of those who walked with God. While Noah received favor from the Lord as an individual, he was blameless in his own generation because he learned how to do it from previous generations. We can be thankful that God can and does save men individually, and that he often works generationally. Noah didn’t come out of nowhere and build an ark; what will our kids and grandkids build?