26-1025a Transcript

(1:22) Good morning. It’s good to see everybody. (1:25) We’re continuing our adventure through the first 11 chapters of Genesis.

(1:31) And we will begin looking at chapter 5 today. We began by looking at what the Bible says about (1:40) time before time began. And God’s eternal self-existence, the necessary pre-condition (1:51) for something to exist now.

An eternal force capable of creating matter, bringing it and us (2:02) into existence. For something to exist now, something must have always existed. (2:12) The answer still eludes the naturalist.

And we will explore more of this this evening. (2:21) And they still have no natural only non-supernatural solution, which they (2:31) emphatically state must be where they get their answer. And they haven’t found one yet.

(2:39) And as a result, we have been taking a plain reading of Genesis, and we have refused to (2:48) reshape the narrative so that it fits modern cosmology. Instead, we have asked what the text (2:57) itself is saying. In the opening chapters, we watched the six days of creation and the seventh (3:05) day of rest.

We look more closely at the sixth day in chapter 2 of Genesis. Then we saw the (3:14) temptation, the fall, and the pronouncement of the curses as a result of sin in chapter 3. (3:22) And in chapter 4, we met the first family, Adam and Eve and their sons Cain and Abel, (3:29) and watched the battle of the seeds begin between the seed of the serpent and the seed of the woman. (3:38) Cain’s line is expounded in chapter 4. John calls him in 1 John 3, 12 of the evil one.

(3:49) And his line moved in a moral downward spiral to oblivion. Now the text pauses (4:01) and gives us a different kind of account. Genesis 5 opens with the generations of Adam.

(4:13) Genesis is organized by this repeating phrase. There are 10 of them, usually stated, (4:21) these are the generations of, and fill in the blank, starting with the heavens and the earth, (4:28) Adam, Noah, Noah’s sons, and so on. Scholars call the heading the toledot, after the Hebrew word (4:39) toledot, meaning the generations of.

And they function as section titles. They look forward, (4:49) they introduce what came from the main person or thing, the heavens and the earth, (4:56) not like a biography looking backward. Of the 10, there is one that’s not like the others.

(5:06) And it’s right here in chapter 5, verse 1, where it says, see if you can tell the difference, (5:15) this is the book of the generations of Adam. The Hebrew is sefer toledot, (5:25) the book of the generations of. Sefer is a written record, a book.

It is not an oral fragment or a (5:34) collection of names. The text presents itself as a deliberate account of the line that continues (5:42) from Adam. After the destruction of the fall and the split of Cain from the family, (5:49) recorded in chapter 4, the book of the generations, the book of generations, (5:56) re-centers the reader on the line through which the promised seed will be carried forward.

(6:05) The language is not unique to this place. There is one other place in the Bible where a record (6:13) of genealogy is phrased this way. And it was read in your presence this morning by Kevin.

(6:22) It occurs when Matthew opens his gospel where he writes the book of the genealogy (6:31) of Jesus Christ. The same phrasing that begins the line of Adam begins the line that ends in (6:39) the Messiah. The parallel is intentional.

What we are reading in Genesis 5 is the beginning (6:49) of the written continuity of the seed of the woman. The pattern that runs through the chapter. (6:59) Once the book is introduced, we will look at that and which we’ll look at next, (7:05) a clear pattern appears which we’ll look at now.

The pattern is a man lives a certain number of (7:13) years, fathers the named son and lives additional years. And then the refrain comes (7:22) and he died. So beginning in chapter 5, verse 3, we read when Adam had lived 130 years, (7:34) he fathered a son in his own likeness after his image and named him Seth.

(7:41) The days of Adam after he fathered Seth were 800 years and he had other sons and daughters. And (7:49) thus, all the days of Adam that Adam lived were 930 years and he died. When Seth had lived 105 (8:01) years, he fathered Enosh.

Seth lived after he fathered Enosh 807 years and had other sons and (8:09) daughters. Thus, all the days of Seth were 912 years and he died. When Enosh had lived 90 years, (8:21) he fathered Kenan.

Some versions say Cainan. Enosh lived after he fathered Kenan 815 years and (8:31) had other sons and daughters. Thus, all the days of Enosh were 905 years and he died.

(8:45) When Kenan had lived 70 years, he fathered Mahalaleel. Kenan lived after he fathered Mahalaleel (8:56) 840 years and had other sons and daughters. Thus, all the days of Kenan were 910 years (9:07) and he died.

When Mahalaleel had lived 65 years, he fathered Jared. Mahalaleel lived after he (9:16) fathered Jared 830 years and he had other sons and daughters. Thus, all the days of Mahalaleel (9:24) were 895 years and he died.

When Jared, Jared’s one of my favorite people, (9:33) when Jared had lived 162 years, he fathered Enoch. Jared lived after he fathered Enoch 800 years and (9:44) had other sons and daughters. Thus, all the days of Jared were 962 years and he died.

(9:56) When Enoch had lived 65 years, he fathered Methuselah. You may remember that name, (10:03) Methuselah. Enoch walked with God after he fathered Methuselah 300 years and had other (10:10) sons and daughters and thus all the days of Enoch were 365 years, a short lifespan.

(10:20) Enoch walked with God and he was not for God took him. When Methuselah had lived 187 years, (10:34) he fathered Lamech. Methuselah lived after he fathered Lamech 782 years and had other sons (10:43) and daughters and thus all the days of Methuselah were 969 years and he died and everybody remembers (10:55) Methuselah 969.

That’s the oldest person recorded in the Bible. Number two. Who’s number two? It’s (11:04) like Avis.

Nobody remembers number two. It’s Jared 962 years. Methuselah 969.

Jared is short (11:17) by seven years and who remembers Jared? Isn’t that something? But I’m sure he tried harder (11:29) as Avis says. When Lamech, oh by the way, also note that Jared is Enoch’s father. (11:46) But Methuselah is Enoch’s son.

The two oldest people recorded in the scripture (11:56) [are] father and son of Enoch. Isn’t that something? When Lamech had lived 182 years, he fathered his (12:07) son and called him Noah saying, out of the ground that the Lord has cursed, this one (12:18) shall bring us relief from our work and from the painful toil of our hands. Lamech lived after he (12:27) fathered Noah 595 years and had other sons and daughters, the next shortest lifespan in this (12:36) period.

Thus, all the days of Lamech were 777 years and he died. After Noah was 500 years old, (12:50) Noah fathered Shem, Ham and Japheth and that’s the genealogy recorded in chapter five. (13:01) The refrain is not filler.

The actual echo of the curse spoken of in Genesis 3. Death (13:12) has entered the line of Adam and the book records it without apology. The intervals are long and (13:22) many years passed between the birth of the named son and the father’s death. Those years are not (13:30) wasted space.

They are the data that let a reader construct a continuous timeline. The text (13:41) practically invites you to do it. At the father’s age, at the birth of the named son, across the (13:49) list and you have an unbroken chain that appears from Adam forward.

When this chapter is read (13:58) together with the genealogy of Genesis 11, the same method carries across the line (14:06) through the flood and up to Abraham. Abraham finishes the list in Genesis chapter 11. (14:16) He’s the one at the bottom of that list.

(14:23) And the numbers are the text’s own chronological markers. A plain reading (14:31) treats them as such. Look at the visual comparison of the lifespan before and after the flood.

(14:40) Something happens around the time of the flood which we’ll explore next time. (14:46) Not tonight but the next Sunday I preach. Remember when Joseph presented his father to Pharaoh (14:56) and Pharaoh asked him how old he was and Jacob said to Pharaoh, (15:03) the days of the years of my sojourning are 130.

Few, few and evil have been the days of the years (15:16) of my life and they have not attained to the days of the years of the life of my fathers (15:25) in the days of their sojourning. He’s the shortest one on the list. (15:33) Everybody preceding him has a longer lifespan.

That’s an interesting chart as we’ll see when we (15:44) get to after the flood and probably in Genesis 11. But just let me show you Noah’s in the middle. (15:53) Two people cross the line that is the flood.

Noah and his son Shem. Shem, look at Shem. (16:05) He outlives his son.

He outlives his grandson. His great-grandson outlives him. Everybody after (16:18) everybody after up until I don’t know around Terah [actually Abram/Abraham] or something, Shem outlives most of his descendants.

(16:30) Can you imagine Shem? It’s tough when you outlive your children, let alone your children’s children and theirs. (16:40) There is one interruption in the pattern of Enoch. The text says Enoch walked with God and was not for (16:49) God took him.

He does not die in the ordinary way. The refrain is broken by directed divine action. (16:57) Enoch is the exception that shows death is not the final word.

The book records both the (17:07) universality of death and the possibility that God can interrupt it. Hebrews affirms this (17:17) in Hebrews 11 verses 5 and 6. By faith Enoch was taken up so he should not see death. (17:27) He did not die.

And he was not found because God had taken him. Now before he was taken, (17:37) he was commended as having pleased God. And next we read Steve’s favorite verse.

(17:43) And without faith it is impossible to please him for whoever would draw near to God must believe (17:50) that he exists and that he rewards those who seek him. Even here in chapter 5 this early, (18:04) it’s demonstrated. God demonstrates that he has power over death when death is the rule.

(18:16) It’s a consequence of the curse. Continuity of the image, the image of God, and the line (18:26) of promise. The book of the generations of Adam begins by recalling the original creation (18:33) and then recording the first birth in the line that it will trace.

So beginning in Genesis 5 (18:41) verses 1-3. This is the book of the generations of Adam when God created man. He made him in the (18:52) likeness of God.

Male and female he created them and he blessed them and named them man (18:59) when they were created. When Adam had lived 130 years, he fathered a son in his own likeness, (19:11) rather, after his image and named him Seth. The contrast is deliberate.

Verse 1 reminds us that (19:23) God made man in his likeness. Verse 3 says Adam fathered Seth in his own likeness after his image. (19:35) The Hebrew vocabulary that described God’s making of Adam is now used for Adam’s fathering of Seth.

(19:45) The image of God is not erased. It continues to be transmitted through ordinary generations. (19:52) And that is why after the flood when God institutes the first law against murder in Genesis 9-6, (20:01) he can forbid it on the ground that man is made in God’s image.

And why James 3 (20:13) verse 9 can still speak of people who curse their brethren who are made in the likeness of God and (20:22) warns them about the untamed tongue. Seth is still an image bearer. The capacities that (20:32) constitute humanity, speech, reason, moral discernment, relationality, and the rest (20:40) remain.

At the same time, the wording is not identical. The narrator does not say (20:49) that Seth was fathered in the likeness of God a second time. He says Adam fathered a son in his (20:59) own likeness after his image.

And the image continues, but it continues through a man who (21:06) has already sinned and who already stands under the sentence of death, the most immediate and (21:14) explicit consequence of the chapter itself records his mortality. You may have noticed (21:24) the refrain, and he died, begins at once and runs through the genealogy as we have seen. (21:34) Death is the fruit of the curse spoken of in Genesis 3-19, not a declaration that Seth entered (21:43) the world already guilty of Adam’s sin.

Some have read the contrast more strongly. Matthew Henry, (21:53) commenting on chapter 5 verse 3, wrote that Adam begat a son and his own image, (22:01) sinful and defiled, frail, wretched, and mortal like himself, a sinner like himself. (22:10) John Calvin, likewise, spoke of the image as so spoiled and impaired by the fall that some (22:18) obscure distinctive features or characteristics are so vitiated, spoiled or impaired, (22:25) and maimed that they may truly be said to be destroyed, with only a frightful deformity (22:34) remaining.

Both treat the transmission of the image as including a corrupted (22:42) moral nature that predisposes the child to sin. Eric Lyons, writing for Apologetics Press, (22:51) has argued the other side of the evidence. Scripture never says the image was lost or (22:58) annihilated.

The continued use of the language after the fall shows that every human being still (23:07) bears the image of God in a real sense. Sin marrs the exercise of the image. It does not eradicate (23:15) the image itself.

The text registers a real post-fall change. The image is now passed on (23:25) by a mortal man living under the consequences of his own sin. Those consequences, the curse, (23:37) are inherited.

Pain, toil, a creation subjected to futility, and above all, death, (23:46) are the portion of Adam’s line. What is not asserted is an inherited inclination that makes (23:56) sinning necessary or a guilt that attaches at birth. James chapter 1, verses 13 through 15, (24:05) keeps the responsibility clear.

Each person is drawn away by his own desire (24:13) and enticed. Desire conceives and gives birth to sin, and sin, when full grown, brings forth death. (24:24) Sin is an act of the will.

The curse is the consequence of Adam’s sin. Sin is not the (24:35) consequence of the curse. The book of the generations of Adam, therefore, begins by (24:42) affirming both realities at once.

The image continues, and with it, the dignity that still (24:49) belongs to every human being. The image is transmitted under the conditions of the fall, (24:55) and with it, the mortality which the rest of the chapter will document without interruption. (25:02) Seth is named, not Cain, because this is the appointed line which the promise will be kept.

(25:11) The same dual reality, the dignity that remains in the brokenness introduced by sin, (25:17) will later be developed when Paul contrasts the image of the earthly man with the image (25:24) of the heavenly man. For now, the text simply records the facts. The likeness continues, (25:33) the line continues, and death continues.

It does not teach that anyone is born a sinner. (25:44) So a word for us. The book of the generations of Adam does not leave us only with ancient names (25:51) and numbers.

It leaves us with two facts that still shape every life in this room. (25:58) First, the image continues. Seth was fathered in Adam’s likeness, yet he remained as an image (26:07) bearer.

So do we. The capacities that mark us as human, reason, speech, moral awareness, (26:15) the ability to know and be known, are still present. This is why scripture can still (26:21) forbid murder on the ground of the image, and still warn us that the tongue can curse those (26:28) made in the likeness of God.

The dignity is real. It is not erased by the fall, (26:35) and it is not reserved for a few. Every person we meet still bears it.

(26:44) Second, death continues. The refrain is not an ancient curiosity. It is the standing condition (26:54) of Adam’s line.

We live under the same curse. Pain, toil, and the certainty of death (27:02) are not theoretical. Yet the chapter also records one interruption.

Enoch walked with God, (27:13) and God took him. Death is universal, but it is not ultimate. The same God who kept the line (27:21) through which the promise would run is able to interrupt the reign of death.

(27:29) So the application is straightforward. We do not treat people as though the image has been lost, (27:36) nor do we pretend the curse is not real. We live as those who still bear God’s likeness in a world (27:47) where and he died remains the ordinary end of the story.

And we do so in the confidence (27:56) that the line documented here was preserved for a reason. The book of the generations of Adam (28:04) tells us both what we are and what we are waiting for. The evening will press the question of whether (28:12) later voices have been willing to hear what this record actually says.

For now, it is enough to (28:21) receive the record as it stands. The image continues, the line continues, and death continues (28:30) until God himself brings the interruption that Enoch only foreshadowed. So the invitation of the (28:41) text.

The chapter does not rush. It gives ages, intervals, and repeated notice of death. It also (28:50) gives the means to trace a continuous line from the first man to the generation that will enter (28:56) the ark.

That’s Noah. Later, Scripture will carry that line still farther. The plain reading does (29:04) not require us to compress generations or reinterpret the numbers so that they match a (29:10) different set of assumptions about the age of the earth.

The text supplies its own framework. (29:18) It assumes creation by the word of God, the entrance of death, the preservation of a promised (29:27) line, and the reality of a coming judgment that will end the world that then existed, (29:35) which is coming up shortly in our series. When we finish the chapter, we have a written record, (29:43) a clear pattern of mortality, one remarkable exception, and a timeline that can be extended.

(29:52) We also have a contrast. The line of Cain moved downward. The line documented here continues (30:00) under the promise.

Both lines live in the same world. Only one is presented as the book (30:11) of the generations of Adam. The same record that documents death also documents unbroken (30:19) continuity.

That continuity will matter when later voices claim that all things have continued as they (30:26) were from the beginning. The book of the generations stands as a witness against that claim. It (30:35) remembers a beginning that was not uniform, a death that entered by transgression, (30:42) and a line that was preserved by the God who spoke the world into being.

(30:50) So, the invitation is being extended to anyone who’s subject to it. Come, as we stand and sing. (30:59)