|
Text Comments
4:25 "Another child" literally "another seed", connecting Seth to
the promised seed of 3:15 and providing one of several demonstrations that the line of
Seth that is to be given in chapter 5 is a line of holy or believing families.
5:1 lit. "This is the book..." Perhaps Moses is using a written history or
genealogical table and folding it into his history at this point.
5:2 Another summary of the creation of man. But I do draw your attention to the name
that God gave them, the name "man." One of the many serious problems with
the new Gender neutral language being employed in the translation of the Bible is that it
simply ignores the decision that God himself made to write his book as he did and to call
the race by the name of its masculine member. For whatever reasons -- and some of those
are clear and others may not be -- that is what God did and that is the consistent pattern
he saw fit to retain from the beginning of the Bible to its end. To call the human race by
other names than God chose himself to give his creatures [as does a new Bible that was
sent to the church office the other day, that reads "he called them human
beings"]: why is this not an act of rebellion? The feminists well understand that by
naming something or by changing its name you claim a certain sovereignty over that thing
and you change the understanding of its nature. It is a very grave mistake, I believe, for
evangelicals to get on this bandwagon and to take a position that amounts to patronizing
the Bible, as if God didn't know better or couldn't think of anything else to do than to
use "man" for the name of the human race.
5:4 The length of these lives has long been a matter of curiosity and, of course, in
the minds of unbelievers an evidence of the mythical character of this part of Holy
Scripture. But, remember, the question is really simply one of belief or unbelief. If you
accept that the Bible is a supernatural book and that the living God actually created the
world, long lives for the antediluvians is no special problem. We know little about what
life might have been like in those ancient times before the flood, how the climate, the
extent of ultra-violet radiation, or any other factor might have effected the length of
human life. If you doubt the historicity of Genesis then, of course, you will doubt these
numbers and, along with them, much of the rest that is in the Bible. It is an interesting
fact that other ANE traditions include very long lives for people who lived before the
flood, perhaps preserving the recollection of the facts in this respect as they did
preserve with some accuracy certain other information concerning those long ago days.
With regard to the length of time man has been living in the world, I should say, at
this point, only that we have no reason to suppose that we are intended to think that this
is a complete list of ancestors. Biblical genealogies are typically stylized with only
certain names mentioned in the lines and others left out, as, for example, also in the
genealogies of Jesus in Matthew and Luke. Here there are ten names from Adam, as there are
also ten in 11:10ff. taking the line on from Noah to Abraham. It is not obvious that we
are to believe that Adam lived almost into Noah's lifetime. The length of time thus
covered by this genealogy is impossible to determine.
5:8 One of the purposes of the narrative of chapter five is served with the recurring
refrain, "and then he died," reminding us that the reign of death is now
universal on account of sin.
5:24 "Walked with God" is used of others, Noah, e.g. in 6:9; here it clearly
refers to a special measure of intimacy with God and holiness of life. Enoch was notable
for this even among this line of godly families. It serves as a reminder that
"intimacy with God" was as much the essence of true godliness in the OT as it is
in the NT.
365 is the shortest lifespan of any of those mentioned in this genealogy. Clearly the
words here mean that Enoch did not die. The repeated phrase "and then he died"
is not used of Enoch as it is of everyone else and the phrase "because God took
him" is used again in 2 Kgs 2 to describe Elijah's translation to heaven. Hebrews
11:5, of course, confirms this interpretation explicitly.
It is worth pointing out that in the Sumerian list of antediluvian kings, the seventh
seems to be a distorted memory of Enoch -- who is the 7th name here, counting Adam, a king
who was especially intimate with the gods and noteworthy for his wisdom.
5:29 This Lamech, unlike the arrogant man of the same name in 4:19-24, is a man of
submission to the Lord and yearning for what sin has robbed mankind of.
For whatever reason, the book of Genesis records the descendants of the unbelieving and
rejected sons first and then the progeny of the faithful, the elect descendants. The
genealogies of Japheth and Ham precede that of Shem in chapter 10; Ishmael's genealogy
precedes Isaac's in chapter 25; and Esau's comes before Jacob's in chapters 36 and 37.
And what is abundantly clear and hugely important is that these two genealogies, that
of Cain and that of Seth are being compared and contrasted in these two chapters. It is
interesting, in fact, to note that Cain is not mentioned in the genealogy of Adam in
chapter 5:3-5. He is given his own genealogy, but in the history of salvation, in the line
of faith and divine election, Cain is irrelevant. He, instead, was the progenitor of
another line.
The first genealogy tells the story of the escalation of wickedness and unbelief and
rebellion against God culminating in the vicious self-worship of Lamech. The second
genealogy tells the story of faithful men, followed by faithful men, with luminaries among
them, such as Enoch, and culminating in the man who would, literally, by God's grace, save
the human race when God's judgment fell upon it.
But what you have here is only the first instance of the principle of both wickedness
and righteousness, both unbelief and faith following in the lines of generations. This
is God's appointed way. He has built it into the fabric of his providence. He has made it
the means both of his judgment and his grace.
We read, for example, in the second commandment, in Exodus 20:5-6 that the Lord is a
jealous God, punishing the children for the sin of the parents to the third and fourth
generation of them that hate him, but showing love to a thousand generations of
those who love him and keep his commandments.
The line of generations, the succession of spiritual life or death from one generation
to another is a phenomenon encountered everywhere in the Bible.
The rest of Genesis will be taken up in large part with an account of one such
succession in grace and faith: Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, and Joseph. Later we will learn that
David was the product of such a succession of faithful generations: Boaz begat Jesse who
begat David, who himself then begat Solomon. And it is not changed when we come into the
NT. Paul reminds Timothy that the faith his young assistant has in his heart lived first
in his grandmother, Lois, and his mother, Eunice.
Indeed, the number of faithful men and women of the biblical history whose lives are
reported to us in sufficient detail to determine that they were the sons or daughters of
believers is very large. It includes most of the faithful kings of Judah, most of the
heros of faith mentioned in Hebrews 11, and such NT figures as John the Baptist, Mark the
evangelist, and the Lord himself.
Contrarily, unbelief usually begets unbelief in the biblical history and the sins of
the fathers are visited upon the children not simply in the form of punishment but in the
form of a continuing rebellion against God in the next generations, deepening the guilt of
that family and exposing it to ever greater measures of the wrath of God.
And this should not be difficult for us to see or to believe because, in both respects,
it has continued to be the case ever since and remains the case today. I daresay that most
of the Christians of church history whose names you would recognize were the offspring of
believing men and women, and that is despite the fact that there have been many Christian
heros who were brought to faith out of unbelieving families that, in some cases, had been
unbelieving as long as anyone knew.
But think of the church fathers: Polycarp, Origen, Chrysostom, and Augustine just to
name a few: all products of faithful Christians parents or a faithful Christian parent.
Think of our own tradition in Anglo-Saxon Presbyterianism: Thomas Boston, Donald Cargil
the covenanter martyr, Matthew Henry the Bible commentator, or Alexander Whyte "the
last of the covenanters". All could tell their life stories in the simple terms used
here in Gen. 5 to report the godly line of Seth.
But it isn't true only of Presbyterians. What of the Wesleys or John Newton among the
Anglicans and Methodists and so on. The early settlers of our nation were usually later
generations of believing families and our colonial history is littered with great
succession of faith: Richard, Increase, and Cotton Mather, for example. Or later, the
Hodge family at Princeton, etc. The great missionaries of the 19th century were almost to
the man the product of generations of believing life in their families: William Carey,
Robert Morrison, David Livingstone, and John Paton. Nor is this only a feature of the
church's past. What of Jim and Elizabeth Elliot or Billy and Ruth Graham. Believe me, I
could go on and on. But I don't need to, because you know this already.
For this principle of succession in grace is not only found true in the case of more
prominent Christians, as this congregation itself knows full well. Many of you, most of
you certainly if we include the children, have Christian parents or a Christian parent,
many have Christian grandparents and great-grandparents.
I think it has been many years since I told those of you who were here then that Ken
Anderson, our elder emeritus, and I are related to one another by this principle of
spiritual succession in the lines of generations. Ken's father was the son of unbelievers
and did not become a Christian until, when a young man, he visited friends in Wisconsin in
1914 who invited him to attend an evangelistic meeting there that was preached by my
grandfather. He became a Christian then and there in response to the preaching of the Word
and so it was that Ken himself was raised in a Christian home and, by God's grace,
succeeded his parents in the Christian faith. He has raised his children to love and serve
the Lord as my grandfather and my father did and now Kathryn Hannula, Ken's daughter, of
our Peninsula PCA mission, and I are raising our children in the same faith and love. We
can write our spiritual genealogies, Ken and I can, just as this history was written here
in Gen. 5. Indeed, our families, in their spiritual succession, have not only covered
virtually the whole of the 20th century, they will, God helping us, cover the next century
as well. For if my children's children walk with the Lord, as we trust they will, and live
to a ripe old age, they may reach the 22nd century of our Lord!
But this congregation knows the other succession also. Some of you will not know the
names as well as others, but we have seen folk depart from the faith and have seen their
children follow their parents in that melancholy journey down the broad road. And we have
seen and know many others in other connections who have done the same and whose iniquity
has been visited upon their children as God promised it would.
If it is true, as Paul says it is true in Romans 9:22-23, that human history has as its
ultimate purpose and rationale the manifestation, the demonstration of both God's wrath or
justice in the judgment of sin and sinners and of the unsearchable riches of his mercy in
the salvation of sinners, then the spiritual connection which he has established between
the generations is one of the principle means he has appointed or chosen to reach those
holy ends and to fulfill those aims.
Now, hear me. We haven't the whole doctrine before us here. No one is saying that if a
person's parents are Christians, he or she will be too in the same way as if your parents
are democrats or love to sail or can fresh vegetables you will likely be the same and do
the same. NOT AT ALL!
God must act to make anyone a Christian. You must be born again. What is being said is
that God himself has made the line of generations a means of working out his
purposes of both grace and judgment in the world. That is a fact to which the whole Bible
and the whole of human history bears the most eloquent witness.
Now, there is, of course, a great deal more to be said about this whole subject. There
are means appointed by the Lord in his covenant by which Christian parents and their
faithful spiritual nurture and discipline and instruction of their children become the
instruments, the means God employs to work his grace in young hearts. There are promises
and warnings of various kinds attached to this teaching about the succession of
generations in both judgment and salvation.
We haven't time for that this morning. What we have before us in Gen. 4-5 is the fact
of this succession, its reality; the first announcement of that God characteristically
will deal with human beings in this way, in the lines of generations; that he will respect
the family succession in both his judgment and his mercy.
What this fact amounts to, of course, is a summons to us to reckon with this in our own
lives. This is the way God has ordered the life of mankind. It would be very foolish and
very dangerous to ignore this and not to live in active submission to this reality.
And there are many ways to reckon with it. If we are parents, let us all take with
utmost seriousness the implications of our way of life, of our faith in Christ or lack of
it, for our children and for their children. How much more accountable we are than we
know, how much more to answer for there is than we consider and remember day by day. God
thinks in the long term and we must as well and we must, therefore, invest in the faith
and the godliness of our children as if their lives depended upon it, for they do and not
their lives only, but generations descending from them, very great numbers of human
beings. In terms of God's appointed means there never would have been a Noah without a
Seth, an Enoch and a Lamech raising their children to love and serve the Lord. Contrarily,
never a Lamech without a Cain!
I saw the other day for the first time in several years a picture of the entire family
gathered at the last Rayburn family reunion before my father died early in 1990. My
parents were there in the center and around them and in front of them were 23 other human
beings. Many of you belong to much larger families that would make the same point even
more dramatically. Take away the spouses that married into the family, one of which had
already died in our case, and the two -- my mother and father -- had become 20 in just two
generations. The first two of their grandchildren to marry are doing so this summer and
are both marrying Christian spouses. Soon the 20 will be sixty or a hundred or two
hundred. And may they all be in heaven at last! But, with numbers growing so fast, how
sacred is the responsibility that parents bear for the spiritual growth of their children
-- especially when God has promised to use their nurture to their children's children's
salvation! Is there a more sacred, a more important responsibility in all the world?
But for us all, whether married or single, there is this thought also and with this I
finish. How gracious and merciful God is; how true it is that mercy is his delight! It is
not only that, in the matter of judgment he promises to visit the sins of the parents on
the children only to the third or fourth generation, but in the matter of grace
says that he will show his mercy to the thousandth generation of those who love him. That
is revealing and wonderful enough.
It is not only that for many of us in this room, his way of giving his grace and
salvation in the lines of generations has been the means of eternal life for us -- that it
is not less wonderful that we were put in the way of his salvation by being born into the
family that we were than had God plucked us out of some utterly wicked, godless
environment to set us in his family. In both cases, when it could so easily have been
otherwise and when we so richly deserved it to be otherwise, God placed us where his
saving grace would find us and make us new creatures in Christ. You think about that and
about how multitudes of people you know are living and perhaps dying in unbelief, without
hope and without God in the world because their parents and grandparents, when they were
still young, sent them down a road that took them, not to eternal life, but away from the
grace of God; and they never even knew it! [Conversation at Robbie's baseball game
yesterday.]
But there is more grace and mercy still in God's way with the generations. For how
often does he break this pattern for mercy's sake, for the salvation of a lost man or
woman who belongs and has belonged to a long line of lost men and women. How many are
there, in the Bible, in church history, and in our own acquaintance, how many are there in
this sanctuary this morning, who should, by all rights, have perished in the same unbelief
that their parents raised them in, who should, by all rights, have chosen to walk away
from God and his truth as their parents and grandparents before them had done, who should,
by all rights, have had their parents sins visited upon them and then upon their
own precious children, who should, by all rights have become even more practiced, more
determined, more inveterate sinners than their parents were, but who were lifted by the
grace of God out of that line of generations and planted in the family of God, and, in the
case of many of you, have already seen with your own eyes, your God-given faith, now
living in the hearts of your own children. You, who were the umpteenth in an
unbelieving line, now beginning a line of your own, but a line not of unbelief such as you
were born into and raised in, but a line of faith, of the love of God, of walking with
God, and of yearning for the comforts of the Lord, stretching away, God helping you, into
the far distant future.
And all because a God who has built into his world and into the life of mankind the
principle of the generations succeeding one another in spiritual condition is too merciful
to be bound by his own principle at least in the matter of the judgment of the wicked.
Who is a God like unto our God, who pardons sin and forgives transgressions; who does
not stay angry forever but delights to show mercy? And what reveals that mercy at its
height and its depth more than this, at least David thought so, for he mentioned it last,
in the climactic conclusion of his great Psalm of praise, Psalm 103: "from
everlasting to everlasting the Lord's love is with those who fear him, and his
righteousness with their children's children -- with those who keep his covenant and
remember to obey his precepts."
|