Summer Session (6) Sunday School July 9

The Lie of Chaos Family and the Creation Design for Marriage

Family. The world is a lie of Satan to normalize chaos family, to say that such things as homosexual mirage, it's not really a marriage, to say those things are normal, to say that that cohabitation, which the Bible calls fornication, is normal, to bear children outside of marriage is normal, to have multiple divorces and remarriages is normal.

Chaos, brokenness, sin, and the attempt is to normalize chaos family. Well family is always chaos, it's always problem, it's misery, it's always a mess, and we are living at a time when that is very much at the forefront of a lot of discussion, a lot of debate, and that's not unique to our generation, not unique to our time, our century, our decade.

It was going on even in the days of Jesus Christ and his apostles, and they talked about these controversial issues, and they were not in agreement with their culture, they were not simply repeating the established opinions of the people around them, but they were challenging them to think about how God has made us.

Jesus said, have you not read in the beginning that God made them male and female? And for this reason a man shall leave his father and his mother and be joined to his wife, for the two shall become one flesh.

So for Jesus the answer is quite simple. No matter what deviation man may try to engineer when it comes to family, Jesus says we have to go back to the beginning, to the creation, to the definition that God has given, inherent to the design that he has created for our understanding of what family is all about.

The Image of God, Sin, and the Story of the Bible

And so we've thought about family and creation, we've talked about what it means to be made in the image of God, and that if there was one very quick way to talk about the uniqueness of being made in God's image, which only humanity is made in God's image, is that by the nature of our design we are made in such a place that we are in relationship with God and one another and the created order as no other creature is.

We've been made to love God supremely, to love each other rightly, and to steward the creation responsibly, and no other creature was made that way. No other creature has that intersection of relationships, and God treats men and women according to his image, holds them accountable for how they respond to him, how we respond to each other, what we do with the things that God entrusts to us.

And so we've been thinking about how the image of God is at the heart of what it means to be male and female, man and wife, parents and children. We talked about the impact of sin on the family, and why it is that it's not something wrong with God's design that there are problems manifested in families, but there's a problem with our sin, that it's not the issue with how God designed it, it's the issue with with us who would deviate from his design and rebellion.

And so we've looked at Genesis chapter 3, a whole survey of Genesis chapter 3, trying to understand what went on there as a story that helps explain where we are right now. And now we're going to continue through the story of the Bible and thinking about family by moving through the cycles of the covenants, the stories that God tells about Noah, and Abraham, and Israel, and David.

And I want to point our attention to Romans chapter 5, and I want to read verses 12 and 15 and 17 with some comment. Before we do that, let's pray. Heavenly Father, I just thank you for this day. I thank you for the gift of your Word, the clarity in which you give it as we consider your Son Jesus Christ.

I thank you for the hope that we have in him, and I pray that you would guide our thinking so that we would be in agreement with you, that we would value what you value and rejoice in what you rejoice.

We pray these things in Jesus' name, amen. So Romans 5 and 12 says, "...therefore just as through one man sin entered the world, and death through sin, and thus death spread to all men because all sinned.".

So through one man sin entered the world. We know who that is, it's Adam. And death through sin, that's what God's promise was. And the day that you eat of it you will surely die. We've talked about that the pagan conception of death is non-existence.

The biblical conception of death is separation, a destruction of relationships between God and one another and the created order. Separations. Even when we die, our soul is separated from our body. It's a separation, you see.

"...death spread to all men because all sinned.". Now verse 15 tells us,. "...but the free gift is not like the offense. If by the one man's offense many died, much more the grace of God and the gift by the grace of the one man Jesus Christ abounded to the many.".

Previous verse reminds us that Adam was a type, a picture of Jesus who was to come. Second Adam. The last Adam. And then in verse 17 it says,. "...if by the one man's offense death reigned through the one, much more those who receive abundance of grace and of the gift of righteousness will reign in life through the one Jesus Christ.".

So as Paul is trying to grab for the whole story, as he's trying to explain everything in a short amount of space, what does he do? He talks about the first Adam and the last Adam. There is a parade that moves from the fall of the first Adam to the advent of the second Adam between Genesis 3 and the very first Christmas.

There's a parade. And in this parade we have covenants. You could think of them as floats in the parade. Noah, Abraham, Israel, and David. And there's another covenant called the New Covenant. Each covenant comes majestically proceeding down the main street of history.

Each one attended, surrounded by servants and signs and promises. Each one coming right after the other, connected by various themes. And then the last covenant turns out to be more than the parade itself.

It turns out to be a whole new town square, indeed an entirely new city. Now the move from the ruined image of God, Adam, to the risen image of God, Jesus Christ, is a redemptive saga. Preparation for the last Adam is announced in Genesis 3 .15, and that is continued throughout the covenants that God makes with Noah and Abraham, Israel and David.

And all these covenants are in the shape of the image of God. In other words, every time God makes a covenant, and you can go read it for yourself. Go read the covenant God makes with Noah, and all the way to David.

Each time he makes a covenant, he describes relationships with him. How is it going to work? How are his servants going to relate to him now? He describes how those made in his image should relate to one another.

And he tells them how they're supposed to view the world around them. What they're supposed to be doing. Each one of the covenants that God makes, he mediates his truth, his holiness, his authority. And each one of these covenants is given to one of his servants.

Each covenant looks back at creation, how things were with Adam and Eve in the garden before sin, and each one looks forward to Christ. As the Rilland image of God is situated in a restorative hope, looking forward to the fuller revelation of the promised seed, who is Jesus.

And God makes these covenants known to his creatures, and he formalizes these relationships with them through signs and promises. It happens again and again and again in the story of the Old Testament, until finally Jesus comes and says, and now for the new covenant.

There are many covenants in the Bible. You know, you'll have perhaps Jacob and Laban making a covenant. Of course, you have marriage as a covenant. You have covenants made between nations. But there are some that bear the weight of the whole story.

The big ones, the important ones that we're talking about. And these covenants that God makes with Noah, Abraham, Israel, and David bear the weight of the whole story. They bring the bones, and the sinews, and the skin.

The very shape of the image of God is restored through these covenants. The shape is, but not the substance. Not the substance. The living breath of the image of God is only brought by Christ, who takes up all the former covenants, known as the Old Covenant, together and fulfills them, because he is the image of the invisible God.

And he makes a new covenant by his blood and sends forth his Holy Spirit. So, that is a basic survey behind my definition that we've been working with on Sunday nights. A biblical redemptive covenant is a restorative, looking back to Eden and revealing, looking forward to Christ, a restorative and revealing relationship that the Creator formalizes with man.

God knew Noah, and Abraham, and Israel, and David before he made covenant with him, but he formalized that relationship. He gave him promises, and he gave him signs. All because he's pointing them to his son.

Noah, the Flood, and the Preservation of Marriage

So, now we could study that for a whole other summer session, but what I want to do is try to see, where does family fit into these things? I mean, after all, the image of God is central to Jesus's definition of family.

When they wanted to ask him about marriage and divorce, he goes to Genesis 127, where the description of the image of God is given to us. So, for Jesus, if we're going to talk about family, you've got to start with the image of God, and all the covenants are all about the image of God.

So, obviously, family is going to feature large in these covenants, and we need to think about that because we're building an understanding of what family is according to the Bible, not according to our culture.

So, we start with Noah, and there's a lot of fanfare that leads up to the Noah float coming down Main Street. A lot of fanfare, a lot of preparation, and it has to do with sin's impact on the family. Now, I've got a handout for you.

I hope that you...there's a handout right here next to... Jonathan, you've been drafted. Sorry. Now, the handouts are all right next to you. Does anybody need a handout? Thank you, Kyle. These are two pages from the manuscript that I'm writing for this class.

They are not consecutive, but on... this is page, I think, 36 and 43 of the manuscript, and the reason why I'm handing this out front and back is simply so that you could look at the structure of the story, how the story flows, and Noah's story, the cycle in which we meet Noah and the covenant that God makes with Noah begins in chapter four and moves through the end of chapter nine.

Now, we see that life continues after the judgment. There's an exile from Eden. Is it all over? Is it all over for humanity? No, they continue. They live by God's grace. They live, and there is farming, and Eve names her first two sons.

She names them Acquired and Breath, Cain and Abel, and both of those names speak to them being gifts from God. And then Cain murders Abel and is cursed from the earth. He is exiled from men. God marks Cain to restrain a cycle of violence, and then the violence continues anyway, through Cain's descendant Lamech.

And what is the problem with Lamech? He's a polygamist. He is a sexual deviant. Ada and Zillah, hear my voice, he says. His wives, plural. In contrast, the descendants of Adam's third born, Enosh, call upon the name of the Lord.

Seth and Enosh, well, they are true sons of God. And then after ten generations, from Adam to Noah, the world becomes very restless, and we find in chapter six that the sons of God themselves are embracing sexual deviance, and their descendants make names for themselves through violence.

And then God exiles mankind from the earth through a flood. He makes a covenant with Noah to restrain the cycle of violence, and then after the judgment, the life continues for humanity through farming.

Then Noah grows a vineyard, and we hear a story about his sons. There are significant names and how one of them is cursed, just like Cain. So you can see how there is a pattern. This is called a chiasm.

This is how stories were told in the ancient Near East, wherein the point of your story is in the middle. Now, we read stories where the point is at the end, when Sherlock Holmes solves everything, or the great conflict to which everything has been accelerating is finally sorted out at the end of the book.

We make jokes about, are you the kind of person who reads the end of the story first? But very often, most often, the stories being told in the ancient Near East are told in a bit of a circle, and the main point is at the center.

And so we have a series of parallels, and you can see that in your handout about the story of Noah. And this is important that we recognize it, not because it's simply interesting, but because it explains things.

You know how you're reading in Proverbs or Psalms, and there's like a couplet, a Hebrew parallelism, and you read the first line, and then you read the second line, and you realize that the first line explains the second line, and the second line sheds light on the first line.

And by looking at them both together, you are more informed, you understand better. That's what's going on here. These are just parallels. But by reading one in light of the other, we are better informed about what the story is all about.

So what do we see going on in Genesis 4 through 9? We see that the disasters of sin and death are showing up all through family. Brother murders brother. Lamech boasts of murder to his multiple wives.

Fathers beget children and they die, chapter 5. The world fills up with men who mimic Lamech, chapter 6. And what are all these things pointing to? What Paul said, death spread to all men because all men sinned.

You see, you're reading about it here in Genesis 4 through 9. So the image of God, what's the problem? The image of God is no longer rightly relating to God, to one another, to the created order. Death has made a separation.

And God does not toss out his design for the family, he rather affirms it. In Genesis, the last verse of Genesis 5 through the end of Genesis 9, where we begin to hear about Noah, God speaks to Noah about his household, his family.

He addresses Noah and includes his family ten times, over and over again. Noah, you and your sons. Noah, you and your wife and your sons and their wives. Noah, you and your household. Ten times. God is not throwing out the family, he's affirming the family.

He's showing how important the family is. Now, in addressing this world that has been filled up with violence, in chapter 6, God observes that the world is filled up with violence, and so he promises to fill up the world with water.

He prepares an exiling judgment, like he did for Cain. He addresses Noah and he promises to make a covenant with him, but he includes an important detail. I think it's very interesting. So if you can flip over to Genesis 6, we're gonna be hopping around in Genesis 4 through 9, but in Genesis chapter 6, when we start reading, our attention is immediately drawn to the floodwaters.

Oh, this is gonna be bad, right? It catches our attention, but think about the details that God gives. Verse 17 of chapter 6. And behold, I myself am bringing floodwaters on the earth to destroy from under heaven all flesh which is in the breath of life.

Everything that is on the earth shall die, but I will establish my covenant with you, and you shall go into the ark. You, your sons, your wife, and your sons' wives with you. And of every living thing of all flesh you shall bring two of every sort into the ark to keep them alive with you.

They shall be male and female. Of the birds and after their kind, of animals after their kind, of every creeping thing of the earth after its kind, two of every kind will come to you to keep them alive.

So do you see what Jesus is, what the Lord is doing here for Noah? One married couple and three married couples. A total of four married couples, but he addresses them as one and as three married couples.

And oh, hey look, that's what marriage looks like. Hey look, that's what marriage looks like. Hey, that's four times over. Here are four married couples, a man and his wife, a man and his wife. They go on to the ark.

Also, the animals are brought on, how? Two by two, two by two, two by two. Isn't that interesting? It kind of recalls the parade of animals that God brought before Adam, so he would name the animals. And among all the animals, no help meat was found for him, emphasizing to him that, hey, they're all coming past you two by two, but you're all by yourself, and you need to help meat.

You see, not good for the man to be alone. And so this pattern is also put here in Genesis 6. And the pattern of one male for one female, each in their own family, each after their own kind, is repeatedly emphasized in chapters 7 and 8 of Genesis about the flood story.

Now we've got to think, animals do not tend to be monogamous. No lion gets down on three knees and proposes to a lioness, and they live happily ever after on the savanna. That doesn't happen. You've watched the nature shows, it's brutal.

So why is God having all the beasts, even the beasts, all paired off, male, female, one for one, one for one? Well, think of the pattern in the story of Noah, the chiastic pattern here. Genesis 6, 1 through 4, provides us the reason why the world had gotten so bad that God needed to judge it with a flood.

But you see how it pairs with Genesis 4, 19 through 26 in your pattern? Both passages speak of sexual deviance, both passages speak of violence, both passages speak of sons of God, both passages speak about the importance of a name.

Let's look at Genesis 4 for a second. What do we have here? We have Lamech, we have two wives for Lamech, here is a sexual deviance. He marries two wives, and I think Jesus would have asked him, have you not read the two shall become one flesh?

It doesn't say the three shall become two fleshes, or the three shall become one flesh, it's the two shall become one flesh. So we see that Lamech is sexually perverse, he's in rebellion to his maker.

Also, we see that Lamech is unjust. He does not engage in eye for an eye, the Latin lex talionis, eye for eye. He gauges in Lex Merica, you wrong me I'll end you. You sneer at me I kill you, Chicago style.

So after hearing about polygamy with Lamech, and violence flowing from pride as he's boasting about how he killed this guy, then we hear about God-giving sons here in chapter 4. He gives Seth to Adam and Eve, he gives Enosh to Seth, and these God-given sons are contrasted with polygamous Lamech.

We hear that these God-given sons start calling upon the name of the Lord, they're faithful, and they're worshiping. And I think it's kind of important that the children of polygamous Israel to whom Moses is writing this needs to know, they need to know that polygamy is not for them.

Isn't that relevant to the children of Israel? Israel himself who was polygamous, that Moses is probably underscoring some things for Israel. Yeah, you're not going to do that. And then Genesis 5 conveys a steady march of generations by means of family.

Generation after generation shows Genesis 2 24 playing out over and over again. And then we come to chapter 6, the parallel passage to Genesis 4, the end of Genesis 4, the parallel passage to Genesis 6 1 through 4, look at this.

Now it came to pass when men began to multiply on the face of the earth, it's the same thing that happened with Cain's genealogy, there was a multiplication of men on the earth, and daughters were born to them that the sons of God, we met some sons of God in chapter 4, Seth and Enosh, calling upon the name of God, they saw the daughters of men that they were beautiful.

And they took wives for themselves of all whom they chose. That's not a description of there being a lot of eligible young men and eligible young women and then pairing off. They're not pairing off. The sons of God are taking wives for themselves, all whom they choose.

Do you see that? It parallels with Lamech. They're just grabbing as many as they want. That's the sense of the text. Therefore the Lord said, my spirit shall not strive with man forever, for he is indeed flesh, yet his days shall be 120 years.

So in 120 years the floods coming. There were giants, anybody have a different term for giants in your text? The Nephilim? Yeah. There were giants on the earth in those days, and also afterward when the sons of God came into the daughters of men and they bore children to them, these were the mighty men who were of old, men of renown.

Okay. There's a lot of connections here, but sons of God are acting like Lamech, they are completely corrupted now. They are also taking a plurality of wives. Their choices are not based on God's Word, but just like Eve, the desire of their eyes.

They're determining good and evil for themselves, aren't they? Just like Eve did. And so they look upon the daughters of men like Eve looked upon the fruit, and they take all that they desire, and God starts the countdown.

Okay, 120 years, and the floods going to come. Why he must act in this way is given to us here in the text. The earth was full of giants. That's the New King James translation. Nephilim is a transliteration of the Hebrew word.

So if you were able to read Hebrew, you would say Nephilim, but you read English, and so you read Nephilim. They just put the consonants and the vowel points in there for you. Really fun thing. Looking at an old lexicon, an equivalent translation of this word Nephilim is feller.

Straight up a feller. Now we use that in the South. Boy, you're a big feller. But no, it's the verb fell in all of the violent meaning of felling someone and being one who fells others. And this word is used throughout the Old Testament to talk about those who lay in wait and fall upon others and strike them down.

Let us fall upon him. Absalom's plot to take down David is full of this word. Let's fall upon them. So what are we reading? We're reading about people, the giants on the earth. They were fellers. They were violent men.

Lamech was a feller. Nimrod was a feller. We read that it wasn't just this time period, but other time periods that the Nephilim show up. Goliath was a feller. A time of violent men. And notice it happened when there was an increase of sexual deviance.

These men and their sons from many wives are men of renown. They made their fame by violence. Just like later on, Nimrod builds Babel to make a name for himself, and he was a hunter of men, a violent man making a name for himself.

What I'm trying to do is, I know there's a lot of different interpretations about this passage, but I'm trying to situate the text in its context so that we're seeing how to read it. It's an analogy of Scripture.

I'm going to compare Scripture with Scripture to see what this says. Other translations will say, well, these are, because of the word fall, fallen, say these are fallen angels. These are demons. I disagree.

But what is going on? Polygamy is the problem, and violence is the problem. These are the problems with Lamech and with Genesis 6, 1 through 4, polygamy and violence. And so, what does God do? He answers both of them directly.

He makes particular arrangements with Noah. He answers the problem with polygamy by doing what? Two by two by two by two by two by two by two. Even when it doesn't make sense for the animals to go two by two, because that's not what the animals do.

But God does it anyway as a sign. Who gets on the ark? Those who keep with his design. Who gets on the ark? Those who honor his design for marriage. One male for one female, two by two by two. And what does he do to answer the violence?

He fills up the world with water. You see how he's answering the problem? The problem is given to us in the text, and the solution is given to us in the text. And then after the flood concludes, God reiterates the creation mandate.

He blesses Noah and his sons and says to them, be fruitful, multiply, fill the earth. Oh, that sounds familiar. Sounds like Genesis 1. That's right. He blesses these four families and calls them to the special work of his image, and then further commands that all creatures, whether beast or man, who kill a man from the violence issue, they ought to be executed by men.

And he follows that up with the repetition of the creation mandate all over again in Genesis 9, 7, saying, the reason why you're going to kill a beast that kills a man, and the reason why you're going to kill a man who kills a man, is because man is made in my image.

You see? So what does he do? He says, be fruitful, multiply, fill the earth. Hey, Noah, you and your wife. Hey, each son and his wife. This is how we're going to do the creation mandate through my design for the family.

Marriage. One man for one woman. That's how we're going to do this, answering the problem of the polygamy that came before the flood. And then he says, if there's going to be more of bloodshed and violence, here's what you're going to do.

You're going to put an end to that through capital punishment. You see how he solves the issue of the violence and says, here's how we're going to stop that. So, God is being very focused in this. Now, being fruitful and multiplying on the earth is not compatible with polygamy or any other kind of sexual abomination.

And while you might do the math and think, hey, that might be a good idea. Actually, you have forgotten to factor in, in your math, the widespread mortal violence, the widespread deadly violence that always comes with sexual deviance.

Genesis 4, 19 through 24, and Genesis 6, 1 through 12, demonstrate that sexual deviance precedes, follows, and promotes violence. This is one of the reasons why in the Ten Commandments, the sixth and seventh commandment are placed together, thou shalt not murder, thou shalt not commit adultery.

The stories of David's household, how did that go? Sexual deviance, deadly violence. That's how that went, right? Sexual deviance, deadly violence. How many times did that happen in David's life? Quite a few cycles, wasn't there?

The wisdom of Solomon in Proverbs. When Solomon warns his son against sexual deviance, do you know what one of the warnings is about? How it leads to deadly violence. More than once, he talks about that.

The preaching of the Old Covenant to prophets, they make the connection too. Sexual deviance and deadly violence. And you can think of anything from the disruption of the entire society, to the unwanted children of sexual liaisons being offered up to Molech and Chemosh.

Also, just think of the bloodlust of the harlot in Revelation. Sexual deviance and violence. And so, we should not be surprised at the violence of the French Revolution, which came on the heels of all manner of sexual perversions.

We should not be surprised at the decades of sprawling American violence, which has bloomed in the wake of the sexual revolution of the 60s. How many times do you hear the comment, I don't understand why there's so much violence?

We used to drive up to school and we all had rifles sitting in our back window. Never had this problem before. Well, you're living on this side of the sexual revolution. All throughout Scripture and all throughout history, whenever you have sexual perversion, you have a outbreak of violence.

Now, why are they connected? Why are sexual deviance and mortal violence correlated? Because God made man in his own image, male and female. He created them, bringing them together instantly in the creation story as husband and wife.

Sexual deviance, you see, is a brutal attack on the image of God. It is an attack on the image of God. Sexual abstinence, on the other hand, singleness, as Paul talks about it in Corinthians, does not lessen the image of God in a child waiting for a marriage or an adult without a spouse.

It doesn't lessen the image of God in that person's life. But every sexual deviance, by definition, must deny and seek to obliterate some facet of the image of God. Proceeding from the intellectual and emotional and spiritual assault upon the image of God, physical, the physical assault on the image of God, that's no great leap to go from the sexual deviance to the deadly violence.

The sexual deviance is the intellectual, emotional, spiritual assault on the image of God. And what is murder? It's the physical assault on the image of God. That's no great leap. All sexual deviance moves toward bodily destruction.

Have you not seen that? Name any sexual deviance and it always entails some kind of destruction. It's only marriage that preserves the wife's body for the husband and the husband's body for the wife. 1 Corinthians 6 .15 through chapter 7 verse 7.

It's the only design. And God approves of marriage and he blesses it. Marriage 13 .4 says, marriage is honorable among all and the bed undefiled, but fornicators and adulterers God will judge. And we see that in the story of the flood.

So God makes his covenant with Noah. And there is a lot of great stuff about Noah that I'm not going to talk about this morning. So that was three pages gone. But that's enough for Noah. Let's talk about Abraham.

Abraham, Circumcision, and the Promise of the Seed

God's covenant with Noah clarifies the image of God and affirms the family. And we see that the creation mandate, be fruitful, multiply, fill the earth, that has to be pursued by families who fear the Lord.

Families who fear the Lord. Bloodshed must be answered by justice and the creation must be managed by God's standards and values. So all this is about the image of God. Love God supremely, love each other rightly, steward the creation responsibly.

Same is true of the Abrahamic covenant. Now God calls Abraham out of Ur. You can trace this on the other side of your handout. And the centerpiece, you can see there's a double peak in the center. Genesis 15, the whole chapter, and then Genesis 17 verses 9 through 27.

And the centerpiece of the Abrahamic story is about how God formalizes his promises to Abram when he cuts a covenant with Abraham in chapter 15. And then he establishes that covenant with Abraham and gives him a sign.

He seals this whole covenant with a sign, circumcision, which involves a cutting. Cuts a covenant in chapter 15, gives him a sign, circumcision, which involves a cutting. And why this? The sign of circumcision fits with the promise of the seed.

Remember Genesis 3 .15, there's a male heir who will become the new Adam, the image who will be victorious over the serpent. But this sign not only signifies there's going to be a male heir, there's going to be a male heir, there's going to be a male heir, but it also signifies separation.

Separation. There is a cutting off and a removal of the flesh. There was a sifting between sons in Genesis 4 through 9. Seth, not Cain. Lamech from Adam and Methuselah, not Lamech from Cain. Shem, not Ham and Canaan.

There was a sifting of the sons. And there was also a careful track of sons through the successor generations in chapter 5. Those two things together account for circumcision. Circumcision is what? It speaks of a separation, a separation, a cutting, a separation, but it also speaks of a succession.

There's going to be a male heir, it's going to be a male heir. So separation and succession, those are the two words that go with circumcision. Separation and succession. And those are the two themes that pair up in rhythm throughout the entire story of Abraham beginning in chapter 10 of Genesis and ending in chapter 25 of Genesis.