Genesis 5

Genesis 5 and the Genealogy of Adam

So, tonight we're going to be looking at Genesis 5, I think I had said 5 and 6, that's what I was planning on, but... Who knows? Yeah, well I know now, not chapter 6, but just 5 tonight, and we'll do 6 next week, so follow along, Genesis 5.

This is the book of the genealogy of Adam. In the day that God created man, he made him in the likeness of God. He created them male and female, and blessed them, and called them mankind in the day they were created.

And Adam lived 130 years, and begot a son in his own likeness, after his image, and named him Seth. After he begot Seth, the days of Adam were 800 years, and he had sons and daughters. So all the days that Adam lived were 930 years, and he died.

Seth lived 105 years, and begot Enosh. After he begot Enosh, Seth lived 807 years, and had sons and daughters. So all the days of Seth were 912 years, and he died. Enosh lived 90 years, and begot Canaan.

After he begot Canaan, Enosh lived 815 years, and had sons and daughters. So all the days of Enosh were 905 years, and he died. Canaan lived 70 years, and begot Mahalaleel. After he begot Mahalaleel, Canaan lived 840 years, and had sons and daughters.

So all the days of Canaan were 910 years, and he died. Mahalaleel lived 65 years, and begot Jared. After he begot Jared, Mahalaleel lived 830 years, and had sons and daughters. So all the days of Mahalaleel were 895 years, and he died.

Jared lived 162 years, and begot Enoch. After he begot Enoch, Jared lived 800 years, and had sons and daughters. So all the days of Jared were 962 years, and he died. Enoch lived 65 years, and begot Methuselah.

After he begot Methuselah, Enoch walked with God 300 years, and had sons and daughters. So all the days of Enoch were 365 years, and Enoch walked with God, and he was not, for God took him. Methuselah lived 187 years, and begot Lamech.

After he begot Lamech, Methuselah lived 782 years, and had sons and daughters. So all the days of Methuselah were 969 years, and he died. Lamech lived 182 years, and had a son, and he called his name Noah.

This one will comfort us concerning our work, and the toil of our hands, because of the ground which the Lord has cursed.

After he begot Noah, Lamech lived 595 years, and had sons and daughters. So all the days of Lamech were 777 years, and he died. And Noah was 500 years old, and Noah begot Shem, Ham, and Japheth.

So what jumped out at you as we were going through that? There was a deviation or two.

The oldest man on earth died before his son did.

The oldest man died before his son. Yeah, the first thing that jumps out at you is Enoch, how this person lived, died. This person lived so many years, died. But Enoch never died. He walked with God, and he was not.

And then the other person that stood out was Noah, because there's commentary about Noah. So tonight we're going to be looking at Genesis 5. This section is titled The Family of Adam. One thing you notice when reading through the Old Testament, genealogies matter.

I realize there's people out there who don't think that they matter, but it's in the Bible. There's a lot of genealogies. You get one here, genealogies matter. They matter for one simple reason, to be able to trace the lineage back from the time the prophecy was given about the seed of the woman, to be able to trace the lineage of the Messiah.

So that, I think, is the main reason for giving genealogies. Also, there's other reasons. It lets us know that this is a true historical account, not just some sort of fairy tale. But we get the genealogy of Adam and his family here in chapter 5.

So this is all the history of mankind, or the history of Adam. So last week we ended, we talked about, I remember, the two lines. So Adam and Eve had many children, but really we're focusing on two lines.

So the line of Cain, which was ungodly, and then the line of Abel. Of course, Abel is killed and then replaced with Seth. So by the time we get to chapter 6, we'll talk about this next week. But chapter 6 starts out in verses 1 and 2.

Just look at 6, 1 and 2. It says, So what I believe is being set up in chapter 5 is the two lines, the godly line, the corrupt line, and when the two lines start intermingling and intermarrying, guess what?

The whole world becomes corrupt because the godly people are marrying the ungodly. Now, I realize there's another view about the sons of God in chapter 6, right? Again, we'll talk about this more next week, but a lot of people believe that the sons of God, I think it's a reference to the line of Seth, the godly line of Seth.

But there's a lot of people who believe that the sons of God were actually angels and that angels procreated with humans and they produced this race called the Nephilim. We've all heard of the Nephilim, right?

Or the giants. And so the Nephilim would be some sort of half-breed between man and angel or man and demon, and that's why God flooded the earth. But again, that's another theory that we'll look at next week.

But I think we're seeing in context two lines. Line of Seth, the godly people, and the line of Cain, the ungodly. And we're getting the genealogy. Okay, everyone all set with that so far? All right, so let's go over this genealogy in Genesis 5.

The New King James Version, at least, titles this the family of Adam. And what's most significant is that the line of Seth eventually leads to Noah. So we're getting the connection to Noah because chapter 6 through 9, he's the main character because this is the story of the flood.

The Image of God and the Line of Seth

So starting with verses 1 and 2 of chapter 5, it says, this is the book of the genealogy of Adam. So this is the first of many genealogies in the Bible. In Luke's gospel, the genealogy of Christ is traced back through Seth to Adam, to where Adam is called the son of God.

And we're reminded of that here because it says in verse 1, in the day that God created man, Adam, he made him in the likeness of God. So we all agree that Adam was created in God's image, right? Was Eve created in God's image or only Adam?

Okay, is all mankind made in the image of God or just Adam?

Adam's son was born in his father's image.

Right, and we get kind of a curveball because I think probably everybody I've ever listened to, every pastor, most people you talk to, they would say, well, everybody's made it. We're all made in the image of God.

But then it makes it sound like in verse 3, look at verse 3. It says, and Adam lived 130 years and begot a son in his own likeness after his image and named him Seth. So we're going to have to kind of deal with this question about is all mankind, are we all in the image of God or just Adam?

Have you ever heard a study on this? I don't think I've ever heard a Bible study or a sermon on this as far as I can remember. A few things, the word Adam in Hebrew can refer to both Adam the individual or it can refer to mankind in general.

So man can be Adam, it can be Adam and Eve, or it can be the entire human race. So man, Adam can mean all of that. Just like today, we say man, and we could be referring to mankind. And sometimes women are called, we do this with women, like, hey, you guys, or we refer to women as men, and people just understand what you mean by that.

But women, Eve at least, was created out of Adam. So a lot of modern Bible translations are trying to be politically correct, I guess, and they want to kind of go gender neutral. But since woman, Eve, did come out of man, and since the word man can refer to both, my estimation is both were made in God's image.

Adam was certainly made in the image of God, and since Eve was directly made from Adam, I think she bears the image as well. Also, I think that every human being bears the image of God, because skip ahead to chapter 9 for a moment.

Marcus, I'll get your question in just one second. But chapter 9 would indicate that every human being is made in God's image, because look at what it says. Genesis 9, 6, this is God speaking to Noah.

He says, whoever sheds man's blood, by man his blood shall be shed, for in the image of God he made man. And this would apply to any human who is killed. Well, that murder needs to be put to death, because that person who is killed bears the image of God.

And that's essentially what's being said. So all that to say this, I think every human bears the image of God, at least to a degree.

Yeah. It's not a question, it's a comment. Okay. Yes, I do. I sat in a coordination council once where this was the question asked, what does it mean that we're created in God's image? And so I thought about it a lot.

It's a really interesting thing to think about. Right. And one of the things I came up with was because mankind was created on the sixth day, whereas the beasts and crawling and flying and swimming creatures were made on the fifth day, that this is the differentiation that man is not an animal.

Made in God's image, it means it has attributes that God has, mind, emotions, and will, which animals have instincts. They might have emotions, but they certainly have a brain. Mostly that we're just very different.

Yeah. So man was made in God's image. We have the ability to think we have the ability to we have a will. We have some of the communicable attributes of God. We are like God in certain ways and then unlike him in other ways.

But no question. Adam was made in the image of God. I said, every person bears God's image to some degree. And I only say to some degree because that image has been distorted. So when Adam has Seth, Seth is in Adam's image.

So Adam is now a sinner. He gives birth. He gives birth to sinners. So that's sort of like, if you look at it this way, think of a mirror. You can see your image in a mirror. We're made in God's image, but it's like the mirror has been broken.

Right. Or one of those mirrors you see at a carnival, you know, makes you look really tall or really short. That's how God's image is. We do bear the image of God, but it's distorted. It's been marred.

So when we're born again, on the other hand, we are being sanctified, grow in grace, being conformed to Christ, his image. So we hopefully are, are becoming more like the son of God over time. But yes, I do think man bears God's image right now.

The fact that the image has been changed, things have been changed. If Adam were still perfect, if he were still the perfect son of God, he never would have died. And yet we see in verse five that Adam dies at what age?

Nine hundred and thirty. Okay. So I think we have to address the long lifespans just for a moment. That seems like an extremely long time to live. Nine hundred years. Right. Now, in light of eternity, it's not really that long because man was meant to live forever.

So we think that man lived so long originally because this is before the flood. So the climate is very different. The Earth's atmosphere is very different. There's no or little to no radiation coming in from the sun.

There's no pollution. There's no disease. There's no genetic defects. I mean, just think about when you were young. We never heard of gluten allergies and peanut allergies. And there's so many things that seem to develop over time that even though we're kept alive longer with medicine and science, I think, as somebody told me on Sunday, it's like with our food, we're being poisoned.

I mean, just look at the ingredient list of whatever you had for dinner. There's things you can't even pronounce. You don't even know what it is. And then there's even with the fruit, it's being sprayed with chemicals and whatnot.

So things were very pure, even though the Earth is under the curse. It's still very much pure and like it was originally when God made it. But now, very, very different. So I think all those things together speak to why man lives so much longer.

Any questions or comments on that?

Enoch lived 365 years, the same number of days. That's sort of a planetary kind of thing. Aren't there some places where a day sometimes really means a year? No big thing except that Enoch was a unique individual for sure.

And the biblical calendar is 360 days a year. But yeah, I mean, it did kind of jump out at me, 365. You notice things like that. I don't know what it means, if anything.

Yeah, isn't it 365 times in the Bible it says fear not also? I think so. Yeah.

Well, I never checked it out myself. But that is, you know, fear not, let not your heart be troubled. One time for every day of the year. I have heard that. Okay, verse 4 tells us that Adam had many other sons and daughters.

We talked about that last week. Then it goes through the genealogy. So this person lived so many years, then they died. So many more years, then this person died. And was it Larry that told us the story about the guy who was converted by reading this long list?

And all these people died after so many years. And that person just, I'm going to die. And that is what led them to Christ. Is that a story you heard, like one of those preachable stories? Or is it a person you know that actually was converted?

Preachable. Okay, preachable. It's probably true. I don't doubt that. But yeah, I mean, it's impossible not to notice the pattern. But Enoch breaks the pattern. He never died. So like I said, genealogies have a purpose.

Another purpose, God in his wisdom, he knew that people would question these stories. People would think that this is all myth, that Genesis is an allegory. So I believe that one reason, not just to trace the lineage of the Messiah, but to show people this is all true.

Because fairy tales and made-up stories, how did they start? Once upon a time in a land far, far away. There's no specifics given because there's specifics don't exist. It's not a real story. They're not real people.

But here we get all these details. Let's face it, the Bible probably gives us more details than we, you know, you read the genealogies and you tend to skip them. I know you don't want to admit that. But doing Bible reading, people skip the genealogies.

But all these things are given so we know that this is a true historical account.

In Israel, we use the book of Matthew because it's written in the same way, you know, genealogies. It's just a Jewish kind of mindset. And so the New Testament flows right from the old in the book of Matthew.

Another thing the genealogies do, they give the history of the children of Israel. So they know where they come from and where the people that lived around them, where they came from. So this was very important for them.

It's important for us, though. You know, it's not just the history of the children of Israel. This tells us human history. Me and Tanya went up to the White Mountains. And there was one place that gave the history of the area.

And, of course, they're talking about 400 million years ago, this happened. And then 12 ,000 years ago, there was the Ice Age. And that's how the valley and the mountains all formed 12 ,000 years ago.

It's like unbelief is just baked in to the culture. It's like wherever you turn, wherever you look, everything you hear, it's rejecting what God's word says. So unless you go to the book of Genesis and read this for yourself and believe it, the only other alternative is to buy into this billions of years stuff.

Genealogies, the Messiah, and the History of the Hebrew People

All right, so a few other things. One of the main points of this chapter, like I said, is to connect Adam to Noah. Later, Noah's son, Shem, he's said to be the father of all the children of Eber. So Eber is where you get the term Hebrew.

So this is telling the history of the Hebrew people, their descendants of Shem. So that's going to be important. And then speaking of genealogies, we're saying that, yes, it's very important in the Old Testament.

Once we get to the New Testament, though, genealogies are no longer important. Matter of fact, we're told to what? We're told to avoid genealogies in the New Testament. So once Christ is born, the genealogies really don't matter anymore.

Besides, with the size of the population today, we're so intermingled, I don't know that you could really even trace anyone at this point. You could figure it out with DNA, but genealogies are not really, it's not a thing in the church age.

But it definitely matters here. Another notable thing about this chapter are these two men, Enoch and Methuselah. So look at verse 21. Enoch lived 65 years and begot Methuselah, and he begot Methuselah.

Or after he begot Methuselah, Enoch walked with God 300 years and had sons and daughters. So all the days of Enoch were 365 years. And Enoch walked with God, and he was not, for God took him. So we know that Enoch is one of two people who went to heaven without ever dying.

And we know the other is Elijah. He was taken up to heaven in the whirlwind, remember? The chariots of fire. So both are seen as types or foreshadows of what we call the rapture. The apostle Paul teaches about the return of Christ in 1 Thessalonians 4, 13 -18, 1 Corinthians 15, 51 -58, how there will be a generation of Christians that never die.

Those who are alive and remain, Paul says, are caught up to meet the Lord in the air. They're raptured. That's what caught up means. And you'll find people today, this is what I find interesting, there are pastors, I've met pastors, typically they're the reformed, amillennial types.

They do not believe in the rapture. Some of them scoff at the idea of the rapture, that it's just so ridiculous. Like, how can you believe such a thing? Well, my response is, it's already happened twice.

What's so ridiculous about it? Enoch was taken up into heaven, he never died. Isn't that what the Bible says? I don't know anyone who argues that point. So it's happened twice, and Paul says it's going to happen again.

So, now someone will say, well, but it doesn't say that Enoch never died, it just has this cryptic language, and you're assuming that. No, it says in Hebrews 11, verse 5, so you can just make a note of this, Hebrews 11, 5, by faith Enoch was taken away so that he did not see death, and was not found because God had taken him.

I mean, that's what it says. So Enoch, in a sense, I think it's perfectly okay to say he was raptured. Okay, so that makes Enoch a very significant, very unique figure. Enoch, and then Elijah. And by the way, in Revelation 11, there are two people called the two witnesses, they're also raptured.

I don't know if any of you are familiar with this, probably not, but there's a rapture prediction that it's going to happen before the 15th. I think the Day of Atonement is on October 15th. Is that correct?

I believe. So there's another one of these rapture prophecies that they're saying it's going to happen tomorrow, but, you know, you shouldn't say the day or hour, so basically it's going to happen sometime between, you know, today and October 15th.

So, you know, we'll see how that goes. But what does the Lord say?

Even so, come quickly. He says, be ready. You know, watch. Or in an hour that you think not. Luke 12.

But the point is, this is a foreshadow of the rapture with Enoch. Now, the other significant person, Methuselah, it's Enoch and then Methuselah. So Methuselah, what's significant? We said he's the oldest living human being of all time.

And what's even more interesting, so he's 969 years old. The year that he died is the year the flood came. Now, you're going to have to do the math on your own, but based on his age and Noah's age, and if you do the math, yes, Methuselah died the year the flood came.

Now, there's some question about his name. If you look up what does the name Methuselah mean, it'll probably come up the man of the dart. Man of the dart, like throwing darts. I don't know that. What does that even mean?

I'm not sure. The other theory of what his name means is that when he dies, it will be sent. So that's the other belief that Methuselah, the name of Methuselah means when he dies, it will be sent. So it almost looks like some sort of word prophecy prediction was given that he will live.

God will judge the earth, but it's going to be when Methuselah dies. And what's interesting is that it's really an act of grace that God, yes, God is going to bring judgment on the earth the year Methuselah dies, so he allows Methuselah to live longer than anyone else as sort of a symbol of his grace, allowing him to live beyond Adam or anyone else.

So if that's true, it speaks to God's grace. And the other man that we read about who's probably the most significant in the chapter is Noah. And of course, we know in chapter six, what does it say? Mankind had become very wicked, but Noah found grace in the eyes of the Lord.

So Noah is then born in Genesis 5, verses 28 and 29. And then we'll close with verse 32, and it says,. And Noah was 500 years old and begot, Noah begot Shem, Ham, and Japheth. And of course, these three, this is God hitting the reset button.

So mankind had become very, very wicked. God sends the flood, just wipes out mankind and starts over with this godly man, Noah and his family.