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Take the Long View
The most visited landmark in Germany is the cathedral in Cologne, Germany. Construction on the cathedral began in 1244 but wasn’t finished until 1880. There was a halt in construction in the 1500’s, likely due to the Lutheran reformation of the church in Germany. Finally, in 1880 the cathedral was completed according to its original medieval plan.
Think of it, the man who laid the first stone knew he wouldn’t live to worship in that building. He and the generations of men after him, knew that they were building something that would be enjoyed by those who came after them. Yet they gave themselves to the work. They toiled and labored and sacrificed for something they wouldn’t see completed.
They took the long view. They believed that their work was worth it because it would bear fruit long after they were gone. They weren’t living for today. They were living for the future. They believed that what they did mattered even if no one remembered them.
The Story of the Old World
As we move into Genesis 5, we’re coming to a text that reminds us that life is short, that God’s promises are worked out over time, and that we should therefore walk with God and live for things that matter eternally.
The chapter begins with a key phrase in the book of Genesis (5:1). We saw this phrase back in 2:4, we’ll see it again in 6:9, 10:1, 11:10, and other places. It’s a literary marker telling us that Moses, the author and compiler of Genesis, is moving on to a new section. It’s a heading that announces the history of the person mentioned. It’s like saying, “This is what became of _______.”
1:1-2:3 describe the creation of the world, 2:4-4:26 describe what happened to the world God created, now 5:1-6:8 give us the story of the old world, the world before the flood. Because the next break is at 6:9, 5:1-6:8 should be read together as a unit. We’ll look at chapter 5 today, and 6:1-8 next week.
Chapter 5 serves as a link between the creation of everything and the destruction of everything. Chapter 5 links creation and the flood, using a genealogy of ten patriarchs to do so.
Within Genesis, this chapter covers the longest time period in world history. But besides Adam and Noah, the chapter says very little about these ancient heroes. It simply tells us that they were born, had children, and that they died.
Death is Coming, But God’s Purposes Will Prevail
The main point of this chapter is that the line of Seth, the chosen people of God, the seed of the woman will survive. 4:26 hints that the line of Seth will be uniquely blessed. This is the beginning of the chosen line in Genesis. From Seth will come Noah, then Abraham. This is the line of the seed of the woman who’ll crush the seed of the serpent.
The remarkable thing about this genealogy is that it covers ten generations and thousands of years and brings us to the one who God will use to save the world, but little is said about most of these guys. Like the builders in Cologne, they laid their stones faithfully, died, were mostly forgotten, but Almighty God used them to push his purposes on the earth forward.
This genealogy also shows us that death is inevitable. But death won’t stop God’s purposes from moving forward. This genealogy should compel us to take the long view, to remember that life is short, and to lift our eyes from temporary things and set them on eternal things.
Made in Adam’s Likeness and Image
The story of the old world begins at the beginning. In verses 1-3, Moses starts the genealogy of Adam at the beginning. Verse 1 says that God made Adam in his likeness, echoing 1:26. Then in verse 3, it says that Adam had a son named Seth who was “in his own likeness, after his image.” This is meant to tell us that, if Seth is made in Adam’s image and likeness and is his son, then if Adam is made in God’s image and likeness, he is God’s son. As one Old Testament scholar says, “As Seth is a son of Adam, so Adam is a son of God.”[1]
Luke brings this out explicitly at the end of his genealogy of Jesus. He says that Jesus was the “son of Seth, the son of Adam, the son of God” (3:38). He’s alluding to Genesis 5:3.
This is significant for our understanding of the whole Bible. Later Moses says that Israel is God’s son (Ex. 4:22-23). Then in 2 Samuel 7, we learn that the seed of David’s line will be like a son to God (v. 14). So Jesus takes up the role of Adam, Israel, and David. He’s the perfect and ultimate “Son of God.”
In Genesis 5:1-3, Moses is telling us that God is the father of all humankind. God is saying, “Yes, Adam is the father of Seth and Seth the father of Enosh and so on, but I am the Father of them all.”[2] Quoting a pagan poet, Paul says in Acts 17:28, “For we are indeed his offspring.”
The point of this prologue to the genealogy is much like what Moses says to Israel right before he dies, “Is not (the Lord) your father, who created you, who made you and established you?” (Deut. 32:6) He wants the people of God to understand that, because God created them, he has a parental relationship with them.
Yes, the New Testament makes it clear that only those who’re in Christ are called “children of God” (Jn. 1:12). But what Moses is saying is that all people were made to know God in a relational way. Fellowship with God isn’t for a special class or caste, for those with degrees or money, or for those who keep the rules.
Everyone on the earth is made to know God, and everyone on earth has the tools to do so personally. Being made in the “likeness” of God is why we have spirituality, a conscience, a moral sense, and a mind to discern truth. Being made in the likeness of God means we have the tools we need to know God.
God Values You as a Father Values a Child
One of the reasons I’m stopping down on this truth is because I want you to understand that God sees you with more dignity than you may think. He created you, therefore, he values you as a father values a child.
In an excellent article on this text, Gavin Ortlund says:
“The person who wants to penetrate most deeply into the theological meaning of the imago Dei…may progress particularly by considering the experiences associated with having children. From the vantage point of Genesis 5:3, it is valid and even illuminating to associate the question, ‘What does it mean to say that we are created in the image of God?’ with the question, ‘How does it feel to hold your child in your arms for the very first time?’”[3]
Friend, God created you, therefore he values you, therefore he sees you. He doesn’t make junk. He’s not ignoring you. He’ll never lie to you or leave you. Everyone who repents of their sins and follows his Son will taste just how deep his delight is for those he’s made.
A Bunch of Really Old Guys
The rest of the chapter, verses 4-32, is the genealogy from Adam to Noah. Four points are made of each patriarch: their age when their first son was born, the length of their life, the fact that they had “other sons and daughters,” and their age at death (except for Enoch).
The great length of their ages is often a stumbling block for critics and skeptics. But several things can be said in response. First, it’s an evidence of God’s grace that the degeneration caused by sin leading to a shorter life only took effect gradually. Their long ages reflect God’s blessing on the line of Seth.
Scientifically, it may be that the water canopy that was above the earth (“the waters that were above the expanse,” 1:7) before the flood, filtered out deadly age-causing rays so that people weren’t subject to aging.
At the very least, what these ages are meant to tell us is that these guys lived a long time ago. But the precise ages given tell us that these were real guys who lived and died.
“And He Died”
The common refrain that punctuates each guys’ life (except Enoch), is “and he died.” The fact that Adam died (v. 5) is proof that God keeps his word. He told Adam that he’d die if he disobeyed him (2:17). He did, and he died. “The wages of sin is death” (Rom. 6:23).
Each man inherited the imago Dei from Adam and was a son of God, and yet also inherited the judgment that Adam’s sin provoked in God. Everyone is born bearing the image of God and wearing the stain of sin. Therefore, “just as sin came into the world through one man, and death through sin, and so death spread to all men because all sinned” (Rom. 5:12).
Ordinary and Faithful Men
In verses 6-20, we meet Seth, Enosh, Kenan, Mahalalel, and Jared. Three of these men only appear here in the Bible (Kenan, Mahalalel, and Jared). They’re an incognito and inconspicuous link between Adam and Noah. Hardly anything is said about them, but they play a vital role in forwarding God’s plan. Their line will produce Noah, then Abram, and then eventually Christ. The world will be blessed again and again because of their faithfulness.
I can’t help but read this and not think of our Keenen and our Jared, and so many brothers and sisters like them, who serve faithfully without applause or recognition. May their tribe increase!
The lesson for all of us is that God’s purposes are pushed forward through ordinary and faithful people. 4:26 implies that these were men of faith. They trusted and worshipped and proclaimed the Lord’s name. There were “other sons and daughters” not named. But these guys were named because the seed of the woman flowed through them. They preserved, protected, and promoted the truth and worship of God in their generation. And then they died.
Obscurity is Normal
I drove through a neighborhood near the church this week and noticed that the house that some former church members lived in had been demolished. All that was left was an empty lot. It was super sobering. They lived there for fifty years, raised their kids there, were faithful members of this church for longer than I’ve been alive, and then they died.
Few of you knew them. They weren’t influencers on social media. They did what they could when they could for the church. They pushed God’s plan forward in their family, in this church, and in this community for several decades, then they died.
This will be our story as well. Are you content to live in obscurity for the glory of God? One of my life mottos is, “Preach the gospel, die, and be forgotten.” Do you take the long view? Are your eyes stuck on things that will vanish like the mist one day?
Social media is not the devil, but it is shaping and forming us in ways that researchers are just now starting to come to terms with. It used to be normal to live in obscurity, to not travel widely, to only have a few close friends alongside your family. But now we’re so interconnected we’ve lost sight of the normalcy of obscurity. Social media feeds our desire to be consumed with self and image and followers and connections, tempting us to think that our worth is found in what we have or how we look rather than who we are and what we do.
Notoriety isn’t a sin, but obscurity is normal. From the beginning, God has pushed his plan forward through ordinary and faithful people. He sent his Son into the world as a day-laborer and ethnic minority in a backwater town in the greatest empire in the world. When Jesus returns, “the last will be first, and the first last” (Mt. 20:16). Faithful followers of Jesus won’t live in obscurity forever.
A Man Who Walked with God
In verses 21-24, we come to the mysterious man Enoch. Unlike the others who live and then die, Enoch “walked with God” and then “God took him” (v. 24). Enoch disappeared from the earth without experiencing a normal death, just like the prophet Elijah (2 Kgs. 2:1-12).
Why did Enoch escape death? And why does Moses tell us about the exceptional case of Enoch? It’s not just because he didn’t die. It’s because he “walked with God” (vv. 22, 24). Moses is emphasizing, through repetition, that Enoch was special because of who he was, not because he was taken by God.
This phrase is only used to describe one other person in the Bible (6:9). Abraham and Isaac were faithful servants who “walked before God” (17:1, 24:40, 48:15). The Lord walked in the garden (3:8). The priests were expected to walk with God (Mal. 2:6). Micah describes this as the basic requirement for all people (6:8).
Hebrews tells us that Enoch “pleased God” (11:6) and Jude 14 that he “prophesied,” or proclaimed, the Lord’s return and coming judgment. But for Moses, “walking with God” wasn’t about doing certain religious things or keeping a set of laws. It was a way of life (Deut. 30:15-16).
Walking with God wasn’t about keeping rules but about communing with God. “Walking with God” is a life of special intimacy with God. This doesn’t mean that the other patriarchs weren’t doing this. It only means that Enoch’s closeness and commitment to God, like elders in a local church, was obvious and extra-ordinary.
Enoch didn’t suffer the fate of Adam because he “walked with God.” Through Enoch, Moses is showing us that the pronouncement of death doesn’t have to be the last word about a person’s life, that life can be found despite the curse of death. In a world of death, life can be found for those who “walk with God.”
Are you walking with God? Do you delight in him? Have you found God to be the most satisfying thing in the universe? You’ll either find your life vertically, walking with God, or you’ll continually be shopping for it horizontally.
We may not be taken by God like Enoch, but for those who walk with God, death is a door to life. Jesus’ death for us on the cross means that upon our death we’re transferred immediately into the presence of God. Jesus said, “If anyone keeps my word, he will never see death…or taste death” (Jn. 8:51-52). Our physical death becomes our escape from death into life.
Notice that Enoch has the shortest lifespan in this list, 365 years. His short life is a reward, not a misfortune. His fate hints at a life beyond this one, a life to be preferred to this one. This also teaches us that long life isn’t the most sacred and honorable thing that can come from God. Being brought into the presence of God is. “What does it profit a man to gain the whole world and forfeit his soul?” (Mk. 8:36)
The Patron Saint of Geriatrics
In verses 25-27, we meet history’s oldest person, Methuselah, also known as the “patron saint of geriatrics.”[4] The fact that the longest living human doesn’t reach 1,000 years old, which is a single day in God’s sight (Ps. 90:4), is an indication that Scripture refuses to grant god-like status even to its greatest heroes.
One Who Will Bring Relief
At the end of the genealogy, we meet Lamech who has a prediction about his son Noah (vv. 28-32). Verse 29 reminds us of 3:17 where God curses the ground because of Adam’s sin. Does Lamech think his son will be a second Adam who’ll lift the curse?
Or are Lamech’s words a desperate call for help rather than a prophecy? Either way, there’s bitter irony here. Comfort does come with Noah, but a different kind of comfort than Lamech desires. What comes is a comforting of the Lord’s desire to destroy humanity. Therefore, it could be said that Lamech’s dream turns into a nightmare.
But Noah does bring comfort to the world in that he’s God’s means of saving humanity in the ark. It turns out that Noah’s mission will be more radical than anything Lamech envisioned.
The Only One Who Can Bring Relief
This chapter has highlighted mostly obscure men who lived faithfully in their generation, propelled the purposes of God forward, and then died. Verse 29 suggests that they all lived with a longing, a yearning for things to be set right. Isn’t relief what we all want? Relief from pain, toil, heartache, anger, loneliness, despair, and doubt? We want to be done with our sin. We want relief from porn and pride, from gossip and greed, from laziness and lying.
The gospel tells us that Jesus was pained to bring us relief, that he gladly lived an obscure life that pleased God, died a criminal’s death for our sins, and then rose to life in order to bring God’s children into free and full fellowship with the God who made them. All who confess their sin and turn from their sin and embrace Christ will be granted relief.
Death is coming, but God’s purposes will prevail. Those in Christ stare death in the face hopefully, knowing that death won’t have the last word.
This passage reminded me of the funerals I’ve done of saints who lived faithfully in their generation. Pat and Gale Brown, Jack and Kathryn White, James and Virginia Sypert, Gene Foster. They walked with God, lived in obscurity, played their part, stared death in the face hopefully, and now they’ve inherited their Father’s estate.
May this genealogy lead us to live for things that matter, even if no one sees or remembers. May we not live for today, but for the future. May we remember that even if we live as long as Methuselah, life is short and eternity is long. May we take the long view and be content if our story is “we lived and then we died.” And may we remember that that the Seed of the Woman, Jesus Christ, is why “and he died” won’t be the last word for us.
[1]Stephen Dempster, quoted in Peter J. Gentry and Stephen J. Wellum, Kingdom through Covenant: A Biblical-Theological Understanding of the Covenants, 2nd ed. (Wheaton, IL: Crossway, 2018), 231.
[2]John H. Sailhamer, The Pentateuch as Narrative: A Biblical-Theological Commentary (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 1992), 117.
[3]Ortlund, 688.
[4]Victor P. Hamilton, The Book of Genesis: Chapters 1-17, The New International Commentary on the Old Testament (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1990), 258.