Church: Reformed Baptist Church of Franconia | Text: Genesis 5 | Date: May 15, 2022 | Speaker: Fred Zaspel

We’ll talk about all that. All right, good. Last time, we looked at the genealogies more generally. We looked at Chapter 5 and Chapter 11, and really more broadly in the scriptures and ancient genealogies, trying to understand what they’re all about and how to understand them, how not to understand them. We saw that they’re not intended to be exhaustive for chronological calculations. I think we’re done with that. I may mention something else about that as we go along this morning. I think we can leave that now behind us.

What Is the Purpose of These Genealogies?

But that leaves the question then, what is the purpose of these genealogies? By the way, if you don’t have a handout, raise your hand. They’ll make sure you get one. What then is the purpose of these genealogies? If the purpose is not just to add up the numbers to get back to a date of creation, or the fall, or the flood, or whatever, what is the purpose? And I’ve listed a few there for you. They’re mostly pretty obvious.

One, to trace the basic outline of ancestors. Just to show the history of the descent, we’ve seen before that in order to do that, you can be selective. You don’t have to be exhaustive. It’s the same with all of the ancient genealogies that we have from the ancient Near East. They are not exhaustive. They’re selective. Hammurabi gives a genealogy, I think, three steps, all the way back to some big date, way back when. This is just standard as how the genealogies work. Number one, to show the basic outline of ancestors.

Two, to show the advance of humanity with regard to the creation mandate. We saw the creation mandate in chapter one. We saw it already in chapter two. And then we’ve seen how it started to pan out in Chapter 4, particularly with the descendants of Cain. But it’s God said, “This is what humanity is for. Be fruitful, multiply, subdue the earth, fill it.” And we see how that’s happening. And so Moses is tracing that out for us. Chapter 5 here, verses 1 to 3, traces us back to Adam, which reminds us of God’s blessing when he created Adam and Eve. Blessing means enablement. He enabled them to do what he created them to do. So with God’s blessing now, even under the curse, humanity continues to multiply, even though they die.

Third purpose, to demonstrate the unity of the human race in Adam. Now, this is very important. I’m actually going to just mention it here. And we’ll talk about it more when we get to chapter 10 with the descendants of Noah. But that’s one very important purpose of the genealogies early on. And then it becomes very important theologically as well that Adam is portrayed as the father of humanity. And all of us trace back to him. Adam then begins, bears a son in his likeness, and then he in his likeness, and God’s image continues through humanity in its union in Adam. That becomes important as we have seen with the last Adam who comes and is the new head of humanity.

Fourth purpose, to show connections with the faithful of the past. One of the interesting features of these genealogies is Chapter 4. We have, what is it, seven or eight links back from Adam through Cain. And we have Cain’s genealogy in Chapter 4. Then we come to Chapter 5. We have the lineage of Adam through Seth. And these genealogies are not just about heroes, but the people of God. Genesis 5 is about Seth’s line, climaxing in Lamech, who brings Noah. Eddie Johnston emailed me last week after the lesson on the genealogies and pointed out, which I hadn’t noticed before, and that is that the seventh from Adam through Cain is Lamech, who is that evil man who boasted of his vengefulness and cruelty to people, avenging himself. So the seventh from Adam through Cain is Lamech, but the seventh from Adam through Seth is Enoch, who walked with God. An interesting contrast. And I think that’s part of the point of chapter five, is to show this connection with the faithful of the past. Genesis 11, we will see then, continues the genealogy of Seth and focuses on him. And that brings us to Terah, who brings us to Abraham and the promise made to him.

All right, then finally, that leads us to the fifth purpose. And this, I suppose, overall is the big point. To trace the promised seed. Genesis 3:15. God promised that a seed of the woman would come and be a champion over the devil. The implicit promise is that he’ll fix this mess that has come through the serpent. So we have then the tracking initially of the promise from the first Adam, ultimately to the last Adam who will come as the champion over Satan. So we have Seth, and then we have Abraham, and then we have Isaac, Jacob, and we have Judah. We have the 12 tribes that come from Jacob. From Jacob, of them, Judah is the prominent one who receives the blessing, the promise of kingship coming through him. Through that, we come to David. And finally, we come to Jesus.

And all of that’s introduced for us here. And so we have then, I think in Moses’ own thinking even, tracking God’s sovereign and merciful oversight over humanity with regard to his saving purpose. He’s made a promise, and now let’s begin tracking it out with the faithful. And where does that promise go? And that seed, as we have seen, narrows from the woman’s seed to Seth and to Abraham and so on. And so when we read through these genealogies, one thing that we should notice is that God is being faithful to his promise. He made a promise, and now let’s watch how that promise narrows finally to the champion who will come. That promise may move very slowly over the centuries, but it does move steadily. And generation by generation, the promise narrows so that finally when he does come, we can confirm that he is the one who was promised. So in other words, then, these early genealogies advance the Bible story in an important way.

I had a book years ago in my library. I got rid of it finally, but a funny title. It said, Enjoying the Boring Parts of the Bible. And he looked at various patterns. Well, of course, one of the chapters was on genealogies. I can’t remember for sure, but I’m certain that this is one of the points that he would have made in that chapter, that this is in a sense tracking the Bible story for us and has a very important function in that regard. It has implications in these genealogies that are canon wide and Bible story long. That’s what it’s beginning to track out for us.

The Incredible Ages of These People

All right, let’s take a question here about what about the numbers, these incredible ages of these people who are named? First of all, note on the historicity of it. In terms of the evidence for it, there’s really no reason to doubt. First of all, it says it in God’s word; we should take it on that. But in addition to that, as we compare these with other ancient king’s lists and genealogies that we’ve found, these numbers that we find in the Bible in Genesis 5 are actually pretty low. They’re pretty small. The Sumerian king list that we have is a total of eight kings. And added together, it’s 241,000 years. Another king list that we have has 23 kings, and it’s 24,000 years. And so these lists that we have here are comparatively really rather low numbers. The total number of years that we have, if you add them up in Genesis 5, is 1,600 years. And even critical scholarship acknowledges that these numbers are relatively low in comparison. We get to chapter 11, as we’ve already mentioned. In recent weeks, these numbers start to get significantly lower.

Critics assume, when they come to a passage like this, they assume that the numbers must be fanciful because they can’t be believed. It’s not the way it is today. It can’t have been the way it was then. So they assume that they must be wrong. Some then, what do we call them, a little bit more of the moderate critics—I mean, they still want to be Christian, still want to have the Bible and believe it—and so they find a way to deal with this. And so there have been some creative ways of trying to explain it: that these years actually mean months, and the fathers that are mentioned are actually not fathers, but dynasties that are mentioned. But all of those kinds of attempts just proceed from a given assumption that the numbers can’t be accurate. And I don’t see any reason why they can’t be. Take God’s word for it in the scriptures. When we compare it to other ancient lists like this, it seems very moderate.

And there is an interesting statement, and I want you to look at it in Genesis 47, where Jacob here is speaking to Pharaoh. Genesis chapter 47, and I want you to notice what he says about his age. Genesis 47 verse 9. Remember now, Jacob is in Egypt. Jacob says to Pharaoh, “The days of the years of my sojourning are 130 years.” All right, this is an old guy. “Few and evil have been the days of the years of my life, and they have not attained to the days of the years of the life of my fathers in the days of their sojourning.” So Jacob now, at 130, is feeling old and evidently anticipating that he doesn’t have much time left. And he looks back to his ancestors and says that my years have not been that many. So here we have a confirmation from Jacob as well. He’s acknowledging that even at 130, he’s not what his forefathers were. In fact, as we’ve talked about, you compare the ages of these men, Genesis 5 and 11, to the ages of the men in Genesis 12 and following, even allowing for the old age of Abraham, the old age of Jacob, the old age of Moses. It’s nothing compared to what we’ve seen here, but it has begun to drop off.

All right, well then, what is the function then of these astounding ages and lifespans of these men? Why does Moses record this for us? We saw last time that the purpose is not simply to add up the years to get back to the date of the flood or something like that. And in fact, I mentioned this just in passing last time, but I’ll mention it more now, that Moses doesn’t just give us a list of names with the age of that man at the time when he bore a son. That would serve the purpose of adding up and going back. But he gives us a lot more information than that.

For example, in chapter 5 here in verse 3, he doesn’t say simply, “Adam lived 130 years and begat Seth.” But we have in verses 4 and 5, “The days of Adam after he begat Seth were 800 years. And he begat sons and daughters. And all the days that Adam lived were 930 years, and he died.” That extra detail in verses 4 and 5 is completely unnecessary if the purpose is simply to add up the numbers to get back to some date before then. These are extraneous to that, so it leaves the question: what then is the purpose? Why does Moses record this kind of detail for us?

And I mentioned it briefly last time, and I want to read you a quote from Warfield, Benjamin Warfield, saying the same. That if we isolate any of these men and just take the data that’s given to us by itself, and then leave aside this question of whether or not we can add these up to get back to a date, the natural conclusion that we draw from it has to do with the strength and the vigor of humanity in that day. And so Warfield writes:

When we are told of any man that he was 130 years old when he begat his heir, and lived after that 800 years, begetting sons and daughters, dying only at the age of 930 years. All these items cooperate to make a vivid impression upon us of the vigor and grandeur of humanity in those old days of the world’s prime. In a sense, different indeed from that which words bear in Genesis 6, but full of meaning to us, we exclaim, “Surely there were giants in those days.” This is the impression which the items of information inevitably make on us, and it’s the impression they were intended to make on us, as is proved by the simple fact that they are adapted in all of their items to make this impression, while only a small portion of them can be utilized for the purpose of chronological calculations.

All right, and then he adds to that, that having found this purpose for all of the accounts, that it’s demonstrating the vigor and the grandeur of humanity in those days, there’s no need to find another purpose for it.

An Overview of Chapter 5

All right, so there we have the ages and the lifespans from those days. Now an overview of chapter 5. We have 10 paragraphs in chapter 5. 1 to 5 is about Adam, verses 6 to 8 is about Seth, 9 to 11 Enosh, and so on as I have it listed for you in the handout. By the way, the handout is for you on Zoom. It’s in the email as well if you’d like it. Throughout this, as I mentioned earlier when we started with some questions, each of these paragraphs is symmetrically structured, most all of them the same. So-and-so lived X number of years, then fathered this guy, and then he lived X number of years after that, and he fathered this guy, and fathering sons and daughters, and then the total lifespan is this. And that’s the structure of each of these paragraphs.

There are slight deviations from that pattern throughout the chapter. We have some extra narrative that’s given to us within the genealogy on a few of the guys. So Adam, we have some detail offered in verses 3 to 5. He fathered a child in his image, a brief narrative comment added to the genealogy. Enoch, we have the comment that he walked with God. Lamech adds the details about the naming of his son Noah. And then Noah is slightly different in that we have three sons who are named. So that’s the pattern of the chapter.

Now notice the refrain going through. I mentioned this earlier. This surely is one of the big points of Genesis chapter 5: “And he died.” We have it in verse 5, verse 8, verse 11, 14, 17, and so on. And he died, and he died, and he died, and he died. Now, why does he include this? He doesn’t, interestingly, he doesn’t include that refrain in chapter 11 when he gives the genealogies. He gives all of the other identical genealogical information, but he doesn’t include the “and he died.” He, just in chapter 11, gives the total number of years.

So then the question: why does he include it here? And I think the first answer is that he’s highlighting the fallen condition of humanity. God had said to Adam, “The day that you eat of it, you shall die.” When Adam eats of the fruit, God pronounces judgment, and he says, “You’ll return to dust. From dust you are, to dust you’ll return.” And now we have Adam bearing children in his likeness, and each of them dies, and the next one comes, and he dies, and the next one comes, and he dies. And we see the outworking of God’s judgment on humanity. Death, in each of its instances—in every instance of death, we’re reminded of the judgment of God. Don’t misunderstand that. That doesn’t mean it’s a tit-for-tat arrangement that this man died because he did that sin or God was judging him for that particular thing that he did. That’s not what I’m saying. God’s judgment has come on humanity, and in every instance of death, we’re reminded of it. And I think that’s what Moses is highlighting for us here throughout chapter 5. He died, and he died, and he died, and he died, and they all died. And they lived incredible ages, but they died.

But then that brings us to another purpose, I think, that Moses may have in recording this refrain, “and he died, and he died.” And that is to highlight the exception. Verses 18 to 24, we have Enoch. When Jared lived 162 years, he fathered Enoch. Jared lived after he fathered Enoch 800 years and had sons and daughters. All the days of Jared were 962 years, and he died. When Enoch lived 65 years, he fathered Methuselah. Enoch walked with God after he fathered Methuselah 300 years and had other sons and daughters. Thus, all the days of Enoch were 365 years. Enoch walked with God and he was not, for God took him. So here we have an exception. Everybody dies. Everybody dies. Everybody dies. But not Enoch. He doesn’t die. God takes him. He’s just transported to glory, a kind of pre-rapture rapture of some kind. God took him up. Sudden removal of some kind. He’s gone.

Now, the next question, then, is why highlight Enoch? This is a fascinating event. Why highlight it? Well, obviously, the most obvious answer is because it’s the exception. Everybody dies, but not Enoch. And that, then, brings us to the other part of the answer. Why didn’t Enoch die? And the answer we’re left with is because he walked with God. That’s what we’re told. He was obedient. He walked in close fellowship with God. It wasn’t a mere external kind of piety. Here was a man who walked with God in every sense of the term.

Now we find that term, “walked with God,” defined a little better. If you’d like, turn over the page to chapter 6 and verse 9. This expression is used of Noah as well. Chapter 6 and verse 9, “Noah was a righteous man, blameless in his generation. Noah walked with God.” If you’d like to look at chapter 17, verses 1 and 2, we have it one more time, and that’s with regard to Abram. Abram was 99 years old. The Lord appeared to Abram and said, “I am God Almighty. Walk before me and be blameless that I may make my covenant between me and you and may multiply you greatly.” So this walking with God—walking before Him, walking with God—is an expression of piety. This man was obedient. He walked in close fellowship with God. He had a heart to please God. And in Enoch’s case, God made an exception and just took him, and he never had to experience death.

And the implication then is that walking with God is the way of blessing in this life. It may not be that we are exempted from death. The last generation will be exempted from death when Christ returns. But until then, there are no exceptions, but Enoch was. The lesson that we’re left with is that walking with God is the way of blessing. We have an old song in the hymnals that expresses that: “Trust and obey, there’s no other way to be happy in Jesus but to trust and obey.” That’s the idea we’re left with in these verses. The reason that Enoch didn’t share the fate of all the others around him who died is that he walked with God.

I think that serves a function with Moses as well, not just generally or even theologically to make that point, but to press the point with Israel. Keep in mind who he’s writing for now. This is around the time of the Exodus. Moses is recording this ancient history for Israel and teaching them, as the covenant will stipulate, that obedience is the way of blessing. There might be more subtle lessons in that as well. Deuteronomy chapter 30, Moses notes to Israel that you’re not going to walk in God’s ways. You’re not going to follow him. And Moses knew that ahead of time. You’re rebellious. God has not circumcised your heart, and you won’t obey. And then in Deuteronomy 28 to 30, then he highlights what will happen to Israel because they don’t obey. But here, Enoch did obey. Turn the page, Noah did obey. Turn a few pages, Abraham did obey. These men walked with God and these men were blessed. And there might be a hint in that as well, theologically, that the way of blessing is not the way of the law. The way of the law doesn’t produce. Moses is giving it. Israel won’t follow it. But these men did follow it and were blessed.

All right, and then we come to verses 25 to 27. Methuselah. The man who lived longer than any other in history. Verse 25, “When Methuselah had lived 187 years, he fathered Lamech. Methuselah lived after he fathered Lamech 782 years and had other sons and daughters. Thus, all the days of Methuselah were 969 years, and he died.” Astounding. Lived almost 1,000 years. Last year, when I was home to visit my mother, we were going through the house. It was clear she was going to have to move to a retirement center. And so we’re looking through all the things and sorting out things. And looking through some of the books, I found an old book of poems. And it had a poem about Methuselah. And I had to save it for you, and now I can read it to you.

Methuselah ate what he found on his plate.
And never, as people do now,
did he note the amount of the calorie count.
He ate it because it was chow.
He wasn’t disturbed as, at dinner, he sat
devouring a roast or a pie
to think it was lacking in granular fat
or a couple of vitamins shy.
He cheerfully chewed each species of food,
unmindful of troubles or fears,
lest his health may be hurt by some fancy dessert.
And he lived over 900 years.

That’s it. Verses 28 to 32 then, we are introduced—and just introduced—to Noah. And that’s going to bring us to the next major section of this section of Genesis with the flood account, of course. But verses 28 to 32, “When Lamech had lived 182 years, he fathered a son and called his name Noah, saying, ‘Out of the ground that the Lord has cursed, this one shall bring us relief from our work and from the painful toil of our hands.’ Lamech lived after he fathered Noah 595 years and had other sons and daughters. Thus, all the days of Lamech were 777 years and he died. After Noah was 500 years old, he fathered Shem, Ham, and Japheth.”

Now, this is one of those breaks in the structure of the genealogy. And he gives us a little bit of narrative, this time about Lamech and naming his son. And there’s some emphasis now on the naming of Noah and how it is significant. Noah’s name simply means “rest.” And Lamech makes reference here, essentially back to Genesis 3, and the judgment that God had pronounced on the earth and its resistance to bringing produce from it. And he says, “Noah will bring us rest and relief from our work. Let’s name him Rest, because he will bring us relief from our work and from the painful toil of our hands.”

And it’s worth noting here that Moses here leaves the genealogy and begins the flood story, beginning in chapter 6 and then through chapter 9. And he doesn’t record here Noah’s death until the end of chapter 9. Finally, it’s mentioned there after the account of the flood. And we’re left with a kind of a curious observation that, like Enoch, Noah was spared from death. Not in the same sense that Enoch was, but he was spared from the death and the judgment of the flood. And here we have two men who walked with God. Enoch walked with God. God took him. He was not. He never died. And here we have Noah, who was spared from the death and the judgment of the flood, who also walked with God. Chapter 6 and verse 9 makes that point. Eventually, of course, Noah did die, the end of chapter 9, verses 28 and 29. After the flood, Noah lived 350 years. All the days of Noah were 950 years, and he died.

So there they finish this part of the genealogy. And all of this, “and he died,” of course, is a reminder of the judgment in chapter 3 that came on humanity. Enoch, in verse 24, might suggest to us that death is not an absolute necessity. It’s not what we’d call an ontological necessity. It came because of sin, and Enoch and Noah both escaped death, and these are the men who walked with God. I think there’s another observation about Enoch. You have these astounding lifespans through chapter five—600 years, 800 years, and three of them at least, over 900 years. Enoch is only 365 years. And he was not, and God took him. So Enoch, in comparison, is a very young man. Hard to say that, isn’t it? 365, just a spring chicken. But he’s only 365 when God takes him. And the implication seems to be that being in the presence of God is a greater privilege than this earthly life. God took him.

Paul echoes that somewhat in Philippians when he talks about whether he would rather go now and be with Christ or stay here and serve Christ in this life. I think we’re hinted of that with Enoch as well. But verse 32 then, Noah gives rest, relief from the curse. He did that in the sense that he carried them through the flood and humanity was spared through Noah. This becomes a picture of what finally Noah’s descendant will do, Jesus, and he’ll overcome death entirely and give climactic rest to the people of God. And that takes us, of course, to the book of Revelation and the end of the story where Christ, who has died, been raised from the dead, conquered death, and now gives resurrection to all of his people.

I think there’s an echo of all of this. I think there’s an echo of Genesis chapter 5 in Revelation 1, where John says, “When I saw him, I fell at his feet as though dead. But he laid his right hand on me saying, ‘Fear not, for I am the first and the last, the living one. I died, and behold, I’m alive forevermore, and I have the keys of death and Hades.'” And that, of course, takes us to the end of the Book of Revelation, where we find that death shall be no more. A reversal of the curse through Noah’s descendant, who finally brings rest in a climactic sense. So in a sense, then, Genesis 5—I was going to say, capsulizes the Bible story, but at least anticipates it as we look back at it. Fallen humanity given redemptive rest in the promised champion who is coming, whose line is traced through these many links in the genealogy of chapter 5. All right, any questions? We’ve got a minute. Yes?