Life & Death
In the Beginning: A Study in Genesis • Sermon • Submitted • Presented • 30:09
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I get to do one of my favorite things this morning. I enjoy this because I’m a little weird. But mostly, this is one of my favorite things simply because I love the Bible. God’s Word is so rich, so sweet, so life-giving; even the parts of it that don’t seem to be are.
If you have ever set out to read the Bible in its entirety, you have come to those chapters and sections where you think, “Eh, I can skip this and won’t miss much,” or you might think: “Another long list of names? Another genealogy, really? What in the world?”
There are certainly parts of the Bible that feel like that. We’re probably all tempted, from time to time, year to year, to skip right over those chapters. And doing so isn’t that big of a deal; don’t feel badly if you, like me, have skipped right over Genesis 5 or those first few chapters of Numbers.
Don’t get down on yourself. There is, therefore, now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus. We do not deal in guilt. Don’t feel guilty for skipping or wanting to skip parts of what you read.
However, I do want us to see and to savor every part of God’s Word. This is why I preach, why we preach, the way we do. We could jump around and hit our favorite books, favorite chapters, favorite verses, favorite stories in the Bible and that wouldn’t be bad.
But when we jump around and touch only on topics and passages we like, we miss what God has for us in sections like this.
Hear me, friends: God’s Word is of infinite value—every word of it.
When missionaries and Bible translators first went to Papua New Guinea to share the gospel with the people there, it took them some time to learn the language and to get the Bible into their language and specific dialects. Some Bible translators started translating the Gospel of Matthew, but instead of starting in Matthew 1 and spending time translating all the names in the genealogy of Jesus, they just skipped over that and went right into what they thought was important.
After a few years of ministry there, they came back and added the newly translated genealogy to the beginning of Matthew. And that’s when things started to click for the New Guineans.
After reading Jesus’ genealogy, a New Guinean gentlemen approached the missionaries/Bible translators and said, “Oh, so this Jesus was a real person!”
It made all the difference to those folk there. And I’d argue that it makes a significant difference for us, too. These seemingly skippable chapters are not throw-aways. We don’t ignore them. We dive in and ask the Holy Spirit to give us understanding. We believe that this and every other word of the 66 books that make up the Bible are God-breathed and useful for teaching, rebuking, correcting, and training in righteousness.
>If you have your Bible (and I hope you do), please turn with me to Genesis 5. If you are able and willing to stand for a few minutes, please stand with me for the reading of God’s Holy Word, out of reverence for Him:
1 This is the written account of Adam’s family line.
When God created mankind, he made them in the likeness of God. 2 He created them male and female and blessed them. And he named them “Mankind” when they were created.
3 When Adam had lived 130 years, he had a son in his own likeness, in his own image; and he named him Seth. 4 After Seth was born, Adam lived 800 years and had other sons and daughters. 5 Altogether, Adam lived a total of 930 years, and then he died.
6 When Seth had lived 105 years, he became the father of Enosh. 7 After he became the father of Enosh, Seth lived 807 years and had other sons and daughters. 8 Altogether, Seth lived a total of 912 years, and then he died.
9 When Enosh had lived 90 years, he became the father of Kenan. 10 After he became the father of Kenan, Enosh lived 815 years and had other sons and daughters. 11 Altogether, Enosh lived a total of 905 years, and then he died.
12 When Kenan had lived 70 years, he became the father of Mahalalel. 13 After he became the father of Mahalalel, Kenan lived 840 years and had other sons and daughters. 14 Altogether, Kenan lived a total of 910 years, and then he died.
15 When Mahalalel had lived 65 years, he became the father of Jared. 16 After he became the father of Jared, Mahalalel lived 830 years and had other sons and daughters. 17 Altogether, Mahalalel lived a total of 895 years, and then he died.
18 When Jared had lived 162 years, he became the father of Enoch. 19 After he became the father of Enoch, Jared lived 800 years and had other sons and daughters. 20 Altogether, Jared lived a total of 962 years, and then he died.
21 When Enoch had lived 65 years, he became the father of Methuselah. 22 After he became the father of Methuselah, Enoch walked faithfully with God 300 years and had other sons and daughters. 23 Altogether, Enoch lived a total of 365 years. 24 Enoch walked faithfully with God; then he was no more, because God took him away.
25 When Methuselah had lived 187 years, he became the father of Lamech. 26 After he became the father of Lamech, Methuselah lived 782 years and had other sons and daughters. 27 Altogether, Methuselah lived a total of 969 years, and then he died.
28 When Lamech had lived 182 years, he had a son. 29 He named him Noah and said, “He will comfort us in the labor and painful toil of our hands caused by the ground the Lord has cursed.” 30 After Noah was born, Lamech lived 595 years and had other sons and daughters. 31 Altogether, Lamech lived a total of 777 years, and then he died.
32 After Noah was 500 years old, he became the father of Shem, Ham and Japheth.
May the Lord add His blessing to the reading of His Holy Word!
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If we were to skip this chapter, we’d miss much. We’d miss out on yet another reminder of the Creator’s creative power and His blessing of His creation.
Genesis 5 shows its readers that God gave us:
Relationships
Relationships
Verses 1-2 are good, important, not-to-be-missed reminders of the fact that we—all of us—have been created by God, for God, in the image of God.
No matter what you think of that person, no matter how much you might dislike that person or those people, you, Christian, must remember that they, like you, are made in the image and likeness of God.
1 This is the written account of Adam’s family line.
When God created mankind, he made them in the likeness of God. 2 He created them male and female and blessed them. And he named them “Mankind” when they were created.
We all deal with difficult people, yeah? Some of us are related to difficult people. It’s not for nothing that this is here for us again—When God created mankind, He made them in the likeness of God. He created them male and female and blessed them.
We need to hammer into our heads and have the Holy Spirit convict us when we’re tempted to dismiss a person or actively hate a person or a people. Remember: they are created by God, blessed by God, and precious in God’s sight.
May we never forget or treat people like they are any less than that!
As the author of Genesis launches into the generations, we notice that God gives great significance to individual people.
10 patriarchs are mentioned in this chapter, their ages recorded, and their sons’ names also.
Part of God’s blessing is found in the relationships each of these men have with one another, with those around them. To be a human person is to be in a given set of relationships, to be a creature in time, with a past and a future.
To be made in God’s image, first and foremost, means to be in a certain relationship with Him.
This is by default and design. We are, each of us, made to be in relationship with God. And whether or not we acknowledge Him or worship Him or serve Him or recognize Him, we are inseparably united to Him.
In Him we live and move and have our being. This is true for each and every person, Christ-follower and atheist and everyone in between.
You can distance yourself from God and pretend or believe that He doesn’t exist, but you do not exist apart from Him. You don’t breathe without Him. You don’t wake up in the morning without Him. This planet doesn’t keep spinning apart from His sovereign control.
What’s more, God made sure that His image-bearers could be restored and reconciled (made friendly again) with Him. Jesus Christ came to save sinners, to reconcile us to the Father, to become sin for us so that we might become the righteousness of God.
Our relationship with God is primary.
It’s our relationship with God which then gives meaning to our relationships with one another.
This genealogy (along with all the genealogies in the Bible) is meant, in part, to remind us of the relationships God has granted us and the blessing that can come through them. God works through families; we see this throughout the Bible and throughout history.
The psalmist states that God sets the lonely in families. This is gloriously true. I am beyond thankful for my family (my wife and kids, my parents and sister, aunts, uncles, cousins). And I am immeasurably thankful for my family—my brothers and sisters in Christ.
We have been blessed by God immensely—to have the privilege of a relationship with Him and, in Christ, to be reconciled and restored, saved and secure in Him. And to have the blessing of family and friends, relationships, both familial and spiritual.
Genesis 5 shows its readers that God gave us:
Life
Life
Some cultures in history worked with a cyclical view of history in which all things are merely part of an endless turning of the wheel of nature, with no start, no end, no significance.
The Old Testament, on the other hand, views time as linear. There was a beginning for us—Created by the Creator, Created out of Nothing. Genesis 5:1 reminds us of that once more; it’s important.
There was a beginning.
There will be an end. Much of this chapter is about endings: “and he died…and he died…and he died…and he died...”
In between the beginning and the end, unique and unrepeatable events happen. People live their lives, make their choices, marry, have children, celebrate their joys and Super Bowl victories, reap the result of their failures.
Each and every event has significance.
Biblical faith gives a view of time and history which has a beginning and an end. Within such a timeline, the activities of individual people have purpose, direction, achievement.
What we do matters.
What we do makes a difference in the world. This is incredible! Think about it: what you do, what I do, what we do together has an impact on people, on our community, on the Kingdom of God.
The LIFE God has given us is meant to be used to tell others about Him, to invite them to learn about Jesus. With our LIFE we get to serve one another and give our lives for the sake of the gospel.
What we do matters. Like these men of old, we live for a moment in time. The dash ( — ) that will find its place between our date of birth and the date of our death signifies the impact afforded to us by our gracious Creator.
What a gift this LIFE is!
Part of the reason why the Bible bothers with genealogies is this: we are people who belong within a significant history. There is no cosmic fatalism here.
We are reminded that there is a limit to the time we are allotted on earth. Our individual lives had a beginning (mine in 1983, John Hough’s in 1883).
Our individual lives had a beginning and will have an end. There was a time before us when we were not; a time of non-being for each of us before our birth. And though we were not there, we know and believe and affirm God was there.
He is from everlasting to everlasting. Eternal. Always. The God who is Creator of the heavens and the earth has given me my allotted lifetime—what a blessing from a loving God!
Death
Death
We live and we die. This, as highlighted in Genesis 5 over and over, is the outworking of God’s word to Adam:
17 but you must not eat from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, for when you eat from it you will certainly die.”
You will certainly die...
The striking mark of Genesis 5 is the universality of the rule of death. Each of these characters (save one), we’re told, lived for a while—and for some of them, apparently quite a while!—and then he died, he died, he died, he died, and he died.
One of the more frequent questions that gets posed here has to do with the long, long lives of the first people in Genesis.
Other ancient Near eastern texts attribute even longer lives to earlier generations. For example, the Sumerian King List mentions kings who reign—interestingly before a flood—for periods of 28,800, 36,000, and 43,200 years.
Given the lifespan of people today (and since the flood) is much shorted than those listed from Adam to Noah, the question is: “Should we take this at face value? Is this symbolic? A code of some sort?”
The traditional understanding is that the ages of these pre-diluvian gentlemen should be taken at face value. Something apparently changed in the make-up of the earth and/or in the physiology of humans after the flood, resulting in the rapid decline in longevity. There was then, a stabilizing “normal” life span in and around the range of 70 or 80 years (Psalm 90:10).
The point of Genesis 5 is not to get hung up on the ages of individual people (though it might serve you well to know some of the trivia, like Methuselah is the oldest person in the Bible living for 969 years).
The point of Genesis 5 is rather that people actually lived and actually died, regardless of how long their earthly lives.
The descendents of Adam, of Seth, are subject to the power of death. Our life in time will end. Death overshadows us. Death is judgment. Death is the wages of our sin. From the first fall in the garden, death was the lot of all mankind.
Death is the Last Enemy. We deal in death from Genesis 3 onward. We need Genesis 5 and its repetition—he died, he died, he died, he died—in order to appreciate the fact that death will find each and every one of us.
We need to feel the weight of death in order to fully appreciate the picture of Jesus’ confrontation with death in the NT.
We are, finally, at long last, filled with hope. We may be spared the pain and fear of death only because Another has suffered it in His death for us.
In Christ, the Last Enemy is overcome, and the power of resurrection life is displayed.
It is because Jesus has suffered death for us—facing for us in the Garden of Gethsemane and on the Cross of Calvary the consequence announced in the Garden of Eden.
Jesus was cut-off from the source of life. Jesus bore the judgment of God for human sin, all so we could be welcomed back into fellowship with the Father.
Only in Christ do we know that when we reach the edge of our life in time, He stands beside us.
Only in Christ do we hear the Father’s voice welcoming us home, telling us that our death is no longer our enemy, but is merely a falling asleep in Christ.
Without Christ, we would be left with Genesis 5 and the mournful, awful refrain: and he died, and he died, and he died, and he died.
Christ’s death takes away forever the sting of death and the victory of death. Death has been swallowed up in victory!
We speak of the universality of death. It’s gonna happen to all of you; you won’t be the exception unless Christ returns to set the world at rights during our lifetime, we will die.
Death is universal. And yet, not quite. One man in Genesis 5 breaks the pattern.
21 When Enoch had lived 65 years, he became the father of Methuselah. 22 After he became the father of Methuselah, Enoch walked faithfully with God 300 years and had other sons and daughters. 23 Altogether, Enoch lived a total of 365 years. 24 Enoch walked faithfully with God; then he was no more, because God took him away.
Enoch is numbered among other heroes of the faith:
5 By faith Enoch was taken from this life, so that he did not experience death: “He could not be found, because God had taken him away.” For before he was taken, he was commended as one who pleased God.
Twice in Genesis 5, Enoch is said to have walked faithfully with God. Enoch walked in faith with God and did not experience death.
Here is a vivid portrayal of the power of God over death; the first example of God’s power over death, just in case we were in doubt or had questions about His power.
Enoch, like Elijah, is caught up into the heavens. Enoch was no more, because God took him away.
Enoch’s being taken by Go without dying anticipates the eternal resurrection life that Christ gives to His own:
11 And if the Spirit of him who raised Jesus from the dead is living in you, he who raised Christ from the dead will also give life to your mortal bodies because of his Spirit who lives in you.
Genesis 5 teaches us some important truths about relationships, about life and death.
And, in many ways, Genesis 5 teaches us about God and His plan to rescue and restore mankind to Himself. God, the Just, has to judge sin. He couldn’t not judge the sin of Adam and Eve, of Noah, of David; He must judge sin—yours and mine.
But God, though just, is also the One who justifies. We live and we die, Genesis 5 makes this plain as day. But we do not despair! We are not caught in an endless cycle of sinfulness, of death and separation.
For God who gives us life offers us eternal life through Jesus Christ, a reconciled relationship with our Heavenly Father—the relationship we were made for, the relationship we had in the Garden. Though we live and die, we can live forever in Him.
23 for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, 24 and all are justified freely by his grace through the redemption that came by Christ Jesus. 25 God presented Christ as a sacrifice of atonement, through the shedding of his blood—to be received by faith. He did this to demonstrate his righteousness, because in his forbearance he had left the sins committed beforehand unpunished—26 he did it to demonstrate his righteousness at the present time, so as to be just and the one who justifies those who have faith in Jesus.