“It’s Beginning to Look a Lot Like Christmas - The Line of Adam”
(Genesis 5:1-32)
I remember the first time I heard a sermon on this chapter, and I was wondering, how are we going to stay awake through this one? I had glossed over it a few times and really didn’t think it served any purpose except for real history buffs. But I left that day with a much greater appreciation of how God put everything in the Bible for a reason. Hopefully this can happen for you as well, even as we prepare for Christmas.
Why did God give us this chapter of scripture? To show what happens because of sin. To show what happens when we “walk with God”. To show how God is in the details. One thing we don’t want to do is get lost in figuring out the accuracy of the genealogies. They were not meant to be complete.
There are no idle words in the Bible however, and though not everyone is mentioned, those who are can be considered important figures during this time, both for how they lived and even more so for where they are in the birth line of the savior. Many scholars have gotten bogged down in the numbers only to miss the message.
So what is the message in this list of names? Well let’s start with:
I. A Reminder That God is Our Creator
For the first time the Bible is called a book, indicating that some kind of writing was in use by the time of Noah. This is the book of the generations of the first Adam, then in Matthew 1:1, we have the book of the genealogy of Christ, the second Adam.
God makes a very obvious point here that Seth was in Adam’s image, not God’s. This gives us more insight into what “in God’s image and likeness” means. Not so much is it physical, but Seth is fathered with the nature of his father, that of a fallen sinner destined for death, whereas Adam was created in God’s image, or nature, until He sinned.
This reminder is not just to let us know that God is the creator but also that we are accountable to Him. Next is:
II. A Recognition of Children as a Blessing
Remember the blessing “be fruitful and multiply”? Well, even with all the curses coming down, God maintains this blessing. Children are a blessing and have become the solution to death in terms of keeping our legacy or seed going. God continues to give us the ability that he has to create life. Let’s look at Isaiah’s prophetic words about a special child being a blessing to come:
Isaiah 7:10-14 Moreover the LORD spoke again to Ahaz, saying, 11“Ask a sign for yourself from the LORD your God; ask it either in the depth or in the height above.” (in other words, no matter what your situation)
12But Ahaz said, “I will not ask, nor will I test the LORD!”
13Then he said, “Hear now, O house of David! Is it a small thing for you to weary men, but will you weary my God also? 14Therefore the Lord Himself will give you a sign: Behold, the virgin shall conceive and bear a Son, and shall call His name Immanuel (or God with US).
9:6 For unto us a Child is born,
Unto us a Son is given;
And the government will be upon His shoulder.
And His name will be called
Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God,
Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace.
11:1-5 There shall come forth a shoot from the stump of Jesse,
and a branch from his roots shall bear fruit. (Jesus is the branch)
2And the Spirit of the LORD shall rest upon him,
the Spirit of wisdom and understanding,
the Spirit of counsel and might,
the Spirit of knowledge and the fear of the LORD.
3And his delight shall be in the fear of the LORD. He shall not judge by what his eyes see,
or decide disputes by what his ears hear,
4but with righteousness he shall judge the poor,
and decide with equity for the meek of the earth;
and he shall strike the earth with the rod of his mouth,
and with the breath of his lips he shall kill the wicked.
5Righteousness shall be the belt of his waist,
and faithfulness the belt of his loins.
Have you ever wondered why God sent the Savior as a baby? Could it be that one of the reasons was to reinforce the idea that children are a blessing and that we have this God given ability to create life and have hope through our children?
Back to our Genesis passage we are shown that:
III. A Result of Sin is Physical Death
Clearly, one of the main points in this chapter is that sin leads to death no matter who you are, and that following God as Enoch did, defeats death and allows an eternal relationship with God. This is the good line of Seth, and all we hear with one exception is, “and he died”. Starting with Adam’s death, the death sentence God gave humanity is clearly in place for all humanity good or bad.
In case there is any doubt let’s read, Romans 5:12-14 – “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 – for sin indeed was in the world before the law was given, but sin is not counted where there is no law. Yet death reigned from Adam to Moses, even over those whose sinning was not like the transgression of Adam, who was a type of the one who was to come.”
No exceptions, sin equals death. We also see that:
IV. A Relationship With God Overcomes Judgment
Why are Enoch and Noah singled out? Though no human has ever been perfect, Enoch especially, and Noah to some degree followed and witnessed about God in an extraordinary way. In heaven too there will be places of honor for our works on earth. They will be tested by fire. Our salvation doesn’t necessarily depend on them, but the Bible says in Romans 2 that we will be honored in heaven for good works in this life, and judged for our unrighteous ones.
Revelation 20:12-13 “And I saw the dead, small and great, standing before God, and books were opened. And another book was opened, which is the Book of Life. And the dead were judged according to their works, by the things which were written in the books. The sea gave up the dead who were in it, and Death and Hades delivered up the dead who were in them. And they were judged, each one according to his works.”
Our relationship with God is reflected in how we live, and there will be judgment whether we like the sound of it or not.
Let’s get back to Enoch who had by far the shortest life on this list, a mere 365 years. This is a little over a third of the normal life span at that time, as was Jesus’ lifespan in his time.
Again it may be that Enoch is being taken to be with God early so that he may not have to suffer as long under the curse that is on all people at this time. It’s also difficult to walk with God and prophesy against people’s sin consistently for a long time, in a culture that doesn’t want to hear about it. Here, in Enoch we have one of the few humans whose walk with God was never interrupted.
This Enoch, not to be confused with Cain’s first son from last time, was a prophet as we see in Jude 14-15 where it says:
“It was also about these (sinners) that Enoch, the seventh from Adam, prophesied, saying, Behold, the Lord comes with ten thousands of his holy ones, to execute judgment on all and to convict all the ungodly of all their deeds of ungodliness that they have committed in such an ungodly way, and of all the harsh things that ungodly sinners have spoken against him.” Four “alls” and four “ungodlies”. I think he is making a point about God’s judgment.
This is really a prophesy of the second coming of Christ, so it is still very relevant for us today. Jesus is going to judge all ungodliness. Enoch was then “translated” or taken up to be with God as confirmed in Hebrews 11:5. Elijah was the other prophet who was taken up in this way. Interestingly, Enoch prophesied half way between Adam and Abraham, and Elijah prophesied half way between Abraham and Christ.
Enoch’s being taken up is already a sign of hope for those who believe and are obedient to the Lord. People witnessed this. I have to read a little anecdote I read about this: 7141
Not only does Enoch leave at the youngest age in this genealogy, his son Methuselah was the oldest. I am not sure he made it into the Guinness book of records though he lived to 969 and then died the year of the flood, so he didn’t have to witness it.
This Lamech we speak of today, unlike the wretched Lamech from last time, is a prophet and father of the other outstanding person in this genealogy, Noah, who by his given name which means “rest”, is predicted by his father to be a relief from the curse that causes them to work so hard to get anything from the ground. And sure enough:
V. A Relief From the Curse is Provided through Noah
Noah had three sons that accompanied him on the Ark, Shem, Ham, and Japheth. One of his sons, Shem, is the blessed one whose name means “name”, and signifies that his will be the line of the “name above all names”. Ham’s son Canaan is cursed, and Japheth gets a partial blessing by being allowed to reside with his brother Shem (we see all of this in Chapter 9). Notice the scripture says the God of Shem, indicating that he was the one of the family that had a real relationship with God and was chosen by God.
We get to the end of the description of Shem’s descendents in Chapter 9 and see that Terah from Shem’s line is the father of Abram with whom God made the great everlasting covenant and promised a miracle son in Isaac. Not by coincidence did God then instruct Abraham to sacrifice his son Isaac. This was a foreshadowing of God the Father sacrificing his promised miracle son. But just before Abraham was about to obey God and kill his son, a sheep was provided, obviously representing Jesus the Lamb, and showing that relief was coming for those who obey God.
Isaac then fathered Jacob and as we continue down Shem’s line we see Jesse come from the pagan Ruth, Jesse the father of King David. Keep following the Davidic line in Matthew 1 and eventually we have Joseph who becomes the non-blood father of Jesus. Twenty Eight generations from God’s promise to Abraham, to its fulfillment as the ruler of all nations for eternity is born in Christ Jesus.
We have read through these genealogies many times, or maybe not. And if we just read them as we read any other book we get very little from them. But God puts them there for a reason.
They are meant to be studied in the context of the rest of Scripture, and when we do that, we begin to see how God’s plan of salvation has come through ordinary people, and the intricate way in which God has orchestrated all of it. Why this person and not that one? Why did He wait so long here, then act so swiftly there?
Some of these questions can be answered if we really look at the whole picture in Scripture, kind of like we can often put the pieces of our own life together and see how God has worked things out, only when we look back at the whole story of our lives.
God shows us through this admittedly boring chapter of Scripture that people were meant to live a lot longer, and that sin is the reason for shortened life. He shows us that truly walking with God eliminates death, and so is a source of hope. And perhaps most importantly, He shows us again that His promise is guaranteed, that no detail in his plan has been overlooked.
Lets read Micah 5:2-5 again, much of which is quoted in Matthew 2:
But you, O Bethlehem Ephrathah,
who are too little to be among the clans of Judah,
from you shall come forth for me
one who is to be ruler in Israel,
whose coming forth is from of old,
from ancient days.
3Therefore he shall give them up until the time
when she who is in labor has given birth;
then the rest of his brothers shall return
to the people of Israel.
4And he shall stand and shepherd his flock in the strength of the LORD,
in the majesty of the name of the LORD his God.
And they shall dwell secure, for now he shall be great
to the ends of the earth.
5And he shall be their peace.
We now know from the Bible that His plan has always unraveled as planned so that we can have confidence in the rest of the plan that has yet to take place. All this from studying a list of names, which when combined with another list of names in the Matthew shows us the immensity of his plan, and that he can use anyone to ensure its completion, including you and me.
Don’t think that when the rest of the story is read in heaven that your name couldn’t be on a genealogy like this. These were ordinary people, some of whom did extraordinary things, but many who lived worse lives than many of us.
Knowing that we could be used as any of the names in the Bible were, should give us pause, and we can reflect not on doing things to try to get on the list, but being constantly aware and surrendered to God’s will in our lives. How does He want to use us in this infinite plan that is still unfolding?
If you’re not sure what God’s specific will for your individual life is, there is a big book that tells you a lot about what his general will is for all of us, and we will take a lifetime just striving to achieve little bits of that. But while wholeheartedly following His general will, very often he will whisper a specific plan for us after we have been faithful with the little general details over time.
So if you are looking for God to tell you to do something big, like build an ark, make sure you’re being faithful to all the little fundamentals. He may never give you anything more than that in this life anyway, but He says He definitely won’t give you anything greater if you don’t walk with Him in the little details of your life.
So there is a little practical lesson for us from Genesis five, but the most important thing to take away from this is that the line of Shem points us directly to Christ a couple thousand years later. The culmination of the salvation plan comes through Shem’s seed in the birth of Jesus, and it was all in place at the beginning of creation. This fall we have toured through creation and the origins of humanity, and now as Christmas is upon us we move into the joyful next story of Christ’s birth and life on earth.
We have everlasting life if we believe in Jesus and what he has done. In John 11:25-27 Jesus is talking to the sister of Lazarus, he says “I am the resurrection and the life. Whoever believes in me, though they die, yet shall they live, and everyone who lives and believes in me shall never die. Do you believe this? …She said to him, Yes Lord I believe that you are the Christ, the Son of God, who is coming into the world.”
This miracle baby that will judge us, save us, and rule over us, has come into the world. That is why we’re here, that is the only reason we celebrate Christmas. His rule has begun and will one day be fully implemented here on earth.
This Christmas let’s ask ourselves if we accept his rule in our lives. Have we completely submitted our lives to him who submitted his for us even to death on the cross? Do we believe that this baby saved the world? When it really counts, does our behavior show that we believe this? Let’s leave it all under the tree for this little baby this Christmas.
Well, this concludes our journey through Genesis for now. We have our Christmas Eve service on Wednesday at 6:00, and next Sunday the youth service. Then as we move into the New Year, the “dog days” of winter, we will explore what I call the antidepressant book of the Bible – Philippians, which will take us to the next major story of Jesus’ death and resurrection at Easter.
I know many of you will be traveling over the holidays and may not be here for the next couple of services so let me wish you a blessed Christmas and safe travel wherever you may be going.
Let’s pray
God of love, Father of all,
the darkness that covered the earth
has given way to the bright dawn of your Word made flesh.
Make us a people of this light.
Make us faithful to your Word
that we may bring your life to the waiting world.
Grant this through Christ our Lord. Amen.
