“This is the book of the generations of Adam. In the day that God
created man, in the likeness of God made he him; Male and female created he them; and blessed
them, and called their name Adam, in the day when they were created .” (V1-2)
The phrase “book of the generations” only shows up twice in the Bible.
Once here, and once in Matthew 1:1. This confirms that the human race has only
two sources: Adam and Jesus Christ. You are either a son of Adam or a son of
God.
There are some interesting comparisons and contrasts that can be drawn
between the first Adam and the last Adam.
One is made in the image of God, and the other IS the image of God (2
Cor. 4:3-4, Heb. 1:2-3). One lost in a garden, one won in a garden (Matt
26:41-46). One produces death, one produces life (John 11:26). Neither one had
a human father. One is father to a
fallen race, the other is a brother to redeemed sinners (1 Pet 1:3).
Eve, apparently was Adam’s name for her, not God’s name for her.
“And Adam lived an hundred
and thirty years, and begat a son in his own likeness, after his image; and
called his name Seth: And the days of
Adam after he had begotten Seth were eight hundred years: and he begat sons and
daughters: And all the days that Adam
lived were nine hundred and thirty years: and he died . And Seth lived an hundred and five years, and
begat Enos: And Seth lived after he
begat Enos eight hundred and seven years, and begat sons and daughters: And all the days of Seth were nine hundred
and twelve years: and he died .” (V3-8)
I don’t claim to
understand all the implications of verse 3, but Seth was made in Adam’s image,
not God’s. The image of God appears to be lost until John 3:3-5. Man will
accept the wrong image if it shows up (Rev 13:16-18).
Noah and Adam are only separated by 28 years. Noah was also still around
when Abram’s father was born.
In verse 5, the first man dies. This starts an interesting connection in
the Bible between 5 and death. For
example, the devil (5 letters) had the power of death (also 5 letters). Christ had 5 wounds and 5 pieces of clothing
(John 19:23). David had 5 stones with him when he killed Goliath (2 Sam 17, 2
Sam 21:22). Benjamin received 5 times the food and clothing of his brothers
(Gen 43:34, 45:22, 35:18-19). Out of all the brothers, he was the only one
whose mother died giving birth to him. In Acts 5: 5, a liar dies. In Romans 5,
the death of Adam and Christ are compared and contrasted. In Rev 5, the Lamb
appears ‘as slain’. Take a look at 1 Sam
6:4 and look at the price paid for the plague. In Ex 27:1, the measurements for
the altar, a place of death, are given as 5 x 5. And as a parting shot, take a guess which rib
is most often mentioned in connection with murder (2 Sam 2:23, 3:27, 4:6,
20:10).
“And Enos lived ninety years, and begat Cainan: And Enos lived after he begat Cainan eight
hundred and fifteen years, and begat sons and daughters: And all the days of Enos were nine hundred and
five years: and he died . And Cainan
lived seventy years, and begat Mahalaleel: And Cainan lived after he begat Mahalaleel
eight hundred and forty years, and begat sons and daughters: And all the days of Cainan were nine hundred
and ten years: and he died . And
Mahalaleel lived sixty and five years, and begat Jared: And Mahalaleel lived after he begat Jared
eight hundred and thirty years, and begat sons and daughters: And all the days of Mahalaleel were eight
hundred ninety and five years: and he died . And Jared lived an hundred sixty and two
years, and he begat Enoch: And Jared
lived after he begat Enoch eight hundred years, and begat sons and daughters: And all the days of Jared were nine hundred
sixty and two years: and he died . And
Enoch lived sixty and five years, and begat Methuselah: And Enoch walked with God after he begat
Methuselah three hundred years, and begat sons and daughters: And all the days of Enoch were three hundred
sixty and five years: And Enoch walked
with God: and he was not; for God took him.” ( V9-24)
Everyone on that list has two things in common; one is that they all
descended from Adam, and the other is that they all died. Compare the very similar list in Matthew 1,
and you’ll find a striking difference; their deaths aren’t mentioned. That’s because
in Adam all die, and in Christ all are made alive. This list is a list of
Adam’s relatives, while Matthew 1 is a list of Christ’s relatives.
In verse 21 we have the appearance of the only man who never died. Not
even Jesus Christ got that privilege ( Heb 11:5). Enoch has the same name as Cain’s son, and
has an interesting testimony. We know
that, before God took him in a foreshadowing of the blessed hope (John 11:26, 1
Cor 15:52-54), Enoch preached and foresaw the 2nd Advent of Jesus
Christ (Jude 1:14). Living in a wicked time is no excuse. In a wicked age he
tried to stand for God, and God honored it. What we don’t see in Enoch’s life
is any converts. That hardly makes him
unique in scripture, and absolutely
does not make him a failure in the ministry. Too often in the ministry we
emphasize and gauge ourselves by the
physical fruit that we can see, when that is never given as the guideline
for a successful ministry. He ought not
seek to please God without our results, but with our obedience. Results gained
by compromise aren’t results worth having.
Also notice that there is nothing special about Enoch’s family. Anybody
can stand for Jesus.
No warning was given to anyone about Enoch’s translation. In your Bible, every time something is
‘translated’ it winds up better than when it started.
Now it’s necessary to point out a distinction here in light of Jude 1:14
lest the reader get caught up in all sorts of silliness. There is an assumption that since he
preached, and the essence of his message is captured in scripture, that
somewhere out there is a ‘Book of Enoch’ with the full content. But the Bible
never says that he wrote it down, it just says that he prophesied it. It isn’t even necessary that anyone else
wrote it down and that it survived the
flood. The Holy Spirit as the author of all scripture is more than capable of revealing things like
this thousands of years after they happened whether anyone wrote them down at
the time or not. For an example of this,
look at how God told Paul the names of Pharaoh’s magicians in 2 Tim 3:8 even though it never
gives their names in Exodus. The sort of
people that go around always looking for more Bible usually aren’t happy with
the Bible they have. They hope to find
something else God said that will give them liberty to ignore what God already
told them.
Enoch sires Methuselah the oldest man in the Bible who checks off the
scene at 969 years old just before the
flood.. Interestingly, Methuselah’s name means ‘when he dies, it will
come” I wonder if Enoch, as a man who
walked with God, had some inside scoop that he
revealed in the naming of his son.
When the flood comes, as far as I can tell, the only people listed in
the genealogy that are already dead are Adam, Enos, Cainan, Mahaleel, Jared and Lamech.
“And Methuselah lived an hundred eighty and seven years, and begat
Lamech: And Methuselah lived after he begat Lamech seven hundred eighty and two
years, and begat sons and daughters: And
all the days of Methuselah were nine hundred sixty and nine years: and he died
. And Lamech lived an hundred eighty and
two years, and begat a son: And he
called his name Noah, saying , This same shall comfort us concerning our work
and toil of our hands, because of the ground which the LORD hath cursed.” (
V25-29)
Noah’s name means
‘rest’, or ‘comfort’, it appears Noah’s parents expected their son to bring
some sort of relief from the curse.
In verse 25, Adam is still alive. Noah
is the 7th from Adam.
“ And Lamech lived after he begat Noah five hundred ninety and
five years, and begat sons and daughters: And all the days of Lamech were seven hundred
seventy and seven years: and he died . And Noah was five hundred years old: and Noah
begat Shem, Ham, and Japheth.” ( V30-32)
In verse 31, Lamech comes up ‘all sevens’ and
dies. He is the last person to die before the flood.
The birth order of Noah’s three boys here and in Gen 10:21 is Shem, Ham,
and Japeth, but in Gen 9:24 they are listed as Japeth, Shem and Ham. The meanings of their names become
particularly interesting later on when the destinies of their descendants are
studied out. Japeth means ‘to spread
out’, Shem means 'name of God', and Ham means ‘burnt’.
The best calculations on the year of the flood, based off of how many
years from Adam to Noah and how many years from Adam to the flood, put the
flood at 2344 BC.
It is an often refrain in personal soul winning for a lost person to try
to jump track by implying that God is unrighteous. They do this to justify
their wickedness, and it’s a common tactic to say that God would never send a
man to hell, especially the ‘heathen that don’t know’. In my experience, and in the experience of my
many missionary friends, you might be surprised as to how much the heathen
really do know. As a case in point,
before we close out this chapter we are going to take a quick look at what mankind knew before the flood.
They had the testimony of creation from the overlapping lives of Adam
and Methuselah. They had the promise of a coming redeemer given to Adam and Eve
in Genesis 3. God had told Adam that
blood covered sins in Gen 8:20. The mark on Cain testified that God would judge
sin. They had the preaching of Enoch, and his translation. According to 2 Peter
2:4, they had the righteous preaching of Noah. They had the testimony of the
animals arriving at the ark. They had
the testimony of God’s spirit striving with man to repent (1 Pet 3:20). Mankind had adequate information, but as
always, men loved darkness rather than light, and so God was forced to deal
with it.
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