God's Redemptive Power Pt. 2 | Genesis 5:1-17
Read Genesis 5:1-17
The Point: Sin and corruption fill the hearts of humanity; but those who walk with God are redeemed and forgiven by the loving God of the Universe.
Seth’s lineage is righteous, Cain’s lineage is unrighteous. This is the tension of Genesis 4-7. The ending climax of this portion of scripture is found in Genesis 6 and 7 when God finally destroy, kills, roots out the unrighteous lineage of Cain and saves the righteous lineage of Seth. Jesus also highlights this being a character of God not just in Genesis 1-7 but throughout the entirety of history, the entirety of God’s word, God doesn’t change.
This means that God will save the righteous, repentant hearts who follow Him and judge, destroy the unrighteous, unrepentant hearts who don’t follow Him. Jesus reminds His disciples of this in John 15:1-8.
We have to ask the question: What does it mean to be righteous? What does it mean to walk with God? These are hard questions because we have men and women who walk with God throughout scripture that make some terrible mistakes, they have lives in which they are not pleasing God all of the time, so where is the line of when God strikes Holy Justice or gives Holy Grace to people?
- The Fruit of Cain is Lamech; The fruit of Seth is Noah. Lamech was unrighteous and Noah was righteous.
Definition of Righteous: acting in accord with divine or moral law: free form guilt or sin. 2. Morally right or justifiable.
Psalm 89:11-16 reminds the reader of how God’s righteousness flows through His people. How do we know who God’s people are? How do we know someone is saved by God? The live a life of righteousness—they strive to follow God’s law, to love God’s will and do live by God’s cultural standards and not the world’s cultural standards.
A righteous person is not a perfect person rather it is a person who strives to live a holy life which God commanded them to live—we will not reach perfection on this side of heaven but through God’s law, The Holy Spirit’s indwelling in our hearts and soft, repentant hearts we can get close to living that holy/ sanctified life. Notice the language in Psalm 86.
“O LORD, they walk in the light of Your countenance. In Your name they rejoice all the day. And by Your righteousness they are exalted. For You are the glory of their strength.”
–Psalm 86:15b-17a
This Psalm speaks of Israel and how God’s righteousness shines through Israel—how do people know that Israel is God’s people? Because God’s law, God’s righteousness shines through them, God’s glory is shining through them. How does God’s people become more like God? How do they become righteous? --They walk with God, they hold repentant hearts, they speak to God, listen to God spend, days, hours and weeks with God—they literally walk with the God of the Universe daily.
“When Adam had lived one hundred and thirty years, he became the father of a son in his own likeness, according to his image, and named him Seth…Lamech lived one hundred and eighty-two years, and became the father of a son. Now he called his name Noah, saying, ‘This one will give us rest form our work and from the toil of our hands arising from the ground which the LORD has cursed.’” –Genesis 5:3-4
This cursed ground is a reference to Cain’s punishment of his murderous sin in Genesis 4:12 “When you cultivate the ground, it will no longer yield its strength to you; you will be a vagrant and a wanderer on the earth.”
In Seth’s lineage there is a righteous order, Enoch (Noah’s grandfather) is walking so closely to God that he is brought into heaven. Noah gives God’s people rest through Noah from their work and toil which is caused by humanity’s (Cain’s) sinful nature.
Cain’s lineage is filled with corruption, chaos and God will soon judge that in Genesis 6—there is complete evil and depravity in the world which is why God kills humanity with the flood. Seth’s lineage leads to righteousness and relationship with God. Seth’s lineage has no polygamy and Cain’s lineage has the first polygamist in Lamech but this sin of polygamy will continue on after the flood through the world, even through Jesus’ lineage.
As we look throughout God’s word, sin and corruption infiltrate even Jesus’ own lineage. Yes, even followers of God are sinful, they struggle with sin, they struggle with temptation, followers of God are not sinless rather they are still sinful.
- God’s followers still struggle with sin; there is consequence for sin but sin itself will not stop God from having His victory over sin.
Polygamy is not condoned by God; it is a result of Cain’s sin, it is a result of unrighteous living, Seth’s lineage to Noah was free from this sin, they lived righteous lives, they did not practice polygamy.
In the Old Testament, polygamy is an example of how sin corrupts from generation to generation, it is a result of ungodly living. God created man and woman to be together in a monogamous marriage, “For this reason a man shall leave his father and his mother and be joined to his wife; and they shall become one flesh.” –Genesis 2:24. Marriage was created to be monogamous, between a man and a woman, where two different genders become one flesh, one person.
Jesus reiterates this in Matthew 19:3-6 “Some of the Pharisees came to Jesus, testing Him and asking, ‘Is it lawful for a man to divorce his wife for any reason at all?’ And He answered and said, ‘Have you not read that He who created them from the beginning made them male and female?’ and said, ‘For this reason a man shall leave his father and mother and be joined to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh’? So they are no longer two, but one flesh. What therefore God has joined together, let no man separate.’”
God Himself designed men and woman to be in marriage together. Marriage is simple, it is a lifelong covenantal commitment that a man and woman make to each other as they decide to live together, to create children together and live this earthly life together. God does not permit or condone a man to marry multiple wives or to marry another man. But when looking at both lineages of Jesus (Luke 3: the blood relatives of Christ / Matthew 1: The royal relatives of Christ) we have polygamy being practiced by many men in Christ’s lineage after the flood and Noah’s ark. Abraham, Jacob, David and Solomon are some of the men who practice polygamy—why does God allow this? Why does Jesus still come out of this lineage?
In scripture, Polygamy is never condoned, promoted or seen as positive—it is always a consequence of sin and unrighteous living. Abraham—led to bitterness between Sarah and her maid, Hagar, and her son Ismael (Genesis 16); Jacob—led to Rachel’s jealousy of Leah and to Joseph being betrayed and sold by his half-brothers (Genesis 29:18-30, 30:1-10); David led to the rape of one of his daughters (Tamar) by one of his son (Tamar’s half-brother Amnon) and Amnon’s murder by Tamar’s brother Absalom (2 Samuel 13) Solomon—his many wives ‘turned away his heart’ from the Lord and to the worship of false gods (1 Kings 11:1-8). These were the consequences of these men’s sinful actions in their lives—they still had to live through their consequences and so did their families.
This is a messy lineage, the answer to this question is simple: When God has a plan, He will fulfill that plan. That is why He works through these situations and eventually the sin that is haunting these men will be destroyed, forgiven and taken care of by Jesus Christ who will be born through this lineage—no polygamy, no sin, no sinful human can have victory of God, Jesus Christ.
–Romans 9:10-16
Yet, there are still men and women who are unrepentant in their sin, in their rebellion towards God. There are two major religions which promote polygamy in their texts and in some of areas of their religions still.
Qu’ran:
“And if you fear that you will not deal justly with the orphan girls, then marry those that please you of [other] women, two or three or four. But if you fear that you will not be just, then [marry only] one or those your right hand possesses. That is more suitable that you may not incline [to injustice].”
– Surah: 4. An-Nisa’
“Wherefore, my brethren, hear me, and hearken to the word of the Lord: for there shall not any man among you have save it be one wife; and concubines he shall have none; For if I will, saith the Lord of Hosts, raise up seed unto me, I will command my people; otherwise they shall hearken unto these things.”
--Jacob 2:27, 30 Book of Mormon.
- God’s faithful family is blessing the earth, His faithful plan for redemption is in motion.
God’s answer to Cain’s sin, to Cain’s unrepentant lineage is to populate the earth with righteous people, through Adam and Eve’s next son, Seth. Seth’s lineage contrasts Cain’s lineage as their ages are highlighted. This gives us a glimpse into what the early Earth looked like before the blood. Seth’s righteous lineage walks with God, and they are preserved to live a long time on the earth.
This early earth period before the flood was covered with the expanse of water, the firmament in Genesis 1:6-8. This created a warm, greenhouse like covering making the earth warmer and God allowed for humanity to live much longer during this time. Remember, this generation was so close to Adam and Eve and Eden and the constant inheriting of sin has not happened yet. Humanity inherits sin from generation to generation, the flood happens, the geographical landscape of earth changes and humanity changes—we live shorter lives and inherit more and more sin.
“Then Enoch walked with God three hundred years after he became the father of Methuselah, and he had other sons and daughters. So, all the days of Methuselah were nine hundred and sixty-nine years, and he died. Then Enoch walked with God; and he was not, for God took him.”
–Genesis 5:22-24
“During this era, the world would be populated quickly. One writer has estimated that if Adam, during his lifetime, saw only half the children he could have fathered grow up, and if only half of those got married, and if only half of those who got married had children, then even at these conservative rates, Adam would have seen more than a million of his own descendants.
Using these calculations, we can say that by the time of the flood, there could have been seven billion people on the earth.” – Enduring Word Commentary
God continued the growth of humanity even in light of Cain’s sin. God has grace for humanity. Even when God is going to destroy the world with a flood in Gen. 6 and 7, God still saves the world through Noah’s righteous family. God is just, God allows for the consequence of sin, but God also provides His common grace to allow humanity to multiply, to allow humanity to have a choice, to follow His righteous ways or not.
Even in light of chaos, even in light of sin when God’s people are wandering, they are running away from him, even when David is living in consequence of his affair, his murder and his polygamy, God is still building towards fulfilling His promise of saving humanity from their sin. God’s will is going to happen. Jesus is going to come back whether we believe in it or not—the question is, do we strive to live righteous lives? Are we receiving God’s mercy in our lives, confessing our sins, understanding that the light in our lives is the dead and resurrected Jesus Christ—the seed that comes through Seth’s line, Abraham’s line, Isaac’s line, Jacob’s line, David’s line etc. If God’s power and testimony can shine through these men, it will and can shine through you.
This is where the church comes in, we are to act in this way, we are to confess our sins to each other, to allow room for lament, for sadness for reality. To be there for each other in times of loneliness as Christ is there for us in our depravity and sin. We keep each other accountable, to make sure we are loving God, loving each other and following His commands because we love Jesus in our hearts.
“Do not let your hearts be troubled. You believe in God; believe also in me. My Father’s house has many rooms; if that were not so, would I have told you that I am going there to prepare a place for you? And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come back and take you to be with me that you also may be where I am. You know the way to the place where I am going…If you love me, keep my commands. And I will ask the Father, and he will give you another advocate to help you and be with you forever—the Spirit of truth.’”
--John 14:1-4, 15-16
The Function of the church (God’s community together):
1 John 1:5-10 and 1 Corinthians 12:12-31a
The Point: Sin and corruption fill the hearts of humanity; but those who walk with God are redeemed and forgiven by the loving God of the Universe.