Origins 09: The Sons of God
Origins 09: The Sons of God
… slept with the daughters of men
Genesis five is a genealogy. It traces a family tree from Adam to Noah. It traces the line of Seth in particular. There are only two family lines traced from Adam. We read Cain’s last week and this week we will trace Seth’s. Seth was the replacement son for Abel, who was murdered. There are a number of observations we can make from the reading. Mostly, what we are reading is the generation of the sons of God.
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December 11, 2020
Genesis 4:25-5:32
Whose family did Noah come from? I know this might not be the most pressing question on your mind as you woke up this morning, but through Noah’s genealogy, we learn several truths about the pre-flood world.
SETH – THE SONS OF GOD
Genesis 6 mentions that the sons of God slept with the daughters of men. This often misunderstood phrase, very simply points to the previous chapter and clarifies that the line of Seth, the sons of God, were not to intermarry with other children’s family lines that preceded from Adam and Eve. They were to live in faith that the Messiah would come through their family and rescue the world from the dominion of the devil.
LONG LIFE – BUT DEATH
Perhaps the most fascinating observation from Genesis 5 is the lifespan of the people. Except for Enoch, all the men mentioned lived many hundreds of years. Methuselah was the eldest, dying at 969 years of age and Lamech was the youngest who died at 777 years of age, Consequently, they started having children very late in life, Jared, the youngest, at the age of 65 and Methuselah, the eldest, at the age or 187. We’ll get to Noah in a moment.
Remember the result of eating from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil? Death. So in Genesis 5, we read that people were dying. Yes, they lived longer than we live. But, they did die.
Therefore, just as sin entered the world through one man, and death through sin, and in this way death came to all people, because all sinned (Romans 5:12).
GENEALOGY
In every case, beginning with Adam, it mentions that the man had other sons and daughters. However, their genealogies are not traced. It could be that each family kept records of their family tree, but it was Noah’s that prevailed, since only in looking back could they recognize that Noah’s line was the Messiah’s line. We will notice the family tree being traced from Noah, to Abraham, to Judah, to David and finally to Jesus. Genealogies may not be the most exciting passages in the Bible, but once you understand that their purpose is to lead us through the family line of Adam to Jesus, the Messiah, then it all makes sense. In fact, the Bible’s story is threaded together with this family line of the Messiah.
ENOCH
Enoch only lived to the age of 365. There is a book called Enoch that claims to trace his journey through the 10 heavens as God took him from the earth. It is a fanciful and inventive story, but one that has not been accepted as true. From the Biblical narrative we learn little. All it says is,
Enoch walked faithfully with God; then he was no more, because God took him away. (Genesis 5:24).
Without the above commentary, it might be thought that he was cursed or murdered. After all, his short life, compared to the others, could lead you to believe something tragic took place. So Moses gives us a clear answer to the question of why he died early.
- He was faithful or, we might say, he was a man of faith.
- God took him away, the other way of saying this is that God accepted him.
- He was no more. He was gone. Did he go missing? Seems like no one really know what happens to Enoch. He was not found dead and then buried. He simply was no more
Some have tried to compare this to the rapture, the church, in this case, will simply be removed or gone. Others have noted that the Elijah was the only other person in the Bible who was taken up by the Lord.
So Enoch was a man of faith, who was accepted by God and went to be with the Lord at a young age.
When God takes someone from us in the prime of their life, we tend to think of them as having missed so much. Questions come: What could they have been? The sense of loss, the mystery surrounding what they would have been, the questions of why they died so young plaque the soul. Here, in Enoch’s story, is a potential answer. They were privileged to go to Jesus early in life. He accepted them because of their faith. He took them early to be with him.
NOAH
Noah was a late bloomer. I can image his mother and father having a conversation with him. “Hey, Noah. Don’t you think it’s time to get married and get started with a family. You are 500 years old. Most boys your age have already been married for 300 or 400 years.”
Why was he married late? Perhaps, he was different than the others in his family. Others in his family line seemed to marry anyone that they wanted (Genesis 6:1,2). They were not concerned about maintaining the Messiah’s line as the one that would bring the Savior into the world. Noah was. He was a man of faith with God’s favor on him.
We are not in Chapter 6 yet, but, it could be that he started late with kids because he was a man of faith. Another option is that he or his wife might have been infertile. Perhaps, the three sons on Noah were give to him very late in life, well past the years of child bearing, as a way to show that they would be special. This would be similar to Abraham’s life and other women like Elizabeth, John the Baptist’s mother, who had children late in life.
We are not told the reason, but it is fun to speculate. As long as we do not go beyond what is written.
Conclusion
Who are you? Are you a child of God? Are you interested marrying a person who loves the Lord Jesus? Or does it really not matter to you? Are you wanting to preserve our faith in Christ, not only by sharing the faith, but by raising children who love Jesus and want to also marry others who love the Lord.
God was working his plan through the pre-flood history of humanity. He is still working his plan today, creating a generation of people who love him. The family continues to grow as we share the faith and the message spreads.
Blessings
Rich
