Gen 5 — These All Died in Faith

The Word of God is living. It is this pure milk that sustains us and causes us to grow up into salvation. And we see that in our text today. We see the Word of God having its effect in the lives of God’s people as they are sustained by faith in God’s promise in the midst of an evil world.

The title of today’s sermon is “These All Died in Faith,” taken from Hebrews 11:13, which is the New Testament’s commentary on this passage. It includes also other passages as well, the story of Abraham and so on, but in Hebrews 11, the author of Hebrews talks about Abel and Enoch, Noah and these many mighty men of God who were men of faith who were sustained by their faith in the promises of God and Yet at the same time they also Dealt with the reality of death.

I am sure you heard that over and over again every time it mentioned someone’s name whether it is Seth or Enosh or Kenan, it says this is how long he lived, and then he died, and he died, and he died. It says that eight times in our text. And so it is an amazing, almost like a juxtaposition of two things. These two things are set side by side, which is on the one hand, the reality of death is being experienced by God’s people. Based upon the curse that God gave to Adam and Eve after they sinned, but then also, side by side with that, is this wonderful reality of hope and faith in the promises of God, a faith that sustained them. They knew that God was going to fulfill that promise that he made.

Back in Genesis chapter three, verse 15, concerning the offspring who would come and who would undo the effects of the fall, and remove the curse that lay upon creation and give God’s people hope. We see that faith at the very end of the passage when Lamech has a son named Noah and he says, out of the ground that the Lord has cursed, this one shall bring us relief from the ground, from our work and from the painful toil of our hands. So he is alluding back to that promise back in Genesis chapter three. And so this shows that the people of God were sustained by faith in the midst of death.

The Contrast of the Genealogy

I have several points from the sermon today. The first point is to notice the contrast of this genealogy. It is a genealogy, that is, it is a tracing from one father to the next son, a genealogy that traces the lineage of Noah. This is the genealogy of Noah. It ends there with Noah as the last person named. There is going to be another genealogy in Genesis chapter 11 that picks up with Noah’s son Shem and traces the genealogy down to Abraham. That is the genealogy of Abraham. And of course we know that the next genealogy after that is the one that brings us down to Christ himself. And the two genealogies of Jesus that are given in the New Testament in Matthew 11, Matthew 1 and in Luke chapter 3, they build upon these two genealogies in Genesis 5 and Genesis 11.

So what we have here really is the genealogy not just of Noah, but the genealogy of Jesus himself. At least the first part of it, from Adam down to Noah. This genealogy, though, is set in contrast with chapter four. Chapter four describes for us what happened to Cain and his line. There is the line of Cain which reaches its climax in Genesis chapter four with this description of Lamech who is full of pride and wickedness. He is a polygamist, he has two wives. He has this violent spirit where he says that he is boasting in the fact that he killed someone simply for striking him, some sort of slight. And he lashed out in violent anger and killed him, and he boasts about it. And he says, Cain’s vengeance is sevenfold, but mine is seventy-sevenfold. So we see the contrast then between today’s genealogy in chapter five, which is the line of Seth, which is the godly line, we see that in contrast with the line of Cain. It is Cain versus Seth, the Cainite line and the Sethite line. Cain’s line reaches its climax in wickedness and violence and boasting himself. And total rejection of God, but the line of Seth climaxes with this confession of faith of Lamech, the father of Noah, that God is going to fulfill his promise, and he is going to give us relief from the curse, and he is going to undo the effects of the fall.

Notice as well that even before we get to Genesis 5 at the very tail end of Genesis chapter 4 we already have a little hook that connects us to Genesis chapter 5 because it says there in Genesis 4 verses 25 through 26 that after After describing the lineage of Cain and the Cainite line, which climaxes in Lamech’s violent boast, it says that Adam knew his wife again, and she bore a son and named him Seth, for she said, God has appointed for me another offspring instead of Abel, for Cain killed him. And to Seth also was born a son, and he called his name Enosh. So right there the reference to Seth and to Seth’s son Enosh, that is going to be picked up again in chapter 5 with the genealogy of Seth. And it mentions there, it repeats it again, that Seth fathered Enosh. In verse seven, Genesis five, verse seven. So there is a little bit of a bridge there.

The previous chapter, chapter four, is focused upon tracing the line of Cain, which climaxes in this critical point of Lamech’s violent boast and his rejection of God, but already we see that is not the only thing happening in this world. That in this world after the fall, yes, the wickedness of man is progressing and getting worse and worse, but God also has His people. God has His people. He is going to raise up a Seth in place of Abel who was killed by Cain.

Remember we talked about last week that Abel was the first martyr. Cain’s killing of his brother Abel was not just simply an act of violence, it was a religious hostility, because Abel was the one that offered the sacrifice to the Lord that was pleasing to the Lord. He offered the best firstborn of the flock and their fat portions, as opposed to Cain, who did not take care to offer the best of what he had to do. He was a farmer and he brought the fruit of the ground and that would have been fine, but he did not bring the best part of it to the Lord. And so that is why God accepted Abel’s offering, but he rejected Cain’s. And so Cain’s envy and anger and his sense of entitlement and his rejection of God was expressed in murdering Abel. And therefore it was a religious persecution. Cain was not just simply engaging in ordinary violence, like you see later on with Lamech, but rather he was engaging in spiritual war with Abel. There was a conflict there, a spiritual conflict between the two offspring.

Abel has been killed. He is the first martyr who was killed for his faithfulness to the Lord by this apostate Cain who hated him because of his envy against his brother. And the Lord raised up another offspring in place of Abel. He raised up Seth. And so Seth is the one through whom the godly line now is going to continue. And that is what Genesis chapter five is showing us. At that time, it says, end of chapter four, very last phrase there, the last sentence of verse 26. At that time, people began to call upon the name of the Lord. It is describing the godly remnant. It is describing the line of Seth and the godly ones who love the Lord, who are continuing to worship God the way Abel did, and who are serving him and who are trusting in that promise that God had made back in chapter three, verse 15.

So the contrast of the genealogy is the contrast between the Sethite line of the godly remnant that loves the Lord and that is calling upon the name of the Lord and is being sustained by faith in the promises of God in contrast with the Cainite line that is rejecting God, that is outside of the covenant community and that is developing worse, more and more corruption and evil and rejection of God.

The Refrain: And He Died

The second point of the sermon, I like to see the contrast between Genesis 4 and Genesis 5, the line of Cain versus the line of Seth. The second point to see is the refrain of the genealogy. A refrain is like when we sing our hymns, it has a refrain that you repeat every time. After each stanza, there is a refrain often. There is a refrain also here in our text. There is almost like a musical cadence to it. Notice how every time it mentions an individual, it has the same formula. So-and-so lived this many years when he had the son, that is the next one named, and then after he had that son, he lived so many other years, and he had other sons and daughters, and thus all the days of that individual were this many years, and then he died. It follows this formula, this rhythmic almost poetic repetition, all throughout the text here.

And the key is to see that it emphasizes that although they lived much longer than we do today, and even at the time when Moses was writing this, they would have they would have been surprised by those large numbers too. Because even in the days of Moses, the lifespan was not this long. 800 years, 969 years is the longest one, Methuselah. So even the Israelites, when they heard this story, they would have said, wow, this is incredible that these people lived that long. But yet, in spite of living that long, every single one ends with, and he died. And he died, and he died, except for Enoch. Enoch is the one exception. We will get to that in a moment. That is the third point of the sermon, to look at the exception in the genealogy.

But we are here looking at the refrain of the genealogy, which is death. This is the fulfillment of the curse. When God pronounced the curse in Genesis chapter three, in verse 19, he said to Adam, by the sweat of your face you shall eat bread, till you return to the ground, for out of it you are taken, for you are dust, and to dust you will return. This sentence of death is universal. It affects both the Cainite line and the Sethite, godly line. Even God’s people, even those that belong to the lineage of Seth, they are also affected by this. They are also under the reign of death.

I personally believe that this passage and the fact that it says over and over again, and he died, and he died, and he died, I believe that this is where Paul got his statement from in Romans chapter five. Remember in Romans five where he says that through one man, sin entered the world and death came through sin. Because all have sinned. And so the reign of death, he talks about the reign of death reigning over all mankind, including even believers. I think Paul is getting that from reading his Bible. He is reading Genesis five and he is seeing here that this is the outworking of the curse that was pronounced back in Genesis chapter three because of the sin of Adam. Because Adam sinned, death has now come into the world, and everyone is subject to it. Even the godly line does not escape.

Now there is something interesting as well, which is going back to the first point about the contrast between Genesis 4 and Genesis 5. Notice that in Genesis 4, when it talks about the line of Cain, it does not mention specifically that they died. Now we know that they did. We know that all of these names here from Cain, his firstborn son was named Enoch and to Enoch was born Erod and so on. We know that they all did die, but it does not emphasize that. The text does not highlight that.

In fact, what does it highlight? The text highlights that they were prosperous. It highlights the fact that they dwelt in tents and they had livestock, so they were successful agriculturalists, that they were the ones, one of the names there in verse 21 of chapter four was Jubal, and he was the father of all those who played the lyre and the pipe. They were excellent musicians, maybe even the inventors of music. It also mentions Tubal Cain, who was the forger of all instruments of bronze and iron.

So rather than highlighting the fact that they died, which they certainly did, it highlights the fact that they had some degree of temporal success in this life. Whereas paradoxically, when you turn the page over to chapter five and you hear the genealogy of the godly line, it does not mention anything about their success in agriculture and music and making instruments of bronze and iron, although undoubtedly they also participated in those things as well. We know that because it mentions at the very beginning of Genesis four that Cain was a worker of the ground and Abel was a keeper of flocks. So Abel is the godly one and he was engaging in agriculture. So clearly that type of activity would have been carried on even among the godly. We see that later on with Abraham and his sons. They were keepers of flocks as well.

But it does not mention that in Genesis 5. In Genesis 5 it just ignores any of their earthly accomplishments or temporal success in this life. Instead it emphasizes that they died. They died, they died, they died. Death was something that even the godly could not escape.

I think that there is a purpose there. I think the reason that this is emphasized is to show that with the line of Cain, their portion is in this life. This is all they have is this life. Whereas with the godly, they do not place all of their hope in having lots of flocks or being excellent musicians and having all of these temporal successes in life. In fact, they experience death. But yet, in the midst of that death, in the midst of that bleak reality of death, they were sustained by their faith in the promise of God. Because their hope and their trust was not in this life, but was in the life to come.

You can even see in Genesis 4 that this life is all the line of Cain has. That is why it is so important for Cain, or for Lamech, I should say, who is one of the descendants of Cain, to boast about his vengeance that he is taking upon people who struck him, a young man who struck him. And he is taking vengeance upon him. He is boasting of it. He is not just saying, yeah, this is something that happened and I am kind of ashamed of it. He is boasting in it. Like, look how great it is that I have this power this tyrannical authority in this life. Because their hope is in this life. That is all the line of Cain has, is this life.

Whereas the people of God, they are the ones who Call upon the name of the Lord, Genesis 4 verse 26. They are the ones who walked with God like Enoch in Genesis 5 and verses 22 and 24. They are the ones who like Lamech were being sustained by their faith in the promise of God that he would send the Redeemer who would undo the effects of the fall and give his people the victory over that death that they are experiencing.

The Exception: Enoch

So we have seen the contrast of the genealogy between Genesis four and five, between the line of Cain and the line of Seth. We have seen the refrain of the genealogy emphasizing the universality of death even upon the godly. But now we also see the exception of the genealogy. I mentioned that this refrain, and he died, and he died, is used eight times in our text. Adam died, Seth died. They all died except for one. There is one person named here for whom that statement, and he died, is absent. And that, of course, is Enoch in verse 21.

When Enoch had lived 65 years, he fathered Methuselah. Enoch walked with God after he fathered Methuselah 300 years and had other sons and daughters. Thus, all the days of Enoch were 365 years. Enoch walked with God, and he was not, for God took him. The statement, and he died, is missing. And instead, it says that he walked with God, and he was not, for God took him. In other words, he was translated. That is the term that is used in theology, the translation of Enoch. Not translated in the sense of from one language to another, but being translated physically from earth to heaven, being taken directly into the presence of God in heaven.

Enoch’s translation is similar to the translation of Elijah. Elijah is one of the few as well in the Bible who did not taste death, but who was taken directly into heaven. This is a sign of resurrection life and also of the reality of the bodily nature of resurrection. When we think about our own experience of what is going to happen to us, we should not just focus only on what happens to us when we die, our souls go into the presence of the Lord. We should also remember that one day when Christ returns, he is going to reunite our souls with our resurrected bodies. And we will be with the Lord for heaven, forever in heaven.

This translation of Enoch then is a little sign, a little foretaste of the resurrection at the end of history. And it is planted right here like a little flag in the midst of all the, and he dies. And he died, and he died, and he died, and he died. Except for one who did not die and he was taken up into glory. And so it becomes a little sign of hope in the midst of this reign of sin and death, even upon the godly, a sign of hope of what the godly are looking forward to. Their hope is not in this life. Their hope is not like the line of Cain. Their hope is in the resurrection of the body to come.

Of course, Enoch is also a type of Christ and the resurrection of Christ himself and his ascension. Not only the resurrection of Jesus, but his ascension into heaven. And so Enoch becomes a pointer to the ascension of the offspring who was promised.

Now what does it mean in the text where it says that Enoch walked with God? It mentions that twice. It says he walked with God in verse 22. He walked with God after he fathered Methuselah. And then it mentions it again in verse 24. He walked with God and he was not, for God took him.

We might immediately think that it was referring to his godly life. And I think that is certainly a part of it, that he did live a godly life, unlike the wicked people in the line of Cain. But I think it is focusing even more specifically not just on his godly behavior, his godly lifestyle, but I think it is focusing upon his faith. He walked with God in the sense that he was trusting in God’s promise to bring about salvation and deliverance at the end through the coming offspring.

How do we know that he walked with God is focusing not just on his godly behavior, but even more so upon his life of faith? Well, we know that because the author of Hebrews tells us. Turn to Hebrews chapter 11. Hebrews 11 is an inspired commentary on this verse, or on this set of verses about Enoch.

Hebrews 11 verse six, it says, Well, let us go back to verse 5. By faith, Enoch was taken up so that he should not see death. And he was not found because God had taken him. Now before he was taken, he was commended as having pleased God. And you might be saying, wait, I thought it said because he walked with God. Why does it say he pleased God? Well, because the Greek translation of the Old Testament, the Hebrew says walked with God, but the Greek says pleased God. And so the author of Hebrews is looking at the Greek translation, and he is saying he was commended, and the reason why he was taken was because he pleased God. So he is interpreting, the author of Hebrews is interpreting walked with God as being pleasing to God.

And then he says, verse six, and without faith, it is impossible to please God. For whoever would draw near to God must believe that he exists and that he rewards those who seek him. So notice how the author of Hebrews is interpreting this language that he walked with God, he is interpreting it as being that he was pleasing to God, and the reason that he was pleasing to God is because he had faith. Because without faith, it is impossible to be pleasing to God. Because if you want to draw near to God and live a life that is pleasing to Him, you must believe, you must have faith. You must believe that He exists and that He rewards those who seek Him. You must have faith in God’s promises.

Going back to Hebrews 11 verse 1, He says, “…faith is the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen.” Enoch lived a life that was pleasing to God, that was commendable to God. Yes, because of his godly behavior, but even more so because of his faith. He had faith in the unseen reality that in spite of death, the death that his forefathers all experienced, the death that is all around him. In spite of that death, he believed the promise that God would undo what Adam had brought into this world, that God would redeem his people from death and give them eternal life. And so the Lord translated him as a sign, as an indicator of that heavenly life that God was going to bring about through the coming offspring.

Now does that mean that only Enoch walked with God and was pleasing to God and was a man of faith? And all the other ones named here like Kenan and Mahalaleel and Jared and Methuselah, that they were unbelievers? That they did not walk with God? No, absolutely not. Enoch had an exceptional faith in the promise of God that was outstanding in his generation, but that does not mean the others were unbelievers. How do we know that? What is the clue in our text that even the other ones, even though it does not say that they walked with God, too, and that they were men of faith, how do we know that they were men of faith?

The Climax: The Faith of Lamech

Well, we know it because of the last one named, and so here is the climax of the genealogy, that is, Lamech’s confession of faith in verse 29. So Enoch had a son named Methuselah. Methuselah was the one that lived the longest, 969 years, although he too died. Then Methuselah had Lamech. And it says in verse 28, when Lamech had lived 182 years, he fathered a son and called his name Noah, saying, out of the ground that the Lord has cursed, This one shall bring us relief from our work and from the painful toil of our hands.

Lamech here clearly is alluding back to Genesis 3, not only to the promise of the coming offspring, but also to the fact that the curse that God had pronounced upon man because of Adam’s sin, that the curse would also be restored and removed. Where did Lamech get this information from? Where did Lamech, how did he know about that promise? That promise was made generations before him. How did he know? He knew because the promise had been passed on from father to son. It was a promise that was sustained by the covenant nurture of the godly line of the covenant community.

Each of these men then was also a man who walked with God and who believed in the promise and passed along that promise to the next son. So that when Lamech came, Many, many years later, he was still able to quote scripture almost by word, almost the exact same phrases. Out of the ground that the Lord has cursed, Genesis 3:19. This one, Genesis 3:15, will bring us relief from our work and from the painful toil of our hands.

And they were able to do that in spite of the fact that they were surrounded by death. The constant refrain, and he died, and he died, only heightened this faith and this hope. Just like when you have a personal family member who goes to be with the Lord, a believer who dies. What do you always say to one another? What do we say to each other when we have a family member who knew the Lord dies? We say, we know we are going to see them again because we have the promise of the gospel. We have the promise of Jesus Christ that whoever believes in Him will not see death, but will live forever with the Lord.

And so we encourage one another as a family in the face of death with the fundamental promise of the gospel that Jesus Christ through his death and resurrection has abolished death and brought life and immortality to light through the gospel. So also the godly here did the same thing. They comforted one another as each of the patriarchs died. They comforted one another with this hope. The Genesis 3 promise that Christ would come, that the offspring of the woman would come, that the second Adam would do what the first Adam failed to do, defeat the serpent and win the right to the tree of life and remove and abolish death for his people.

These All Died in Faith

That is why Hebrews 11, 13 says all these died. In faith. They did not die hopeless. They did not die with this is their only hope is this life and having lots of agricultural success and success in civilizational accomplishments like the Lion of Cain. No, they died in faith because they knew that in spite of death there was a coming Deliverer who would come. The Sethite line is characterized by keeping the flame of faith in the promise alive in spite of death and walking with God in the hope of the resurrection and the renewal of creation.

In spite of the reign of death, and death is a reality that they all knew and experienced and faced, they tasted it, but yet in spite of the reality of the reign of death, the Lord is preserving his people and preserving the faith of his people

In one way you could say that it is almost as if that covenant of grace that was made back in Genesis chapter three. Remember how I mentioned that in Genesis chapter three, not only do you have the word of the promise, I will put enmity, the offspring will come, but you also have the covenant of grace that God establishes with Adam and Eve, where the man calls his wife’s name Eve, which means life. Because he is expressing his faith in that promise. And then the Lord gives them the garments to clothe them And this idea of clothing with garments is a covenantal idea that is used in the Old Testament to refer to the making of a covenant, especially a marriage covenant. God is making a covenant with his people, right there in Genesis 3, verses 20 and 21, when Adam confesses his faith in the promise, and then God clothes them with the garments.

You could almost say that in Genesis 5, that you have the same covenant being renewed with each generation. Each father having the son, and then passing on that promise to them. And each son looking at his father experiencing death, but then continuing to believe in the promise of God in spite of his father’s death, and passing on that same covenant promise to the next generation. In spite of the reign of death, the Lord is preserving his people and renewing this covenant of grace with each successive generation, so that from their line, the promised serpent-crushing deliverer may come. And that is why the glory of this passage, even though we are not yet there, we are still so early in the whole history of redemption, but we are already seeing Christ in this. That is what the genealogies are all about.

The genealogies may seem kind of boring to us because we have all these names that we do not even know. We cannot even identify anything about some of these people. Who is Mahalaleel? I do not know. But even though we have these names that are given to us, the genealogy is significant and the genealogies are Christ-centered. Because this is the genealogy of Christ himself.

So God is using the faith of his covenant people and using the faithful covenant nurture as each father passes on the covenant promise to the next generation. God is using that to be the very means, the very vehicle through which the Messiah will come. The genealogy here is the beginning of the genealogy of Jesus the Messiah. It is actually quoted explicitly. Matthew does not, Matthew just goes back to Abraham. He goes from Abraham to Christ. But it is quoted explicitly in Luke, in Luke’s account of this genealogy. He actually quotes all of these names. It is at the very end of Luke chapter three, if you want to read it for yourself. He quotes all of these names. Kenan, Mehalaleel, Jared, Enoch, all of them. Because this is the genealogy of Jesus. This is the genealogy of Christ. So how wonderful it is that we can read our Bibles, even the dry genealogy parts, and we can see those as being focused upon Christ himself and giving us and sustaining us in our faith and our hope in the coming deliver and God’s promises of grace.

How wonderful it is that we have these heroes of faith, who in spite of death, and in spite of looking at the Cainite line and all of their civilizational success, in spite of all that, they had hope. They had hope that sustained them from generation to generation. And the Lord gives us that same hope.

We are just like these men that are named here in Genesis 5. We are no different. We experience the exact same struggles. We experience death and all that implies. We experience the curse. But we have the exact same faith, the exact same promise, the exact same hope. So let us also be like Enoch who walked with God by trusting in God’s promise and looking to that glorious hope that we have in him.