Genesis 5
Messenger Dox
Call to worship:
OT reading:
pastor zachary mcguire
Psalms 90.1-4
NT reading:
dr. brett eckel
Hebrews 11.1-6
song:
O worship the king
Historical reading:
pastor andrew loginow
Nicene Creed
song:
Lord have mercy
Confession & Pardon:
pastor michael champoux
song:
o praise the name
Sermon:
dr. alex loginow
Genesis 5
Introduction
There is a lot to admire about my wife, Bethany. She is the godliest person I know. She is the smartest person I know, the most beautiful, most caring, most giving, hardest working, most fun person I know. I’ll be the first to admit that I out kicked my coverage, but she has a fatal flaw, and it’s almost a deal breaker. This is what it is: she does not like movies involving space or time travel.
I know what you’re thinking – “that’s not so bad; what’s the deal?” Four words – Back to the Future. Don’t get me wrong, there’s other problems too, Star Wars, clearly, but guys, Back to the Future may be the greatest film ever made (it’s between Back to the Future and Raiders of the Lost Ark, obviously) and she refuses to enjoy maybe the greatest film ever produced with all of her heart, soul, mind, and strength because she doesn’t see the value of time travel in film. I still love her; she’s the best in every other way, but pray for her sanctification in this area.
On a serious note, many churches and many individual Christians have a similar problem. Nothing to do with space or time travel or the greatest movies ever made, but they have the similar problem of missing out because they don’t understand or like certain portions of Scripture. Churches avoid preaching certain passages in the Bible, Christians avoid reading, studying, or considering portions of God’s Word maybe because they’re offended by these texts, or they think others will be offended, or these passages seem too difficult, or even that certain pericopes in Scripture seem boring or that they don’t apply to daily life. Genealogies like this one here in Genesis 5 is that kind of passage.
But like my beautiful wife is missing out on the Michael J. Fox masterpiece, these churches and these Christians are missing out on God’s life-giving Word. Every pericope in Scripture applies to our lives because every passage in the Bible is life giving because every single one reveals Jesus to us – including Genesis 5! How does an Old Testament genealogy apply to your life in 2025? How is a proto-historic list of names life giving? How is Genesis 5 about the Lord Jesus? Let’s take a look!
Image bearing creatures (Adam)
We noted last week that Genesis 4 shows us the family line of the seed of the serpent – Cain’s family line and now Genesis 5 reveals the family line of the seed of the woman – Seth’s line. And Moses begins this family line pointing us back to the creation account: the book of the generations of Adam. When God created man… Here the ESV uses 2 different English words (Adam and man) for one Hebrew word (אָדָם). The Hebrew אָדָם can mean both Adam and man, mankind, humanity, based on the context. Theologically, this teaches us that mankind, humanity is from Adam; we are Adam’s namesake. The Reformed tradition designates Adam as the federal head of the human race – we are Adam’s posterity, both physically and spiritually.
And we’re reminded that it is in Adam that we were all created. We have been created by the Creator. We are intelligently designed by the one true and living God – Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. And God created us in His likeness. Humans are the only creatures that bear the image of God.
God created us male and female, meaning these are the only 2 true gender identities and we do not have the right to self-identify. In His sovereign will and good pleasure the Creator created us male and female. And God blessed us. Genesis 1.28 further describes God’s blessing of Adam in the cultural mandate – God blessed us to be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth and subdue it, and have dominion over everything on the earth. The history of humanity, the birth of children and the proliferation of human generations, the development of civilizations, technology, medicine, transportation, education, justice – anything and everything that furthers human flourishing is the blessing of God.
What’s also clear here is Scripture teaches the inherent dignity and value of all human beings. From the moment of conception, from the moment of fertilization, until the moment of death, every human life posses intrinsic value and dignity because every human life bears the image of God. Regardless of mental capability, regardless of physical capability, regardless of perceived value to society, regardless of ethnicity, gender, socioeconomic status, height, or weight, every human being is fearfully and wonderfully made (Ps 139.14) by the one true and living God.
Because that’s true, this is the only true starting place of identity. In this modern Western individualistic consumeristic culture one of the biggest struggles, if not the biggest, that people wrestle with is identity – who am I? There’s overt cultural pressure right now to find your identity in your sexual desire – to say, “I’m gay; I’m bi; I’m trans,” or whatever else. But we all feel the subtle pull to center our identity in something – your work, your money, your hobbies, your relationships, even your suffering, but that’s not who you are. Your identity – who you are – begins with the truth that you are created in the image of the one true and living God.
And the good news of Jesus tells us that God Himself shares that identity with us. In His incarnation the Son of God – the 2nd person of the Holy Trinity – assumed a human nature, He took on a body and soul, and became an image-bearing creature. John 1.14 says that the Word became flesh and dwelt among us. The Lord Jesus is both truly divine and truly human.
Jesus was conceived by the Holy Spirit and born of the Virgin Mary so He did not inherit Adam’s original sin. Jesus was like Adam before the fall. Jesus is like us in that He took on the nature of the creature. Jesus became an image bearer. He is our brother, like us in every way, yet without sin (Heb 4.15).
Fallen (Methuselah)
And this genealogy reminds us that unlike Jesus, we have sin. Not only are we created image-bearers, but also we are fallen created image-bearers. We get the most fascinating reminder of our fallen state here in Genesis 5 because this pericope reveals to us the longest living human recorded in history – Methuselah, who lived 969 years (vs 27). There is no other person – either recorded in Scripture, or any other document – reported to have lived longer than Methuselah at 969 years old.
Isn’t this fascinating? You know, the duration of 1,000 years is used a lot through out Scripture to represent a long period of time (Rev 20). Pastor Zack read from Psalm 90 in our Old Testament Call to Worship, which says, You return man to dust, and say, “Return, O children of man!” For a thousand years in your sight are but as yesterday when it is past, or as a watch in the night. These verses are a clear allusion to Methuselah. Moses authored Psalm 90 – the same Moses who wrote Genesis, and in verses 1-2 of Psalm 90 Moses speaks of creation; in verse 5 he speaks of a flood; and in between, in verses 3-4, the verses we just read. Genesis 5 takes us from creation and Adam to Noah and the flood and right here in the middle is Methuselah, the longest recorded living human, who doesn’t quite make it to 1,000 years.
God returns us to the dust, even if it’s after 969 years. And you know what? 1,000 years, the longest human life ever recorded, is like yesterday to God; a millennium is as a watch in the night to the Lord. The longest living man ever didn’t even live 1,000 years and you know what? He died.
He died because of sin. Death is the result of judgment and the curse for sin. God told Adam the day that he ate of the fruit of the tree he would surely die and this genealogy echoes God’s judgment repeatedly: verse 5 and Adam died, verse 8 and Seth died, verse 11 and Enosh died… Romans 5.12: sin came into the world through one man, and death through sin, and so death spread to all men because all sinned.
Romans 6.23 the wages of sin is death. Romans 3.10 there is none righteous. Romans 3.23 all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God. 1st John 1.8 if we say we have no sin we deceive ourselves.
Because we inherited original sin from Adam and because we practice sin – breaking God’s Law in thought, word, and deed – we are guilty. Because we are guilty, our just judgment is eternal conscious punishment in a place called hell.
But the good news is that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us (Rom 5.8). Death is the just penalty for sin and Jesus died in the place of His people, bearing God’s wrath, enduring our rightful condemnation. 2nd Corinthians 5.21 says, for our sake God made Jesus to be sin even though Jesus knew no sin, so that in Christ we might become the righteousness of God. On Good Friday Jesus accomplished what theologians call the great exchange – Jesus took our sin and gave the church His righteousness. The righteousness of Christ is imputed to us.
Redeemed (Noah)
This is the good news that we call the gospel and it is the fulfillment of the promise that God’s people have believed since the dawn of time. The person and work of Christ is the fulfillment of the promise made by God in Genesis 3.15, that the seed of the woman would crush the head of the serpent. We saw that Adam confessed his faith in the promise when he named Eve the mother of all living (Gen 3.20). Eve confessed her faith in the promise when she believed Cain to be the fulfillment in Genesis 4.1.
We see that faith continue here in Genesis 5 when in verse 29 Lamech believed Noah to be the fulfillment of Genesis 3.15. Part of the curse for Adam’s sin in Genesis 3 was the toil of the ground – there is difficulty in the man’s duty to provide for his family. But Lamech names his son Noah and declares, “Out of the ground that yhwh has cursed, this one shall bring us relief from our work and from the painful toil of our hands.” In Hebrew Noah sounds like rest (נוּחַ). And the word relief has the root נָחָם, which sounds like Noah too.
As the Genesis narrative progresses we will see that once again Noah is not the promised one, but he points us foreword to Jesus, who is true and final seed of the woman who crushes Satan’s head through His death and resurrection. On the cross Jesus’ heel was bruised when He endured the humiliation of death for us, but Jesus crushed Satan’s head when He walked out of the tomb on the 3rd day. It is through the once-and-for-all work of Christ that we find relief from our toil and the curse of sin and death. Death no longer has its sting to the Christian because Jesus walked through the valley of the shadow of death and came out the other side.
Just like Adam and Eve and Abel and Lamech had faith in God’s promise of the skull-crushing seed of the woman, we must too must have faith in the Lord Jesus Christ. To have faith in Jesus means we know the gospel, we assent to the gospel, and finally that we trust in Christ alone. And when God gives you the gift of faith, when you recognize that you trust in Jesus, then you repent of your sin. You confess your sin and you turn from your sin. Repentance is our greatest assurance that we have faith in Jesus alone, which is the only means of receiving forgiveness for your sin and the hope of eternal life.
Glorified (Enoch)
And eternal life, resurrection, glorification is the last truth we get a glimpse of here in Genesis 5. We often note that every human who has ever lived has died because of the universal judgment of sin and statistically speaking that is fact, but Scripture does tell us that there have been two men in the history of the world who did not die – Elijah, who was taken to God on a chariot of fire (2nd Kings 2.10) and Enoch here in Genesis 5.24. Verse 24 says, Enoch walked with God, and he was not, for God took him. Scripture also tells us there will be people who won’t experience death because they will be alive when the Lord Jesus returns (1st Thess 4.17; 1st Cor 15.51-52).
What are we to make of this? Were Enoch and Elijah sinless since they didn’t have to die? We know that’s not true. The verses we read earlier speak of total depravity as the universal human condition, apart from Jesus, who was conceived by the Holy Spirit and born of the virgin. So, how does this fit?
What we can say from the totality of the biblical witness is the judgment for Enoch’s sin, and Elijah’s sin, and the sins of those who will be alive when Christ returns, their physical death, was atoned for by Christ on the cross. God in His sovereign will overruled their just execution, looking to Christ. That’s what happened but the next question is why? Why did God take Enoch?
While we do not fully understand the mind of God, we can say, at least in part, that Enoch foreshadows ascension of Jesus. In our New Testament reading Pastor Brett read from Hebrews 11, which says, by faith Enoch was taken up so that he should not see death, and he was not found, because God had taken him. The Lord Jesus did see death, but after He was raised from the dead, Jesus physically and visibly ascended to the right hand of God the Father. In the same way Elijah the prophet visibly ascended to heaven. Enoch was taken up so that he should not see death and after His resurrection Jesus was taken up and will never see death again because death no longer has dominion over him (Rom 6.9).
Jesus holds the keys of death and hades (Rev 1.18) and He sits in session at God’s right hand ruling the church and the world for the last two millennia. And Scripture tells us that the Lord Jesus will return just as He ascended – physically and visibly – to raise the dead, judge the world, and make all things new. On that day those who trust in Jesus will enter eternal life and those who reject Jesus will receive eternal death. Are you prepared for that? Are you living submitted and obedient to His rule? Do you believe the promise?
Conclusion
Because that’s the call to action here from Genesis 5. God’s life-giving words in this genealogy speak of our identity, our sin, and our hope in the good news of Jesus. These proto-historic names reveal to us the name that is above every name – the last Adam, the one who has reigned for 2,000 years, the one who gives us relief – the name of Jesus.