Genesis 5:1-5 comments: Adam's death and ours

1 ¶  This is the book of the generations of Adam. In the day that God created man, in the likeness of God made he him; 2  Male and female created he them; and blessed them, and called their name Adam, in the day when they were created. 3  And Adam lived an hundred and thirty years, and begat a son in his own likeness, after his image; and called his name Seth: 4  And the days of Adam after he had begotten Seth were eight hundred years: and he begat sons and daughters: 5  And all the days that Adam lived were nine hundred and thirty years: and he died.

A recognizable device is apparent here that is used earlier in Genesis, chapters 1 and 2 when describing creation in a more general sense and then being more specific that has made some foolish skeptics claim that there are two creation stories. God goes from higher to lower, general to specific, even back and forth between the two. Adam is referenced here as the name for both the man and the woman and then as the name of the first man in specific.

With this record of Adam’s lineage we have a similar reference to Jesus Christ later in the New Testament with regard to His legal descent;

Matthew 1:1  The book of the generation of Jesus Christ, the son of David, the son of Abraham.

This book or record begins with God making mankind, male and female, to look like Him. God’s body, His physical presence, is the Lord Jesus Christ, the Son of God, the Word, capital W, by which all things were created and are held together. I’ve already pointed out the verses that reveal that in previous passages.

God called their name Adam, man and woman. Man gave Eve as his wife’s name. This will be important in remembering the distinctions Christ erased in the church.

Galatians 3:28  There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither bond nor free, there is neither male nor female: for ye are all one in Christ Jesus.

This is how it was meant to be but sin caused the great rift in our association with each other and the resulting cultural divides between men and women came about. God does not create human culture or civilization. He only attempts to modify it to draw men and women closer to Him. Holding your culture, your society, or your civilization as Godly or saying that its traditional order; whether that tradition be Nineteenth Century Victorian or post-World War II American, is what God ordained is absurd, a blasphemy, and all such falsehood destroys the faith of the young and new Christians. Cultural forms of living, for instance, Father going off to work, Mother staying home to dust and clean, and the basic family unit living alone, separated, and apart from other family members, servants, friends, or employees is a relatively new way of living and should not be mistaken for the time-honored, traditional and God-approved culture of the family.

In other words, it is not Godly just because we do it and say its right because we are doing it and slapping the label on it. That was Cain’s sin. Is it yours? Such thinking is no less humanism than the fantasies of The Enlightenment thinkers. Try to come to the Bible and leave your personal and cultural baggage behind while God speaks to you through its pages.

Verse 4 shows that Adam sired probably many sons and daughters during his long life as the pre-Flood people lived hundreds of years compared to our typical 70-80. We need to consider the fact that the genetic damage passed on to each generation would have been minimal in that time and the damage that the individual takes on with each cell division would have been just as minimal. Aging would have been a much slower process and a person stayed “younger” and more vigorous than they would have in any later generation for a longer period of time.  

Adam died, as required by the judgment, a process which began the moment he disobeyed God. We can presume that Eve died much earlier than he did due to the wear and tear caused by multiple conceptions over many years or for other reasons, who is to say. But, the process of dying began the moment they disobeyed God in the one thing they could do that was denied them. Our first human parents, our first ancestors, died, whether or not it was in what we now call Africa, or somewhere in Western Asia, and the pattern had been set for all of us until the time the church is translated out of this dying world, waiting to be reborn.

We shall all physically die and, in fact, are dying now unless we are walking on the earth when Christ calls out the church. It is only through faith in Christ as God in the flesh, believing what He said about Himself, and trusting in His righteousness and not our own, nor any church dogma, creed, confession, or man-made set of rules that we can be justified before God and live in eternity with Him.

Romans 5: 6 ¶  For when we were yet without strength, in due time Christ died for the ungodly. 7  For scarcely for a righteous man will one die: yet peradventure for a good man some would even dare to die. 8  But God commendeth his love toward us, in that, while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us. 9  Much more then, being now justified by his blood, we shall be saved from wrath through him. 10  For if, when we were enemies, we were reconciled to God by the death of his Son, much more, being reconciled, we shall be saved by his life. 11  And not only so, but we also joy in God through our Lord Jesus Christ, by whom we have now received the atonement. 12  Wherefore, as by one man sin entered into the world, and death by sin; and so death passed upon all men, for that all have sinned: 13  (For until the law sin was in the world: but sin is not imputed when there is no law. 14  Nevertheless death reigned from Adam to Moses, even over them that had not sinned after the similitude of Adam’s transgression, who is the figure of him that was to come. 15  But not as the offence, so also is the free gift. For if through the offence of one many be dead, much more the grace of God, and the gift by grace, which is by one man, Jesus Christ, hath abounded unto many. 16  And not as it was by one that sinned, so is the gift: for the judgment was by one to condemnation, but the free gift is of many offences unto justification. 17  For if by one man’s offence death reigned by one; much more they which receive abundance of grace and of the gift of righteousness shall reign in life by one, Jesus Christ.) 18  Therefore as by the offence of one judgment came upon all men to condemnation; even so by the righteousness of one the free gift came upon all men unto justification of life. 19  For as by one man’s disobedience many were made sinners, so by the obedience of one shall many be made righteous. 20  Moreover the law entered, that the offence might abound. But where sin abounded, grace did much more abound: 21  That as sin hath reigned unto death, even so might grace reign through righteousness unto eternal life by Jesus Christ our Lord.