Genesis
6:3 ¶ And the LORD said, My spirit shall
not always strive with man, for that he also is flesh: yet his days shall be an
hundred and twenty years.
God declares His
intentions to limit the lifespan of man from hundreds of years to a hundred and
twenty, or mankind only has 120 years left to exist in his/her current state
until the Flood, depending on the commentator. This does not mean that every
man will live that long but merely gives a general and average upper range nor
does it mean that this is immediate but we see it happening after the Flood.
Men still live a long time after the Flood but the lifespan continues to
decline. There are noteworthy examples of men living longer than that.
The Holy Spirit,
when referring to God, uses the word spirit,
lowercase s, for intentions and attributes that do not signify the person
of God.
For instance, Isaiah 11:2
And the spirit of the LORD
shall rest upon him, the spirit of
wisdom and understanding, the spirit of counsel and might, the spirit of
knowledge and of the fear of the LORD;
Contrast that to
God’s Spirit, which is His presence, as all three parts of God can be
represented by that Spirit.
Genesis
1:2 And the earth was without form, and
void; and darkness was upon the face of the deep. And the Spirit of God moved upon the face of the waters.
Romans
8:9 But ye are not in the flesh, but in
the Spirit, if so be that the Spirit of
God dwell in you. Now if any man have not the Spirit of Christ, he is none of his.
Luke
4:1 And Jesus being full of the Holy Ghost returned from Jordan, and
was led by the Spirit into the
wilderness,
It is interesting
to note that while God the Father, Christ, and the Holy Ghost are all referred
to by the pronoun “he” that the Spirit, the vehicle by which God operates in
the world and in the believer, can be called “it.”
Romans
8:16 The Spirit itself beareth witness with our spirit, that we are the children of
God:…26 Likewise the Spirit also helpeth
our infirmities: for we know not what we should pray for as we ought: but the
Spirit itself maketh intercession
for us with groanings which cannot be uttered.
Anyway, this spirit, spoken of as not always being in
contention against man, who lives a long time and whose bloodline is polluted
by the fallen sons of God and the
rebellious attitude of Cain, will reduce the average upper range of man’s
lifespan. This is something that is ongoing. Today we typically regard average
lifespan as including infant mortality, which can lower it significantly, but
it is important to consider that, in spite of all of our modern medical
advancements, as biologist R.C. Lewontin explained, “In the last 50 years, only
about four months have been added to the expected lifespan of a person who is
already 60 years old,” if you take out infants who die under one year.[1]
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