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Sons in Adam’s Likeness

>>> Read Genesis 4:11 - 5:32 <<<

If you had responded to my rebuke, I would have poured out my heart to you, and made my thoughts known to you. Proverbs 1:23

Adam and Eve were ushered out of their beautiful garden and into a world of thorns and thistles. They, and their children, were made to labor in order to have food to eat in this new world. Therefore, Cain worked the soil by the sweat of his brow and he feasted on the fruit of his labor. However, after he murdered his brother and refused to repent, God decreed that the ground would no longer produce for him. Cain was forced to become a wanderer on the earth – and he wandered right out of the presence of God (Gen. 4:16).

Wandering did not suit Cain, so he found a place to settle down. The details in Genesis 4 reveal how Cain’s descendants found ways to make themselves comfortable even in the cursed world, far from the Lord. They began to establish cities, and they commended themselves by naming the cities after themselves. Cities are places where people congregate in order to pool their ingenuity while encouraging one another in pursuits that make life easy. Indeed, Cain’s descendents improved their lives through the invention of bronze and iron implements; and they introduced the ‘polite arts’ with the development of musical instruments. However, every effort to improve the world made them more independent of God – the easier their lives became the easier it was to ignore Him.

For although they knew God, they neither glorified him as God nor gave thanks to him, but their thinking became futile and their foolish hearts were darkened. Romans 1:21

In Lamech, we see the progressive moral decline that overtook the men of that day:

. . . Lamech took to himself two wives . . . he said to them, “I have killed [two people] . . . if Cain is avenged seven-fold, then Lamech seventy-seven fold.”
Gen. 4:15, 19, 23, 24

First, he became a polygamist, and then he twisted God’s grace on behalf of Cain into a protection for his own evil actions. The world system, under Satan’s influence, was established through Cain’s line. Satan encouraged men to invent their own brand of religion (he doesn’t even mind if it’s directed toward God), and he kept people occupied with making the world a better place. Chapter 4 was placed in our Bible to give us a picture of the world system and the corrupt heart of man. Keep that picture in your mind as you read chapter 5 – there you will see the contrasting line of Seth, and a subtle reminder of the promised redemption.

… when God created man, he made him in the likeness of God…. Adam had a son in his own likeness, in his own image. Gen 5:1-3

Verse one states that this is the written account of Adam’s line, and verse three clarifies what that means. God created man in the likeness of God, but Adam’s children were in his own likeness, in his own image. This is man’s history: he is no longer in the likeness of God – he is in the likeness of Adam. However, look back at 4:26 – Eve gave birth to a son named Seth and he had a son, “Then men began to call upon the name of the Lord.” Although men are in the likeness of Adam, they are able to call upon the name of the Lord; this is grace. Yet, we are repeatedly reminded that the curse of death remains upon the race of man; it is said of every person mentioned in chapter 5 (except one) that he suffered death. Beginning with verse 5, every third verse ends with “and he died” – until you get to Enoch. The Spirit of God does not waste words – this is a purposeful pattern.

The generations ending in death are interrupted by this man who “walked with God and then he was no more, because God took him away” (5:24), followed by two more generations that end in death. The book of Jude tells us that Enoch prophesied against the ungodly, and Hebrews says that he “obtained the witness that, before his being taken up, he was pleasing to God” (Heb. 11:5). Enoch is the embodiment of a person who lives for God in a corrupt (chapter 4) and dying (chapter 5) world. The mention of Enoch in Genesis 5 is not incidental; it is God’s decisive intervention into a world of corruption and death.

God is beginning to tell us about Himself and His ways (purpose, principles, ends)! The image of God in man was ruined and men were choosing to live without Him – yet He set aside at least one person to represent Him on the earth. In this case, He took that person up to Himself. Enoch was taken up before floodwaters destroyed the earth – he pictures the rapture of the Church in the last days.

God pours out His heart to you, and makes His thoughts known to you. Do you want to know His thoughts and understand His ways? Just ask Him (and then read His Word)! LJ 6/09