LIFE BEFORE THE FLOOD
[p. 250] LIFE BEFORE THE FLOOD
Genesis 3: 20, 21; Genesis 4: 26; Genesis 5: 21 - 24
JT I thought of these passages as connected with life in the antediluvian world. All will be aware that the Scriptures apply it to the three worlds; the world that then was (which is the one we are dealing with now), the world that now is, and the world to come. Distinct testimony was rendered to each; to this one, and the one we are now in, and the one to come. It is thought that we may get help at this time in looking at the subject of life as appearing in the first world; that is, life as having come in after sin. It was there before, both in man and animals, and fishes and birds, and in the earth, too, but it also came in afterwards, and, therefore, it is to be considered on moral grounds, not creative. Chapters 1 and 2 treat of creative conditions including life, but from chapter 3 it is moral conditions; how life is introduced, meeting the question of death. In creative conditions it is no question of meeting death, but the necessity of life in itself; but now it is meeting death. So the penalty of sin is inflicted and pronounced in chapter 3, before we get this word ‘life’ coming from Adam’s calling his wife’s name Eve, which means ‘life’: the mother of all living, he says.
Ques She is the mother of all living, but the pronouncement was that death was the result of sin. What would you say about that?
JT Well, it will be known that this chapter includes three beings, Adam, Eve, and Satan. God addresses each one, and coming to Adam He says, “Because thou hast hearkened to the voice of thy wife, and eaten of the tree of which I commanded thee saying, Thou shalt not eat of it: cursed be the [p. 251] ground on thy account; with toil shalt thou eat of it all the days of thy life; and thorns and thistles shall it yield thee; and thou shalt eat the herb of the field. In the sweat of thy face shalt thou eat bread, until thou return to the ground; for out of it wast thou taken. For dust thou art; and unto dust shalt thou return” (verses 17 - 19). That was what Jehovah said, what God said. And then it says, “And Man called his wife’s name Eve; because she is the mother of all living” (verse 20). You have to enquire how it is that he said that; as to whether it does not imply light in his soul, and what the basis of that light is. It would be, I apprehend, the word to the serpent. God said to him, “Because thou hast done this, be thou cursed above all cattle, and above every beast of the field. On thy belly shalt thou go, and eat dust all the days of thy life. And I will put enmity between thee and the woman, and between thy seed and her seed; he shall crush thy head, and thou shalt crush his heel” (verses 14, 15). He must have paid attention to that word to Satan. It was implied that Eve was to be a mother and that her Seed should crush the head of the Serpent. It would seem as if Adam had light from that word. So that he uses the word ‘life’ instead of ‘death’; instead of saying ‘the mother of all dying’, he says, “the mother of all living”.
JS Would you connect this with John 1: 4: “In him was life, and the life was the light of men”?
JT Quite so. What is alluded to here is His power, superior to that of the serpent so that He would crush his head.
ABP Is God’s word evangelical?
JT It certainly would be good news to Adam. In spite of the fact that he was appointed to die, his wife would have seed. The word is not to him nor about him; it is about Eve, about his wife; and that it would be very powerful seed that would overcome the [p. 252] serpent.
CAM It was a wonderful example of a prophetic word. It shows the mighty power and potentiality of a prophetic word from God.
JT That is a good way to put it, I am sure; a prophetic word. You could hardly get a more pronounced prophetic word. God Himself says it.
CAM Adam must have laid hold of something of the immense potentiality there was in the words God used.
JT That is what we might see. There was something in what God said, not to him, but to the devil.
ANW Is that why you linked verse 21 with verse 20, regarding life? There is a good deal involved in verse 21.
JT I think verse 21 hinges on verse 20, and verse 20 hinges on verse 15. The light came out from God regarding the devil. Adam evidently took notice of it, and then in his taking notice of it and expressing his impression, he calls his wife’s name Eve. The moral sequence is, God says, I must clothe them. They are going to die, but He is not clothing them for burial. It is not a burial garb He is making for them, but evidently they are there to live. And the coats are made out of skins, which would mean God is honouring Adam’s naming of his wife; that he had light in his soul and he is to be clothed, as if that must be cared for, that light that he had.
JS Is this God’s way of meeting the breakdown?
JT It is. I think it is very interesting as we see the sequential history here; the light beginning with God in the word to the serpent, and Adam evidently taking it on and applying it to his wife, because God spoke about his wife; He spoke to the serpent about Eve, and then God’s coming in and doing something more, namely, clothing them. He must have slain [p. 253] animals to do it, so that there is light there in the chapter.
CAM There is rather a difference, in one sense, between this and life as previously, before the enemy came into the thing, in that life was now being developed in the midst of adverse things. Do you not think that we do not realise, perhaps for many a day, the wisdom of God in that? There must have been infinite wisdom in working it out like that.
JT That is what I thought. If we keep on like that, we shall get some help. Tell us more about it.
CAM What you are saying strikes me as being so wonderful in that regard. At the outset you differentiated; you called attention to the difference between life before chapter 3 and this.
JT I was thinking, too, of the comparatively narrow limits within which God is speaking. He gives no hint as to any earlier activity of the devil; nor does He call him a devil. He does not call him an adversary or a diabolical being; he is just a Serpent; he is among the cattle. As He says to him, “Because thou hast done this, be thou cursed above all cattle, and above every beast of the field”. He is not even compared with Adam, as if God is saying, I am not going beyond the limits of the present persons, their understanding. We have to wait for later allusions to determine that He is dealing with sin of earlier origin, nor is there any hint that he is going to be cast into the lake of fire, nor any hint of the lake of fire. It is just the radius of cattle on the earth, and the conflict between him and the woman’s Seed. So that we are in comparatively narrow limits, and it is well to keep within the limits, whatever limits are prescribed by God in any consideration. Keep within the limits He indicates.
JS Is it God dealing with a creature?
JT Quite so. He is dealing with three, indeed. But the devil, or the serpent, we should say, is not [p. 254] elevated to the level of man yet. He is just spoken of in relation to the cattle; that he had invaded something beyond him. He has started a conflict. He started it, and we are told what he is to eat, “On thy belly shalt thou go, and eat dust all the days of thy life”. It does not go outside of what we call the physical creation. It is a serpent only. It is not a great spiritual being that is in mind. God is just keeping him within the limits of a certain circle.
CAM It would seem that Adam felt God would have things in hand. Whatever this thing came to, it was all under the hand of God.
JT Adam and Eve would have no idea of the extensive divine outlook beyond all this and before all this; and of what had happened before the present creation. It is just the position he was in with the serpent and the cattle and the conflict. It would seem to me as if Adam (and what God would expect, too, from His creature is that we should use whatever wisdom we have got) — it would seem as if Adam deduced from what God said that there was to be a mother, and his wife was to be the mother, and that her Seed was to be a powerful person, and that instead of dying He would live; because there is no allusion to the Seed going down into the ground. It is just Adam himself, as if the mother was there living. God did not say Eve was going down into the ground. At least, Adam, I suppose, would deduce, Well, there is something different between her and me, and he calls her by that name. He does not say anything about a title to live.
JTJr “For as in the Adam all die”, 1 Corinthians 15: 22. It is not in Eve.
JT That is what I was thinking. He is the head and the penalty is on him. The penalty put on her is not that. She is to bear, but bear in sorrow. It is a question of deduction, which is a principle God would have us to follow, to learn to deduce from [p. 255] certain things what is intended to be conveyed in them, and not to be too legal or literal in what we understand or say.
AR It says in Revelation 12: 17, “And the dragon was angry with the woman”. That is the woman that brought forth the male child. “And I will put enmity between thee and the woman, and between thy seed and her seed”; it goes right on to Revelation 12. It is remarkable he was angry with her.
JT The woman was to be his undoing; her Seed.
ABP What is the thought of seed in connection with the Serpent?
JT Oh, the sons of the devil. They started in right away. Cain was one of them. He was a son of the wicked one. His progeny began, too. It is his own. Of course, he was a son of Eve, also. She thought, I suppose, he was the one when he was born. She says, “I have acquired a man with Jehovah” (chapter 4: 1). That is how she regarded him. But instead of that he was the devil’s man. So that she needed to be enlightened too. But it is remarkable that the undoing of the devil was the woman.
APf Would you mind explaining Revelation 20? “And he laid hold of the dragon, the ancient serpent who is the devil and Satan” (verse 2), the different titles there to that person. He is only called a serpent in Genesis 3.
JT That is to bring out his antiquity. He enters into all the worlds. The first is this one, and the one after Noah, and he will enter into the world to come, too. So that it is his antiquity and his exploits. God is allowing him to show himself and then names him. These other names, the devil and Satan, were subsequent developments. They allude to antagonism to God, wickedness. But the ‘old serpent’ is remarkable. That means that God is not going beyond, He is not going back to the creation as we [p. 256] have it. That is where he became first manifest, but Ezekiel would show he had an earlier existence, and that he sinned from the beginning; but God is not bringing that into Genesis 3. That remains for later.
ANW Does not that very fact enforce the responsibility of the man, that he cannot blame it on a superior being but on a lower creature?
JT I would think so. Satan avoided attacking Adam as he stands. It would look as if he did not encounter him; he knew Adam would be superior.
Ques Paul makes a statement in Romans: “But the God of peace shall bruise Satan under your feet shortly” (chapter 16: 20). What time would that be?
JT The present time. The allusion to time there is very interesting, because he says in that section, “For now is our salvation nearer than when we believed” (chapter 13: 11). It is a question of time, and God will bruise Satan under your feet shortly. He is already bruised, by the Lord, by the Seed of the woman, but it is “under your feet”, under the Romans’ feet; so that we do well to keep our feet clean, because these are the kind of feet God would use to bruise him.
FHL How far do you think spiritual deductions in these two would go as to the clothing of the skins? God made them coats.
JT I would think it was for Adam to keep the light that was involved in Adam’s naming Eve. God says, I will finish the thing on redemption ground. We could not be living save on the ground of redemption, because the question that develops afterwards is redemption and life. Not life and redemption, but redemption and life. I think the idea of redemption as just vaguely suggested, is to show there can be no life now without redemption. It is involved in the coats that the Lord made [p. 257] for them.
WFK Why was the tree of life put in the garden?
JT It is a question of purpose. It is there yet. God prevented Adam from partaking of it, and Eve, too, because now we come down to the actual governmental conditions, “He set the Cherubim, and the flame of the flashing sword, toward the east of the garden of Eden, to guard the way to the tree of life” (verse 24). The clothing involves a new condition.
WFK Do you mean God would have some other way to bring us into life?
JT Yes; that is it. The light is there; the ground of redemption is there, and then the following deduction or inference is that Abel brought a suitable offering to God. That is the way it goes; and God says to Cain, “Sin lieth at the door” (or, ‘a sin-offering’). And then Seth says, My son is a dying man, but I can say that now, because redemption is here. There is light in that, too, and that is why I chose chapter 4, because there is light there. It says, “Then people began to call on the name of Jehovah” (verse 26). It shows that it was not simply persons, a few of a family, but people.
AR We often speak of Adam and Eve as a type of the assembly before sin came in. Would you look at it in that way in the verses we read? — the mother of all living.
JT There is something there in the maternal thought, and Adam’s having the light about it. There is a good deal in it. You would have to bring it into it, but still the basic thought is there. It is a conversation. Why did he say that to her? This is the first time you get this word ‘Eve’ at all. Why did Adam say that? Well, Adam is adding to the vocabulary. He is speaking to her; the mother of all living.
CAM As to this matter of seed, God had placed Adam in a condition where he had every opportunity to study that thing. Do you not think it would [p. 258] encourage us? If we were to take account of God’s works in the simplest possible way in which He shows them to us, we would learn.
JT Yes; and keep within the limits He indicates. But it is most interesting to see a man and his wife talking. I am not saying it was a long conversation, but it was a conversation. I mean, the thing was there. How did he actually say it? Did he address her and say, Your name is henceforth Eve; your name is Life now? She would say, Well, why do you say that? Well, it is just as we have been saying, the sequential result of what they had been saying previously. They were beginning to work out things divinely. God confirms that in killing the animals. The skins speak plainly enough, because we have the idea of speaking already. In the next chapter the blood of Abel speaks; and so these skins speak.
CAM I think that is very noticeable, because as soon as our souls enter on this idea of relationship and communion in relationship, there is really an immense advance in soul.
JT We have to bring in the idea of personality as soon as we have Adam and Eve, personality, and the family relationship and the conversation that belongs to that. That is what enters into these passages.
Rem Adam really blamed it all on Eve. He says, “The woman, whom thou hast given to be with me” (verse 12).
JT That is the idea. God gave her to be with him.
WM In regard of Seth it says in verse 25, “And Adam knew his wife again, and she bore a son, and called his name Seth, ...”. I was wondering if they both would have named him.
JT They are now doing the thing together. That is the way it should be. The wife should not name the son, anyway. It is not said she named Cain, but it says, “She conceived, and bore Cain, and said, I have acquired a man with Jehovah”. There is nothing said about naming him, but when Cain has a son, he names him, because he is going to put his own stamp on the world. He called the name of the city after the name of his son. But now both Adam and his wife, Eve, name Seth.
TH Is the Lord graciously keeping us within the scope of the agricultural setting, the seed, and the cattle, what belongs to the earth?
JT Cain got out of that immediately. He entered into the city, into business. But the primary thought was the agricultural thought.
FHL ‘Adam’ and ‘Man’ are both linked up with that thought.
JT In Adam the primary thought is animate. Adam is animated earth, and Eve is made out of animated clay. She was not made of ordinary earth; she was made out of animated earth; that is, out of man.
AR Her seed as preserving the life-line on earth, has always been the object of attack. “And I will put enmity between thee and the woman, and between thy seed and her seed”. The enmity has been going on ever since Pentecost.
JT It is very remarkable that instead of being the man and the serpent, it is the woman and the serpent: as if God would take the instrument he thought he had, and did have, out of his hand and turn it against him.
RM Is there the element of faith in Adam’s reckonings? The first word in Hebrews 11 is to Abel’s faith. Does faith come into this?
JT God keeps it out verbally, but it is there, I think. You can see it is there in the use of the word ‘life’. There is a lot of light in that. The life is the light, we are told. Well, the light sprang in his mind out of what Jehovah Elohim said to the [p. 260] serpent.
ABP In that sense, would it be right to say that Adam’s word in verse 20 formed a moral basis for God’s action in verse 21?
JT I think that is right. God was following the thing up. He loves to hear us saying good things; and as a rule, if a good thing is said in a meeting, something else will be said better. The Spirit of God adds to what is going on.
ANW In that connection, what further moral lack has to be settled before they are fit for Seth? It seems to suggest another matter that has to be faced.
JT The flood finishes that up. Noah came in there. Jehovah smelled a sweet savour, which you do not get in the first world. You get it in the second. Jehovah smelled a sweet savour, and said, I will not curse. And, therefore, you have a new thing altogether in the renewed earth under Noah.
APf The thought of life is going right on to the third world you mentioned?
JT The last world is the one in which it will be displayed. That world is called eternal life, “And these shall go away into ... life eternal”, Matthew 25: 46. All there will be, in principle, in that life. Any different from that would be exceptional.
Rem Verse 20, “The mother of all living” would suggest a living state of things which would be suitable to God as seen here.
JT Quite so. It must have been very pleasing to God to hear Adam use the word ‘life’ when He had just spoken about death. He had just said to Adam, “For dust thou art; and unto dust shalt thou return”. God must have been highly pleased with Adam using the word ‘life’ immediately. That is how God would suggest to us; that is how we learn to please Him in our ministry and remarks.
Ques Do you have the thought here of life out of [p. 261] death?
JT I think when we come to Seth you get that suggestion. He called his son Enosh, which means mortal or dying. But inasmuch as men began to call on the name of Jehovah, then clearly there was light in that name, negatively, but still there, that there would be life. Although he was a dying man, he would live; and that runs throughout Scripture; “Though he have died, shall live”, John 11: 25.
JTJr Would it be right to say that verse 20 would show they had both been adjusted in regard to the previous sin? What he says to her would indicate he was right, and that he could say it of her would show she was right.
JT Verse 20 is victory. It is victory coming in somehow out of a man’s soul. Where did he get this light? Well, it is deduced from what God has said, and that is what God is pleased with. If we deduce something from what He says, God will add to that. God adds to us as we go on.
JS Is Adam acting on the light that governs the position?
JT That is what I thought. It is how we carry on these meetings. It looks to us as if we can carry them on for any length of time, because if we view the temple, there is no limit with God. He is ready to say things if we are ready to listen to them and use them. So it says, As they listened, the Lord went on and spoke a parable. So that we do not run dry as we follow on those lines. The Holy Spirit is here to support what is said.
Ques Do you see that carried out in Matthew 13: 38, “And the good seed, these are the sons of the kingdom”?
JT Quite so; the tares are the sons of the wicked one.
Ques Is there a link in Genesis with Paul’s ministry in Romans? God speaks first in the gospel of redemption, and then response in us follows. God [p. 262] helps us by His Spirit. In the gospel we get everything from God’s side, and how He met the issue in Christ in redemption, and then there is a response from us. There is a response to God, and then the Holy Spirit comes in later on in the epistle.
JT Just so; it is the gospel of God concerning His Son. That is the general position; and then your point is that we go on to redemption in chapter 3, and in chapter 5 we get the Holy Spirit shedding forth the love of God in our hearts, and then things come out from us to God. Chapter 6 is to settle the question of our mortal condition; that is, like Enosh, because I think baptism comes in in Genesis 4. It would fit in there. You would say to Seth, Why do you call him Enosh? Well, he would say, I have got the light of baptism. If he had the light we have, he would baptise Enosh, seeing the only hope for him was in the death of another, and the death of another is already there. That is what is governing the position. So that Romans 6 is the death of another, so that we are reckoned in that way. “So also ye, reckon yourselves dead to sin and alive to God in Christ Jesus” (verse 11). Chapter 6 brings in the fixed position of the believer in Christ Jesus. “For the wages of sin is death; but the act of favour of God, eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord” (verse 23). And following that, the fact of what is inside us in chapter 7; and in chapter 8 by the Spirit of God we say, “Abba, Father”.
JS Where would you fit in the new Husband?
JT That is chapter 7. We are to Another; “To be to another, who has been raised up from among the dead, in order that we might bear fruit to God” (verse 4). That is Adam and Eve set up again.
ABP Would you bring in Romans 4: 7, “Blessed they ... whose sins have been covered”? I wondered whether Adam would come in in [p. 263] connection with David.
JT That is good. That is what David says.
ABP Psalm 32 is quoted there, I wondered if David got it from Genesis 3.
AR Is the service of God carried on properly beyond death?
JT That is the service of God. You must have baptism there. Of course, you get it later in chapters 6 and 7 in fulness. God Himself applies it. But the principle with Seth would be, My babe is going to die. What are you going to do about it? Well, he is covered in the death of another. You can put that into it. And then the service of God goes on. Baptism precedes the service of God. So that chapter 7 of Romans involves the Spirit of God; that we might serve in newness of spirit.
CAM In the emphasis on the name in Enosh’s case, Jehovah’s name is the great thought.
JT Exactly. They began to call on it. The note says, ‘or to call themselves by’, but I take it this is the way it should read: “Then people began to call on the name of Jehovah”. That is what we do in baptism.
JS Is the moral setting of Scripture here in view of christianity?
JT Everything bears on christianity, those on whom the ends of the age have come, “For as many things as have been written before have been written for our instruction”, Romans 15: 4. That is the idea. But, of course, we could not speak like this if we were there then. We can only speak as we are speaking now because we have the Holy Spirit and know redemption.
WM In regard of the naming and this matter of David, it has been mentioned about the exercise he went through and that he confessed; it says in the naming of Solomon, he named him Solomon which means peaceful. And then it says the Lord sent Nathan the prophet to tell him he had another [p. 264] name, and that he was beloved of Jehovah. Do you think that would confirm the sense that we have of what has come out of it all, like Romans 8, that we are in Christ?
JT Jedidiah is the prophetic name. You never hear of it afterwards; but it is like a jewel set up there. David would honour Jehovah. His own idea was a man of peace, but Jehovah had other thoughts. He is the only babe that is said to be loved, and I suppose it is Jesus that is in mind.
AR Could you bring Colossians into chapter 4, and Ephesians into chapter 5?
JT That is good. Things seem to be opening up a little, as to how the truth stands.
Ques It says in 2 Peter 3: 7, “But the present heavens and the earth by his word are laid up in store”; is that differentiating these from the heavens that are mentioned in verse 5 of the same chapter: “That heavens were of old, and an earth, having its subsistence out of water and in water, by the word of God, through which waters the then world, deluged with water, perished”?
JT There may have been a variation, but the latter refers to Genesis 1, I think. The present heavens and earth refer to chapter 8; that is, after the deluge. There may have been a variation as to the state of things, but it is in general the same thing: “the present heavens” and “the then world”. There evidently was some variation through the deluge, but we have a heavens and an earth pretty much as is described in chapter 1. What did you have in your mind about that?
Rem I had no thought other than just to see how the heavens are linked with the earth. Peter seems to link the two.
JT That is what I thought at the beginning; that we might see a little of the testimony that was [p. 265] rendered to the first world, and that is what we are occupied with now, which was finished in the deluge.
AAT I notice in chapter 4: 26 it says, “Then people began to call on the name of Jehovah”. Is that just a statement or was there a work going on?
JT It would mean there was light in Seth’s naming his son as he did. We are told of Cain in the same chapter: “And Cain knew his wife, and she conceived and bore Enoch. And he built a city; and he called the name of the city after the name of his son Enoch” (verse 17). There is no idea in his mind that his son was going to die, but in Seth’s mind there was that idea. He was not going to build on his son after the flesh. Something else must happen or he would go into oblivion, and therefore, there is light; because what preceded all that was that there had been the sacrifice and sin-offering, which, indeed, had already been alluded to by Jehovah to Cain; and Seth had that idea, that there was a remedy. He could well afford to say, My son is going to die, because life is now brought in. My mother’s name is ‘Life’. That was the deduction that developed in his mind and made him, what I would call, a believer, although Seth is not included in Hebrews 11, but still you can see the mention here would indicate that, because the whole family is taken up in the next chapter, and we have the word ‘book’: “This is the book of Adam’s generations. In the day that God created man, in the likeness of God made he him. Male and female created he them; and blessed them, and called their name Adam, in the day when they were created” (verses 1, 2). That is, they are all set up again; no more Cain; he is out of it. God is going on with His own family, and that is chapter 5, into which Enoch comes and indicates the full thought of what is before us now; the full thought of life — that he goes up to heaven. God took him because He [p. 266] liked him.
ANW Would it be right to say that Cain’s world characteristically assumes self-sufficiency, whereas Seth’s world needs and calls upon the name of the Lord?
JT Quite so. We must have God in our world. You can get along apparently in your world without God. This is the life-line, therefore, in chapter 5. We are on the life-line, and I believe it is Seth’s naming of his son Enosh that governs this life-line. You find each lives a long time, but each one dies until we come to Enoch, showing Seth’s thought was right, that God can take a man without dying. He did not see death, it says.
ABP Is that the moral basis on which God can bring in life?
JT It is the idea of a cumulative knowledge and light running right through.
Rem Baptism in that way is really an act of life. Putting a child in death is an indication of life in a public way.
JT Just so; putting him in to take him out. Moses was put in, but another took him out; ‘drawn out’ — that is what his name means.
AR Did the truth of eternal life lay a firm foundation for the service of God, and now the service of God going on lays a good foundation for translation?
JT So that in Romans, instead of being changed and raised from the dead by the faith of the working of God as in Colossians, it is simply that we should walk in newness of life.
FNW Would you develop a distinction between Romans 6 and Colossians?
JT Colossians is we are raised by the faith of the working of God. Seth goes further. Seth is going a little further than his father. That is the way it stands; the cumulative principle in Seth is further on [p. 267] than Adam.
ANW You observe there is a gap after the word ‘Seth’ in verse 25. Authoritatively there is a gap there, and I wondered if there was not more there than there is on the surface.
JT That is good and suggestive. The miss is there after the word ‘Seth’. You notice the New Translation shows there is something left out that could be said. The note says Seth means ‘Appointed’, and then something is left out, and it goes on, “For God has appointed me another seed instead of Abel”, as if more could be said than that.
JTJr That would confirm what we said about Colossians, because it is a secret matter, a hidden matter. There should be far more than what is able to be said about us.
JT Just so. Romans does not go as far as saying we are risen, but Colossians says, “Buried with him in baptism, in which ye have been also raised with him through faith of the working of God who raised him from among the dead”, Colossians 2: 12. Well, the child baptised in the light of Romans and the child baptised in the light of Colossians — there is no change publicly. It is a question of the state of the soul of the man that baptises, the person responsible. If he baptises in the light of Colossians it is only by faith that that child is going to be changed literally, raised from the dead. But Romans says, in the meantime he comes out and walks in newness of life.
FNW As out of death, alive.
JT Just so.
FSC Is circumcision added to the baptism in Colossians? Does that change it at all?
JT It comes in before the baptism. You can see Colossians is going deeper into the truth than Romans.
FSC I was wondering whether there was a thought of Gilgal.
[p. 268] JT So there is. Circumcision comes in after Jordan. The Jordan is Colossian baptism.
ANW Is that not the difference between the Red Sea baptism and Colossian baptism? One looks back, so to speak, to Egypt and out of it, and the other into the land.
JT Exactly. There are not two baptisms. The one is a counterpart of the other. The Red Sea coalesces with the Jordan. That is the finish, because we are raised literally in the antitype, but in the meantime it is faith; “By faith of the working of God”; that God is going to take us literally out of death.
JS Do you see that in the twelve men in Ephesus? They had been baptised to the baptism of John.
JT They did not have any more, and they did not have enough of that, because they did not hear there was any Holy Spirit. Therefore, Paul brings in the baptism that we have and lays his hands on them.
AR Walking in newness of life would be testimony, whereas here it says Enoch walked with God. That would be a secret matter.
JT Just so. It would be testimony, too. You may be sure he was a different man from all the others.
AR ‘Walking with God’ is a very strong statement. It is not walking with the brethren, or walking before men, but walking with God.
Ques Do you have that developed in 1 Corinthians 15: 49: “And as we have borne the image of the one made of dust, we shall bear also the image of the heavenly one”? Enoch was in that way heavenly in character.
JT Quite so. He was taken up to heaven.
AAT It says, “And Enoch walked with God; and he was not, for God took him”, Genesis 5: 24. That is Colossians; his life was hid.
[p. 269] JT That is it. You are not among the people of the world; you are not found in their clubs. You are unknown, like Lazarus; the dead Lazarus, but he was really the living Lazarus. But he was dead as regards these entertainments.
WFK The Lord said, “I am come that they might have life, and might have it abundantly”, John 10: 10. Would that come in?
JT We are not dealing with the type, but the antitype, and therefore we have the whole truth, at least as far as we understand it; so that life abundantly is going beyond what others have. I suppose the Lord had christians in mind when He said that.
WFK Would that be eternal life?
JT That is exactly what it is. The chapter deals with eternal life; but when He uses the word, ‘abundantly’ it is to say that there is plenty of it. It is the full divine thought of life.
ABP Would the translation be a testimony of the power of that life; that there is no need for passing through the article of death?
JT That is the actual fact. We are quickened on account of the Spirit that dwells in us; not that the Spirit takes us to heaven, but still the change is connected with the Spirit. The Lord takes us to heaven actually.
CAM It is a very wonderful thing that God gives in this first world these steps or stages to show that before He closes it. He really reaches eternal life in the exhibition of the thing in these persons.
JT That is the way it works out. Enoch is the seventh from Adam, which would mean there would be development. Seven would mean he had reached the full thought of what began with the name ‘life’ or ‘Eve’. It is the seventh from Adam, not the seventh from Eve; the seventh from Adam, the head. He had light, and would work it out, undoubtedly. He worked it out in measure, and I would say [p. 270] Enoch took up the cumulative idea and developed the thing, God confirming all that. Just as He confirmed Adam’s remark by clothing him, He confirmed Enoch in taking him to heaven. God is saying, Well, that thing is perfect now; I have been Witness to this for three hundred years. Enoch pleased Him and He takes him up to heaven. All entering into that is this idea of cumulation. God says, I will go on with that and add to that, right to the finish. You see something that is of God; God says, I will add to that, and there it is. Enoch is the finish. He is the completion of that exercise.
TH Noah’s finding favour with God is cumulative wealth added on to the rest. He is the closing man in the antediluvian world.
JT Yes; he is the finish of it, and, therefore, his father names him. It is usually, “And Methushelah ... begot Lemech”. But when you get to a man being formally named, like Seth, and like Enoch, and like Noah, something special is going to come out of that. So that if you look at chapter 5 you will see that it says, “And Lemech lived a hundred and eighty-two years, and begot a son. And he called his name Noah”, and he gives you a reason for it: “Saying, This one shall comfort us concerning our work and concerning the toil of our hands, because of the ground which Jehovah has cursed” (verses 28, 29). Now we have a distinguished man. Adam was a distinguished man; the Adam was a distinguished creature; he had dominion over the creatures. Now here is a man who is distinguished, and God takes him on, so that you get: “This is the history of Noah. Noah was a just man, perfect amongst his generations: Noah walked with God”, Genesis 6: 9. In verse 13 it says, “And God said to Noah, The end of all flesh is come before me, for the earth is full of violence through them; and behold, I will destroy them with the earth”. He found favour in the eyes of Jehovah,
[p. 271] it says. God takes him on. And what is to be stated about him is that he has a good reputation everywhere. That is not even said of Enoch. It is what God found in him. But this man is remarkable in that he is perfect amongst his generations. And he walked with God besides. That is, everybody could see this man, that he was a distinguished man. The Lord says, “Which of you convinces me of sin?”, John 8: 46. That is the idea. He is perfect amongst His generations, and God has committed Himself to Him, so that He brings in another world.
AR That is the kind of man that goes through into another kind of world. Noah goes through.
JT He is not afraid. He might challenge anybody, any of these wicked men. What can you say against me? It is a man that is not stained with the world that can preach. You cannot do that if you are not clean. That is the position of Noah. He is a righteous man in all of this.
TH I was wondering if his feet would be capable of carrying the glad tidings of God, and also of treading under foot evil.
JT He was a man of great ability to do things, and that is important in our services in our localities, to have a good reputation before men and be able to do things.
Rem So that God got the victory in the first world.
JT So He did. The man that came through is His man. You could not point a finger at him. He was perfect amongst his generations.
JTJr And the result of all that is that at the end you have a wonderful testimony. Noah would be the preacher. The testimony would be there in its greatest exhibition, a man that could preach as a righteous man.
JT How beautifully the Lord could speak about him: “Until the day on which Noe entered into the ark”, Matthew 24: 38. And then the flood came and drowned them all.
ABP Is the thought of Jehovah anticipated in this word of comfort, “This one shall comfort us concerning our work and concerning the toil of our hands, because of the ground which Jehovah has cursed”? Is the answer of that seen in the odour of rest that ascended to Jehovah from the cleansed earth?
JT He was a prophet. Of course, Enoch was too, but his father, which is remarkable, announces this word about Noah. He accepts the curse as right, but the comfort is there. He has light, prophetic light, and God takes it up to Himself in chapter 8. Noah offers the sweet-savour offering.
Ques Would you say that Job was one who accepted the curse over against all that he was? Job was perfect and upright. God really used Satan’s attack on Job in the way of recovery at the end.
JT I would think that. He came to the full thought of God.
APf Was the curse removed in Noah’s time? He said, “I will no more henceforth curse the ground on account of Man”, Genesis 8: 21.
JT Quite so. Christ has brought in the blessing instead of a curse. He was made a curse for us; that is how the curse is removed really.
Rem Three hundred years is rather interesting. One would desire to be like Enoch. He walked with God three hundred and sixty-five days out of every year for three hundred years.
JT Quite so; to walk in newness of life in Romans really fills this out.
FHL Is there any link in what you have been saying as to the renewed earth and the way Shem, Ham and Japheth came to light in the formation of the assembly? As if God is triumphing in that way in making good His original thought.
JT Quite so.