GENESIS FIVE AND SIX
GENESIS FIVE AND SIX
Chapter 5 indicates the line of the testimony. The light of God is connected with the line through Seth. His name signifies appointed, “For God, said she, hath appointed me another seed instead of Abel, whom Cain slew”. Genesis 4:25. It would appear that Abel is the righteous man here, and his righteousness incurs suffering and death. Christ died for righteousness, but in resurrection He is, so to speak, appointed — He takes the place of Head of the line of life, and in this line the testimony is preserved. This answers to Christianity. We may, then, regard chapter 5 as foreshadowing, though perhaps dimly, the present time.
Then, I think, we might be justified in regarding chapter 6 as, in a sense, an outcome of this; that is, it foreshadows the result of the activity of the flesh in divine things, a corrupt system of things which exists collaterally with that which is of God on the earth. The corruption of the earth before the flood was evidently the outcome, to a very great extent, of the alliance between the sons of God and the daughters of men. And now that which was historically of God has become allied with that which is of man, so producing men of renown, and also corruption.
[p. 271] The light of God has given impetus to man’s mind, and so the greatest intellectual activity has appeared within the circle of Christendom. Moreover, man has appropriated that which is of God to add to his greatness in this world. The world has been benefited morally and intellectually by the light of God; men, as such, have taken up the elements of Christianity and used them to a certain extent, for the betterment and glorification of themselves in this world. This state of things is utterly hateful to God, and His judgment of it is imminent. It would seem that the great development of corruption on this earth was after Enoch was translated; so, too, the removal of the restraining presence of the Holy Spirit in the departure of the church, will permit of the heading up of all evil in the man of sin. To this the judgment of God, as typified in the flood, applies.
Although chapter 5 shows that death passed upon the race of Adam in detail, yet there is an exception to the rule, and this exception points, as a testimony, to the power of life in Another for, “as in Adam all die, even so in Christ shall all be made alive”, 1 Corinthians 15:22. Enoch was translated that he should not see death, and this accords with the teaching of the chapter; this is, as we said, that Seth represents Christ as the Head, who makes all to live. If one is exempt from death, all shall be relieved of its power. This testimony is in the church. Christians may seem subject to death as others, but they have the testimony by the Spirit of exemption from death, of resurrection, and of ascension. Enoch is, typically, Christ, but viewed in relation to the church. Enoch is, doubtless, a picture of the church viewed as translated to heaven, but, as was said, I think he is more strictly Christ in relation to the church. That is, you have to take account of the Lord as walking here on earth as the heavenly Man for the pleasure of God, morally outside of this world altogether. The testimony that is [p. 272] rendered in regard to Enoch is that he pleased God. He was not a preacher of righteousness, like Noah; neither is it the point that he was a righteous man (although he was so, of course) like Abel; but he pleased God, and the man who pleases God in the midst of an apostate world is to be translated. But then, we know, as in the light of the epistles, that in Christ’s translation the church is also translated. The church is to God’s pleasure now, and so goes to heaven.
Ques Is Noah a type of the remnant?
Ans. Noah is, personally, a type of Christ in relation to the remnant. The Jewish remnant is foreshadowed in his house.
But we have to consider him first in the light in which his father viewed him when born. Lamech called his name Noah and said, “This same shall comfort us concerning our work and toil of our hands, because of the ground which the Lord hath cursed”. Genesis 5:29. That is, he recognises the toil and work resulting from the curse of God, and he sees in this babe one who should bring in rest, and he gives him a name which signifies this. It was no question of what had been demonstrated in Noah, for he was yet but a babe, so that Lamech had, evidently, light from God. At the end of chapter 8 we see what corresponds to the name given to the child; “the Lord smelled a sweet savour” Genesis 8:21 this should be “savour of rest”. Hence, as in chapter 8, Noah represents Christ as He who removes the curse and brings in rest.
Ques Does the flood show that before the rest of God is secured there must be necessarily the judgment of God?
Ans. Yes. Inasmuch as Noah (as the head of a new line — indeed, in result, the head of a new world) had appeared, God could, as it were, afford to remove, in judgment, the old and corrupt one. Christ, as here in the flesh, was, in the mind of God, the Head of a new race, and a new world, and [p. 273] so the old race and the old world (both being proved to be utterly worthless and wicked, by the Lord’s presence) must disappear. It will be noticed that in chapter 5 Noah is the end of one line, or generation, and in chapter 6 he is viewed as the beginning of another; his sons’ names are given in chapter 5, but manifestly he is taken up as head of another line in the next chapter. “These are the generations of Noah”, Genesis 6:9.