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BIBLE
STUDY LESSON
For
the week beginning Sunday June 24, 2018
FROM
ADAM TO NOAH
Genesis
5
The Old and New Testaments of the
Christian Bible is GOD’s only written revelation of HIMSELF to mankind. In this
extensive, detailed, written Will, GOD commits HIMSELF unconditionally to bless
human beings, and HE accepts our “faith in HIM”, as a substitute for the
“righteousness” that we sorely lack and will not achieve on our own.
As we read this wonderful Will, it is
paramount that we remember that we not only hold in our hands, a very human
document, but we also hold in our grasp, the living Word of the only wise GOD,
WHO created us in HIS OWN spiritual image. HE is also the ONE WHO gave us our “physical
image”, and bestowed upon us, the power (authority) to rule over the earth as
HIS “figurative representative”.
In the Old Testament times, GOD’s written
law distributed responsibility for society throughout Israel. There was no
national police force needed, or national court system who heard civil or
criminal cases that were judged using criteria apart from, or contrary to, the
laws of GOD that are commanded in Scripture. Individuals with relevant
information were required to testify truthfully, and the elders, or other GODly
leaders, would pronounce the judgment and penalties that are established in
GOD’s law.
As long as the majority in the community
remained just, and faithful to GOD and to HIS laws, decisions of justice, not
injustice, would always be reached in community jurisprudence. But men and
women had to always take their privilege and responsibility of being “GOD’s
figurative representative on earth”, seriously.
Most of the people in the Old Testament
days seem to understand much better than we do now, that the only way we can
truly resemble GOD, WHO has no physical image, is to learn how to behave like
HE wants us to behave. Through
acceptance and obedience to HIS Word, we show our love for GOD. In fact, the
only way we can show our love for GOD, is, by obeying HIM.
In Genesis 5 we follow the first ten
generations of man from Adam to Noah. It is here during this stretch of time
that GOD first dubbed mankind collectively (male and female), “human”. It is a
term that would forever remind man of his temporal residency here on earth, and
to permanently connect us to our own immortalities under GOD. And just as GOD
had made the original man, Adam, in HIS OWN “spiritual likeness” (“tsalem” in
the Hebrew), so too did HE program man’s reproductive cycle to regenerate
humans made in our own “physical likeness” (“dmuwth” (dem-ooth) in the Hebrew).
Living in a time when men were capable of
conceiving children up to, at least the age of 187 years, as is evidenced in
this chapter of Genesis (v.26), when Adam was 130 years old he and Eve
conceived Seth, who grew up to become the splitting image of his father, Adam.
After the birth of Seth, Adam lived another 800 years. He and Eve conceived
many more sons and daughters (v.4) before he died at the ripe old age of 930
years.
Chapter 4 gave us a seven-generation
vertical list of the descendents of Cain. Here in chapter 5 we are given a ten-generation
vertical list of the descendents from Adam, through Seth, to Noah. Both these
lists are a testament to the long lives that were lived by the people during
the early years of modern man’s creation by GOD. It is believed by most
scholars that the way GOD manipulated the environment in those days, most
likely attributed to their longevity. GOD’s plan for man to replenish the earth
was achieved through super long lives of child-bearing capabilities in both men
and women.
Chapter 5 also serves to show the link
between earliest man and Noah’s generation, and, at one and the same time, show
us the end result of sin, and how GOD will not hesitate to bring an end to
man’s disobedience and rebelliousness toward HIM, by way of an eventual
physical death. This physical death will always, before long, follow an
immediate “spiritual death” (voluntary separation from GOD).
In the case of Enoch, the son of Jared,
the Bible does not state that he died, but rather it states that he was
“raptured up” to GOD alive. He had lived his whole life in close fellowship
with GOD, before he was taken up by HIM, at the age of 365 years old. Enoch was
the father of Methuselah who lived to become the oldest human being in recorded
Scripture. Methuselah died at 969 years old, and was the father of Lamech.
This chapter concludes with the
introduction of Noah, a very important figure in early Scriptures. He was the
son of Lamech, who had prophesied that Noah would bring relief from the painful
labor of farming the ground that the LORD had cursed because of Adam and Eve’s
poor judgment in the Garden of Eden. Lamech died at the age of 777 years old,
and by the time his son Noah was 500 years old, he had three sons of his own,
Shem, Ham, and Japheth. Stay tuned.
A Sunday school lesson
by,
Larry D. Alexander
LARRY D. ALEXANDER-
Official Website
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