Genesis 4-9: 'Life east of Eden'

The story is told of an occasion when the Times of London wrote to famous authors asking them what they thought of the world.  G. K. Chesterton is said to have written back, ‘Dear Sir, I am.’  Doesn’t it frustrate you that it seems that we have a bent towards doing what we know to be wrong?  Don’t you want to cry out, with the apostle Paul, ‘O, wretched man that I am’?  After the fall of Adam and Eve we see that people have a problem with evil.  What can we do to change?

Cain and Abel (chapter 4)

Last week we saw that after Adam and Eve rebelled against God, God told the serpent that there would be a dependent of the woman who would crush his head.  We could say that the rest of the Old Testament is a search for the serpent-crusher.  Cain is the first-born.  Will he be the one to crush the serpents head?  No!  In fact, Cain crushes his brother Abel!  In this murder we see how the breakdown in relationship between God and humanity inevitably leads to a breakdown in relationship among humans.  Human wickedness hurts other human beings.

Abel has no descendants, and when we read of Cain’s (4:17-24) we see little hope.  The line from Cain leads to Lamech, who boasts of killing a man for striking him (4:23).  Interestingly it is with this wicked man, Lamech, that we first read of polygamy.  While polygamy was tolerated in the Old Testament, it was never a seen as a good thing.  Indeed, Jesus closes the door on polygamy in the New Testament.

So where will the offspring of Eve that will crush the serpent’s head come from?  In verse 25 we read of the birth of another son born in the place of Abel, Seth.  This new line of descendants begins is associated with the worship of God— at that time men began to call on the name of the LORD (verse 26).  This is the line of descendants that we are to follow as we search for the serpent-crusher.

The account of Adam’s line (chapter 5) 

You might be tempted to skip over chapter 5, it is not the most exciting read: ‘so and so had lived for a certain number of years, he became the father of someone else, he lived for a certain number of more years and had other sons and daughters.  Altogether he lived a certain number of years, and then he died.’  The pattern is repetitive, but there are important things being taught here.

To start with a certain line is being traced, only one member in each generation is mentioned: we are moving in a direction towards one person.  This line, as we will see, continues right through Genesis and contrary to expectation it does not always continue through the first-born—it goes through Seth rather than Cain, Isaac rather than Ishmael, Jacob rather than his first-born twin brother Esau.

This line is also a reminder that the consequence of sin—death. Time and again we read ‘and then he died’.  Life east of Eden is characterised by death.  Death is a sad reality that we all live with.

The flood (chapters 6-9)

There are hundreds of flood stories from all around the world.  In one of the flood stories from the nations surrounding the Israelites, the gods send the flood because humans are too noisy.  However, our God is not like that!   

Chapter five begins with such promise.  Noah is introduced by his father’s hopeful words: “He will comfort us in the labour and painful toil of our hands caused by the ground the LORD has cursed” (5:29).  Is this the serpent-crusher?

Although the story of Noah and the Flood is a favourite with Sunday school children, it is not an easy story.  I once shared a house with a friend who cited the flood as part his reason for not believing in God: ‘God wasn’t so loving when he drowned all those people,’ he used to say.  However, it should be noted that while God does act in judgement he does so with sorrow:  the LORD was grieved that he had made man on the earth, and his heart was filled with pain (6:6).  This is not some vindictive tyrant, this is a God whose heart is breaking.

God saw how great humankind’s wickedness had become, and that every inclination of the thoughts of his heart was only evil all the time (6:5).  God announces judgement—I will wipe out mankind, whom I have created ...  However, as well as this being a story of judgment it is also one of salvation:  but Noah found favour in the eyes of the LORD (6:8).

Why did Noah find favour in the eyes of the LORD?  The obvious answer seems to be to look at verse nine and say that he found favour with God because he was a righteous man (6:9).  But that sounds like salvation by works; that sounds as if God looked for someone who deserved his salvation and then saved them.  Such an explanation seems very different to the salvation by grace that is taught in the rest of the Bible.  The key to seeing the grace in Noah’s life is to work from verses eight to nine.  Noah found favour in God’s eyes (8), therefore, Noah becomes a righteous man blameless among the people of his time (9).

In verse eighteen we have the first mention of what is a key unifying theme in Scripture: covenant.  This first mention of covenant involves God’s commitment to save Noah and his family from destruction.  

The flood comes, but God has provided a rescue plan for Noah and his family.  The ark carries them through the judgement into the salvation that lies beyond.  What a picture of the gospel!  For those of us who have put our trust in him Jesus is like our ark—he has taken the brunt of God’s judgement in our place, as we shelter in Christ the ark, we are carried through the tide of judgement into the world of salvation that lies beyond.

However, Noah is not the serpent-crusher.  Like all of us he struggles with sin.  The account of Noah ends with his getting drunk and his sons mocking him.  The judgement of the flood has not solved the problem of the human heart.  In chapter eight we read that every inclination of man’s heart is still evil from birth.

Conclusion

Things look pretty bleak in these early chapters of the Bible.  Two of the dominant themes of these chapters are human wickedness and God’s judgement. However, there is a third great theme: God’s amazing grace!

We see that grace in chapter 4, when God places a protective mark on the unrepentant Cain.  We see that grace in chapter 5, when we read of Enoch who walked with God; then he was no more’ (giving the hope that even in a fallen world, it is possible to know God and that death will be defeated).  We see that grace in chapter 6—God showing favour to Noah and rescuing him and his family.  We see that grace in chapter 9 with God’s covenant to preserve creation and never again destroy it with a flood.

An atheist friend of mine said, ‘I am just a flawed human being, just like everybody else.’  The sad truth is that evil inclinations influence all that we do.  But the serpent-crusher, Jesus, has come.  He died for our guilt so that guilty people like us could be considered righteous and blameless like Noah was.  We still struggle, like Noah, but we are being rescued from the influence of sin.  We live under a new covenant where God says, ‘I will give them my Spirit and incline their hearts to do my will.’  Jesus does give us the power to change.  We change when we humble ourselves, admit our weakness, and cry out for his strength.  And even though our inclinations are still tainted with pride and self-righteousness, he breathes his grace over what we do for God and makes them wonderfully pleasing to our heavenly Father.