My dad loves genealogies—working on the family tree. I know of at least one occasion where our
summer holiday included a picnic in a graveyard—dad was gathering information
from a gravestone. I suppose the thrill
is in the search, searching further and further backwards into history and the
people who were there.
There are genealogies in Genesis and they too are part of
a search, but this search looks forwards not backwards, for it is anticipating
someone that is to come.
This search begins at chapter 3, verse 15. There the LORD God says to the serpent:
And I will
put enmity
Between you and the woman,
And between your offspring and hers
He will crush your head,
and you will strike his heel.
Note in this verse the singular ‘he’ and ‘his’! There is an individual we are looking
for. We are searching for the offspring
of Eve who will crush the serpent’s head?
[1]
Cain and Abel (chapter 4)
In chapter 4
we read of the first of Eve’s offspring.
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.
With regard to
finding to the serpent-crusher Cain and Abel lead to a dead end (in Abel’s case
literally!). Abel has no descendants,
and when we read of Cain’s (
So where will the offspring of Eve that will crush the serpents head come from? In verse 25 we read of the birth of another son born in the place of Abel, Seth. A new line of descendants begins and immediately it 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 if you are working your way through
Genesis. Certainly 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 genealogy
also serves as a reminder that the consequence of sin—death. Again and again we
read—and then he died. People
don’t like to talk about death, some even try to avoid the word. Apparently there is a hospital in
Noah (chapters 6-9) ‘Grace and
Covenant’:
In chapter
five the line leads to Noah who 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).
Although the
story of Noah and the Flood is a favourite with Sunday school children, it is
not an easy story. Indeed 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.[3] 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’.[4]
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).
So with justice that will not condone wickedness, that will not treat sin
lightly, that will not turn a blind eye to mankind’s rebellion, 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 9 and say that he found favour with God because he was a righteous
man. 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.
We are best to work from verse 8 to verse 9. Noah found favour in God’s eyes—that is
grace, God showing undeserved mercy to an undeserving person from a sinful
world. The result of that grace, the
result of Gods’ favour, is verse 9: Noah becomes a righteous man blameless
among the people of his time.[5]
In
verse 18 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![6] 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.[7]
The story of the flood and the ark is a great act of judgement and salvation, but the effects of the fall are not yet reversed and we have still not found the serpent-crusher. In chapter 8 we read that every inclination of man’s heart is still evil from birth: the problem of sin remains—indeed the account of Noah ends with him getting drunk and one of his sons mocking him. Even though God’s charge to Noah, in chapter 9—to fill the earth and exercise dominion over it, reminds us of the creation account—this new start is not in a new Eden. The story of salvation has not come to its climax yet!
The
scattering: (chapter 11)
With the problem of sin not yet dealt with it comes as no surprise to
find humanity again rebelling against God in chapter 11. Verse 4, Then they
said, “Come, let us build ourselves a city, with a tower that reaches to the
heavens, that we might make a name for ourselves and not be scattered over the
face of the earth. ‘The
Conclusion
Having worked through Genesis 4-11 we might feel that things look
bleak. Indeed two of the dominant themes
of these chapters are humanities sinfulness and God’s response in
judgement. There is, however, 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’ (we ‘are given the hope that even in a
fallen world, it is possible to know God and escape the penalty of death’[10]). 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.
And we have seen that grace in the promise of the serpent-crusher.
What about the serpent-crusher?
Keep following the line of descendants.
This section ends with another genealogy (chapter 11): from Shem to
Abram. The search for the
serpent-crusher continues! Abram will be
the next great character in God’s story of salvation but he will not be the
serpent crusher, we have to carry on many more generations until we come to
him.
Who will the serpent-crusher be?
No prizes for guessing, Jesus! He
defeated the serpent, Satan through his death on the cross, and he will return
to complete the job. The apostle Paul
echoes Genesis 3:15, when he assures the Christians in
[1] One of the main reasons for the genealogies (the family line) in
Genesis 1-11 is the search for this descendant. John Richardson, Get into the Bible,
The Good Book Company.
[2] Cited in Vaughan Roberts, The Big Picture, p.41.
[3] For scientific issues relating to the flood see relevant chapter in
Lucas’s Can we believe Genesis today?
[4] Jackman, Bible Overview Lectures.
[5] David Jackman makes this point by pointing to the phrase ‘This is
the account of’ at the beginning of verse 9.
This is more literally translated ‘this is what came out of’. He suggests that we read this in relation to
Noah, i.e. Noah found favour in the eyes
of the LORD, this is what came out of that, Noah was a righteous man . .
..
[6] See 1 Peter 3.
[7] Jackman, Bible Overview Lectures.
[8] Vaughan Roberts, The Big Picture, p.42.
[9] Vaughan Roberts, The Big Picture, p.42.
[10] Vaughan Roberts, The Big Picture, p.50.
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