Small Group Week 12
Three points from last week:
1. Aaron’s point:
- I think Aaron is right to see Cain’s punishment as really bad - even worse than death.
- Cain is told in verse 11 & 12 that “and now you are cursed from the ground...when you work the ground it will no longer yield to your strength. This is much stronger than in Chapter 3 when Adam is told the “ground is cursed and in pain you shall eat of it all the days of your life; thorns and thistles it shall bring forth for you; and you shall eat the plants of the field.”
- Adam and Eve are exiled from the garden to the east of Eden. Cain is driven even further away. Adam and Eve have each other and their children, but Cain is a fugitive and wanderer and whoever finds him will try to kill him.
- Nevertheless, God does answer at least part of Cain’s request by offering His protection and giving Cain a sign as assurance.
- The point then is to see that not only is sin become more intense but also the effect of sin is becoming more intense.
2. Mike’s Point
- Chapter 4 and 5 give us two genealogies. One is the genealogy of Cain which contains 10 names and is epitomized by Lamech, the fifth in the line. We are meant to see this line as the seed of the serpent in contrast to the Godly line of Seth which contains 10 names and is epitomized by Enoch, the fifth in the line who walks with God. We are meant to see this line as the seed of the woman.
- Mike said that he found this too nice and neat.
- The key here is to see that this as not history but a story. The author is being selective precisely so we can draw comparisons and to make a point. Matthew does the same thing with the genealogy of Jesus. The genealogy of Matthew contains 6 groups of 7 names and ends with Jesus. The point being that Jesus is the 7th. This would have been significant as Jesus being the 7th seven - the jubilee that leads to freedom. Matthew does this not by giving us an accurate genealogy but by leaving out names. Matthew does this to make a point.
- The author of Genesis is also trying to make a point and that is why it helps if we approach Genesis like a story. We are told in Genesis 3:15 to expect a child of the woman who will crush the serpent. Cain is born in Genesis and we wonder if he is the expected seed. We soon learn that he is not and now that Abel is killed we wonder what will become of this prophecy. The chapter then tells us about Cain’s children and we come to Lamech and we find no hope in the descendants of Cain. We are left wondering where will this deliverer come from. At this point at the end of chapter 4, we are introduced to Seth. Seth’s name means compensation - God has not forgot His promise, He will provide the seed.
- In contrast, to Cain and Lamech, Seth’s family will call upon the name of the Lord. This is not so much a statement of worship but a statement of identity. These people call themselves God’s people.
3. My Mistake
- Last week I said that the two things humanity lost in the fall were status and significance. I meant to say security and significance.
- The key point about the genealogy of Cain is to see that humanity continued to complete the project of being fruitful and multiply and ruling and subduing the earth.
Q. What were some ways they attempted to do this?
- They built a city
- They developed agriculture, tools, and music.
- These are not presented as something illegitimate. None of these are condemned in scripture and in fact their use is part of God’s plan. If Adam had not fallen I have no doubt that the same development would occur.
- However, humanity did this without reference to God and tried to achieve security and significance apart from God.
- These attempts at security and significance will ultimately fail because of the curse. Humanity can never be secure because death will ultimately over take them and childbirth, relationships, and work have all been frustrated. The attempts to make a name for itself will ultimately fail because humanity has been demoted from its vassal status.
- Furthermore all of these attempts will be perverted because of humanity's sinful nature and as we will see, will lead to violence, exploitation, and sexual perversion. Last week we saw this personified in the person of Lamech.
- So Cain’s line far from being some dusty genealogy of the past communicates to us the human condition.
Q. What hope does humanity have in their demoted state and their loss of security and significance?
- Faith in God’s promise of the seed who will at last crush the head of the serpent. This is the faith Eve demonstrates in naming her son Seth, seeing in him the hope God has given in this deliverer.
- So even in the people of the ancient pre-Israelite Old Testament past, we can recognize that we share the same faith and the same hope - faith in a deliverer who will free us from this condition. Hope in a vassal whose obedience will accomplish what Adam could not and so free us from the seed of the serpent.
4. People began calling on the name of the Lord.
- Notice the use of the word name. This community concerned itself not with their own name but rather the name of the Lord.
- The phrase "call on the name of the Lord" probably has something to do with worship but it seems to be more than that.
- Isaiah 44:5, Deuteronomy 28:10
- Call upon the name of the Lord is probably better translated they called themselves after the name of the Lord. The idea is that they identified themselves as belonging to YHWH the same as we call ourselves Christians after the name of Christ.
- The phrase means identification with and by God’s name. They are declaring themselves as belonging to God - they are the people of God. This is the essence of a covenantal relationship. If you remember the constant phrase used throughout the Siniatic covenant is I will be your God and you will be my people.
Q. Chapter 5 is a genealogy of the Godly line of Seth. What similarities do you notice between the line of Cain and the line of Seth?
- Both groups continue to have children and descendants in the same manner. Children are a part of God’s common grace.
- “And he died” is a common refrain repeated throughout both genealogies. Death is part of God’s common curse.
5. Enoch walked with God
- Walked has a judicial connotation. Enoch may have been acting as a prophet warning of God’s judgment.
- This connection to Elijah further strengthens that assertion since both were translated into heaven.
- Hint that death may not be the final word in all cases.
6. Sons of God
Q. What are some explanations you have heard that explain who are the sons of god or the daughters of men?
1. The sons of god are angels who married human women. Their children are giant superhuman hybrids. Their sin is transgressing God’s stated boundaries between the divine and human realm.
2. The sons of god are descendants of the Godly line of Seth who married outside the covenant community. Their sin is intermarriage with the unGodly line of Cain.
- The first view dates from at least the 2nd century B.C., the book of Enoch certainly interprets this passage as referring to angels.
- The first view is difficult because there is no evidence that humans and angels can engage in sexual relations.
- Jesus says that the angels are not given to marriage. It also seems odd that God would punish humanity with the flood for the sin of angelic beings.
- Verse 3 even specifically states that “my spirit will not abide in man forever, for he is flesh.
- The second view is problematic because it makes no sense of why the offspring of Cainite and Sethite marriages would be anything special.
- The terminology makes interpretation difficult. Sons of God is used to refer to angels in some parts of the Old Testament, and humans in others.
- Nephilim is often translated as giants but there is no good reason to do that. The word literally means fallen ones or possibly those who fall (as in cause others to fall). The only other part of scripture where this term occurs is Numbers where giants are mentioned but it seems to refer to the Sons of Anak, not necessarily the nephillim.
- Gibborim is much more certain. The gibborim are warriors, soldiers, or conquerers.
- I think the key to understanding this passage is to view it in the context of the rest of Genesis.
- After the fall, the key theological point is the intensification of the sin. We see sin advancing as an avalanche, leading to the situation in Genesis 6:5 where “the wickedness was great in the earth, and that every intention of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually." Even after the flood we see the avalanche of sin is not stopped and instead we have the Babel project.
- So we start with the violence of Cain and his desire to make a name for his descendants by building a city.
- We have his descendent Lamech engaging in violence, bigamy, and declaring himself better than God.
- Now we see the sons of God engaging in the same activity. They engage in polygamy by taking as their wives any they choose. They are violent men who conquered. Gibborim is used in chapter 11 to describe Nimrod who founds Assyria and Babylon, two empires that will engage ceaselessly in conquest.
- Also, remember that I said the word name is important throughout the next few chapters in Genesis and in verse 4 we read that these Nephilim were the mighty men, the men of renown. Literally that phrase men of renown is “men of name”
- I think our best interpretation is to view them as men who are continuing on the same path as Cain and Lamech. They are violent men and conquerers who are interested in building dynasties and making a name for themselves. What was the point of the tower of Babel? Genesis 11:4 says it was to make a name for themselves in order to reach heaven. Once again we see the idea of striving for divinity as well as achieving fame for their name.
- We can think of sons of God as referring to divine kingship which fits well with the text and also fits into the Ancient Near East history. It would make sense that if someone used the phrase son of God that we being referring to individuals such as the pharaoh who claimed to be the son of Ra or the king of Bablylon who was thought of as the Son of Marduk.
- We actually have texts dating from the time of Moses from an ancient Canaanite kingdom called Ugarit that wrote in a language closely related to Hebrew that uses the exact term son of God to refer to their king.
- These sons of God then are conquerers who take what they want by force and power. They build harems for themselves, they claim resources and land as they please, they are violent, and they elevate themselves to the status of God.
- The result of their actions is judgment. God declares that man has 120 years before He will bring judgment.
- As Noah and his family were the only righteous people left, it may be that the oppression of the sons of God was such that the seed of the woman was in danger of extinction. It seems that in the holy war set up in Genesis 3:15, between the seed of the woman and the seed of the serpent, that the seed of the serpent is winning.
- When we looked at Revelation 12, this is exactly the type of thing that was depicted for us when the Dragon attempts to devour the child of the woman.
- We certainly see this theme repeated in the Old Testament where only a remnant is left but God always intervenes to preserve this remnant.
Q. Can you think of some occasions in the Bible where the people of God were so threatened?
- Egyptian captivity
- 7000 who would not bow down to Ba’al
- Babylonian captivity
- Herod’s massacre of the innocents.
- Peter sees the story of this time period as a paradigm of the final judgment. In 2 Peter 3:6 calls this the world that then was and sees it as parallel to the time before the second coming.
- Only the intervention of the flood can save God’s people just as only the final judgment will save God’s people according to the book of Revelation.
- What is interesting is that again we the same types repeated. In Revelation the Dragon acts through three servants:
1. The Beast of the Sea
2. The Beast of the Land
3. The Whore of Babylon
- The Beast of the Sea makes war on the saints just as Cain’s people do to the point where Noah and his family are the only righteous people left. The Beast of the Sea is a violent conquerer whose imagery is taken from Daniel 7 which describes conquering kingdoms such as Assyria, Babylon, Greece, and Rome. These are kingdoms who elevate themselves above God and rule by violence and oppression exactly as the sons of God described in Genesis 6.
- The Beast of the Land engages in economic exploitation. No one can buy or sell unless he has the number of the beast. Just as these mighty men of old take what land and resources they will by force.
- The Whore of Babylon is described as misleading the kings of the earth with sexual immorality. Here again we see echos of the sons of god taking the daughters of men “any they choose.”
- In the 19th century Nietzche saw humanity as being driven by power, Marx saw the story of humanity as one of economic exploitation, and Freud by sexuality.
- We have an alternative story to offer the world just as Enoch and Noah did. Our answer to the problems of human history, to significance and security is the seed of the woman who accepts the bruising of the serpent but ultimately will crush his head.
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