Paul,
You are right. I'm not sure that I mentioned this in the first service, but did remember to mention in the second service that I am NOT a pacifist. I do believe that there are circumstances, such as some of those you list, that require our intervention.
My condemnation of violence was focused on personal relationships, clan relationships, etc.
I do understand "the sword" referred to in Romans 13:4 to be physical reaction by social authorities (elected governors, etc.).
This does become quite problematic in the extreme cases. In fact, Adam Brown is attempting to schedule a public forum on pacifism vs. just war in the Spring. I will participate as a proponent of Just War.
Lane
Saturday, May 31, 2008
Violence left to God alone? Paul A.
Hello Lane,
I enjoyed your sermon, and the message that we must be patient and let God deliver justice, "though it may be late", and that only God's use of violence is justified. In the past many Christians have told me that, and every time the same question comes into my mind: What happens with continuing progressive violence? It doesn't seem morally correct for us to sit around and wait for God to do justice to end a crisis. Could it be that we are the "tools" of God to end a crisis? In particular, crisis in Darfur seems to be ongoing with hundreds of innocent people being slaughtered and raped in their home villages. If diplomatic initiative to end the crisis fails, is the use of violence (i.e. military deployment by foreign nations) to end the crisis justified? It appears that there are plenty of situations in which the use of force by humankind seems to be the only effective action to protect innocent people.
Similarly, the Myanmar is desperate for foreign aid in the aftermath of a cyclone. It has been projected that thousands more may die in the absence of proper food, water, sanitation, and medical care. To this day, Myanmar's ruling military junta is reluctant to allow outsiders in to distribute aid. If efforts to reach a timely diplomatic compromise fail, is it just for us to launch a humanitarian invasion (use of violence) to protect innocent people and prevent a possible epidemic?
Another general example is the case for various African countries. Is it just for citizens of the country to use force in an attempt to rebel against a ruling tyrant to fight oppression? I understand that unfortunately many successful rebellions against a tyrant lead to another tyrant, but the idea of using violence in an attempt to protect the freedoms of the people is there.
Is this an exception to what you said, or would you say there is always an alternative to violence? If you can help me clear up this moral dilemma or point me in the right direction, I would greatly appreciate it.
Thanks a lot,
Kind Regards,
Paul A.
I enjoyed your sermon, and the message that we must be patient and let God deliver justice, "though it may be late", and that only God's use of violence is justified. In the past many Christians have told me that, and every time the same question comes into my mind: What happens with continuing progressive violence? It doesn't seem morally correct for us to sit around and wait for God to do justice to end a crisis. Could it be that we are the "tools" of God to end a crisis? In particular, crisis in Darfur seems to be ongoing with hundreds of innocent people being slaughtered and raped in their home villages. If diplomatic initiative to end the crisis fails, is the use of violence (i.e. military deployment by foreign nations) to end the crisis justified? It appears that there are plenty of situations in which the use of force by humankind seems to be the only effective action to protect innocent people.
Similarly, the Myanmar is desperate for foreign aid in the aftermath of a cyclone. It has been projected that thousands more may die in the absence of proper food, water, sanitation, and medical care. To this day, Myanmar's ruling military junta is reluctant to allow outsiders in to distribute aid. If efforts to reach a timely diplomatic compromise fail, is it just for us to launch a humanitarian invasion (use of violence) to protect innocent people and prevent a possible epidemic?
Another general example is the case for various African countries. Is it just for citizens of the country to use force in an attempt to rebel against a ruling tyrant to fight oppression? I understand that unfortunately many successful rebellions against a tyrant lead to another tyrant, but the idea of using violence in an attempt to protect the freedoms of the people is there.
Is this an exception to what you said, or would you say there is always an alternative to violence? If you can help me clear up this moral dilemma or point me in the right direction, I would greatly appreciate it.
Thanks a lot,
Kind Regards,
Paul A.
Tuesday, May 27, 2008
Noah and The Flood
Noah and the Flood
Genesis 6-8; 25 May 08
The story…
If this story were made into a summer blockbuster, how would it be presented? Lots of CGI, no doubt!
You can imagine the images of screaming people, banging on the door of the ark as the waters rose, bobbing up and down in the water…
Strange that NOTHING is said about the deaths of those who were not in the ark. God is not after gratuitous violence!
God does not appear to relish the destruction of his own creatures; he judges in an effort to stop the madness.
Read the text Genesis 6:11—8:16
Resonance with what has gone before…
Waltke:
Noah had three sons. …to link Noah with Adam and his three sons, to present Noah as head of the nuclear family, to foreshadow the destiny of Noah and his three sons as the common ancestors of humanity.
Turner:
a) Earth covered by water 1.2a 7.24
b) Wind/spirit moves 1.2b 8.1b
c) Waters recede 1.9a 8.1c-5a
d) Dry land emerges 1.9b 8.5b
The Point…
I. God instructs the righteous to prepare to escape the judgment of the wicked. 6:9-22.
God prepares us to escape the judgment due the wicked by hiding within the Ark.
a. The righteous walk with God, but the wicked corrupt the earth, 9-12.
Waltke
…God wipes out the seed of the Serpent, which had become utterly corrupt. By means of a divinely specified ark God spares the righteous seed of the woman vis-à-vis Noah and his family, and with them his creation in miniature. Noah and his family, having survived the punishing and purging Flood, emerge from the ark to a renewed earth that will last to the end of time as we know it. Tragically, however, Noah and his family again give birth to the seed of the Serpent, though they also perpetuate as the seed of the woman.
…the character of the covenant partners drives the plot. The narrator feels no need to explicitly characterize God as just, merciful, and faithful to his word. God’s actions speak for themselves as he both unleashes the Flood on time and spares Noah in time. it comes as no surprise that God remembers Noah at the pivot.
Gen. 6:9 ¶ This is the account of Noah. ¶ Noah was a godly man; he was blameless ¶ among his contemporaries. He walked with God.
Gen. 6:10 Noah had three sons: Shem, Ham, and Japheth.
Gen. 6:11 ¶ The earth was ruined in the sight of God; the earth was filled with violence.
Gen. 6:12 God saw the earth, and indeed it was ruined, for all living creatures on the earth were sinful.
We walk with God by reversing the chaos/corruption of the earth.
God can speak and bring order out of chaos, but
We must be in the world in order to set the world back to order.
b. God resolves to make a distinction between the righteous and the wicked, 13-22.
Gen. 6:13 So God said to Noah, “I have decided that all living creatures must die, for the earth is filled with violence because of them. Now I am about to destroy them and the earth.
Gen. 6:14 Make for yourself an ark of cypress wood. Make rooms in the ark, and cover it with pitch inside and out.
Kidner: Ark: ‘chest’ not ship
Gen. 6:15 This is how you should make it: The ark is to be 450 feet long, 75 feet wide, and 45 feet high.
Gen. 6:16 Make a roof for the ark and finish it, leaving 18 inches from the top. Put a door in the side of the ark, and make lower, middle, and upper decks.
Gen. 6:17 I am about to bring floodwaters on the earth to destroy from under the sky all the living creatures that have the breath of life in them. Everything that is on the earth will die,
Allen Ross:
Why would God use a flood to bring judgment?
First, God is sovereign over all creation and frequently uses nature to judge humankind. The sea has always been a symbol of chaos—something that human beings cannot control (Job 38:8-11). But God has power over it and all nature (see Psa. 29, which alludes to the flood).
Second, the great flood would be a most effective way of purging the world—certainly the most graphic. It would wash the earth clean, so that not a trace of the wicked or their wickedness would be found. God thus purified the earth of all but the remnant. Later the law used the terminology of washing with water as a symbol for purging before worship (eg, Lev. 8:6, 21). The NT also drew on these motifs (eg., Titus 3:5).
Third, the flood was used by God to start a new creation. The first creation with Adam was paralleled here by the second with Noah. Just as the dry land appeared from the waters of the chaos in Genesis 1:9, so here the waters abated until the ark came to rest on Ararat. Once Noah and his family emerged from the ark into God’s new creation, he was commissioned to be fruitful and have dominion as Adam had been. The use of a flood that enveloped the whole earth was thus God’s way of beginning again. The narrative of the flood, then, includes the uncreation/re-creation theme.
Gen. 6:18 but I will confirm my covenant with you. You will enter the ark–you, your sons, your wife, and your sons’ wives with you.
Gen. 6:19 You must bring into the ark two of every kind of living creature from all flesh, male and female, to keep them alive with you.
Gen. 6:20 Of the birds after their kinds, and of the cattle after their kinds, and of every creeping thing of the ground after its kind, two of every kind will come to you so you can keep them alive.
Gen. 6:21 And you must take for yourself every kind of food that is eaten, and gather it together. It will be food for you and for them.
Gen. 6:22 ¶ And Noah did all that God commanded him–he did indeed.
We show our distinction from the wicked by our work of restoration.
II. The Lord destroys the wicked and their world but saves a remnant through the obedience of one man, 7:1-24.
The Lord suspends his judgment of the wicked while he saves a remnant through the obedience of his sons and daughters.
a. The Lord ensures the deliverance of the righteous from judgment 1-9.
Gen. 7:1 ¶ The Lord said to Noah, “Come into the ark, you and all your household, for I consider you godly among this generation.
Gen. 7:2 You must take with you seven of every kind of clean animal, the male and its mate, two of every kind of unclean animal, the male and its mate,
Gen. 7:3 and also seven of every kind of bird in the sky, male and female, to preserve their offspring on the face of the earth.
Gen. 7:4 For in seven days I will cause it to rain on the earth for forty days and forty nights, and I will wipe from the face of the ground every living thing that I have made.”
Gen. 7:5 ¶ And Noah did all that the Lord commanded him.
Gen. 7:6 ¶ Noah was 600 years old when the floodwaters engulfed the earth.
Gen. 7:7 Noah entered the ark along with his sons, his wife, and his sons’ wives because of the floodwaters.
Gen. 7:8 Pairs of clean animals, of unclean animals, of birds, and of everything that creeps along the ground,
Gen. 7:9 male and female, came into the ark to Noah, just as God had commanded him.
b. The Lord’s judgment completely destroys the wicked and their world, 10-24.
Gen. 7:10 And after seven days the floodwaters engulfed the earth.
Gen. 7:11 ¶ In the six hundredth year of Noah’s life, in the second month, on the seventeenth day of the month–on that day all the fountains of the great deep burst open and the floodgates of the heavens were opened.
Gen. 7:12 And the rain fell on the earth forty days and forty nights.
Gen. 7:13 ¶ On that very day Noah entered the ark, accompanied by his sons Shem, Ham, and Japheth, along with his wife and his sons’ three wives.
Gen. 7:14 They entered, along with every living creature after its kind, every animal after its kind, every creeping thing that creeps on the earth after its kind, and every bird after its kind, everything with wings.
Gen. 7:15 Pairs of all creatures that have the breath of life came into the ark to Noah.
Gen. 7:16 Those that entered were male and female, just as God commanded him. Then the Lord shut him in.
Gen. 7:17 ¶ The flood engulfed the earth for forty days. As the waters increased, they lifted the ark and raised it above the earth.
Gen. 7:18 The waters completely overwhelmed the earth, and the ark floated on the surface of the waters.
Gen. 7:19 The waters completely inundated the earth so that even all the high mountains under the entire sky were covered.
Gen. 7:20 The waters rose more than twenty feet above the mountains.
Gen. 7:21 And all living things that moved on the earth died, including the birds, domestic animals, wild animals, all the creatures that swarm over the earth, and all humankind.
Gen. 7:22 Everything on dry land that had the breath of life in its nostrils died.
Gen. 7:23 So the Lord destroyed every living thing that was on the surface of the ground, including people, animals, creatures that creep along the ground, and birds of the sky. They were wiped off the earth. Only Noah and those who were with him in the ark survived.
Gen. 7:24 The waters prevailed over the earth for 150 days.
III. The delivered “righteous remnant” establishes order in the earth, 8:1-22.
a. God restores his creation after the judgment is complete, 1-19.
NIDOTTE, Gordon Wenham
But just as obvious is the parallel between the original process of creation and the world’s re-creation as described in Gen 8–9. The turning point of the story is 8:1: “God remembered Noah . . . and he sent a wind over the earth, and the waters receded.” Here the heaven-sent wind echoes the wind of God hovering over the waters before the first act of creation. And, as in Gen 1, there follows the progressive separation of water from the land: first the mountain tops appear, then the fresh growth of the trees, and eventually the earth was dried out. As God created the animals to swarm and multiply in the earth, so Noah is directed to send them out to do the same again (1:20–22; 8:17).
Waltke:
8:1 REMEMBERED
Unlike English “remembered,” which refers merely to mental recall and entails having forgotten, the Hebrew term, especially with reference to God, signifies to act upon a previous commitment to a covenant partner (see 9:14-15; 19:29; 30:22; Ex. 2:24; 6:5; 32:13; 1 Sam. 1:19; Judg. 16:28; Job 14:13; Ps. 8:4; 9:12; 74:1-3; 98:3; 105:8; 106:45; 111:5; Jer. 15:15). By acting on his earlier promise to Noah (6:18), God shows himself to be a trustworthy ocvenant partner. This crucial expression shows that the subsiding waters of the Flood are subject to God’s undisputed will.
By contrast, in the Babylonian accoutns “the gods were terror-struck at the forces they themselves had unleashed. They were appalled at the consequences of their own actions over which they no longer had congtrol.”
Kidner:
8:7-12 The raven and the dove almost ask to be treated as a parable; indeed the HS, by taking the form of a dove, probably pointed to this episode with its suggestion of that which is sensitive and discriminating, the harbinger of the new creation (this, rather than peace, is the promise of the freshly plucked olive leaf, 11 RSV) and the guide of those who await it. The raven, in contrast, content with its carrion, was no harbinger of anything: its failure to return was as uninformative…
b. The restored remnant acknowledges their gratitude to the Lord in worship, 20-22.
1 June 08 Noahic Covenant & Canaanite Curse
Covenants with Adam, Noah, Abram: be fruitful, multiply and fill the earth.
Turner
A Noah and his three sons (6:9-10)
B Violence in God’s creation (6:11-12)
C First divine address: resolution to destroy (6:13-22)
D Second divine address: command to enter ark (7:1-10)
E Beginning of the flood (7:11-16)
F The rising flood waters (7:17-24)
GOD’S REMEMBRANCE OF NOAH (8:1a)
F’ The receding flood waters (81b-5)
E’ The drying of the earth (8:6-14)
D’ Third divine address: command to leave ark (8:15-19)
C’ God’s resolution to preserve order (8:20-22)
B’ Fourth divine address: covenant blessing and peace (9:1-17)
A’ Noah and his three sons (9:18-19)
[adapted from Anderson 1978: 23-39)]
Genesis 6-8; 25 May 08
The story…
If this story were made into a summer blockbuster, how would it be presented? Lots of CGI, no doubt!
You can imagine the images of screaming people, banging on the door of the ark as the waters rose, bobbing up and down in the water…
Strange that NOTHING is said about the deaths of those who were not in the ark. God is not after gratuitous violence!
God does not appear to relish the destruction of his own creatures; he judges in an effort to stop the madness.
Read the text Genesis 6:11—8:16
Resonance with what has gone before…
Waltke:
Noah had three sons. …to link Noah with Adam and his three sons, to present Noah as head of the nuclear family, to foreshadow the destiny of Noah and his three sons as the common ancestors of humanity.
Turner:
a) Earth covered by water 1.2a 7.24
b) Wind/spirit moves 1.2b 8.1b
c) Waters recede 1.9a 8.1c-5a
d) Dry land emerges 1.9b 8.5b
The Point…
I. God instructs the righteous to prepare to escape the judgment of the wicked. 6:9-22.
God prepares us to escape the judgment due the wicked by hiding within the Ark.
a. The righteous walk with God, but the wicked corrupt the earth, 9-12.
Waltke
…God wipes out the seed of the Serpent, which had become utterly corrupt. By means of a divinely specified ark God spares the righteous seed of the woman vis-à-vis Noah and his family, and with them his creation in miniature. Noah and his family, having survived the punishing and purging Flood, emerge from the ark to a renewed earth that will last to the end of time as we know it. Tragically, however, Noah and his family again give birth to the seed of the Serpent, though they also perpetuate as the seed of the woman.
…the character of the covenant partners drives the plot. The narrator feels no need to explicitly characterize God as just, merciful, and faithful to his word. God’s actions speak for themselves as he both unleashes the Flood on time and spares Noah in time. it comes as no surprise that God remembers Noah at the pivot.
Gen. 6:9 ¶ This is the account of Noah. ¶ Noah was a godly man; he was blameless ¶ among his contemporaries. He walked with God.
Gen. 6:10 Noah had three sons: Shem, Ham, and Japheth.
Gen. 6:11 ¶ The earth was ruined in the sight of God; the earth was filled with violence.
Gen. 6:12 God saw the earth, and indeed it was ruined, for all living creatures on the earth were sinful.
We walk with God by reversing the chaos/corruption of the earth.
God can speak and bring order out of chaos, but
We must be in the world in order to set the world back to order.
b. God resolves to make a distinction between the righteous and the wicked, 13-22.
Gen. 6:13 So God said to Noah, “I have decided that all living creatures must die, for the earth is filled with violence because of them. Now I am about to destroy them and the earth.
Gen. 6:14 Make for yourself an ark of cypress wood. Make rooms in the ark, and cover it with pitch inside and out.
Kidner: Ark: ‘chest’ not ship
Gen. 6:15 This is how you should make it: The ark is to be 450 feet long, 75 feet wide, and 45 feet high.
Gen. 6:16 Make a roof for the ark and finish it, leaving 18 inches from the top. Put a door in the side of the ark, and make lower, middle, and upper decks.
Gen. 6:17 I am about to bring floodwaters on the earth to destroy from under the sky all the living creatures that have the breath of life in them. Everything that is on the earth will die,
Allen Ross:
Why would God use a flood to bring judgment?
First, God is sovereign over all creation and frequently uses nature to judge humankind. The sea has always been a symbol of chaos—something that human beings cannot control (Job 38:8-11). But God has power over it and all nature (see Psa. 29, which alludes to the flood).
Second, the great flood would be a most effective way of purging the world—certainly the most graphic. It would wash the earth clean, so that not a trace of the wicked or their wickedness would be found. God thus purified the earth of all but the remnant. Later the law used the terminology of washing with water as a symbol for purging before worship (eg, Lev. 8:6, 21). The NT also drew on these motifs (eg., Titus 3:5).
Third, the flood was used by God to start a new creation. The first creation with Adam was paralleled here by the second with Noah. Just as the dry land appeared from the waters of the chaos in Genesis 1:9, so here the waters abated until the ark came to rest on Ararat. Once Noah and his family emerged from the ark into God’s new creation, he was commissioned to be fruitful and have dominion as Adam had been. The use of a flood that enveloped the whole earth was thus God’s way of beginning again. The narrative of the flood, then, includes the uncreation/re-creation theme.
Gen. 6:18 but I will confirm my covenant with you. You will enter the ark–you, your sons, your wife, and your sons’ wives with you.
Gen. 6:19 You must bring into the ark two of every kind of living creature from all flesh, male and female, to keep them alive with you.
Gen. 6:20 Of the birds after their kinds, and of the cattle after their kinds, and of every creeping thing of the ground after its kind, two of every kind will come to you so you can keep them alive.
Gen. 6:21 And you must take for yourself every kind of food that is eaten, and gather it together. It will be food for you and for them.
Gen. 6:22 ¶ And Noah did all that God commanded him–he did indeed.
We show our distinction from the wicked by our work of restoration.
II. The Lord destroys the wicked and their world but saves a remnant through the obedience of one man, 7:1-24.
The Lord suspends his judgment of the wicked while he saves a remnant through the obedience of his sons and daughters.
a. The Lord ensures the deliverance of the righteous from judgment 1-9.
Gen. 7:1 ¶ The Lord said to Noah, “Come into the ark, you and all your household, for I consider you godly among this generation.
Gen. 7:2 You must take with you seven of every kind of clean animal, the male and its mate, two of every kind of unclean animal, the male and its mate,
Gen. 7:3 and also seven of every kind of bird in the sky, male and female, to preserve their offspring on the face of the earth.
Gen. 7:4 For in seven days I will cause it to rain on the earth for forty days and forty nights, and I will wipe from the face of the ground every living thing that I have made.”
Gen. 7:5 ¶ And Noah did all that the Lord commanded him.
Gen. 7:6 ¶ Noah was 600 years old when the floodwaters engulfed the earth.
Gen. 7:7 Noah entered the ark along with his sons, his wife, and his sons’ wives because of the floodwaters.
Gen. 7:8 Pairs of clean animals, of unclean animals, of birds, and of everything that creeps along the ground,
Gen. 7:9 male and female, came into the ark to Noah, just as God had commanded him.
b. The Lord’s judgment completely destroys the wicked and their world, 10-24.
Gen. 7:10 And after seven days the floodwaters engulfed the earth.
Gen. 7:11 ¶ In the six hundredth year of Noah’s life, in the second month, on the seventeenth day of the month–on that day all the fountains of the great deep burst open and the floodgates of the heavens were opened.
Gen. 7:12 And the rain fell on the earth forty days and forty nights.
Gen. 7:13 ¶ On that very day Noah entered the ark, accompanied by his sons Shem, Ham, and Japheth, along with his wife and his sons’ three wives.
Gen. 7:14 They entered, along with every living creature after its kind, every animal after its kind, every creeping thing that creeps on the earth after its kind, and every bird after its kind, everything with wings.
Gen. 7:15 Pairs of all creatures that have the breath of life came into the ark to Noah.
Gen. 7:16 Those that entered were male and female, just as God commanded him. Then the Lord shut him in.
Gen. 7:17 ¶ The flood engulfed the earth for forty days. As the waters increased, they lifted the ark and raised it above the earth.
Gen. 7:18 The waters completely overwhelmed the earth, and the ark floated on the surface of the waters.
Gen. 7:19 The waters completely inundated the earth so that even all the high mountains under the entire sky were covered.
Gen. 7:20 The waters rose more than twenty feet above the mountains.
Gen. 7:21 And all living things that moved on the earth died, including the birds, domestic animals, wild animals, all the creatures that swarm over the earth, and all humankind.
Gen. 7:22 Everything on dry land that had the breath of life in its nostrils died.
Gen. 7:23 So the Lord destroyed every living thing that was on the surface of the ground, including people, animals, creatures that creep along the ground, and birds of the sky. They were wiped off the earth. Only Noah and those who were with him in the ark survived.
Gen. 7:24 The waters prevailed over the earth for 150 days.
III. The delivered “righteous remnant” establishes order in the earth, 8:1-22.
a. God restores his creation after the judgment is complete, 1-19.
NIDOTTE, Gordon Wenham
But just as obvious is the parallel between the original process of creation and the world’s re-creation as described in Gen 8–9. The turning point of the story is 8:1: “God remembered Noah . . . and he sent a wind over the earth, and the waters receded.” Here the heaven-sent wind echoes the wind of God hovering over the waters before the first act of creation. And, as in Gen 1, there follows the progressive separation of water from the land: first the mountain tops appear, then the fresh growth of the trees, and eventually the earth was dried out. As God created the animals to swarm and multiply in the earth, so Noah is directed to send them out to do the same again (1:20–22; 8:17).
Waltke:
8:1 REMEMBERED
Unlike English “remembered,” which refers merely to mental recall and entails having forgotten, the Hebrew term, especially with reference to God, signifies to act upon a previous commitment to a covenant partner (see 9:14-15; 19:29; 30:22; Ex. 2:24; 6:5; 32:13; 1 Sam. 1:19; Judg. 16:28; Job 14:13; Ps. 8:4; 9:12; 74:1-3; 98:3; 105:8; 106:45; 111:5; Jer. 15:15). By acting on his earlier promise to Noah (6:18), God shows himself to be a trustworthy ocvenant partner. This crucial expression shows that the subsiding waters of the Flood are subject to God’s undisputed will.
By contrast, in the Babylonian accoutns “the gods were terror-struck at the forces they themselves had unleashed. They were appalled at the consequences of their own actions over which they no longer had congtrol.”
Kidner:
8:7-12 The raven and the dove almost ask to be treated as a parable; indeed the HS, by taking the form of a dove, probably pointed to this episode with its suggestion of that which is sensitive and discriminating, the harbinger of the new creation (this, rather than peace, is the promise of the freshly plucked olive leaf, 11 RSV) and the guide of those who await it. The raven, in contrast, content with its carrion, was no harbinger of anything: its failure to return was as uninformative…
b. The restored remnant acknowledges their gratitude to the Lord in worship, 20-22.
1 June 08 Noahic Covenant & Canaanite Curse
Covenants with Adam, Noah, Abram: be fruitful, multiply and fill the earth.
Turner
A Noah and his three sons (6:9-10)
B Violence in God’s creation (6:11-12)
C First divine address: resolution to destroy (6:13-22)
D Second divine address: command to enter ark (7:1-10)
E Beginning of the flood (7:11-16)
F The rising flood waters (7:17-24)
GOD’S REMEMBRANCE OF NOAH (8:1a)
F’ The receding flood waters (81b-5)
E’ The drying of the earth (8:6-14)
D’ Third divine address: command to leave ark (8:15-19)
C’ God’s resolution to preserve order (8:20-22)
B’ Fourth divine address: covenant blessing and peace (9:1-17)
A’ Noah and his three sons (9:18-19)
[adapted from Anderson 1978: 23-39)]
Tuesday, May 20, 2008
Noah and the Wrath of God
Noah and God’s Wrath, Gen. 5-6
Introduction:
Many people stop reading the Bible when they come to this story.
We can’t stand the idea of God as judge.
We tend to imagine God as we wish him to be, rather the kindly grandfather who winks at our failures and foibles.
With a little forethought, though, it’s not hard to understand why God’s judgment is an essential prerequisite to our happiness. Not because we are grim, dour Victorians, but more directly than that.
Today, I want to make two points;
first, the problem of human violence leads us to question the justice of God; second, God’s response to human violence is both frightening and reassuring.
Let’s look first at the central statement of the problem in the text.
Gen. 6:5 ¶ But the Lord saw that the wickedness of humankind had become great on the earth. Every inclination of the thoughts of their minds was only evil all the time.
Central Point:
I. The problem of human violence leads us to wonder at the justice of God.
a. “Every inclination of the mind”.
i. That seems a little extreme because we are frogs.
ii. Frogs in a kettle, adjusting to warm, then hot, without noticing what’s going on around us.
b. “Only evil, all the time.”
i. Not me! I’m decent.
ii. Cornelius Plantinga, Jr.: “Treating yourself as your own first cause, and God is your accessory”. When things don’t go your way, you get angry, even with God. God lets you down when things do go as you wish.
iii. Even decent people get caught up in evil systems which have to be judged.
1. Christians were caught up in Nazism.
2. Today, we find ourselves as Christians tangled up in all sorts of enterprises that do harm as well as good.
3. Few Christians would ever say, “Yep, I’ll sell my soul for an extra few thousand a year,” or “Of course, I’ll advance up the banking ladder by excluding loans to the marginalized.”
4. Nietsche: if there is no god, then there can be nothing wrong with violence. If you object to violence, then you are a weak person and by objecting to violence you are doing a power play agasint the strong, putting them in their place. Moral outrage is a moral outrage against power plays.
c. God’s response to human violence comes from his wrath.
i. God feels the pain of our violence.
NIDOTTE
Hitpael form—“feel grieved” which is the basis for God’s action in judgment.
EBC, Sailhamer
In v.6—“the LORD was grieved [wayyinnahem ] that he had made man on the earth, and his heart was filled with pain [wayyith ‘asseb ]“—the author describes the Lord’s response to man’s wickedness by making a curious wordplay on Lamech’s naming Noah: “He will comfort us [yenahamenu ] in ... the painful toil of our hands” (ume‘isse bon 5:29). Thus in both passages Noah is introduced with wordplays associating his name, “Noah” (noah ), with the “comfort” (niham ) from the grief and pain (‘asab ) caused by man’s rebellion (cf. Cassuto).
By making God the subject of the verbs in v.6, the author has shown that the grief and pain of man’s sin was not something that only man felt. God himself was grieved over man’s sin (v.7). In returning in this way to the role of “comforter” invested in the significance of Noah’s name, the author suggests that not only did Noah bring comfort to mankind in his grief, but also he brought comfort to God.
ii. God promises to take the violence on personally, on himself!
Miraslov Volf’s Exclusion and Embrace.
My thesis is that the practice of non-violence requires a belief in divine vengeance…
My thesis will be unpopular with man in the West…But imagine speaking to people (as I have) whose cities and villages have been first plundered, then burned, and leveled to the ground, whose daughters and sisters have been raped, whose fathers and brothers have had their throats slit…
Your point to them–we should not retaliate? Why not?
I say–the only means of prohibiting violence by us is to insist that violence is only legitimate when it comes from God…
Violence thrives today, secretly nourished by the belief that God refuses to take the sword…
It takes the quiet of a suburb for the birth of the thesis that human nonviolence is a result of a God who refuses to judge. In a scorched land–soaked in the blood of the innocent, the idea will invariably die, like other pleasant captivities of the liberal mind…
if God were NOT angry at injustice and deception and did NOT make a final end of violence, that God would not be worthy of our worship.
• If you think that you can forgive someone merely by saying, “I forgive” and you’re done with them, then you have NOT experienced true pain, you have not been truly harmed.
Those who have felt wrenching loss are unable to forgive with a mere toss of the head.
• If you believe that human violence comes from the belief in a vengeful God, then you live in a comfortable suburb.
You will pick up the sword unless you believe that God will.
Tin Keller: “Remove the Divine Judge, you then have no way to deal with human violence.”
You have no INTELLECTUAL DEFENSE, against the naturalness of violence.
No emotional defense against the poison of violence.
No means of preventing the cultural expansion of violence.
The justice of God is the only force that can bring an end to human violence. Of course, the prospect of a wrathful God also induces fear in us!
II. God's wrath is frightening, but reassuring.
a. God’s wrath is frightening because…
If He is God, then He is all powerful.
If He is God, then His judgments are beyond appeal.
b. God’s wrath is reassuring because His vengeance is expressed in justice.
i. If there is no justice, then we have much to fear.
1. God’s wrath is simultaneously present with his mercy.
a. We are complex beings: sometimes angry, sometimes nice; we’re complex, in a word: MOODY.
b. God is a simple being: His wrath and justice are inseparable from his mercy and grace. He is even-keeled, always merciful, always just.
2. God’s justice and God’s mercy must coexist, since he both recoils in pain when violence breaks out, and he acts in judgment at just the right time.
Gen. 6:5 ¶ But the Lord saw that the wickedness of humankind had become great on the earth. Every inclination of the thoughts of their minds was only evil all the time.
Gen. 6:6 The Lord was grieved that he had made man on the earth, and his heart was filled with pain.
IVP Dictionary of Biblical Imagery
Having said this, however, Scripture makes it clear that God does feel sorrow, and it is in this respect that we turn to the second aspect of the use of this image.
The disobedient actions of people are described as making him sad. So the sin of Sodom and Gomorrah was so “grievous” to him that he visited those places with his judgment (Gen 18:20).
The sins of his own people had a similar effect (Ps 78:40).
Isaiah describes them as grieving God’s Holy Spirit by their rebellion (Is 63:10),
ii. If there is justice, then we can forgive.
1. We can release our impulse for revenge.
2. We can find forgiveness possible.
If there is a JUDGE, who has the power, the knowledge, the right to give people what they deserve.
Only then, can you FORGIVE.
Introduction:
Many people stop reading the Bible when they come to this story.
We can’t stand the idea of God as judge.
We tend to imagine God as we wish him to be, rather the kindly grandfather who winks at our failures and foibles.
With a little forethought, though, it’s not hard to understand why God’s judgment is an essential prerequisite to our happiness. Not because we are grim, dour Victorians, but more directly than that.
Today, I want to make two points;
first, the problem of human violence leads us to question the justice of God; second, God’s response to human violence is both frightening and reassuring.
Let’s look first at the central statement of the problem in the text.
Gen. 6:5 ¶ But the Lord saw that the wickedness of humankind had become great on the earth. Every inclination of the thoughts of their minds was only evil all the time.
Central Point:
I. The problem of human violence leads us to wonder at the justice of God.
a. “Every inclination of the mind”.
i. That seems a little extreme because we are frogs.
ii. Frogs in a kettle, adjusting to warm, then hot, without noticing what’s going on around us.
b. “Only evil, all the time.”
i. Not me! I’m decent.
ii. Cornelius Plantinga, Jr.: “Treating yourself as your own first cause, and God is your accessory”. When things don’t go your way, you get angry, even with God. God lets you down when things do go as you wish.
iii. Even decent people get caught up in evil systems which have to be judged.
1. Christians were caught up in Nazism.
2. Today, we find ourselves as Christians tangled up in all sorts of enterprises that do harm as well as good.
3. Few Christians would ever say, “Yep, I’ll sell my soul for an extra few thousand a year,” or “Of course, I’ll advance up the banking ladder by excluding loans to the marginalized.”
4. Nietsche: if there is no god, then there can be nothing wrong with violence. If you object to violence, then you are a weak person and by objecting to violence you are doing a power play agasint the strong, putting them in their place. Moral outrage is a moral outrage against power plays.
c. God’s response to human violence comes from his wrath.
i. God feels the pain of our violence.
NIDOTTE
Hitpael form—“feel grieved” which is the basis for God’s action in judgment.
EBC, Sailhamer
In v.6—“the LORD was grieved [wayyinnahem ] that he had made man on the earth, and his heart was filled with pain [wayyith ‘asseb ]“—the author describes the Lord’s response to man’s wickedness by making a curious wordplay on Lamech’s naming Noah: “He will comfort us [yenahamenu ] in ... the painful toil of our hands” (ume‘isse bon 5:29). Thus in both passages Noah is introduced with wordplays associating his name, “Noah” (noah ), with the “comfort” (niham ) from the grief and pain (‘asab ) caused by man’s rebellion (cf. Cassuto).
By making God the subject of the verbs in v.6, the author has shown that the grief and pain of man’s sin was not something that only man felt. God himself was grieved over man’s sin (v.7). In returning in this way to the role of “comforter” invested in the significance of Noah’s name, the author suggests that not only did Noah bring comfort to mankind in his grief, but also he brought comfort to God.
ii. God promises to take the violence on personally, on himself!
Miraslov Volf’s Exclusion and Embrace.
My thesis is that the practice of non-violence requires a belief in divine vengeance…
My thesis will be unpopular with man in the West…But imagine speaking to people (as I have) whose cities and villages have been first plundered, then burned, and leveled to the ground, whose daughters and sisters have been raped, whose fathers and brothers have had their throats slit…
Your point to them–we should not retaliate? Why not?
I say–the only means of prohibiting violence by us is to insist that violence is only legitimate when it comes from God…
Violence thrives today, secretly nourished by the belief that God refuses to take the sword…
It takes the quiet of a suburb for the birth of the thesis that human nonviolence is a result of a God who refuses to judge. In a scorched land–soaked in the blood of the innocent, the idea will invariably die, like other pleasant captivities of the liberal mind…
if God were NOT angry at injustice and deception and did NOT make a final end of violence, that God would not be worthy of our worship.
• If you think that you can forgive someone merely by saying, “I forgive” and you’re done with them, then you have NOT experienced true pain, you have not been truly harmed.
Those who have felt wrenching loss are unable to forgive with a mere toss of the head.
• If you believe that human violence comes from the belief in a vengeful God, then you live in a comfortable suburb.
You will pick up the sword unless you believe that God will.
Tin Keller: “Remove the Divine Judge, you then have no way to deal with human violence.”
You have no INTELLECTUAL DEFENSE, against the naturalness of violence.
No emotional defense against the poison of violence.
No means of preventing the cultural expansion of violence.
The justice of God is the only force that can bring an end to human violence. Of course, the prospect of a wrathful God also induces fear in us!
II. God's wrath is frightening, but reassuring.
a. God’s wrath is frightening because…
If He is God, then He is all powerful.
If He is God, then His judgments are beyond appeal.
b. God’s wrath is reassuring because His vengeance is expressed in justice.
i. If there is no justice, then we have much to fear.
1. God’s wrath is simultaneously present with his mercy.
a. We are complex beings: sometimes angry, sometimes nice; we’re complex, in a word: MOODY.
b. God is a simple being: His wrath and justice are inseparable from his mercy and grace. He is even-keeled, always merciful, always just.
2. God’s justice and God’s mercy must coexist, since he both recoils in pain when violence breaks out, and he acts in judgment at just the right time.
Gen. 6:5 ¶ But the Lord saw that the wickedness of humankind had become great on the earth. Every inclination of the thoughts of their minds was only evil all the time.
Gen. 6:6 The Lord was grieved that he had made man on the earth, and his heart was filled with pain.
IVP Dictionary of Biblical Imagery
Having said this, however, Scripture makes it clear that God does feel sorrow, and it is in this respect that we turn to the second aspect of the use of this image.
The disobedient actions of people are described as making him sad. So the sin of Sodom and Gomorrah was so “grievous” to him that he visited those places with his judgment (Gen 18:20).
The sins of his own people had a similar effect (Ps 78:40).
Isaiah describes them as grieving God’s Holy Spirit by their rebellion (Is 63:10),
ii. If there is justice, then we can forgive.
1. We can release our impulse for revenge.
2. We can find forgiveness possible.
If there is a JUDGE, who has the power, the knowledge, the right to give people what they deserve.
Only then, can you FORGIVE.
Saturday, May 17, 2008
Noah and Genealogy
Noah and His Genealogy
Quotes:
"History is indeed the witness of the times, the light of truth."
Cicero
"The past is never dead. It's not even past."
William Faulkner
"Those who ignore history are doomed to repeat it."
George Santayana
The Power of Genealogy
Introduction
We are studying the Story, God’s Story. The story is told through a history of families; those families are grouped into genealogies.
• What are genealogies?
• Why are so many in the Bible? Do I have to read them?
Cain in Gen 4,
Seth in Gen. 5,
Numbers mostly genealogy, a listing of the clans of Israel,
Matthew and Luke: Jesus’
• How do genealogies help us?
Can a family line be changed?
Illus.: Living Rock mums: any hope to change the single mum lifestyle?
Can we help? What can we do when our friends make the same mistakes over and again?
• Why is this offensive or boring?
Why is this offensive or boring?
I. We find genealogies boring and offensive, because
1. Offensive because we are children of the Enlightenment, unbound by the past.
"Those who ignore history are doomed to repeat it."
George Santayana
2. Boring, because it is someone else’s genealogy, not our own! We are not conscious of the personal connection.
Rom. 11:17 ¶ But if some of the branches were broken off, and you, being a wild olive, were grafted in among them and became partaker with them of the rich root of the olive tree,
Rom. 11:18 do not be arrogant toward the branches; but if you are arrogant, remember that it is not you who supports the root, but the root supports you.
What are genealogies?
II. Genealogies are the record of a family.
Gen. 5:1 This is the record of the family line of Adam. ¶ When God created humankind, he made them in the likeness of God.
Gen. 5:2 He created them male and female; when they were created, he blessed them and named them “humankind.”
Notice the transition here:
Gen. 5:3 ¶ When Adam had lived 130 years he fathered a son in his own likeness, according to his image, and he named him Seth.
Adam was created in the image of God.
Adam fathered children in his own likeness.
Gen. 5:4 The length of time Adam lived after he became the father of Seth was 800 years; during this time he had other sons and daughters.
Gen. 5:5 The entire lifetime of Adam was 930 years, and then he died.
Such large numbers!!
Refer to blog for discussion of life-spans: Hard Sayings of the Bible…
1. Human beings were created to be immortal.
2. As sin took effect, humans could no longer have children in old age.
3. The form that Genesis 5 and 11 use, with few exceptions, is a stereotypic formula giving the age of the patriarch at the birth of his son, the number of years that he lived after the birth of that son, and then the total number of years that he lived until he died. It is the question of the function of these numbers that attracts our attention here.
Gen. 5:6 ¶ When Seth had lived 105 years, he became the father of Enosh.
Gen. 5:7 Seth lived 807 years after he became the father of Enosh, and he had other sons and daughters.
Gen. 5:8 The entire lifetime of Seth was 912 years, and then he died.
Gen. 5:9 ¶ When Enosh had lived 90 years, he became the father of Kenan.
Gen. 5:10 Enosh lived 815 years after he became the father of Kenan, and he had other sons and daughters.
Gen. 5:11 The entire lifetime of Enosh was 905 years, and then he died.
Gen. 5:12 ¶ When Kenan had lived 70 years, he became the father of Mahalalel.
Gen. 5:13 Kenan lived 840 years after he became the father of Mahalalel, and he had other sons and daughters.
Gen. 5:14 The entire lifetime of Kenan was 910 years, and then he died.
Gen. 5:15 ¶ When Mahalalel had lived 65 years, he became the father of Jared.
Gen. 5:28 ¶ When Lamech had lived 182 years, he had a son.
Gen. 5:29 He named him Noah, saying, “This one will bring us comfort from our labor and from the painful toil of our hands because of the ground that the Lord has cursed.”
Gen. 5:30 Lamech lived 595 years after he became the father of Noah, and he had other sons and daughters.
Gen. 5:31 The entire lifetime of Lamech was 777 years, and then he died.
Gen. 5:32 ¶ After Noah was 500 years old, he became the father of Shem, Ham, and Japheth.
How would you describe your legacy to this time?
Six word biographies. Not Quite What I Was Planning
Scott Birch claims "Most successful accomplishments based on spite."
Quit booze, coffee, cigarettes, women, died.
Shower. Shave. Shine. Work. Sleep. Repeat.
I’m my mother, and I’m fine. K. Bertrand
9 year old Hannah Davies considers herself
"Cursed with cancer. Blessed by friends";
Why are there so many genealogies in the Bible?
III. Genealogies in the Bible are important because the remarkable stories recorded are historical.
a. Genesis is a genealogy:
i. Of the human species.
ii. Of the key people in the species: tables of family lines make the outline.
iii. Of the human condition.
How do genealogies help us?
IV. Genealogies are summaries of God’s purposes expressed through human lives.
Applications:
1. Understand how your genealogy impacts you.
Ex. 20:4 ¶ “You shall not make for yourself an idol, or any likeness of what is in heaven above or on the earth beneath or in the water under the earth.
Ex. 20:5 “You shall not worship them or serve them; for I, the LORD your God, am a jealous God, visiting the iniquity of the fathers on the children, on the third and the fourth generations of those who hate Me,
Ex. 20:6 but showing lovingkindness to thousands, to those who love Me and keep My commandments.
EBC:
Children who repeat the sins of their fathers evidence it in personally hating God; hence they too are punished like their fathers.
Moses made it plain in Deuteronomy 24:16: “Fathers shall not be put to death for their children, nor children put to death for their fathers; each is to die for his own sin.”
The effects of disobedience last for some time, but the effects of loving God are far more extensive: “to a thousand [generations]“ (v.6).
Turner The concluding refrain of each generation is ‘and he died’. Only two deaths have been recorded prior to ch. 5, and both of these were murders (4:8, 23). Here we learn that death is the common human fate, whether through murder or otherwise. The fulfillment of God’s prediction ‘you shall die’ (2,17) may have been delayed, but come it does. Yet not all die!
2. Genealogy matters to those whom we love.
Jonathan Edwards contrasted with a contemporary.
George Marsden, Jonathan Edwards, A Life
[500-01] One famous study…celebrated Edwards’ contribution to the moral character of America through his descendants. The work, published in 1900, contr4asted the character and intelligence of 1,200 descendants of one of his most dissolute contemporaries to those of 1,400 of Edwards’ heirs. The descendants of Max Jukes, a New York Dutchman whose name the researchers changed to protect the guilty, left a legacy that included more than three hundred “professional paupers,” fifty women of ill repute, seven murderers, sixty habitual thieves, and one hundred and thirty other convicted criminals. The Edwards family, by contrast, produced scores of clergymen, thirteen presidents of institutions of higher learning, sixty-five professors, and many other persons of notable achievements.
3. Genealogy is the visible manifestation of our faith.
a. Rom. 4:16 ¶ For this reason it is by faith, in order that it may be in accordance with grace, so that the promise will be guaranteed to all the descendants, not only to those who are of the Law, but also to those who are of the faith of Abraham, who is the father of us all,
b. Rom. 4:17 (as it is written, “A FATHER OF MANY NATIONS HAVE I MADE YOU”) in the presence of Him whom he believed, even God, who gives life to the dead and calls into being that which does not exist.
4. Genealogy cannot be changed from behind, but it can be transformed forward.
a. Cain in Gen. 4; Seth in Gen. 5: POINT: THERE IS ALWAYS A GODLY SEED!!
b. When we are born again, we are born into a new family, with a new lineage. All things are made new. By faith, we can change the trajectory of our family line. Many will rise up and call us blessed because the arc of the story turned in our lifetime.
2Cor. 5:17 So then, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; what is old has passed away–look, what is new has come!
c. 5:1—made in the image of God,
born in the image of Adam;
being remade in the image of Christ.
Quotes:
"History is indeed the witness of the times, the light of truth."
Cicero
"The past is never dead. It's not even past."
William Faulkner
"Those who ignore history are doomed to repeat it."
George Santayana
The Power of Genealogy
Introduction
We are studying the Story, God’s Story. The story is told through a history of families; those families are grouped into genealogies.
• What are genealogies?
• Why are so many in the Bible? Do I have to read them?
Cain in Gen 4,
Seth in Gen. 5,
Numbers mostly genealogy, a listing of the clans of Israel,
Matthew and Luke: Jesus’
• How do genealogies help us?
Can a family line be changed?
Illus.: Living Rock mums: any hope to change the single mum lifestyle?
Can we help? What can we do when our friends make the same mistakes over and again?
• Why is this offensive or boring?
Why is this offensive or boring?
I. We find genealogies boring and offensive, because
1. Offensive because we are children of the Enlightenment, unbound by the past.
"Those who ignore history are doomed to repeat it."
George Santayana
2. Boring, because it is someone else’s genealogy, not our own! We are not conscious of the personal connection.
Rom. 11:17 ¶ But if some of the branches were broken off, and you, being a wild olive, were grafted in among them and became partaker with them of the rich root of the olive tree,
Rom. 11:18 do not be arrogant toward the branches; but if you are arrogant, remember that it is not you who supports the root, but the root supports you.
What are genealogies?
II. Genealogies are the record of a family.
Gen. 5:1 This is the record of the family line of Adam. ¶ When God created humankind, he made them in the likeness of God.
Gen. 5:2 He created them male and female; when they were created, he blessed them and named them “humankind.”
Notice the transition here:
Gen. 5:3 ¶ When Adam had lived 130 years he fathered a son in his own likeness, according to his image, and he named him Seth.
Adam was created in the image of God.
Adam fathered children in his own likeness.
Gen. 5:4 The length of time Adam lived after he became the father of Seth was 800 years; during this time he had other sons and daughters.
Gen. 5:5 The entire lifetime of Adam was 930 years, and then he died.
Such large numbers!!
Refer to blog for discussion of life-spans: Hard Sayings of the Bible…
1. Human beings were created to be immortal.
2. As sin took effect, humans could no longer have children in old age.
3. The form that Genesis 5 and 11 use, with few exceptions, is a stereotypic formula giving the age of the patriarch at the birth of his son, the number of years that he lived after the birth of that son, and then the total number of years that he lived until he died. It is the question of the function of these numbers that attracts our attention here.
Gen. 5:6 ¶ When Seth had lived 105 years, he became the father of Enosh.
Gen. 5:7 Seth lived 807 years after he became the father of Enosh, and he had other sons and daughters.
Gen. 5:8 The entire lifetime of Seth was 912 years, and then he died.
Gen. 5:9 ¶ When Enosh had lived 90 years, he became the father of Kenan.
Gen. 5:10 Enosh lived 815 years after he became the father of Kenan, and he had other sons and daughters.
Gen. 5:11 The entire lifetime of Enosh was 905 years, and then he died.
Gen. 5:12 ¶ When Kenan had lived 70 years, he became the father of Mahalalel.
Gen. 5:13 Kenan lived 840 years after he became the father of Mahalalel, and he had other sons and daughters.
Gen. 5:14 The entire lifetime of Kenan was 910 years, and then he died.
Gen. 5:15 ¶ When Mahalalel had lived 65 years, he became the father of Jared.
Gen. 5:28 ¶ When Lamech had lived 182 years, he had a son.
Gen. 5:29 He named him Noah, saying, “This one will bring us comfort from our labor and from the painful toil of our hands because of the ground that the Lord has cursed.”
Gen. 5:30 Lamech lived 595 years after he became the father of Noah, and he had other sons and daughters.
Gen. 5:31 The entire lifetime of Lamech was 777 years, and then he died.
Gen. 5:32 ¶ After Noah was 500 years old, he became the father of Shem, Ham, and Japheth.
How would you describe your legacy to this time?
Six word biographies. Not Quite What I Was Planning
Scott Birch claims "Most successful accomplishments based on spite."
Quit booze, coffee, cigarettes, women, died.
Shower. Shave. Shine. Work. Sleep. Repeat.
I’m my mother, and I’m fine. K. Bertrand
9 year old Hannah Davies considers herself
"Cursed with cancer. Blessed by friends";
Why are there so many genealogies in the Bible?
III. Genealogies in the Bible are important because the remarkable stories recorded are historical.
a. Genesis is a genealogy:
i. Of the human species.
ii. Of the key people in the species: tables of family lines make the outline.
iii. Of the human condition.
How do genealogies help us?
IV. Genealogies are summaries of God’s purposes expressed through human lives.
Applications:
1. Understand how your genealogy impacts you.
Ex. 20:4 ¶ “You shall not make for yourself an idol, or any likeness of what is in heaven above or on the earth beneath or in the water under the earth.
Ex. 20:5 “You shall not worship them or serve them; for I, the LORD your God, am a jealous God, visiting the iniquity of the fathers on the children, on the third and the fourth generations of those who hate Me,
Ex. 20:6 but showing lovingkindness to thousands, to those who love Me and keep My commandments.
EBC:
Children who repeat the sins of their fathers evidence it in personally hating God; hence they too are punished like their fathers.
Moses made it plain in Deuteronomy 24:16: “Fathers shall not be put to death for their children, nor children put to death for their fathers; each is to die for his own sin.”
The effects of disobedience last for some time, but the effects of loving God are far more extensive: “to a thousand [generations]“ (v.6).
Turner The concluding refrain of each generation is ‘and he died’. Only two deaths have been recorded prior to ch. 5, and both of these were murders (4:8, 23). Here we learn that death is the common human fate, whether through murder or otherwise. The fulfillment of God’s prediction ‘you shall die’ (2,17) may have been delayed, but come it does. Yet not all die!
2. Genealogy matters to those whom we love.
Jonathan Edwards contrasted with a contemporary.
George Marsden, Jonathan Edwards, A Life
[500-01] One famous study…celebrated Edwards’ contribution to the moral character of America through his descendants. The work, published in 1900, contr4asted the character and intelligence of 1,200 descendants of one of his most dissolute contemporaries to those of 1,400 of Edwards’ heirs. The descendants of Max Jukes, a New York Dutchman whose name the researchers changed to protect the guilty, left a legacy that included more than three hundred “professional paupers,” fifty women of ill repute, seven murderers, sixty habitual thieves, and one hundred and thirty other convicted criminals. The Edwards family, by contrast, produced scores of clergymen, thirteen presidents of institutions of higher learning, sixty-five professors, and many other persons of notable achievements.
3. Genealogy is the visible manifestation of our faith.
a. Rom. 4:16 ¶ For this reason it is by faith, in order that it may be in accordance with grace, so that the promise will be guaranteed to all the descendants, not only to those who are of the Law, but also to those who are of the faith of Abraham, who is the father of us all,
b. Rom. 4:17 (as it is written, “A FATHER OF MANY NATIONS HAVE I MADE YOU”) in the presence of Him whom he believed, even God, who gives life to the dead and calls into being that which does not exist.
4. Genealogy cannot be changed from behind, but it can be transformed forward.
a. Cain in Gen. 4; Seth in Gen. 5: POINT: THERE IS ALWAYS A GODLY SEED!!
b. When we are born again, we are born into a new family, with a new lineage. All things are made new. By faith, we can change the trajectory of our family line. Many will rise up and call us blessed because the arc of the story turned in our lifetime.
2Cor. 5:17 So then, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; what is old has passed away–look, what is new has come!
c. 5:1—made in the image of God,
born in the image of Adam;
being remade in the image of Christ.
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