Theology in the Raw - Old Testament in the Raw Week 4: Genesis 3:15

Episode Date: February 27, 2020

This week in OT in the Raw, we continue looking at the fall in Genesis 3, God’s promise of redemption in 3:15, how this promise works itself out through genealogical lines, the story of Cain and Able, and other figures like Lamech, Enoch, and Noah. Oh, and we also talk about angels having sex with women to make huge giants. Support Preston Support Preston by going to patreon.com Connect with Preston Follow him on Twitter @PrestonSprinkle Check out his website prestonsprinkle.com If you enjoy the podcast, be sure to leave a review.

🎵 Okay, so welcome to Old Testament in the Raw. This is a recording, so I've got to make it kind of official. Yeah, in case you don't know, I release these recordings on a podcast that I do. So if you ever do miss one or if you guys want to catch up on some older ones. I think this is week four. Is that correct? Something like that. Week three or four. So

yeah. Let me There was one time when I recorded this and it didn't work out right. So I'm just going to make sure it keeps going here and it looks like work out right. So I'm just going to make sure it keeps going here and it looks like I'm good. So welcome back. We took two weeks off. Well, I was gone for two weeks, so it's been a few weeks. So why don't we start by going back and just reviewing some things. We're in the middle of Genesis 3.

We're going to quickly be in Genesis 4, 5, 6. Well, my goal is to get through Genesis 1 to 11 today. We'll see how that goes because there's some interesting stories that we're going to look at. The one that I really want to drill down is this whole thing with the Nephilim in Genesis 6. It's one of the weirdest passages in the Bible, I think, hands down. So I do want to spend some time there. But we did kind of a deep dive into Genesis 1 and 2, and we saw how that sets the stage for... Genesis 1 and 2 reveals fundamental aspects about who God is. Genesis 1

emphasizes God's sovereignty over creation. Genesis 2 emphasizes God's, if I can say, intimacy or nearness to creation. So God is far, he's far above everything in Genesis 1, but then he's almost quite literally, you know, intimately involved with this creation. He's, you know, forming Adam from the dust of the ground. And he had these two, I'll say, different, almost contrasting portraits of God. One emphasizing his transcendence. The other one in Genesis 2 emphasizing his personalness, his nearness. And everything's going great in Genesis 1 and 2, but everything kind of goes south in Genesis 3. So we have this serpent that is introduced in chapter 3. And I don't know if you remember from three weeks ago, we said that we as Christians, we know that the serpent is Satan.

The book of Revelation makes that connection explicitly, but there's nothing in the actual text of Genesis or even the entire Old Testament that explicitly connects the serpent to Satan. So it's kind of interesting. Like you got to think the first readers reading Genesis 3, they wouldn't have thought like, oh, this is clearly Satan and have this, you know, real filled out picture of who Satan even is. They just, there's a snake and he's talking to the woman and he leads the woman astray by telling her that she can go against,

you know, God's command. It's not going to hurt you. And this, I mean, it's really interesting to look at Genesis 3, 1 to 7. And it just kind of reveals the heart, like the heart of what sin is. And, you know, these are some things we talked about three weeks ago. I'll just say last time instead of saying three weeks ago. But, you know, Satan leads the woman to question God's word. God made a command. And there's actually, I mean,

a ton of freedom in God's rules. Think about it. All these trees you can eat from. I mean, how many are there? Hundreds? Thousands? I don't know. I mean, all these things you have the freedom to do, but there's this one tree that I don't want you to eat from. And, you know, why doesn't God want

Adam and Eve to eat from this tree? We don't know. There's nothing, it's not like the tree's poisonous. In fact, we know that it looks good. He says, wow, it looks so good. The fruit looks so beautiful and luscious. And so, so God gives them freedom to eat from all these trees and says no to this, this one tree doesn't give them a reason. I mean, think about that. Like sometimes things that are wrong, things that are sin, we look and we're like, well, why is that so bad?

Like, it makes me happy. You know, I desire that thing, that person, that whatever. You know, why is this wrong? Like, it's in the heart of humanity to question why God said this and why God said that. And we see this already in the first sin here in Genesis 3 sometimes God calls us to do things or not do things and he doesn't give us an explanation why sometimes he does tell us why I mean that there are some you know do's and don'ts in the Bible where we can kind of figure out why God would would say don't do this and don't do that and other times it's just it's he's the creator and he tells us what to do and what not to do. Morning. We're just, we're reviewing kind of where we've been a few weeks ago when we

left off. And so this is, this is where we left off last time. You have an interesting phrase here, you know, being like God in verse five, the Satan, the serpent says, God knows that when you eat of this fruit, your eyes will be opened and you will be like God, knowing good and evil. That's an interesting phrase because that seems like a good thing, like to know right from wrong. But within the context here, it does seem to be more of the sense of determining good and evil. Like instead of trusting God to tell us what is right, what is wrong, what is good, what is evil, Adam and Eve are sort of taking it under their own authority to determine what is right and wrong by going against God's command and eating the fruit.

We don't know what kind of fruit it was. fruit. We don't know what kind of fruit it was. In most pictures or children's Bibles or whatever, they usually picture it as an apple. But there's no, it just says fruit. It could have been a watermelon. Well, it's from a tree, so it wouldn't have been a watermelon. But it could have been any kind of fruit. It could have been a kind of fruit that's not even around today. We don't know. It doesn't really matter. It could have been any kind of fruit. It could have been a kind of fruit that's not even around today.

We just we don't know. It doesn't really matter. OK, so let's go and jump in then for today. I want to talk just briefly, just briefly about a few more things in Genesis 3. And I want to camp out on Genesis 3.15. I think it's incredibly important. So that's kind of where we're headed, is this really profound statement of Genesis 3.15. But just to highlight a few things, I mean, the results of the fall,

God said in Genesis 2, if you eat from this tree that I told you not to eat from, you will surely die. Or in the Hebrew, it's, you know, dying, you will die. In the Hebrew language, if it wants to emphasize something, it just kind of says the same word twice. You know, dying, you will die. You will die, die, is kind of how it says in the Hebrew. Which, you know, we don't, you know,

and this is the difficulty with Bible translation. Sometimes phrases in the original don't translate exactly over into the English. So you will surely die might be the best way to render, you know, dying, you will die. So death is a result of the fall. Now they don't die immediately. You would almost expect, again, if you're just reading this for the first time, you would almost expect, you know, Eve, you know, eats the fruit, gives it to Adam, and they both just keel over and die. But that doesn't happen. However, from the, you know, at the end of the chapter, and we'll get to that, we'll return to this, but they are kicked out of the Garden of Eden. Remember, we said the Garden of Eden is a place where God's presence dwells. The Garden of Eden is a place where God's presence dwells. The Garden of Eden is where the Tree of Life is.

And here's what's interesting. Look at 3.22. God says, Since man, or mankind, has become like one of us, knowing good and evil, like they're now making up their own rules. He must not reach out and take from the tree of life, eat and live forever. And then so this is why they get kicked out of the Garden of Eden, so that they won't live forever in a sense. Forever, in a sense, this is what's interesting about this is it seems to suggest that living foreverness is not inherent to human nature. Like we are dependent upon God and in a sense, creation to live forever.

So once they are kicked out of the garden, they now don't have access to the tree of life. And this sort of begins the death process. the tree of life and this sort of begins the the death process um i know it's it's some people assume that you know to be human is to be sort of immortal like like uh some greek philosophers plato in particular and his followers would you know talk about you know the human soul is intrinsically immortal like it cannot die but you don't get that sense from from scripture from genesis at least um it um you know for us to live forever we we are dependent upon god and so now we because we sin we have there's this death cycle that's introduced to humanity and the only way to reverse that is to well go to the Testament, have faith in Jesus, and it's through faith in

Jesus that we now are given eternal life. Eternal life is a gift. It's not intrinsic to human nature. So death is one of the results. It doesn't happen right away, but it happens when they are separated from God's presence, and that begins the death cycle once they're kicked out of the Garden of Eden. Another result, a broken relationship. You know, when God comes into the garden, they're now running around scared. They're hiding themselves. There's a lot of shame as a result too. They're covering themselves because they're naked. And so there's this broken relationship between Adam

and Eve and God. There's also a broken relationship between each other. Remember, you know, Adam's, you know, Adam's blame shifting Eve, you know. You know, placing the blame on Eve. You know, it's, you know, God's like, why did you do this, Adam?

He's like, well, you gave me the woman. I mean, it's her fault. And so there's this rift between the two. So we got to figure out how God's going to, you know, reconcile that relationship there. There's also, you know, we can almost say broken rule. Last time we talked about how God is ruling over creation through humanity. We're not ruling over creation independently,

but you're mediating God's rule over creation. But now, now that there's sin in the world, now we're going to have a hard time mediating God's rule over creation. Let's, I mean, there's a lot more we can dig out there,

but let's, I want to go to Genesis 3.15. And if you have a Bible or something, a phone or whatever, I do, I want to spend some time on this because it becomes, well, this statement here, proto-euangelion. That's a Greek word that means

a foreshadow of the gospel or the first gospel, the proto-euangelion. This is a word that some historical theologians have used to describe Genesis 3.15. Translations may vary here. I don't even know what translation this blue one is here. This is spoken from God to the snake.

And God, speaking to the snake. And God speaking to the snake says, I will put enmity, tension, animosity between you and the woman and between your seed and her seed. And this seed is, this is a I mean seed in both English and the Hebrew can be singular or plural. Kind of like the word sheep, right? If you see one sheep, say there's a sheep.

You see ten sheep, there's a bunch of sheep. It's both singular and plural. But here, given the context, it's referring to the plural seed, descendants. Between your descendants and her descendants. Now, it's kind of weird right now, right? So, like a bunch of snakes, you know, the literal offspring of the snake, is that what's going on here? Or is there something, maybe a deeper meaning? And between her descendants. But then, look at how the language changes here to a singular.

He shall bruise you, you snake, on the head, and you shall bruise him, another singular, on the heel. Now, if the Bible ended here, we would have kind of no clue what's going on here. Okay? It's a lot of ambiguity. It's very hazy, very ambiguous, but this seems to lay the foundation for what will later grow into what we now call the gospel, the good news.

Let me illustrate it this way. I got this cool little thing here. Somebody else, I don't even know how this was put. Somebody else created this slide for me many years ago, and I think it does a good job making sense of what's going on. So I will put enmity between you and the woman, okay? Between Satan and between Eve. Between your seed, plural, and her seed, okay? But then from that,

I'll say genealogy, from that line of descendants, there will be one who will crush the head of the snake. And in the process of crushing the head of the snake, sure, I can't. well, I can't circle, you can see the little line there, in the process of crushing the head of the snake,

he's going to bruise your heel, now, if I had the choice between getting my head crushed, or my heel bruised, I would pick the bruised heel, so there's going to be, some descendant of Eve is going to deal a death blow to Satan, to evil. And yet in the process, he's going to be hurt,

but it's not going to be terminal. But he's still going to, you know, in the process, he's going to bruise his heel. Now, again, this is very ambiguous, but we're Christians. We have the rest of the Bible. We can kind of see what's going on here.

And we will see, I mean, through the unfolding of Genesis, especially how this promise plays out in various passages and various stories. of God working through a genealogical line to bring, to conquer evil, ends up making sense of so much in the Old Testament. I mean, just think right now. I mean, if you've been reading along in Genesis, and again, I would highly encourage you as we're doing this to, if you don't have a Bible reading plan or whatever, to read ahead, read along during the week you as we're doing this to, if you don't have a Bible reading plan or whatever, to, you know,

read ahead, read along during the week as we interact with the text. But if you've read along in Genesis 1 to 11, you probably came across several chapters, several passages that you skipped over. I'm calling you out. You probably skipped over them because it's a list of genealogies. I mean, just look ahead to like, you know, chapter four. Chapter four, you have, you know, the Cain and Abel story. And this one's kind of engaging, really interesting. But then in the last half of chapter four, you get these, you know, a list of Cain's descendants.

I'm going to guess that you probably read really quickly through verse 17 through verse 25. Like, oh, okay, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Okay, let's get to the good stuff. And then you get to chapter 5 and you're like, oh, no, here's another genealogy. In fact, the whole chapter is genealogy. Ah, Jared is talking, okay, some long lives in Enoch. Oh, there's something interesting there.

And oh, I see Noah there. And beyond that, there's nothing really interesting here. I will admit, even though I love the Bible, I love the Bible, okay? You read through chapter 5 of Genesis and you're like, that's kind of boring.

Like, do we need this here? Chapter 5 is all about God fulfilling His promise. Every time you see a genealogy in the Bible, it is a loud proclamation that God is faithful in fulfilling His promise, a promise that started in Genesis 3.15, that there's going to be a genealogical line,

and it's going to be through that genealogical line that I'm going to send some figure, some individual who is going to crush evil and end up, in a sense, bringing us back to Eden, back to God's presence. And we'll see another genealogy in... Let's see, there's one in... Well, chapter 11 is a really important one. At the end of chapter 11,

we see a genealogy that leads to Abraham. All throughout the rest of Genesis, you know, there's like stories for several chapters, and then there's a long genealogy. Story, story, story, long genealogy. Those genealogies are not just there just to tell us who was born to whom. Like, They're not just there just to tell us who was born to whom. They are documenting that God is faithful, God is fulfilling his promise to send an individual through a particular genealogical line. You guys remember the old comic strip BC? You guys ever? My kids don't.

I thought this was really fascinating. This is from several years ago. Oh, it was on Easter. It was on Easter Sunday. Where back when we had newspapers and comic, you know, the comic pages. I used to wake up every morning. Well, yeah. Usually on Sundays I'd wake up and go grab the paper, the newspaper that was in my driveway.

This is like, so back in our day, we had this, the news, there was no internet. And so they, Paperboy put a piece of paper, a bunch of papers with all the news. And inside that,

there was a comic strip. And every kid would, you know, look at, well, maybe I'd look at the box scores of the Dodger game too, but I would go and look at the comic strip. And in that was a comic strip

called BC. And it had kind of, you know, Christian or religious themes to it. Well, this one, you know, you have the tomb breaks open, and the stone rolls through this guy's house. This guy gets up. He sees that, man, there's some, what's going on here? There's this big stone, you know, rolled away from this room. So he goes and

looks and he sees footsteps coming out. So he follows the footsteps down the hill across the water. But I thought this was really good. Across the water. But I thought this was really good. Across the water, steps on the head of the snake. Now, I would dare to guess that few people understood the significance of this, which this is why I love how creative it is. But this, you know, Kevin, Trevor Hart, Kevin Hart, creative it is um but this you know kevin trevor hart kevin hart not kevin hart at least trevor hart huh johnny hart johnny hart the author of bc the bc comic strip um i i think he's

drawing back on genesis 315 here um uh so so yeah again this this i'm going to keep coming back to this promise of Genesis 3.15 because this, one of the things in this class that I want to help us all to see is how the Old Testament unfolds with a coherent storyline. It's not just a bunch of random events

like, oh, here's a genealogy and then this happened and that happened. It's not just a bunch of random events like, oh, here's a genealogy and then this happened and that happened. It's not just a bunch of random historical events. Everything is connected to a particular theme on some level. So even things that seem so boring and irrelevant like genealogies are there to document the unfolding of God's promise that begins in Genesis 3.15. of God's promise that begins in Genesis 3.15. Any questions so far?

And I've got to remember to repeat your question for the audio here. I forgot to do that last time. Any questions so far? Does this make sense? All right. I want to just briefly look at a few verses at the end of Genesis 3 just to kind of illustrate how seemingly random statements and events are actually part of the storyline of Scripture.

So in Genesis 3.19, this is again as God was pronouncing promises and curses and judgment on the three parties involved here, the snake, the woman, and the man, Adam and Eve. When he's speaking to Adam, he says the ground's going to be cursed because of your sin.

And which shows that all creation is affected by this, this act of rebellion against God. We will lay, you know, in the new, well, the word that theologians use to describe what's going on here in Genesis 3 is the fall. We talk about the fall of humanity. We fell from God's presence. We fell into sin, but that fall ends up affecting all of creation. I mean, specifically here, you know, verse 18, well, verse 17 and 18, the ground's cursed, and now it's going to be really hard to work the ground. I mean, I only, I often wonder, you know, what was it like being a gardener before the fall? You know, you just kind of pop a seed down and boom, you know, huge apple tree just, you know, blows up, no weeds or anything.

Everything just, you know, everything is just flourishing in ways that we don't even, we can't even imagine. And you have a statement in Romans chapter 8 where Paul talks about all creation groaning and longing to be redeemed. God's redemption obviously is centered on redeeming people, bringing us back to himself. But even all of creation has been affected by sin and you know in the new testament we we see passages that talk about like a renewal of creation that you know god's going to bring a new heavens and new earth and renew creation so the scope of god's redemption um again is centered on humanity but it goes beyond that to include all of creation. But here in verse 19, God tells Adam, you know, you will eat bread by the sweat of your brow until you

return to the ground since you were taken from it, for you are dust. And you will return to dust. Think about it. There's been no death so far. Adam doesn't even know what that means. He doesn't know what death means. He has no concept of not being alive anymore. What does that even mean, returning to the dust? And then, so what does he do? Well, he turns around and names his wife.

Adam named his wife Eve because she was the mother of all living. Well, that's kind of odd. Like if somebody told you you were going to die and even though you didn't know what that meant, well, what's the next thing I'm going to do? Well, I guess it's a good time to name my wife. And then in verse 21, then the Lord God made clothing out of skins for Adam and his wife Eve and he clothed them. These three verses, 19, 20, 21 seem completely disconnected.

Like there's no, these are just random verses jumbled together and thrown onto a page is how it feels. But if you look at what's going on here, there's something deeply theological. News of Adam's death, punishment for sin. And then he says, I'm going to name you Eve because you are the mother of all living. and then he says, you're must be, I'm going to name you Eve

because you are the mother of all living. What that means is, he says, well, you must bring forth a child. Why? Because God promised that, right? Remember 315. I'm going to fix everything. I'm going to conquer evil.

I'm going to usher in redemption. I'm going to bring us back to the garden. And we're going to be in relationship with each other through a genealogical line. So if Adam and Eve die childless, then God lied. And so here Adam is expressing faith in God's promise by saying, you are the mother of all living. You must bring forth life because God said so. So now, unlike earlier in the chapter when they didn't trust God's word,

now Adam and Eve are expressing faith in God's promise. And in response to that faith commitment, God makes a sacrifice. He covers them with the skin, with skins, which had to have come from an animal, which means an animal had to have been killed to get the skins to form the clothing to cover, I mean, to physically cover Adam and Eve. But I also think there's almost like a double meaning here of like, he's cover Adam and Eve, but I also think there's almost like a double meaning here of like he's covering Adam and Eve physically, but he's also covering their sin, their shame.

Remember, they were shamed because they were naked. Well, now he's covering their shame. He's covering their sin. So here you have, you know, what we might call the first salvation experience. Punishment, faith, and sacrifice for redemption. Yeah. I'm sorry, I forgot my Bible. It doesn't actually say an animal was killed

because the animal's not a perfect animal. Right. It doesn't, yeah. So the question is it doesn't actually say that an animal's killed. It's implied, I would say. Yeah. Yeah. The Lord God made clothing out of skin

yeah so it's implied oh like could he have taken a it doesn't say explicitly yeah that's good any other thoughts before we alright Genesis chapter 4 before we... Alright. Alright. Genesis chapter 4, verse

1. It says, Adam, my translation, this is the Holman Christian Standard Bible translation. It's kind of a... It's a... Yeah, translation is not very popular, but I really like it. But if I read statements It's kind of a translation.

It's not very popular, but I really like it. But if I read statements that might look different than yours, it's probably because I'm the only one in the room with this kind of translation. Adam was intimate with his wife Eve. Some translations will say Adam knew his wife. Or if it's a looser translation, it might say Adam slept with his wife. And she conceived and gave birth to Cain. And then Eve said, I have had a male child with the Lord's help. I used to read out of the New American Standard Bible, which is a really good literal translation. And I'll never forget this translation, it always jumped out at me because it said, the New American Standard says,

I have gotten a man-child from the Lord. I always thought that was a man-child. What's a man-child? A picture of this real hairy, you know, newborn. It's just like, wow, oh my gosh you look like a man but um but what so what's going on here uh again this is linked to this is linked to the promise eve this isn't just oh i'm so i've been longing for a son and the lord blessed me with a child that that's that's probably happening but there's something theological here. I have gotten this child that God promised will be part of the line through which God will bring us back to Himself. Eve is expressing excitement over at least a down payment in God beginning to fulfill

His promise. Then she gives birth again, and Abel is born. So here we have Cain and Abel. Abel becomes a shepherd of flocks, but Cain worked the ground. I'll just keep reading here through. I'll just keep going through verse 9 or 10 here. In the course of time, Cain presented some of the land's produce as an offering to the Lord, and Abel also presented an offering.

Some of the firstborn of his flock and their fat portions. The Lord had regard for Abel and his offering, but he did not have regard for Cain and his offering. Cain was furious, and he looked despondent. Verse 6, Then the Lord said to Cain, Why are you furious, and why do you look despondent. Verse 6, Then the Lord said to Cain, Why are you furious and why do you look despondent? If you do what is right, won't you be accepted?

But if you do not do what is right, sin is crouching at the door. Its desire is for you. You must master it. That's a fascinating statement about the nature of sin. I mean, love. I love and hate. Genesis 4 7, that sin is depicted as almost this

ravenous creature, this beast that is aggressively trying to conquer you. It's almost like sin has this force of its own. And yeah, I mean, you see throughout the Bible, especially the New Testament, sin spoken of as something that comes from within us, this internal impulse. Sometimes sin is described as almost having this power of its own,

this outside of us kind of power. And I think it's kind of a both and. Martin Luther used to talk about the world, the flesh, and the devil. We have the sin of our flesh comes from within. We have sin from the devil, demonic forces pushing us to sin. But then also the sin of the world. There's almost like this structural sin

that's just kind of part of the fallen creation. And all three of these kind of aspects of sin may overlap with each other, but they're all kind of part of the fallen creation. And all three of these kind of aspects of sin may overlap with each other, but they're all kind of different aspects of how we're given into not obeying God. But here, this picture, I think, just really captures that idea that sin is crouching at the door

and we must master it. You know, it's fascinating. So so this i've been doing some research on like uh on neuroscience neurology i'm not a scientist at all i'm not a brain surgeon but doing a lot of reading on on how our behaviors re rewire our brain like our habit the habits we do in life reconfigures your brain. And we just knew about this recently, like in the last couple of decades, I think. And the more we study the brain, the more technology advances, the more we know what's going on in the brain. It's really fascinating how our brain is affected by the things we do. In fact, they did a study on New York cab drivers. Their brains look different than everybody else. If you're a New York cab

driver, your brain has been so rewired because it's, you know, it's really hard to be a cab driver in New York. There's like major tests you have to take. Like you have to have like basically the whole, all of New York kind of just memorized almost. And every day you're driving, you're driving, you're driving it. And as you're doing this, this thing over and over and over, it's just kind of reshaping your brain. And so that sometimes bad habits we do over and over and over and over and over, rewire our brain to almost do bad things. This is why some people, especially if you've dealt with an addiction or something, and it's almost like you're a robot. Like I cannot not

do this thing because your brain's so rewired. Or both bad habits, but also good habits. When you start doing good habits, your brain becomes rewired to where when you wake up and let's just say you run every single morning at 7 a.m. every morning for three months, four months, and let's just say you run every single morning at 7 a.m. every morning for three months, four months, five months, pretty soon it's almost like you can't not do that anymore because you've rewired your brain. Why do I say that?

What's fascinating is the Bible sometimes gets accused of being so outdated, ancient, unscientific. But it's interesting that you read statements like Genesis 3, 7, its desire is for you, but you must rule over this. You must cultivate good habits to overrule the bad habits. And I'm not saying Genesis 4, 7 is giving us all we need to know about neuroscience or whatever. But it does resonate. I mean, something as old as Genesis 4-7 does kind of resonate

with what we now know in the 21st century about behavior and brain structure and so on. Again, I'm not saying it's specifying all that. It's just it does resonate with what we know about habits and behaviors. We must master sin. We must get in the habit of saying no, no, no to sin and replace that with yes, yes, yes to right behavior. Okay, so verse 8, Cain said to his brother Abel, let's go out to the field.

And when they were in the field, Cain attacked his brother and Abel killed him. Then the Lord says to Cain, where is your brother Abel? And Cain says, I don't know. What am I, my brother's guardian or my brother's keeper? And then, you know, God jumps in and rebukes Cain for killing Abel. One question that comes up is, yeah, what's the main... Oh, wait, so no, I was going to jump ahead there, but yeah, I just want to point out in Genesis 4 that there's something deeply theological going on

here. This isn't just a story that we should use to help our kids to be nice to their siblings, kids. It's true. Be good to yourself, don't kill your brother, okay? That is a moral lesson you can draw from this, but that's not the only reason why Genesis 4 is here. Here we have, okay, we have Cain. Wait, is Cain the promised seed? Is he the one that's going to crush the head of the snake? Oh, and then Abel? Wow, Abel's kind of, seems like Abel's on the side of God and Cain is on the side of, of the snake. But then Cain kills Abel, the good one. Now we're left with nothing but the genealogy of the snake because it's people who, somebody who's kind of following in the ways of evil. So now we have a major dilemma here. We have God's promise

is now on the line. He said, I'm going to send the snake-killing seed through a genealogical line. It seems like it's going to be Abel, but now he's dead. But if you look at the end of the chapter, yeah, the end of the chapter it says in verse 25, Adam was intimate

with his wife. Again, she gave birth to a son named him Seth for, she said, God has given me another child in the place of Abel since Cain killed him. A son was born to, uh, then a son was born to Seth and on and on and on. It says, um, you know, people began to call him the name of Yahweh. So here, verse 25 and 26, God comes through and replaces, well, he continues on the genealogy through a different person that wasn't able because he got killed. It ends up being Seth. Why did God reject Cain's sacrifice? Some people say, well, he offered grain while Abel offered blood, an animal. I used to think that this is why Cain's offering wasn't accepted.

But I think it's a little problematic. I mean, it says that Abel happened to be a shepherd of flocks and Cain was, you know, he worked the ground. Okay, so they each just offered something from their own vocation, their skill set. Like, I don't think there's anything intrinsically wrong with Cain's sacrifice. I don't think there's anything wrong with the fact that Cain didn't offer an animal. He wasn't a keeper of animals.

And plus, we see in Leviticus, a few books later, when Leviticus 1-7 spells out all the different types of sacrifice, a lot of different sacrifices that we're honoring to God were grain offerings, were different kinds of offerings. They weren't all blood sacrifices. Some people say, well, he didn't offer it in faith. I'm not even sure I know what that means. What does that mean? If he gave an offering to God,

his grain, then he believed God exists. And he's giving something to God. That is an expression of faith. I think that's a little too ambiguous to say he didn't offer it in faith. The only thing in the text that stands out is this statement in verse 4.

It says, in verse 3, He gave some of his produce. But then verse 4 says, We know from Leviticus that the, some of the firstborn of his flock and their fat portions. We know from Leviticus that the fat portions are the good portions. And even in other cultures today,

you know, I've never had to be in this situation, but in some cultures today, you know, they might bring out like a big, you know, steak, like a luscious porterhouse steak, right? But if you're the guest, they want to honor you and they don't give you, steak, like a luscious porterhouse steak, right? But if you're the guest, they want to honor you. And they don't give you the steak.

They give you the chunk of fat. They're like, we want to give you the fat. You're like, oh my gosh, can I just have the porterhouse, the lean, you know, tri-tip or whatever? But yeah, so the fat portion of the meat back then in the Bible is kind of the best of the best. And, you know, this is the firstborn of his. He didn't just give an offering. He gave the best of the best. And, you know, this is the firstborn of his. He didn't just give an offering.

He gave the best of what he had. So it does seem to be a heart issue here. He wasn't just going through the motions. He wasn't just giving to God something of his vocation, his life. He was giving the best that he had. Any questions so far? Good, yes.

Yes. Hebrews 11.4 says, by faith, Abel offered to God a better sacrifice than he did. If you believe he obtained the testimony that he was righteous, not testing his gifts.

Yeah, okay. I'm certain that God had given them not testing his gifts. Through faith, though he is dead, he still speaks. Yeah, okay. I'm certain that God had given them instructions on how to do this sacrifice. God's not going to say, okay, it's up to y'all. Right. Okay, now that's good. And for some reason, it had to do something with the faith of Abel.

His faith was acceptable to God and whatever deficiencies of faith that King had made it unacceptable. That could be through behavior, it could be attitude, it could be lots of things. But Hebrews 4 tells us a little

insight. That's great. I forgot about Hebrews 11. So the just for the audio. Yeah, Hebrews 11.4 refers to the story and does talk about faith here. No, that's good. That's good. So in a sense, that would show that faith isn't simply believing that God exists. Clearly, Cain believed God exists because he's offering something to God. But faith is more than just believing that God exists,

but is actually trusting and obeying God and believing what he said. And I think it's very valid. I think we got to be careful when we assume things about the text that aren't there, but I think it's a pretty valid assumption to say that, as you said, they had probably been given instructions here. Genesis 4 doesn't tell us this, but

yeah. God wouldn't expect them to obey or not, you know, to obey without telling them what it is they had to do, so. God knows the man's heart. There's gratitude there. Right.

Right, yeah. Yeah, no, that's good good all right uh g i really wanted to get to genesis 6 as time's flying but um okay so g so then we have a genealogy well we have um uh oh we've got to replace a few of these here. So we have Cain here. So Cain is, so I didn't make this point earlier. The seed of Satan I don't think is literal snakes. I don't think it's literal offspring of the serpent. I think it's a general idea of there's going to be a group of people, a line that's going to be opposing God's promise. So Cain, and he may not even think about it this way,

but by killing off Abel, the line through which God's going to redeem the world and crush evil, he is opposing what God is doing in the world. So there's Cain. We have Abel over here know, he is opposing what God is doing in the world. Okay, so there's Cain. We have Abel over here on this team. Then we have a genealogy that leads from Cain to Lamech. And it gets progressively worse. I mean, Lamech, you know, he's got two wives.

He is incredibly violent and vengeful. Cain is given a measure of grace. That's actually a really beautiful part of chapter 4 that some people miss. Cain says, my punishment is too great. What if I'm out wandering the world and people kill me? And so God actually extends a level of grace to Cain by putting a mark on him so that nobody can touch him and says, you know, I will punish somebody who touches Cain. I mean, Cain deserves nothing, right? But he's given a measure of grace here, which is just a picture of what we see throughout the Bible.

God giving grace to people who don't deserve it. Cain doesn't deserve anything, and yet God does give some kind of protection on him. But then you have one of his descendants, Lamech, is now saying, well, gosh, if Cain will be avenged if somebody kills him, then I'll be avenged 70 times 7

because I'm even worse than Cain. So the line gets progressively worse. Seth is born. So Abel is whacked. So he's gone. So now we have Seth replaces the line that Abel would have been in. So Lamech over there. Then you have Enoch. In chapter 5, you have Seth. And then you have...

Enoch is singled out. We know hardly anything about Enoch. It says in verse 23, chapter 5, verse 23, Enoch's life lasted 365 years. And then you have this strange statement. Enoch walked with God. Then he was not there because God took him. There's only two places in Scripture where we see something like this happen.

One with Enoch. He doesn't die. He's just taken directly. It just says God took him. And we assume, okay, taken to heaven or whatever, taken to the presence of god and that's probably that's probably where god took him but it just says you know he was there and then he wasn't god took him who's the other character in the bible well technically there's two more but uh who's the next character in the bible that is taken away without dying. Anybody remember?

Elijah, yeah, Elijah. So you have Enoch taken away, Elijah is taken away before he dies, and then I was going to say Jesus is raised from the dead and taken up to God the Father. I do wonder if there's something kind of just giving us a little glimpse of what God's ultimately going to do for all of us.

He's going to preserve us through death. I mean, for us, it's through death, but we are not going to simply die and remain dead. And then Enoch, and then you have Noah is also singled out. Let's see. Verse 28, Lamech was 182 years old when he fathered a son, and he named him Noah, saying, This one will bring us relief from the agonizing labor of our hands

caused by the ground the Lord had cursed. will bring us relief from the agonizing labor of our hands caused by the ground the Lord had cursed. So here, Lamech, this is a different Lamech. It's hard. Bad Lamech and a good Lamech. This is a good Lamech. I'm sure he wasn't perfect. I mean,

Lamech is again expressing faith in the Genesis 3.15 promise. Because remember, part of the curse, part of the punishment is that the ground is going to be cursed, and there's going to be a snake-killing seed who's going to lift the curse. And Lamech thinks Noah is the one. This is the one.

This is going to be the one who's going to step on the head of the snake. He's going to be the one through whom God's going to redeem the world. And in a sense, given how the next few chapters really linger on Noah as a symbol of a redeeming figure, God does use Noah to rescue all of creation because it's through his line on the ark that's preserved and begins the genealogical line again. So Noah ends up being, if I can use a phrase, almost like an archetype of Christ, a foreshadow of Christ, a symbol of a single redeeming figure in that genealogical line

through whom God works to preserve and ultimately save his creation. And so Noah gives us a little sign of what it's going to be like to be that seed who's going to crush the head of the snake. But then after the flood, as we'll see probably next week,

after the flood, as we'll see probably next week, after the flood, Noah fails, right? He gets off the boat, he plants a vineyard, he gets drunk, and then something shady happens in his tent. And we kind of see, well, this probably isn't the ultimate seed then, the ultimate snake-killing seed. We're still waiting for somebody else to come. All right, before we... We still have about 10 minutes or so.

All right, let's get to Genesis 6. I'll just read... Or does somebody else want to read? Four verses, Genesis 6, 1 to 4. Anybody want to nice and loud read Genesis 6, 1 to 4? So I can take a sip of coffee. Don't be shy. Now it came about when the yin began to multiply

on the face of the land, and daughters were going to them, that the sons of God saw that the daughters of men were beautiful, and they took wives for themselves whomever they chose. Then the Lord said, My spirit shall not strive with men forever, because he also is flesh. Nevertheless, this day shall be one hundred and twenty years. The Nephilim were on the earth in those days, and also afterwards.

When the sons of God came into the daughters of men and they bore children to them, those were the mighty men who were of old, men of renown. All right, so here's where we get a bit of a kind of a sci-fi story going on here. This passage, I mean, is this layer, there's layers of questions and, well, this passage has spawned throughout Jewish history and Christian history, all kinds of

various interpretations and, you know, ideas on what's going on here. Interestingly, this passage was one of the most quoted and referred to and talked about passages in what we can call, you know, intertestamental Judaism or even first century Judaism. So if you were a Jew walking around in Jesus's day, and as you thought about Old Testament passages, this was one that was one of the most written about, talked about, discussed passages in first century Judaism.

Okay, so who are the sons of God and the daughters of men? And then another question is, who are these Nephilim? And then who are the, in the Hebrew, it's a gibberim, or most translations say

the powerful men of old, the very last part of verse 4. So sons of God, daughters of men. Let me just give you three possible suggestions. These are three views that people have proposed in terms of who are these sons of God. Some people say, well, these were kings. These were royal rulers.

And sometimes kings were referred to as sons of God or a son of God. Others say, no, this is the line of Seth. The sons of God or a son of God. Others say, no, this is the line of Seth, the sons of God and daughters of man represents these two kind of genealogical lines, which kind of makes sense with, you know, of what we've been talking about, where you have these two genealogical lines

now being merged, which creates problems. But I think this third view is actually what's going on here. That sons of God is another name for, I'll just say, angelic beings. And let me give you reasons why I think that. In Job 38, I think it's verse 6, 5 or 6. We talked about this last time, I think. Anyway, Job 38, 5 or 6 says, When God laid the foundations of creation,

the sons of God sang for joy. And we see other references throughout Scripture with the phrase sons of God sang for joy. And we see other references throughout Scripture with the phrase, sons of God. It can refer to various groups of people, but it can also refer to angelic beings. The reason why I think this third view is correct is because we have several references in the New Testament

that seem to point back to this story. I'll just read one here in 2 Peter. Let me throw these on here. 2 Peter 2.4 For if God did not spare the angels who sinned, but threw them down into... My translation says Tartarus is a

Greek word here. Hades some translations might say. Some might say hell. I think that's not the best translation. Tartarus or Hades. Threw them down into Hades and delivered them to be kept in chains of darkness

until judgment. But then if you look at the rest of the passage, verse 5 says, And if he did not spare the ancient world, but protected Noah. Okay, so you have Noah, verse 5. And then you have Sodom and Gomorrah, verse 6. You have Lot being rescued, verse 7.

So you have this chronological progression. So whatever's going on in 2 Peter 2.4, chronologically, it is right before the story of Noah. So it seems that 2 Peter 2.4 is referring to this incident. And here he explicitly says angels who sin. You have something very similar in Jude 6 and in 1 Peter 3, 19 and 20. Now, I said just a few minutes ago that this passage is one of the most talked about passages in

the first century and in the intertestamental time period. Well, how did first century Jews interpret Genesis 6? It was unanimous. There was no debate. It was angels. Some sort of angelic beings came down, had relations with women, and according to Jewish

tradition, they produced some kind of offspring that were giants. This is a weird, okay, so 1-E-N. This comes from a first century, well, early, let's just say, first century B.C. Jewish book called 1 Enoch. It wasn't written by Enoch. Nobody believed that, But it was one of the most influential Jewish books around the first century. It would be like the... Oh, I'm blanking on the name. Give me a famous

non-scripture but famous Christian book that's very influential. Crazy Love by Francis Chan or what's the one by the guy down at Saddleback? Purpose Driven Life. One Enoch was like the purpose driven life of the first century.

Is purpose driven life inspired? Well, no. But, you know, 25 million copies sold, it's pretty influential. Like a lot of Christians, the way they think about Christianity and the way they think about whatever has probably been shaped by the purpose driven life or whatever, whatever your favorite, you know, C.S. Lewis, mere Christianity. Okay. One Enoch is like a mere Christianity of the first century. Okay. So not inspired. It's not part of the Bible, but very influential for how first century Jewish people think. Now, one Enoch, I was just reading it this

morning again, talks about this passage in great detail. Angels came down, had relations with women, and they produced these offspring called the Nephilim. And one Enoch says that they were 450 feet tall. And then they started eating and devouring the land. And so God had to take care of them because they were kind of ruining creation. Now, again, none of this is inspired. This is not in the Bible. Don't quote me. Don't say like, wow, is that true?

I don't know. All I know is unanimously first century Jews believe that angels had sexual relations with humans, produced some kind of demigorgon kind of offspring. There were giants called the Nephilim. Nephilim, the word Nephilim just means fallen ones. Here's what's a little problematic, though, is we do see the term Nephilim one other time in Scripture in Numbers 13.33.

in scripture in Numbers 13.33. Numbers 13.33, when the spies, the Israelite spies, go in and spy out the land of Canaan. Remember, they're about to enter the land of Canaan. They send 12 spies. They look and they're like, oh my gosh, the Nephilim are here.

And we feel like we're grasshoppers in their sight. I don't know if that means they were 450 feet tall. And maybe they just saw people that were more like a Goliath. You know, Goliath is totally human, but pretty big dude, right? So maybe they were more just, you know feet tall but not 450 feet but either way the the nephilim there in that reference refers to somebody who is very big and strong this is all we know we don't have any other details in scripture so i know this sounds very kind of outrageous and scientific sci-fi or whatever but i i think this third view is probably what's going on here there just seems to be too much biblical and traditional evidence to support it. We don't

know any, I mean, after verse 4, then all of a sudden we move into Noah and the flood, and we're not given any more details about this. So I think there's a good argument that could be made that this is the fall of a portion of the angelic realm. That the beings that we now call demons became demons. They were formerly angelic beings. And this is their fall.

Because 2 Peter and Jude says God punished them. They committed the sin. God punished them. They committed the sin. God punished them. And again, I'm not going to take a bullet for that. I'm not going to say without a doubt or whatever, but where did demons come from? Where did these spiritual beings come from that follow the serpent?

We don't see them up until this point. I think this is probably how they got here. Questions, thoughts? point I think this is probably how we how they got here questions thoughts I can give you nightmares okay who says the Bible is not interesting right you know your questions Josie questions thoughts Josie's been doing a lot of research on the Nephilim. There is another passage in the Bible that mentions them as the fallen ones. Which one's that? I forgot. Oh, Ezekiel 32. I think so. Ezekiel 32 talks about people in the afterlife, and I think they're called the fallen ones. I think it might be a different word, but it's, yeah, that's right.

Yeah, I just saw that this morning, yeah. No more questions? Yeah, okay. So where does the dinosaurs fit in? Where do the dinosaurs fit in? I was waiting for... So my thought is that dinosaurs were around before the flood. And we didn't get to the flood.

We'll get to that next week. And after the flood, the flood wasn't just a lot of water. It was like a whole rearrangement of creation. Some people think this is where the continents that were all kind of together, you know, kind of divided and where we get the layout of creation now might be as a result of the flood. But the whole ecosystem has changed before and after the flood. So the theory that I find plausible is that dinosaurs were around before the flood.

After the flood, the ecosystem was so different that they slowly ended up dying off because they couldn't, they didn't survive that new ecosystem. Now, this is way out of my realm. I'm not an anthropologist or whatever, biologist or whatever, zoologists. But that's what I think. Do you have any thoughts on that? Or anybody else that's done some research on dinosaurs? And this would fall into the whole problem of the dating of creation.

How long ago are these events? And dating the fossil record and all that's above my pay grade that I can't really mention. There was a movie, is it just Noah with Russell Crowe? You ever see that? And they reference, if there's those giants in that movie, that movie is drawn on 1 Enoch 6 to 11. They're drawing on the description there in 1 Enoch

of the Nephilim and these giants as part of that movie. I know some people were like, this movie is so unbiblical. And it might be. But it's actually a pretty thoughtful movie the way they have these giants that were running around in the movie. All right, let me close with some prayer

and we can go to the church. God, thank you so much for revealing yourself to us through your word and for always being faithful to your promises, Lord. Every genealogy we look at, every story we look at, Lord, is a testimony to your faithfulness to fulfill your promise to redeem us, to bring us back to you, to fulfill your promise, to redeem us, to bring us back to you,

to restore that Eden-like relationship that we once had with you. We just ask for your blessing on the rest of the morning. In Christ's name, amen. Thank you.