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The Wickedness of Man Was Great in the Earth

Text: Genesis 5:1-6:8

Introduction

Genesis 5:1 to 6:8 serves to connect the Creation and Fall events with the Flood. How do we get from Adam to Noah? What happened in the meantime? What made the Flood necessary? This passage serves as a bridge between these two great historical eras.

Interestingly, the Bible is much more interested in the spiritual elements leading up to and following the Flood, than it is with the geological or even social elements. This is not to say there are not obvious geological and sociological impacts from the Flood, even today, but this is not what Moses, or God, is primarily concerned to draw our attention to.

The inspired account in Genesis, rather, focuses on the inescapability of death, the pervasiveness of sin, and thus the total unexpectedness of God’s grace. Death is what every human deserves, judgment is what every person earns, rebellion is the universal way of humanity by nature.

But wonderfully, unexpectedly God intervenes to overcome the inevitable, to counteract the universal, to give favor where none is due.

I. The Generations from Adam to Noah (vv.5:1-32)

  1. From this genealogy, we learn several overarching/crucial lessons:
    1. The Bible views Adam and Noah as actual historical people. Metaphorical or allegorical figures do not have extensive, detailed family trees.
    2. We cannot help but notice the extraordinary longevity of the men in this genealogy.
      1. But we must realize that this would have been just as striking for Moses’ readers. It seems Moses not just recording history; he is making a point.
      2. Things were different, even after the fall, before the flood. Sin is debilitating! It is destructive even on a physical level; yet the physical results of sin are just an outward symptom how sin is poisoning the totality of our person, including our souls.
  2. Within this genealogy, a few names/stories stand out specifically:
    1. In v.3 it is significant that only Seth is named among Adam’s descendants.
      1. This connects the theme of the two seeds/lineages in Genesis 4. Genesis 5 will trace the righteous line of Seth, while the line of Cain will be completely annihilated.
    2. Yet even among those who are calling upon God, death is inevitable. Yes, lifespans are lengthy, but over and over they still end with this refrain: “…and he died.”
      1. This is perhaps highlighted in v.27, where we read: “All the days of Methuselah were 969 years: and he died…”
    3. In vv.21-24, we are twice told that Enoch “walked with God”. So where we would expect the refrain “and he died”, instead we read “and he was not, for God took him.”
      1. How does one overcome sin and death? By an intimate, ongoing walk with God!
      2. Yet Enoch did not trust in the goodness of his life, but in God’s Redeemer: Hebrews 11:5.
    4. vv.28-29 In the brief story of Lamech’s naming of his son Noah, we see that faith in the promised seed is still alive within this line of righteous individuals.
      1.  The name “Noah” means “rest”, and Lamech clearly expected Noah to somehow bring rest and comfort through his faithful life.

II. Man—and Sin—Multiplies in the Earth (vv.6:1-4)

  1. The specific lineage of the righteous in chapter 5 is followed by the great contrast of universal wickedness that was spreading across the globe at the same time.
    1. While Seth is calling upon the Lord, and Enoch is walking with God, humanity in general is multiplying, and sin is exponentially escalating along with the population.
  2. While at least 3 different explanations are given by Bible students regarding the events in vv.1-4, let me briefly summarize what I think is happening here.
    1. The emphasis of this passage, regardless of one’s particular interpretation, is plainly the spread of overt sin/wickedness throughout the earth.
    2. How does this happen? The explanation given is that “the sons of God” were intermarrying with “the daughters of men.”
      1. It seems the sin under consideration, especially in the context of chp 4, is that the righteous seed of Seth (“sons of the God”) are carelessly, recklessly intermarrying with the ungodly seed of Cain (“daughters of men”). IOW, believers marrying unbelievers.
      2. The indiscriminate nature of these marriages is emphasized in v.2, where they took as their wives any they chose.
  3. In v.3, the descendants of these ungodly marriages do not seem to be some unholy mixture of demon and human, as some suggest, but rather they are specifically referred to with the common term “flesh.”
    1. God responds to the spreading wickedness by saying, “Mankind, for all his rebellion against me, is nothing but flesh. I will therefore limit him from now on to 120 years.”
    2. From the Flood on, human lifespans would drop rapidly, and gradually level off.
  4. v.4 there is still need for greater restraint, more severe and immediate judgment.
    1. There are ‘giants’ (lit. Nephilim/mighty men) in the land, and with their great strength violence is filling the earth. And so…

III. The Regret—and Grace—of God (vv.6:5-8)

  1. The intermarriage of believers with unbelievers results in blurring of lines, so that there is no longer any distinction between the lines of Seth and of Cain.
    1. v.5 expresses the utter depravity of humanity leading up to the Flood. It is described in terms of severe depravity (it was “great on the earth”); internal depravity (not just the actions, but the “thoughts of his heart”); comprehensive depravity (their thoughts are “only evil”); and constant depravity (“only evil continually”).
    2. Imagine a world in which every wicked thought of every human being were able to be acted out without restraint. It would be a world of walking, breathing, cruel nightmares!
      1. This was the world of Noah’s day.
  2. vv.6-7 record, in anthropomorphic/human-like language, God’s response to the unrestrained, unrepentant evil throughout the world.
    1. God regrets that he has created humans, because humans have willfully forsaken every purpose for which God created them.
    2. This of course is not the only time where Scripture speaks of God ‘regretting’ something. These passages do not in any way contradict the pervasive teaching so Scripture that God is immutable/unchangeable in his character.
      1. Rather, the Bible is using human-like language to describe the intense response of our eternal God to sin and corruption in the earth. He is sorry He made man.
  3. Yet, the righteous line continues: v.8 Noah found grace in the eyes of the Lord.
    1. While it is true that Noah was a righteous man, and so would be used of God as a re-founder of the human race, Noah himself—as we will see—could not bring the “rest”/comfort that his name implied.
      1. Even Noah needed the super-abounding grace of God—to cover his sins, to work righteous desires in his heart, to give him Seth-like, and Enoch-like, faith in God’s ultimate Redeemer.
    2.  God preserved the seed of the woman, through righteous Seth and righteous Noah later, because God would keep his promise to bring about the completely righteous, not just grace-receiving but grace-giving, Savior for the human race.