Latest / Reformed Thinking / In God’s Likeness, Yet in Adam’s Image: The Gospel Need of a New Head (Genesis 5:1–3)

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In God’s Likeness, Yet in Adam’s Image: The Gospel Need of a New Head (Genesis 5:1–3) · Reformed Thinking

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  Hello and welcome to Reformed Thinking.
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  I am your host and I'm really glad you've decided to sit down
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  with us today. We are about to open up a
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  section of scripture that I have to be honest, usually gets the
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  skim treatment. The fly over country of the
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  Bible. That's a good way to put it.
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  You know the drill. You're reading through the book
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  of Genesis and the drama is just so high.
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  You just read through the account of creation, the tragedy
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  of the fall, a murder in the very first family, and then the
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  exile of Cain. You're on the edge of your seat.
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  You're completely invested. Completely.
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  And then suddenly you hit a wall.
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  A wall of names. The dreaded genealogy, the part
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  where many good reading plans go to die.
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  Exactly the begats. We are looking at Genesis
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  chapter 5 today and it's so easy to look at a list of ancient
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  names and ages. Adam lived this long, Seth lived
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  that long and think that this is just clerical work, ancient
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  record. Keeping.
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  Yeah, it feels like the ancient equivalent of an Excel
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  spreadsheet for census data. You assume it is DRY, that it's
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  just family history we can safely bypass to get to the good
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  stuff like the flood narrative. But looking at the stack of
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  commentaries, Hebrew lexicons and theological essays we have
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  on the desk today, I have a feeling you were going to tell
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  me that hitting the skip button here is a massive mistake.
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  It is a massive mistake. In fact, I would go as far as to
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  say that if you skip Genesis 5, or more specifically the first 3
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  verses of Genesis 5, you're missing the theological backbone
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  of early human history. The backbone, yes, you really
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  lose the context for that follows not just in Genesis but
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  really in the whole biblical narrative.
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  There's a bold claim for a list of names.
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  You're saying this list is a theological backbone?
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  I absolutely stand by that. Genesis 5.13 isn't dull at all.
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  It's acting as a literary threshold.
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  Think of it more like a lens A. Lens for what?
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  A lens for the human condition. You cannot properly read the
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  rest of the chapter or really understand the human condition
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  as the Bible presents it without the theology that is packed into
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  these 3 opening verses. It sets up the fundamental
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  tension of our existence. So our mission for this deep
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  dive is to prove that we're going to try to make a list of
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  names fascinating. That is the goal we're going to
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  unpack how these 3 verses explain that tension we all
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  feel, whether we're religious or not.
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  It's the tension between the incredible dignity of being
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  created by God and the absolute disaster of being born of Adam.
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  The dignity and the disaster. I like that framing.
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  And just so you, the listener, know what we're working with, we
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  are pulling from some serious sources today.
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  We're looking at detailed exegetical commentaries on the
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  Hebrew text referencing the Westminster Standards to get our
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  definitions tight, and really drilling down into the contrast
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  between the Imago Dei, the image of God, and what we might call
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  the Imago Adami, the image of Adam.
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  Right, it's essentially a Ledger.
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  A Ledger of grace and ruin. Let's open that Ledger.
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  We are starting in Section 1, verse one, the text starts.
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  This is the book of the generations of Adam.
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  Now in the Hebrew, that's Zesephertolida Adam, right?
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  Usually when we see generations in the Bible, it's just a
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  header. But you've highlighted this word
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  sephir. Why does that specific word
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  matter here? It matters because it's very
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  specific phrasing. The word suffer doesn't just
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  mean story or account. It usually refers to a written
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  document, a scroll, or even a legal record.
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  Oh, OK. So it's more formal than I
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  thought. Much more formal.
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  By using this phrase, Moses, and we're assuming Mosaic authorship
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  here, which is the traditional view, is signaling that what
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  follows is not folklore. It's not a campfire story that
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  changes every time it's told. This functions like a title page
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  or formal legal affidavit. So it's like opening a last will
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  and testament, Yeah. Or a deed to a house, that kind
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  of serious document. Precisely.
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  It signals that this is sacred history ordered by God's
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  Providence, not just random trivia about who had kids with
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  whom. And notice the scope.
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  It says generations of Adam in Genesis.
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  These totally dot headings, these generations phrases, are
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  the structural hinges of the whole book.
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  They mark the major transitions. Yes, they do.
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  But here it's doing something really interesting
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  linguistically. It's looking back before it
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  moves forward. And that's the part that always
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  confuses me about the timeline here.
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  We're in chapter 5. We've already had our creation
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  account in chapter 1. We've had the garden in chapter
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  2, the fallen 3, Cain and Abel, and four, why does Moses hit the
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  rewind button? He goes right back to the
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  beginning in the day that God created man in the likeness of
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  God made he him. Why recap creation now?
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  We already know this. It's the creation recap, and it
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  is absolutely vital for the narrative flow.
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  I mean, think about where we just came from in Chapter 4.
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  A murder. A murder?
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  Yes. We just saw Cain murder his
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  brother in cold blood. We saw his descendant Lamech,
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  boasting about killing a young man for wounding him.
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  The world is getting dark fast. Violence is escalating.
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  Death is spreading. So before Moses shows us the
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  spread of death through this long, long genealogy, he has to
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  reassert the original dignity of man.
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  So he has to to remind us who we were supposed to be before he
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  shows us what we became. That is exactly it.
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  He is re establishing the standard and there's a key
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  detail in the Hebrew here that our English translations
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  sometimes smooth over. The text says in the day that
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  God created man, the verb used for created is Bara.
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  Bara, we hear that in Genesis 1.1.
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  In the beginning, God created. Yeah, correct.
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  And here is the thing about Bara in the Hebrew Bible.
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  It's a verb that is used exclusively with God as the
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  subject. Humans can make things, which is
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  the Hebrew word ASA, or they can form things which is yatzar,
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  like a Potter forms clay, but only God can borrow.
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  No. So what does that imply?
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  That it's a special kind of creating.
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  It denotes A uniquely divine activity, often implying
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  Creation X Nihalo out of nothing.
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  It's a creation that brings something into existence that
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  wasn't there before. So you're saying this is a
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  linguistic wall against the idea that we just sort of happened or
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  evolved without a creator? It's a decisive rejection of any
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  idea of a slow, unguided process or some cosmic accident.
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  This was a divine Fiat, an intentional act.
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  So right at the header of this list of men who were all going
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  to die, Moses stamps divinely created on the file.
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  That seems incredibly intense. It is highly intentional, Yeah,
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  and he doesn't stop there. He adds in the likeness of God
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  made he him. The preposition there for in is
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  the Hebrew letter bet. It denotes the standard or the
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  norm. So not just he looked like God,
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  but he was made according to the standard of God's likeness.
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  Yes, man was made to be a visible representation of the
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  invisible God. He was to be God's viceroy on
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  earth. Theologically, this is the
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  anchor for everything. It establishes that even after
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  the fall, which we know has already happened by chapter 5,
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  humanity is not worthless rubble.
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  We are not just tragic animals or highly evolved apes who
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  learned to wear pants. The foundation of human
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  identity, the thing that gives every single person value,
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  remains God's creative act. That is a crucial distinction, I
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  think sometimes in Reformed circles or just conservative
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  Christian circles generally, we emphasize the fall so much,
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  total depravity, which I'm sure we'll get to, that we can forget
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  the dignity. We can, and that's a mistake.
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  We almost act like the fall erased the fact that we were
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  made by God in his image. And that is a dangerous error.
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  If you erase the dignity of creation, you fall into nihilism
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  where life has no meaning. But if you ignore the fall, you
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  fall into a naive optimism where you think humans are basically
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  good and just need better education or a better
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  environment. Genesis 5 holds them both in
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  tension. It says look, you are made in
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  God's likeness right before it shows you the graveyard.
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  Wow. OK, let's move to verse 2
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  because the recap continues and it steps right into a modern
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  minefield. Male and female created he them.
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  This is another massive theological stake in the ground.
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  It's what grammarians call a biological marism.
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  A Marism. Break that down for us.
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  What's a Marism? A.
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  Marism is a literary device where you mentioned 2
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  contrasting parts to represent the whole.
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  Like saying I searched high and low.
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  You don't just mean you looked at the ceiling on the floor, you
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  mean you looked everywhere. Got it.
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  Like from east to West. Exactly.
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  Here, male and female defines the totality of humanity, but it
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  also asserts that by its very nature is a binary species.
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  Which is, let's be honest, quite relevant to our current cultural
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  conversation regarding gender and identity.
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  It is incredibly relevant. The text is defining humanity
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  not as unisex, not as a fluid spectrum, but as a structured
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  binary creation. And notice the verb again Bara
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  created. This is not a social construct
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  that Adam and Eve negotiated over dinner.
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  It wasn't a feeling they developed.
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  No, it is not a psychological feeling they developed.
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  It is a creational design ordained by God.
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  To be human is to be sexed, male or female.
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  That is what the text is asserting.
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  So the text implies that gender is not something you perform, it
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  is something you are. It's part of the created order.
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  Right. It's ontological.
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  It is woven into the bar act of God itself.
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  It's as fundamental as being human.
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  And then? Right after after creating the
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  male and female it says and bless them.
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  And bless them. Don't just gloss over that.
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  Remember the context again, in the narrative timeline, they are
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  outside of Eden now. They have sinned.
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  They're wearing animal skins because of their shame.
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  And yet the text reminds us that the blessing of fruitfulness,
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  the command to multiply, is sustained by God.
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  That is surprising actually. You would think the judgement,
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  you know, cursed is the ground because of you would stop the
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  blessing. It feels like they're at odds.
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  It creates a massive tension, doesn't it?
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  The fall deserves death. It deserves the immediate
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  extinction of the race. But God's blessing explains why
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  the human race continues at all, despite the coming judgement of
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  the Flood, which is looming on the horizon of this text.
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  God's favor sustains human multiplication.
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  So it's a form of grace. It's common grace.
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  Absolutely. Life continues even in a fallen
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  world. And then we get a detail about
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  naming that I think most people miss and call their name Adam in
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  the day when they were created. God calls their name Adam, not
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  just the guy. Both of them.
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  Yes, called their name Adam. The Hebrew word Adam is
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  fascinating. It is the proper name for the
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  individual man, Adam, but it also refers to humanity.
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  Corporately, it's the word for mankind.
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  So by giving them one name, what's the significance of that?
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  God is signifying human unity and, crucially, headship.
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  So Eve is in Adam in a sense. Correct.
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  They are one flesh, one race. This establishes the concept of
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  federal headship. OK, define that federal
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  headship. It sounds like government
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  bureaucracy. It's a legal term, really.
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  It means Adam is not just a private citizen acting for
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  himself. He is the representative for the
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  entire race. Think of it like a head of state
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  declaring war. The citizens might be sleeping
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  in their beds. They haven't picked up a gun,
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  they haven't done anything. But because their representative
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  acted, they are now at war. Their legal status has changed
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  because of what their head did. Or like a class action lawsuit
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  where one person represents the entire group.
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  That's another great analoger. If the representative loses the
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  case, everyone in that class loses the settlement.
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  Adam is the head. This is absolutely crucial for
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  understanding why his sin affects everyone.
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  Right, because if they were just two separate individuals.
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  If they were just a loose collection of individuals, Adam
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  Sin might have been his own private problem.
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  But because the entire race is named Adam, what the head does,
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  the body suffers. That's the principle being
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  established right here. OK, so verses one and two give
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  us this incredibly high view. God created Barra in his
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  likeness, male and female. He blessed them, He named them.
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  It's glorious. And then we hit verse 3, and
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  this is where the tone just plummets.
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  This is the fatal parallel. This is the hinge of the entire
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  chapter and maybe one of the saddest verses in the Bible.
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  Verse 3 says and Adam lived 130 years and begat a son in his own
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  likeness after his image and called his name Seth.
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  First off, that time jump 130 years.
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  Right, Adam lived 130 years. That is a long time, but you
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  have to think about what fits into that 130 year cap.
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  The text doesn't list it here, but we know the story from the
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  previous chapters. The fall, the temptation, the
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  eating of the fruit, the hiding in the bushes, the blame
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  shifting, the expulsion from the garden, the birth of Cain and
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  Abel, the acceptance of Abel's offering, the rejection of
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  Cain's, the jealousy, the murder in the field, the earth crying
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  out with his brother's blood. Wow, when you stack it up like
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  that. It's a heavy, heavy 130 years.
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  This isn't the innocent, bright eyed Adam of Genesis 2.
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  This is a scarred, fallen, grieving Adam.
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  He has lost paradise and he has buried a son at the hands of his
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  other son. And now he has another son,
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  Seth. But look at how the text
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  describes it. Begat a son in his own likeness
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  after his image. I feel like I need a grammar
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  lesson here. How does this compare to verse
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  one? It's a mirror image, but the
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  reflection is distorted. It's a cracked mirror.
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  In verse one, God created man in the likeness of God.
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  In verse 3, Adam begets a son in his own likeness.
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  The Hebrew prepositions, the phrasing, it's identical.
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  The grammar deliberately mirrors Genesis 1.26, but the source of
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  the image has changed. It's no longer the likeness of
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  God, it's the likeness of Adam. And there's a tiny, devastating
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  detail in the Hebrew grammar. He uses the predominal suffixo,
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  which is the third person, masculine, singular.
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  It emphasizes his likeness. Adam cannot transmit what he no
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  longer possesses in its original purity.
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  Which is what? What does he lose in the fall?
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  He lost original righteousness. He lost that moral purity and
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  that positive inclination toward God.
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  He transmits what he is now a fallen, broken man.
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  So Seth looks like his dad and we don't just mean he has Adam's
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  nose or his eye color. No, though he probably did.
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  We mean he has his Father's spiritual nature.
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  He inherits the contagion of death.
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  He's born with a nature that is bent away from God.
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  But wait, does this mean Seth is not made in the image of God?
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  Because verse one just said man is made in God's image.
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  I feel like there's a contradiction here if we aren't
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  careful. You're right to spot that, and
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  this is where we have to be very precise with our theology.
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  We need to distinguish between the imago dei in the structural
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  sense and the moral sense. OK, what's the difference?
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  Structurally, Seth is still an image bearer.
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  He has rationality. He has an immortal soul.
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  He has moral agency. He is not a beast.
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  That is why murder is still wrong, because you're killing an
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  image bearer of God. OK, so the structure is there,
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  the statue is still standing, so to speak.
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  The statue is standing, but it is defaced.
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  It is covered in graffiti and cracks.
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  That is the Imago Adami, the moral corruption, the likeness
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  in terms of holiness, righteousness and true knowledge
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  of God, that is shattered. The mirror is cracked.
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  It still reflects, but the image it reflects is distorted.
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  Seth is born looking like his father, spiritually bent away
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  from God. This brings us squarely into the
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  realm of systematic theology. You really can't read verse 3
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  without dealing with the doctrine of original sin.
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  It's one of the primary proof texts for it in the whole Old
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  Testament. Let's unpack that.
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  I know we have listeners who might be familiar with the term
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  original sin, but maybe not the mechanics of it.
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  How does Genesis 5.3 teach it? Well, the Westminster Confession
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  summarizes the biblical teaching beautifully.
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  It says that the guilt of Adam's sin is imputed or legally
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  charged to us, and a corrupted nature is conveyed to all
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  posterity by ordinary generation.
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  Ordinary generation. That sounds a lot like the
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  phrase begat a son. It is exactly what it means
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  natural procreation. Because Seth comes from Adam by
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  natural means, he receives Adam's fallen nature.
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  This is so important because it refutes an old heresy called
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  Pelagianism. Pelagianism.
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  OK, remind us what that is? Pelagius was a monk in the 4th
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  and 5th centuries who taught that infants are born morally
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  neutral. He believed Adam's sin only
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  affected Adam. He thought a baby is born like a
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  blank slate, a tabula rasa, and they only become sinners when
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  they choose to copy bad behavior they see.
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  So if you just raised a kid in a perfect bubble, kept them away
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  from all bad influences, never showed them anything wrong, they
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  would grow up sinless. That is the Pelagian dream.
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  It is the dream of every utopian society really.
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  If we just change the environment, we can perfect the
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  human. But Genesis 5.3 just crushes
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  that dream. It proves there are no neutral
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  infants. Seth didn't become a Sinner
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  because he hung out with the wrong crowd.
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  He was born in Adam's likeness. The corruption is in the
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  software from the moment of Buddha.
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  That raises a really tricky question though, and I hear this
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  a lot. If God creates every soul
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  because God is the creator, how does a soul become sinful If God
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  makes it? Does God create sinful souls?
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  That just sounds wrong. That is the soul debate.
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  It is a classic theological dilemma and good people have
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  landed on different sides. There are two main views here. 1
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  is called traditionism. Tradition ISM sounds like
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  tradition. It comes from the Latin word
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  tridux which means a shoot or a sprout like from a vine.
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  This view says that the soul is generated by the parents just
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  like the body. So your parents DNA makes your
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  body and your parents souls in some mysterious way generate
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  your soul. That would make sense of Genesis
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  5.3 pretty easily begat a son and his likeness, body and soul
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  passed down together as one package.
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  It does fit the text very well. Martin Luther was a tradition
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  for this reason. It explains how sin is passed
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  down very easily. If my soul is in a sense cut
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  from my parents soul and their soul is sinful than mine is 2.
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  But the majority Reformed view historically has leaned toward
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  creationism. And just to be clear, this is
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  not creationism as in six day creation versus evolution.
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  Correct. This is a different use of the
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  word creationism Regarding the origin of the soul.
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  Is the view that God creates each soul immediately at the
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  moment of conception. He creates the substance of the
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  soul fresh for each person. But then we are right back to
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  the original problem. If God creates a fresh new soul,
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  why is it sinful? The argument is that he creates
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  the soul pure in its substance. It is not made of evil stuff,
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  but he withholds original righteousness because of Adam's
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  legal guilt that we talked about.
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  OK, so because of federal headship, God creates the
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  vessel, but because the whole family line is under a legal
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  penalty from Adam, he doesn't fill that vessel with the
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  special grace of holiness. Exactly.
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  It is a penal withholding. It's like being born into a
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  family that has declared bankruptcy.
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  You, the baby, didn't spend the money, you didn't rack up the
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  gambling debt, but you were born into that house and you are born
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  without the inheritance. You start at 0 or actually below
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  0 in debt. So whether you are a tradition
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  or a creationist. The end result is the same.
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  The result is total depravity. The corruption extends to the
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  mind, the will, and the affections.
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  We're all born in Adam's image. That's the reality this chapter
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  forces us to confront. And the proof of that reality is
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  in what follows, we move from this dense theological header
• 19:00
  into the list itself, the necrology, as some have called.
• 19:03
  It the registry of death. It's a rhythm, isn't it?
• 19:05
  After the first few, you could almost chant it.
• 19:08
  And he lived, and he begat, and he lived, and he died.
• 19:12
  It is a tolling bell, a funeral. Now bong bong bong over and over
• 19:17
  again, and he died. It proves that death is not
• 19:21
  natural. We often hear people say death
• 19:22
  is just a part of life. It's the circle of life.
• 19:25
  Genesis 5 stands up and says no, it is not.
• 19:27
  Death is an intruder, it's a foreign enemy.
• 19:29
  It is the wages of sin, as Paul says in Romans 6.23.
• 19:33
  But these guys lived an incredibly long time, 900 years.
• 19:37
  Methuselah lived 969 years. That's a staggering amount of
• 19:41
  time. I mean, imagine the history you
• 19:42
  would witness. It is staggering, and people get
• 19:45
  hung up on the math or the biology of it.
• 19:46
  Was the atmosphere different? Was the genetics purer?
• 19:49
  And the answer's probably yes to both.
• 19:51
  But rhetorically, the long lifespans actually serve the
• 19:55
  point about death even more powerfully.
• 19:57
  How so? I would think it shows how
• 19:59
  strong they were. Imagine living 9 centuries.
• 20:01
  You see empires rise and fall. You learn so much, you master
• 20:05
  skills we can't even imagine. You have hundreds of children
• 20:08
  and grandchildren and great grandchildren.
• 20:10
  The vitality is immense. The human machine is running at
• 20:13
  near peak performance. And yet.
• 20:16
  And yet, and he died. Even 969 years is not forever.
• 20:20
  The curse is patient, but it is inevitable.
• 20:23
  Whether you live 30 years or 900 years.
• 20:25
  If you are in Adam, the story ends the same way.
• 20:28
  The grave always, always wins. It's meant to show the utter
• 20:32
  futility of trying to outlive the curse by your own strength.
• 20:35
  That is incredibly bleak. It is meant to be.
• 20:37
  It's meant to crush any hope that we can outlast the problem
• 20:40
  of sin on our own terms. It's a reality check.
• 20:43
  So is this just a chapter of Doom?
• 20:46
  Is it just as you said, a registry of death?
• 20:48
  Is there any hope in this list? No, it's not just Doom.
• 20:51
  And this is where the Ledger of grace comes back in.
• 20:54
  We have to look at who is in this list.
• 20:56
  This is the line of Seth, right? Chapter 4 gave us the line of
• 20:59
  Cain. And the line of Cain was
• 21:01
  impressive. They were the innovators.
• 21:03
  They built cities. They invented menology, forging
• 21:05
  bronze and iron. They created musical
• 21:08
  instruments. They had culture.
• 21:10
  But they were moving away from God.
• 21:12
  Lamech in King's line is a proud polygamist and a murderer.
• 21:16
  It's the city of Man, built on pride and self-sufficiency.
• 21:20
  And Seth's line, they don't seem to be building cities or
• 21:23
  inventing things. No, but they have something far
• 21:26
  greater. Seth's line is the line of the
• 21:28
  seed of the woman promised back in Genesis 3.15.
• 21:32
  The promise that one day descendant would crush the
• 21:34
  serpent's head. That's the one.
• 21:35
  When Cain killed Abel, it looked like the promise might have
• 21:38
  failed. The serpent struck the heel, and
• 21:39
  the righteous seed was dead. But then Seth is born.
• 21:42
  His name literally means appointed or substituted.
• 21:46
  So Seth replaces Abel. He's the continuation of the
• 21:49
  promise. Yes, the genealogy of Genesis 5
• 21:52
  is the corridor. It is the tunnel through which
• 21:55
  that promise travels. It is moving toward Noah, who is
• 21:58
  at the end of this chapter, and eventually it is moving toward
• 22:01
  Abraham and David and finally Christ.
• 22:03
  So even though every individual on the line is dying, the line
• 22:07
  itself is not dying out. That is the preservation of
• 22:10
  grace. God preserves this line through
• 22:13
  the impending judgement. The flood is coming.
• 22:15
  We know that from the next chapter.
• 22:17
  But God is ensuring that there is a remnant.
• 22:19
  It vindicates God's justice because the line is corrupt.
• 22:22
  They all die, but it highlights His sovereign grace because the
• 22:25
  line is saved. They have children before they
• 22:27
  die. The baton is past.
• 22:29
  That's a beautiful image. A baton passed by dying runners
• 22:32
  in a relay race. Exactly.
• 22:34
  A relay race against the grave and grace is what keeps the race
• 22:37
  going. Let's pivot to how this lands
• 22:39
  for us today. We're not ancient Sumerians
• 22:41
  reading a clay tablet. We are modern people living in
• 22:44
  the 21st century. How do we confront our age with
• 22:47
  Genesis 5? It confronts us in several huge
• 22:50
  ways, and the 1st, and maybe most obvious, is on the sanctity
• 22:53
  of life. We talked about the Imago day
• 22:55
  remaining even though it's been damaged, yes.
• 22:57
  Because the image is propagated by generation, meaning it's
• 23:00
  passed down from parent to child, every single human being
• 23:03
  from the moment of conception bears the stamp of the Creator.
• 23:07
  It does not matter if they are disabled, elderly, unborn or
• 23:11
  inconvenient to someone else's life plan.
• 23:13
  So issues like abortion and euthanasia are not just social
• 23:16
  issues or political footballs from this perspective.
• 23:19
  They are theological assaults. To destroy a human life is to
• 23:23
  assault God's image, the text says.
• 23:26
  God created and blessed. We do not have the authority to
• 23:30
  revoke that blessing or to face that image.
• 23:32
  The dignity applies to all. You cannot look at another
• 23:35
  person and say that is just a clump of cells or that person
• 23:38
  has no quality of life. No, that is a carrier of the
• 23:41
  imago day, however correct the mirror may be.
• 23:43
  That is powerful. What about the way we view
• 23:45
  ourselves? I mean we live in the age of
• 23:47
  self help. The therapeutic age, right?
• 23:50
  Be true to yourself. You are enough.
• 23:52
  You are basically good. We hear this every single day
• 23:54
  from every corner of our culture.
• 23:56
  And Genesis 5.3 takes a sledgehammer to that entire
• 24:00
  worldview. Being true to yourself if you
• 24:03
  are an atom. Being true to yourself means
• 24:05
  being true to a fallen, corrupted nature that is bent
• 24:10
  away from God. Ouch, that cuts very deep
• 24:13
  against the grain of modern thought.
• 24:14
  It's true though. If the problem is Imago Adami,
• 24:18
  if the problem is your very nature, then the solution cannot
• 24:21
  be try harder. It cannot be life coaching, it
• 24:24
  cannot be better habits or positive thinking.
• 24:26
  You can teach a corks to sit up straight and put a nice suit on
• 24:29
  it, but it is still dead. So the solution is not
• 24:32
  behavioral modification. It's not about just fixing a few
• 24:35
  bad habits. No, the problem is far deeper.
• 24:38
  The solution must be a new nature.
• 24:40
  It must be regeneration. We need to be born again, as
• 24:42
  Jesus tells Nicodemus in John 3. Why?
• 24:45
  Because the first birth was in Adam's likeness.
• 24:48
  We need a second birth from a different source.
• 24:50
  That changes how we parent too, doesn't?
• 24:52
  It Oh, absolutely. I think this is one of the most
• 24:54
  liberating truths for Christian parents.
• 24:56
  Liberating, I would think. It's depressing to know my kids
• 24:59
  are little sinners from birth. It's liberating because it kills
• 25:02
  perfectionism. Parents today are absolutely
• 25:04
  crushed by the pressure to create perfect children.
• 25:08
  If I just use the right organic food, if I use this discipline
• 25:11
  strategy, if I send them to the right schools, they will be
• 25:14
  angels. And then the kid throws a full
• 25:16
  blown tantrum in the middle of the grocery store and you feel
• 25:18
  like a total failure. Right.
• 25:20
  Genesis 5 says you are a Sinner and you bigot, A Sinner.
• 25:24
  You did not teach them to be selfish.
• 25:26
  They inherited it just like you did.
• 25:29
  So your job is not to be the manufacturer of a perfect
• 25:32
  product. Your job is to be a beggar,
• 25:34
  showing another beggar where to find bread.
• 25:36
  That takes the weight off. It turns parenting from this
• 25:39
  high pressure factory of works into a ministry of grace.
• 25:42
  Precisely, we point them to the one who can fix the broken
• 25:45
  image, because we know we can't. And that leads us to the
• 25:48
  ultimate solution. Because if the chapter just ends
• 25:51
  with a refrain and he died, we're all in trouble.
• 25:54
  We need a way out of the cemetery.
• 25:56
  We need a second Adam. The second Adam.
• 25:58
  This is language Paul uses in the New Testament, looking back
• 26:00
  at this very passage. Yes, in Romans 5 and 1st
• 26:03
  Corinthians 15, Paul essentially looks at Genesis 5 and says OK,
• 26:08
  Adam is the first federal head. He transmitted sin and death to
• 26:12
  everyone in his line, but Christ is the second head, a new Adam.
• 26:17
  So Genesis 5 shows the transmission of death.
• 26:19
  The Gospel is the transmission of life.
• 26:21
  And think about the virgin birth in this specific context.
• 26:25
  Why did Jesus have to be born of a virgin?
• 26:27
  We often think about it in terms of his divinity.
• 26:29
  Right to be the Son of God. Yes, but it's also absolutely
• 26:32
  crucial for his humanity. He is the son of Adam.
• 26:34
  In terms of his biology, Luke's genealogy in chapter 3 traces
• 26:38
  him all the way back to Adam. So he is truly human.
• 26:41
  But because of the virgin birth, the Holy Spirit interrupts the
• 26:44
  ordinary transmission of guilt and corruption.
• 26:46
  He bypasses the likeness of Adam in that moral sense.
• 26:49
  So he's born in the likeness of sinful flesh, as Romans 8 says.
• 26:53
  But without being sinful himself.
• 26:55
  He steps into the human genealogy, but he breaks the
• 26:57
  pattern. He does not have the Imago Adami
• 27:00
  corruption. He has the pure Imago day of the
• 27:02
  original creation. Plus he is God Incarnate.
• 27:05
  And so when we are saved, when we are united to Christ by
• 27:08
  faith, what happens to our image?
• 27:11
  The whole goal of salvation is the restoration of the image of
• 27:14
  God in US, Colossians 3.9 says. We are being renewed in
• 27:19
  knowledge after the image of him that created him.
• 27:22
  We're being a remodel. We are being transferred.
• 27:24
  We are taken out of the genealogy of death, the family
• 27:27
  tree of Adam, and we are grafted into the genealogy of grace, the
• 27:30
  family tree of Christ. We get a new federal head.
• 27:33
  That is an incredible thought, yeah.
• 27:35
  We started with a list of names that seems like a dusty, boring
• 27:38
  archive, and we've ended up with this solution to the entire
• 27:41
  human predicament. That is the power of Scripture.
• 27:43
  There are no throwaway verses. Genesis 5 is a mirror showing
• 27:46
  our ruin in Adam, but it's also a map.
• 27:49
  A map pointing to our rescue. A map pointing to our rescue in
• 27:52
  Christ. It holds together our dignity.
• 27:55
  We are created by God and our depravity.
• 27:57
  We are fallen in Adam, and it points to the one who alone can
• 28:01
  restore that dignity and heal that depravity.
• 28:03
  So as we wrap up this deep dive, we have really moved from the
• 28:07
  Book of Generations to the Book of Life.
• 28:09
  Indeed we have. I want to leave you, the
• 28:11
  listener, with a final thought to chew on.
• 28:13
  We've talked a lot about genealogies today.
• 28:15
  Most of us might know our grandparents, maybe our great
• 28:17
  grandparents if we're lucky. But Genesis 5 tells us we all
• 28:20
  have an ancient father, Adam, and we all share his fate.
• 28:24
  And he died. It's the default ending to all
• 28:27
  of our stories. It is, but here's the
• 28:29
  provocative thought. You cannot change your
• 28:32
  ancestors. You cannot choose who you were
• 28:35
  born to in this world, but the gospel claims you can change
• 28:38
  your head. You can change your spiritual
• 28:40
  genealogy. The ultimate question for you is
• 28:43
  not who are your parents? The ultimate question is who is
• 28:47
  your head? Because the only way to change
• 28:49
  the ending of your story, to erase that final inevitable and
• 28:53
  he died, is to be adopted into a different family tree, one that
• 28:56
  ends not with a grave, but with a resurrection.
• 29:00
  Thank you for listening to Reformed Thinking.
• 29:02
  We hope this deep dive has given you a new appreciation for the
• 29:05
  Begats and a Deeer love for the second atom.
• 29:08
  Until next time.