Latest / Reformed Thinking / Creation Truths in a World of Graves: The Image of God, Gender, and Christ (Genesis 5:1–2)

Transcript

Creation Truths in a World of Graves: The Image of God, Gender, and Christ (Genesis 5:1–2) · Reformed Thinking

• 0:00
  Welcome to Reformed Thinking. This is the deep dive where we
• 0:03
  take your sources and your questions about Scripture and
• 0:07
  really trying to give them a rigorous analysis.
• 0:09
  Today we're taking a close look at Genesis chapter 5 and really
• 0:13
  just the first 2 verses. That's right.
• 0:14
  Now this is a passage that for many of us, it just kind of
• 0:18
  functions as a title page. We read it, we move on, but the
• 0:21
  sources you all send in argue it holds some immense significance
• 0:24
  for understanding well who we are.
• 0:26
  Oh absolutely. It's about who we are, why we
• 0:29
  need rescue, and really how God's whole plan of salvation is
• 0:33
  structured. It's a fantastic choice for a
• 0:35
  deep dive. So what's our mission today?
• 0:37
  What are we trying to uncover in just these two verses?
• 0:40
  Well, Genesis 5.1 and 2, they're not just a preamble to a long
• 0:45
  list of people dying. They're a theological statement.
• 0:48
  A statement of, I'd say perseverance.
• 0:50
  Perseverance, OK. It stands at this critical point
• 0:53
  in the story of redemption. You just had the fall.
• 0:55
  You've seen wickedness explode with Cain's line, and right
• 0:58
  around the corner is God's judgement with the flood.
• 1:01
  So it's a bridge. It's a bridge, a narrative and
• 1:04
  theological bridge, and our mission is to see how it builds
• 1:07
  that bridge by establishing 3 inescapable truths about
• 1:12
  humanity, truths that still hold even after everything went wrong
• 1:16
  and even. OK, So what are these three
• 1:18
  truths? 1st that every single human
• 1:20
  being still bears God's image. We still have dignity. 2nd that
• 1:24
  humanity is by design structured as male and female, and 3rd, and
• 1:30
  this is the big one for our framework, that Adam's role as a
• 1:33
  historical man establishes the idea of covenantal headship.
• 1:37
  And you just can't understand Christ as the last Adam without
• 1:40
  that piece. These aren't just, you know,
• 1:41
  historical footnote. Not at all.
• 1:43
  They define our reality right now.
• 1:44
  All right, so let's start with that idea of structure with the
• 1:47
  bridge itself, because Moses, the author of Genesis, is
• 1:50
  clearly using a specific literary tool here.
• 1:52
  He is the source are clear that Genesis is presented as this
• 1:56
  ordered history. It's not a random jumble of
• 1:58
  stories, and the key to how he organizes it is this Hebrew word
• 2:02
  tillidot. Yes, Tillidot, and it's so much
• 2:04
  more than just a word. It's also translated generations
• 2:07
  or account. But you should think of it less
• 2:09
  like a chapter title and more like a like a recurring heading,
• 2:12
  a section marker. It's Moses's way of saying, OK,
• 2:15
  pause Now here is the story of what comes from this person or
• 2:20
  this event. And it's not just about
• 2:22
  children, is it? It's not just a family tree.
• 2:24
  No, not at all. That's a key insight from the
• 2:26
  sources. It's about more than just
• 2:29
  biological offspring. It introduces the whole
• 2:32
  narrative, the historical consequence of a person's life
• 2:35
  and choices. We see it before right in
• 2:38
  Genesis 2.4. Exactly.
• 2:40
  These are the generations of the heavens and the earth.
• 2:43
  It's not listing their children. It's telling you the story that
• 2:46
  flowed out of God's completed work of creation.
• 2:49
  So when we get to Genesis 5 verse one and it says this is
• 2:52
  the book of the generations of Adam, we should be sitting up a
• 2:55
  little straighter. We should.
• 2:56
  The function is crystal clear. Moses is signaling the start of
• 3:00
  a new, very specific narrative block.
• 3:02
  This is the history that issues from Adam.
• 3:05
  Not just Adam, the Father. No.
• 3:07
  Adam, the covenant head of the human race, and the specific
• 3:11
  line being tracked here, of course, is the line of Seth,
• 3:14
  which will lead us straight to Noah.
• 3:16
  You mentioned the word book there.
• 3:17
  Genesis 5.1 actually starts with this is the book of the
• 3:21
  generations of Adam. The Hebrew word is sofer.
• 3:25
  That seems intentional. What's very intentional?
• 3:27
  What does that add? Why not just say these are the
• 3:29
  generations? The word sofer carries a ton of
• 3:31
  weight. It means a written document, an
• 3:34
  official scroll, a register, a legal text.
• 3:37
  Think of a deed to a property or a marriage certificate.
• 3:40
  It's formal. So Moses is saying this isn't
• 3:42
  just a story I heard. Precisely by using Sofer, he's
• 3:46
  establishing the genealogy that follows, which, you know, has
• 3:49
  real names, specific ages, documented family ties, as an
• 3:53
  authoritative, concrete record. It's an official register.
• 3:56
  That's a great way to put it. It signals that this is covenant
• 3:59
  history written down and preserved, not just some
• 4:03
  flexible oral tale or a symbolic myth.
• 4:05
  And that becomes so important later when the apostle Paul
• 4:07
  built his entire argument in Romans 5 on Adam being a real
• 4:11
  historical person. It's the foundation for it.
• 4:14
  If Adam is in history, Paul's argument doesn't work.
• 4:17
  So let's talk about the placement, the strategic setting
• 4:20
  of these two verses. Why does God, through Moses,
• 4:23
  restate these big creation truths?
• 4:26
  The image, the male, female structure, the name right here?
• 4:29
  Why not just get on with the list of names?
• 4:31
  The placement is everything. I mean, think about what's just
• 4:34
  happened. It's been a disaster.
• 4:35
  A total disaster. Genesis 3 gives us the fall, the
• 4:38
  curse, the entry of death. Then Genesis 4 traces the line
• 4:42
  of Cain, and that is a horrifying story.
• 4:45
  Murder. Rejection of God, right?
• 4:48
  Cain murders his brother, his descendants build a city in
• 4:51
  defiance of God, and it culminates in Lamech, who boasts
• 4:54
  about his violence, making himself out to be more vengeful
• 4:57
  than God. Sin is metastasizing.
• 5:00
  It's spreading like a cancer. So Genesis 5.1 and two slams on
• 5:03
  the brakes. It does.
• 5:04
  It forces the reader to stop right in the middle of this
• 5:06
  downward spiral and to remember to remember God's original
• 5:10
  design and purpose. It's a theological anchor
• 5:13
  dropped in the middle of a hurricane.
• 5:14
  It stands right between the entry of this corruption in
• 5:17
  Chapters 3 and four and the universal judgement that's
• 5:20
  coming in Chapters 6 through 9. And it sets up the contrast
• 5:23
  between the two lines. A huge contrast.
• 5:25
  Genesis 4 gave us the line that rejected God.
• 5:28
  Now Genesis 5 is going to trace the line of Seth, who is the
• 5:31
  replacement for Abel. And it was in Seth's line.
• 5:34
  Remember that people began to call upon the name of the Lord.
• 5:37
  So this restatement of creation truth comes right at the start
• 5:40
  of the godly line, yes. And in doing that, God is
• 5:43
  showing us that He is actively, historically preserving a chosen
• 5:48
  seed, the promised seed from Genesis 3.15, the serpent
• 5:52
  crusher. He will come through this line.
• 5:54
  It's being guarded. And that preservation is set
• 5:57
  against the backdrop of this coming judgment.
• 5:59
  We know the flood is just around the corner.
• 6:01
  We do. By putting these truths about
• 6:03
  His design and His sovereignty right at the top of this
• 6:05
  account, God is showing that His original plan is still in
• 6:08
  effect. It's still operating, even as
• 6:11
  He's preparing to judge the wicked world.
• 6:13
  So there's a clear link being made, a bridge, like you said,
• 6:15
  between the perfect creation and Genesis 1 and this, well, this
• 6:20
  subsequent genealogy of death. How does Moses forge that link
• 6:24
  so explicitly? He does it with language, with
• 6:27
  deliberate repetition. He intentionally recycles the
• 6:31
  language from Genesisys. One versus 26 to 28 he hits.
• 6:35
  All the key terms. All of them.
• 6:38
  He talks about God creating man, making him in his likeness.
• 6:41
  He mentions the male and female structure.
• 6:43
  He talks about God's blessing and his act of naming.
• 6:47
  It's a direct echo, a purposeful recap.
• 6:49
  But the tension is just. It's overwhelming because it's
• 6:53
  perfect. Language is now being used to
• 6:54
  describe a fallen world. That's the whole point.
• 6:57
  The repetition happens on the far side of the fall, so you,
• 7:00
  the reader, are forced to hold two things in your mind at once,
• 7:03
  the nobility of God's original design and the complete
• 7:06
  brokenness of our current state. And that tension just explodes
• 7:09
  as soon as you get to verse 3 and start reading the list.
• 7:11
  It does, because every single life recorded in this chapter,
• 7:14
  Adam, Seth, Enos, all the way down to Noah's father Lanik,
• 7:17
  every entry is punctuated by that solemn, repetitive phrase.
• 7:21
  And he died. And he died over and over.
• 7:23
  It's the brutal, relentless drum beat of life under Adam's
• 7:27
  headship. Moses wants to make sure we get.
• 7:29
  It He does, He wants us to understand that these
• 7:31
  individuals, even though they are still image bearers, still
• 7:35
  created according to God's wise design, they are living under a
• 7:39
  sentence of death. Nobility and mortality side by
• 7:42
  side. That's it.
• 7:43
  That is the sober doctrine of man that Genesis 5 establishes.
• 7:46
  We are God's highest creation, made for glory, gifted with
• 7:50
  dignity, and yet we are chained to the grave.
• 7:53
  OK, so that moves us right into those 3 persistent truths that
• 7:56
  you mentioned. Let's dig into the first one,
• 7:58
  which is maybe the most central one for our identity.
• 8:00
  Genesis 5.1 When God created man, he made him in the likeness
• 8:04
  of God. Why is it so essential to
• 8:07
  restate that? The imago dei, the image of God
• 8:10
  after the fall? What's the theological work
• 8:12
  being done there? It's doing critical theological
• 8:14
  work by repeating the language of Genesis 1.
• 8:17
  The text insists that the image of God still holds.
• 8:21
  It still applies to every human being.
• 8:22
  So the fall didn't get rid of it.
• 8:24
  No, and this is a central point in Reformed thought.
• 8:28
  The Fall did not abolish the image.
• 8:31
  The sources make a crucial distinction here.
• 8:34
  Sin damaged the image. It corrupted it.
• 8:37
  It defaced it, but it did not and could not erase it.
• 8:41
  And what are the implications of that?
• 8:43
  The image is damaged but not gone?
• 8:45
  Why is that distinction so important?
• 8:47
  Well, think about what would happen if the image were
• 8:49
  abolished, if it were completely gone.
• 8:51
  We'd just be animals. We'd just be clever animals.
• 8:54
  We would lose the entire basis for human dignity.
• 8:57
  We would lose the basis for our accountability to God as His
• 9:00
  representatives. So because the image persists,
• 9:03
  every person still has this inherent worth.
• 9:05
  Every single person, regardless of their moral condition, their
• 9:08
  physical health, their age, their ethnicity, their mental
• 9:10
  capacity, they still possess an intrinsic worth that elevates
• 9:14
  them above all the rest of creation.
• 9:16
  This speaks directly against any philosophy that tries to, you
• 9:19
  know, peg human value to usefulness.
• 9:21
  It's the ultimate rebuttal to that this doctrine of universal
• 9:25
  dignity flows straight from the persistent image.
• 9:28
  It means the unborn child, the person with severe disabilities,
• 9:31
  the elderly person with dementia.
• 9:33
  Those who can't contribute in a worldly sense.
• 9:36
  Right, those people are placed on the exact same feeling of
• 9:39
  dignity and worth as the most productive member of society.
• 9:43
  And this isn't just a Genesis idea, it grounds the rest of
• 9:47
  scriptures ethics. Like the prohibition of murder.
• 9:49
  Exactly Genesis 9 verse 6. Why is murder so heinous?
• 9:53
  Because humanity was made in God's image.
• 9:56
  To take a human lies is to strike at a representative of
• 9:58
  the King. It's an act of treason against
• 10:01
  God himself. And James says the same thing in
• 10:03
  the New Testament. He does James chapter 3.
• 10:06
  He said we bless God and then with the same tongue we curse
• 10:08
  people who are made in the likeness of God.
• 10:10
  He calls it a deep contradiction.
• 10:12
  It shows this idea of persistent dignity runs from cover to
• 10:15
  cover. So it creates that sober
• 10:17
  doctrine. We talked about this, this
• 10:19
  tension. It forces us to hold that
• 10:21
  tension. Humanity is noble, crowned with
• 10:24
  glory and honor, meant to be God's vice regions on earth.
• 10:29
  And at the same time, we are ruined, we are bound to sin, and
• 10:32
  we are destined for death. And any view of humanity that
• 10:36
  only picks one side of that is going to be wrong.
• 10:38
  It'll be a distortion. If you say humans are basically
• 10:41
  good and just need a little help, you ignore the ruin.
• 10:44
  If you say humans are worthless trash, you deny the persistent
• 10:47
  image. Genesis 5 forces you to affirm
• 10:49
  both. We are glorious ruins.
• 10:51
  OK, let's move to that second persistent truth.
• 10:54
  Genesis 5 verse 2 repeats the structure.
• 10:56
  Male and female. He created them.
• 10:59
  Now, in a chapter that's about to trace a line of descent,
• 11:01
  mostly through fathers and sons, why does Moses pause to reaffirm
• 11:05
  this, the binary structure of humanity?
• 11:07
  It's another affirmation of creation design.
• 11:10
  It's a reminder of God's wisdom and his goodness and how he
• 11:13
  chose to structure the human race.
• 11:15
  That humanity isn't just a single undifferentiated thing.
• 11:18
  Right. It's not monolithic.
• 11:20
  It exists by God's design in two complementary, differentiated
• 11:24
  sexes, and this structure is presented as foundational.
• 11:28
  It was there in creation before culture, before the fall, before
• 11:32
  any kind of social development. It's part of the bedrock of
• 11:34
  reality. And the sources are careful to
• 11:37
  point out that this difference in structure does not mean a
• 11:39
  difference in value. Oh, that's critical.
• 11:42
  The equality of dignity is already established.
• 11:44
  How? Because both the male and the
• 11:46
  female are equally included in the Imago day and both are
• 11:50
  equally the recipients of God's blessing.
• 11:52
  So neither 1 is a lesser kind of human.
• 11:54
  Not at all. There is differentiation within
• 11:57
  a fundamental unity inequality, but the text clearly maintains
• 12:01
  that God-given differentiation and that distinction is what
• 12:05
  makes the family unit, and by extension society, possible.
• 12:08
  So this anchors our understanding of gender and
• 12:11
  identity in something solid in creation itself.
• 12:14
  It does. It tethers it to something
• 12:15
  outside of ourselves. For an audience that holds to
• 12:17
  the authority of Scripture, this is an anchor in what can feel
• 12:20
  like a very stormy sea of ideas about identity.
• 12:22
  It presents our sex not as an accident or something we choose,
• 12:26
  but as a gift. As a gift from the Creator, a
• 12:29
  deliberate choice of divine design.
• 12:31
  It's not a fluid construct or a social convention.
• 12:35
  And the call then is to receive that design with gratitude, to
• 12:39
  live into it faithfully rather than trying to redefine it based
• 12:43
  on our feelings or cultural pressures.
• 12:45
  I also noticed that verse 2 specifically says God bless
• 12:48
  them. That's another echo of Genesis
• 12:50
  1. It is.
• 12:51
  It's an echo of the creation mandate to be fruitful and
• 12:54
  multiply. And it seems amazing that this
• 12:56
  blessing is reaffirmed even after the curse made
• 12:58
  childbearing painful and relationships fraught with
• 13:00
  tension. That's a great observation.
• 13:03
  It's a powerful display of what theologians call common grace.
• 13:06
  Explain that a little. Well, despite the curse, despite
• 13:09
  the entrance of sin and death, God's original favor on human
• 13:12
  fruitfulness continues. It persists.
• 13:15
  That's why this genealogy is filled with men who live for
• 13:17
  hundreds of years and have many sons and daughters.
• 13:20
  So God is still upholding the world.
• 13:22
  He's still upholding it. His sovereign plan requires the
• 13:26
  continuation of the human race in order to bring about the
• 13:29
  promised seed. So he preserves our ability to
• 13:33
  be fruitful even while we live under the sentence of death.
• 13:36
  It's a sign of his patience and his mercy.
• 13:38
  So we have the persistent image, the persistent gender structure,
• 13:42
  and the persistent blessing of fruitfulness.
• 13:44
  Yes, that brings us to the final phrase in verse 2, which sets up
• 13:49
  so much of what's to come. God named them man when they
• 13:53
  were created. What is the significance of that
• 13:56
  statement? It seems to have a couple of
• 13:57
  layers. It has at least two massive
• 13:59
  theological layers packed into that one short phrase.
• 14:02
  OK, what's the first one? The first is about authority.
• 14:05
  In the ancient world, and especially in Scripture, the act
• 14:08
  of naming is an act of exercising authority.
• 14:10
  Parents name their children. Adam names the animals.
• 14:13
  So when God names the species. He is exercising his sovereign
• 14:16
  right to define what humanity is.
• 14:19
  He's the creator. He gets to say what we are.
• 14:21
  We don't get to define ourselves.
• 14:23
  Our identity is given to us by God.
• 14:25
  That's the first layer authority.
• 14:27
  What's the second? The second centers on the
• 14:29
  specific word used for man. The Hebrew word Adam.
• 14:33
  Right, and this is the key. The word Adam works in two ways.
• 14:37
  It's the personal name of the first man, Adam, but it's also
• 14:40
  the generic collective noun for all of humanity, like mankind.
• 14:45
  So there's a deliberate play on words happening.
• 14:48
  It's more than a play on words. It's a theological statement.
• 14:52
  By giving Adam's personal name to the entire race, God is
• 14:55
  setting up the mechanism of corporate representation.
• 14:58
  He's establishing Adam not just as a private individual.
• 15:01
  But as a public head, a representative, what happens to
• 15:04
  him will not just be his private story, it will be the story of
• 15:08
  everyone who comes from him. And that distinction is
• 15:10
  everything. Private individual versus public
• 15:13
  head. That's the concept that opens
• 15:15
  the door to the entire Gospel framework.
• 15:17
  It is. It sets the stage for everything
• 15:19
  that follows. OK, so this gets us to the very
• 15:21
  core of a Reformed understanding of this passage and really the
• 15:24
  whole Bible, the doctrine of federal headship.
• 15:27
  The structural logic of Scripture.
• 15:29
  We've just seen how Adam is established as this head through
• 15:33
  the act of naming through the Toledot device.
• 15:35
  So let's really untack this idea.
• 15:37
  What do we mean when we say Adam was the federal or covenant
• 15:41
  head? Federal headship simply means
• 15:43
  that God, in His wisdom, appointed Adam to act as the
• 15:47
  legal representative for the entire human race.
• 15:50
  A representative in what sense? In the sense of the covenant God
• 15:53
  made with him in the garden, sometimes called the covenant of
• 15:56
  works or the covenant of life, Adam was, you could say, the
• 16:00
  designated signatory for all of his descendants.
• 16:02
  So like a diplomat signing a treaty on behalf of a nation?
• 16:06
  That's a pretty good analogy. Or maybe the CEO of a
• 16:08
  corporation making a decision that affects every single
• 16:11
  employee and shareholder. His actions weren't just his
• 16:14
  own, they had corporate, legal and historical consequences for
• 16:18
  everyone in his line. Which means his obedience or his
• 16:21
  disobedience would determine the fate of all humanity.
• 16:24
  Precisely the structure we see in Genesis 5, where the history
• 16:27
  of the Tully dot flows from Adam is the head, means that every
• 16:30
  person listed in that chapter is living out their days under the
• 16:33
  legal ramifications of his choice.
• 16:35
  So we don't start with a clean slate, no.
• 16:38
  We don't begin life as these isolated, autonomous individuals
• 16:41
  who face God purely on our own 2 feet.
• 16:45
  We are born, as the theologians say, in Adam, and because we are
• 16:48
  in him, we inherit the legal consequences of what he did.
• 16:52
  We inherit his guilt and we inherit his corrupted nature.
• 16:55
  Now, to a modern listener steeped in individualism, that
• 16:58
  can sound, well, unfair. It can.
• 17:01
  The idea that we're responsible for something someone else did
• 17:04
  thousands of years ago is countercultural.
• 17:07
  But the sources argue that if we throw out this idea of Adam's
• 17:09
  headship, the whole structure of the gospel just collapses.
• 17:12
  It completely falls apart. It dissolves.
• 17:14
  Think about it, If Adam was just a private guy whose sin only
• 17:18
  affected himself, then the only way for us to be saved would be
• 17:22
  on the basis of our own private individual merit.
• 17:24
  We'd each have to live a perfect life.
• 17:26
  Right. And Christ's work would be,
• 17:28
  well, unnecessary, at least as a substitute.
• 17:31
  But because Adam was a public covenant head whose sin brought
• 17:34
  corporate condemnation, that required a public covenant
• 17:37
  solution. A new head.
• 17:39
  A new representative. That's why the entire plan of
• 17:41
  salvation hinges on what the New Testament calls the Adam Christ
• 17:45
  contrast. Let's go there.
• 17:46
  Let's spend some real time with how the Apostle Paul builds on
• 17:49
  this. He takes the historical reality
• 17:52
  of Genesis 5 and builds his whole case for Christ on it,
• 17:55
  especially in Romans 5. Romans 5 verses 12 to 19 is the
• 17:59
  theological engine room for this whole doctrine, and the first
• 18:02
  thing to notice is that Paul treats Adam as a real historical
• 18:06
  person. He's not an allegory for
• 18:08
  humanity. Not at all.
• 18:09
  He's the one man through whom sin and death entered the world.
• 18:13
  And then Paul calls Adam a type of the one who was to come.
• 18:16
  A type of Christ? What does that mean?
• 18:17
  A type. It means Adam establishes the
• 18:19
  pattern. The legal framework of
• 18:21
  representation. The logic by which one person's
• 18:25
  actions can be credited to many people, is established in Adam
• 18:28
  so that God can then use that same logic to save us in Christ.
• 18:31
  Adam is the prototype of the representative man.
• 18:34
  Let's look at Romans 5.1 specifically.
• 18:37
  Paul says just as sin came into the world through one man, and
• 18:41
  death through sin, and so death spread to all men because all
• 18:45
  sinned, that last phrase is the one people debate because all
• 18:50
  sinned. What does Paul mean there in
• 18:52
  light of federal headship? Federal headship is the only
• 18:54
  thing that makes sense of that phrase.
• 18:56
  When Paul says all sinned, he can't primarily be talking about
• 18:59
  our own individual personal sins that we commit every day.
• 19:02
  Why not? Because, he says, death spread
• 19:04
  to all men, including infants who haven't committed any
• 19:06
  personal acts of rebellion. The reason death reigns over all
• 19:10
  is because of a single prior event.
• 19:13
  All sin means we all sinned in Adam.
• 19:15
  We were legally present in a representative when he
• 19:18
  transgressed. His sin was counted as our sin.
• 19:20
  That's imputation, imputed guilt, the historical truth of
• 19:24
  Genesis 5 that we all descend from this one head ensures that
• 19:27
  the many were legally implicated in the act of the one man.
• 19:30
  So our condemnation is twofold. It's for our own wicked deeds,
• 19:34
  yes, but fundamentally it's for the guilt and corruption we
• 19:37
  inherit just by being born into Adam's family.
• 19:39
  Exactly. And then Paul, in an absolutely
• 19:42
  brilliant move, flips that logic on its head to explain
• 19:46
  salvation. That's verses 18 and 19.
• 19:48
  Therefore, as one trespass led to condemnation for all men, so
• 19:52
  one act of righteousness leads to justification and life for
• 19:55
  all men. Do you see the parallel?
• 19:58
  It's perfectly symmetrical. One man's obedience made the
• 20:01
  many sinners, and one man's obedience Christ's perfect life
• 20:05
  and atoning death makes the many righteous.
• 20:08
  The same logic that condemns is the logic that saves.
• 20:11
  It's the same covenantal structure, which means the
• 20:14
  historicity of Adam from Genesis 5 isn't just an interesting
• 20:17
  detail, it's an absolute necessity for the doctrine of
• 20:20
  justification by faith alone. Because if Adam isn't a real
• 20:23
  person whose sin is imputed to us.
• 20:25
  Then how can Christ be a real person whose righteousness is
• 20:28
  imputed to us? You can't have one without the
• 20:30
  other. The parallel breaks down.
• 20:31
  You destroy the gospel. Paul double s down on this in
• 20:34
  First Corinthians 15, doesn't he?
• 20:35
  He does, and there he connects it directly to the theme of
• 20:38
  death and resurrection, which is exactly what Genesis 5 is all.
• 20:41
  About the refrain And he died. Right Genesis 5, that is the
• 20:44
  book of death. It illustrates the death
• 20:46
  sentence imposed by the 1st Adam.
• 20:48
  So in First Corinthians 15, Paul says for since death came
• 20:51
  through a man, the resurrection of the dead comes also through a
• 20:53
  man. Adam brings death.
• 20:55
  Christ brings resurrection. For as in Adam all die, so in
• 20:58
  Christ all will be made alive. It couldn't be clearer.
• 21:02
  The universal mortality that we see chronicled in the pages of
• 21:05
  Genesis 5 necessitates the intervention of a last Adam.
• 21:09
  Only a new representative head can bring life and resurrection.
• 21:12
  So the covenant logic is this. Being born in Adam legally binds
• 21:17
  you to guilt, corruption, and ultimately death.
• 21:20
  Yes, but being joined to Christ by faith means you are legally
• 21:23
  transferred into a new federal headship.
• 21:25
  You are now in Christ. And being in Christ, it means
• 21:29
  you get a new legal standing. His perfect obedience is counted
• 21:32
  as yours, His righteousness is imputed to you, and the result
• 21:36
  is justification and life. So God's plan of salvation isn't
• 21:40
  just about forgiving our individual sins, it's about
• 21:42
  changing our legal representative.
• 21:44
  It's a change of federal headship.
• 21:46
  We are transferred from the dominion of the first failed
• 21:48
  representative to the dominion of the second successful one.
• 21:51
  And Jesus Christ is this last Adam the perfect counterpart.
• 21:56
  So what exactly does he do that reverses Adam's failure?
• 21:59
  He succeeds where Adam failed. Adam was tested in a perfect
• 22:03
  garden with every advantage, and he failed the test of obedience.
• 22:07
  Christ, the last Adam, was tested in a barren wilderness,
• 22:10
  hungry and alone, and you pass the test.
• 22:13
  He lived a life of perfect active obedience.
• 22:16
  The obedience Adam owed but failed to provide.
• 22:18
  Exactly. And through that obedience,
• 22:21
  climaxing at the cross, the many are made righteous.
• 22:25
  He reverses the condemnation that we see marching through the
• 22:28
  generations in Genesis 5. That reframes the entire
• 22:30
  genealogy, that long, sad list of names in Genesis 5.
• 22:34
  It's more than just a record of death.
• 22:35
  It absolutely is. One of the sources beautifully
• 22:38
  called it the stepping stones in God's path toward the
• 22:40
  incarnation. I like that every one of those
• 22:42
  men who lived, had a son, and died.
• 22:45
  They were part of the divinely guarded pathway that was leading
• 22:48
  step by step to the arrival of the true man.
• 22:51
  Christ is the goal of that entire line.
• 22:54
  He's the one who finally fulfills the title of Adam the
• 22:56
  Representative Man perfectly. What about the image of God?
• 23:00
  Adam's likeness was spoiled, damaged.
• 23:03
  How does Christ deal with that? Colossians 1.15 identifies
• 23:07
  Christ as the image of the invisible God.
• 23:09
  He is the perfect image. He is what humanity was always
• 23:12
  meant to be. So he both displays it perfectly
• 23:14
  and restores it in us. That's the gospel.
• 23:17
  The image we inherited from Adam was marred in its key aspects,
• 23:21
  knowledge, righteousness and holiness.
• 23:24
  But when a believer is united to the last Adam by faith, the Holy
• 23:27
  Spirit begins a work of renewal, restoring us and knowledge,
• 23:31
  righteousness and holiness after the image of our Creator.
• 23:33
  So the whole story arc moves from Adam's failure, which is
• 23:36
  confirmed by the death sentence in Genesis 5, to Christ triumph,
• 23:40
  which secures not just life but renewal and resurrection for
• 23:43
  everyone who was found in him. That's the arc of redemption in
• 23:46
  a nutshell. So if we pull all these threads
• 23:48
  together, the doctrinal implications for us today are
• 23:51
  while they're huge, Let's start with this idea of historical
• 23:55
  realism. After looking so closely at the
• 23:58
  literary structure, the Tully dot, the use of SOFR, how does
• 24:02
  Genesis 5 really serve as a defense against treating these
• 24:05
  early chaters as just myth or symbol?
• 24:08
  It provides a massive defense. The meticulous, written,
• 24:11
  structured nature of the account in Genesis 5 confirms that what
• 24:15
  we're reading is being presented as covenant history.
• 24:17
  It's a record of real people in real time.
• 24:20
  And that historical grounding is non negotiable for the gospel.
• 24:23
  It's completely non negotiable. If Adam is just a symbol for
• 24:26
  every man, then sin is just a symbol for our general human
• 24:30
  brokenness. Guilt becomes symbolic, and if
• 24:33
  the problem is only symbolic, then the solution becomes
• 24:35
  symbolic. Christ's death on the cross
• 24:37
  becomes a powerful story, but not a substitutionary atonement.
• 24:40
  Exactly the reality of the condemnation traced from the
• 24:43
  historical Adam in Genesis 5 demands the reality, the
• 24:46
  justification secured by the historical Christ in the New
• 24:49
  Testament. History matters.
• 24:51
  This also brings us back to that sober doctrine of man seeing the
• 24:54
  image of God right next to that phrase.
• 24:56
  And he died over and over. It's a powerful reality check
• 25:01
  against modern secular optimism it.
• 25:03
  Completely undercuts the idea that humanity can fix itself.
• 25:07
  The modern project, you know, is based on the belief that with
• 25:10
  enough education or technology or political reform, we can
• 25:14
  eventually build a utopia. We can progress our way out of
• 25:16
  our problems. Right, but Genesis 5 screams
• 25:19
  from the ancient past that death reigns.
• 25:22
  No amount of human progress can fix the fundamental problem we
• 25:26
  are in Adam. We are bound to his guilt and
• 25:28
  corruption. Judgement is not an outdated
• 25:30
  idea. It's the logical end of the
• 25:33
  story for those who remain in the first Adam.
• 25:35
  So it forces us to look outside of ourselves for any real hope.
• 25:38
  It demolishes humanistic pride and points us to the need for a
• 25:41
  divine rescuer. And that juxtaposition of the
• 25:44
  curse and the blessing of death and fruitfulness also
• 25:47
  illustrates a key doctrine you mentioned earlier, common grace.
• 25:50
  That's such an excellent point to draw out.
• 25:52
  Genesis 5 is a case study in common grace.
• 25:55
  You have the reign of death, the clear consequence of the curse,
• 25:58
  right alongside God's ongoing blessing.
• 26:00
  He's still upholding creation. He's still giving good gifts,
• 26:04
  family, the ability to build and create culture, long life in
• 26:09
  that era at least. These are all signs of God's
• 26:12
  general goodness, His coming grace shown even to a fallen and
• 26:15
  unregenerate world. He patiently restrains the full
• 26:18
  effects of sin while his saving plan unfolds.
• 26:21
  And understanding that helps us avoid two big errors in how we
• 26:25
  live our lives. It does.
• 26:26
  On the one hand, it guards against a despairing cynicism,
• 26:30
  the feeling that, you know, everything is just awful.
• 26:33
  Sin is ruined at all. There's no good left.
• 26:34
  That's. Not true.
• 26:35
  God still gives good gifts. We can still enjoy a beautiful
• 26:38
  sunset or a good meal or the love of family.
• 26:41
  Exactly. But on the other hand, it guards
• 26:43
  against a naive optimism. It stops us from thinking we can
• 26:46
  build heaven on earth. We have to live realistically.
• 26:48
  We enjoy the gifts of common grace with gratitude, but we
• 26:51
  never forget that apart from Christ, death is still the final
• 26:55
  word for everyone living in Adam.
• 26:56
  So let's make this really practical.
• 26:58
  What are the key takeaways for you, the listener, from this
• 27:01
  deep dive, especially when it comes to your own identity and
• 27:06
  your assurance of salvation? OK, first let's talk about
• 27:08
  identity in creation. That restatement in Genesis 5.2,
• 27:12
  male and female, He created them, is a practical anchor for
• 27:16
  your identity. An anchor in a culture that sees
• 27:19
  identity as fluid and self created.
• 27:21
  That's right. The Christian view is that your
• 27:23
  identity, including your biological sex, is not something
• 27:26
  you invent. It's something you receive.
• 27:28
  It's a gift, a fixed, good design choice from your Creator,
• 27:33
  and living faithfully means receiving that gift with joy and
• 27:36
  living in harmony with His design for you.
• 27:38
  And the second and maybe most critical practical lesson is how
• 27:42
  this whole structure destroys the illusion of self salvation.
• 27:45
  It absolutely obliterates it. Genesis 5, by showing us Adam's
• 27:48
  headship and the resulting reign of death, proves that you cannot
• 27:51
  earn your way out of your predicament.
• 27:53
  We're born into the problem. You're born in Adam.
• 27:56
  You're legally bound to his guilt and spiritually corrupted
• 27:59
  in your nature from birth The moment you think you can escape
• 28:02
  sin by just doing your best or by trying to rack up more good
• 28:06
  deeds than bad ones. You're trying to win on the
• 28:08
  terms of the first covenant. You're operating under the logic
• 28:11
  of the Covenant of Works, a covenant that has already been
• 28:14
  broken by our representative. It's a hopeless strategy.
• 28:18
  So the necessary conclusion, the application of all this isn't
• 28:21
  try harder to be a better person.
• 28:23
  No, not at all. The application is flee to
• 28:26
  Christ, the new head. That's the only move.
• 28:29
  The only way to escape the legal condemnation you inherited from
• 28:32
  Adam is to be supernaturally transferred by the Spirit into
• 28:36
  the new representative line. To be found in Christ.
• 28:39
  And when you stand in Christ by faith, His perfect record of
• 28:43
  obedience is counted as yours. You get His righteousness, you
• 28:46
  receive justification in the promise of eternal life.
• 28:49
  You get to exchange your hopeless record which is defined
• 28:52
  by that Genesis 5 refrain of death for Christ perfect record
• 28:55
  which is defined by resurrection.
• 28:57
  It really is remarkable We've just spent all this time on 2
• 29:00
  verses that look like a simple heading, but they contain the
• 29:03
  entire anthropological framework for the gospel.
• 29:06
  They do Genesis 5.1 and 2. They confirm God's unchanging
• 29:09
  definition of humanity, His persistent image, the binary
• 29:13
  gender design and atoms structural headship, even while
• 29:17
  the world is literally dying all around.
• 29:19
  It shows you the brilliance and the coherence of scriptures
• 29:22
  structure. We started with what looked like
• 29:24
  a minor historical note, and we found the very legal framework
• 29:27
  of Redemption nested right inside it.
• 29:29
  And it leaves us with the stark contrast.
• 29:31
  A huge one. Genesis 5 shows us a long line
• 29:34
  of God's image bearers who are all subject to that final,
• 29:37
  sobering word. And he died.
• 29:40
  But the New Testament promises a completely different destiny for
• 29:42
  those who are united to Christ. So as you think about this
• 29:45
  passage, as you contemplate that specific history traced in these
• 29:49
  chapters, a history just stamped by the universal reign of death,
• 29:54
  take a moment to consider the sheer weight of Adam's failure,
• 29:57
  and then hold that weight against the immense, the
• 30:00
  exceeding joy of the last, Adam's perfect victory which
• 30:03
  grants not only life but resurrection glory.
• 30:06
  Thank you for the invitation to walk through these sources.
• 30:08
  A systematic and careful reading of Genesis is just so essential
• 30:12
  for sound doctrine. And thank you for listening.
• 30:14
  Join us next time on Reformed Thinking for another deep dive
• 30:17
  into the truths of Scripture.