Scripture Daily

Context No. 1304 of 4322 · Genesis

Context · Reflection

Genesis 5:1-5: in context

1This is the book of the generations of Adam. In the day that God created man, he made him in God’s likeness. 2He created them male and female, and blessed them. On the day they were created, he named them Adam. 3Adam lived one hundred thirty years, and became the father of a son in his own likeness, after his image, and named him Seth. 4The days of Adam after he became the father of Seth were eight hundred years, and he became the father of other sons and daughters. 5All the days that Adam lived were nine hundred thirty years, then he died.

The genealogy of Adam begins with a reminder: when God created man, he made him in the likeness of God, male and female, and blessed them. Then it records that Adam, at a hundred and thirty, fathered a son in his own likeness, after his image, and named him Seth. Adam lived on, had other sons and daughters, and reached nine hundred and thirty years. And then the refrain that will echo down the whole chapter: and he died.

Two things sit together in these verses. First, the image of God, and how it is passed on, but altered. God made Adam in his own likeness; then Adam fathers Seth in his own likeness, after his image. The wording deliberately echoes creation, but there is a shift: Seth bears Adam's image, and Adam is now a fallen creature, so the image of God passed down through the human race comes now marred by sin, still real but damaged. Every child born carries the image of God and the fallenness of Adam together. Second, the refrain that dominates the chapter: and he died. Adam lived long, nine hundred and thirty years, but the chapter ends his story where it will end every story in it, with those three words, and he died. God had warned that the day Adam ate of the forbidden tree he would die, and here, though delayed, death has come; the long life still ends in the grave. The whole genealogy tolls like a bell, and he died, and he died, generation after generation, the reign of death that entered through one man's sin. And yet the image of God persists through it all, and the line continues toward the one who would break the refrain, in whom death itself would finally die.

Do I see both truths in myself, that I bear the image of God and the fallenness of Adam together, and do I look to the one who came to break the refrain of and he died with a resurrection?

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