Lesson 11 The Appointed Seed update 10-14-13

                                   The Appointed Seed

                                         Genesis 4:25-5:32

“And Adam knew his wife again, and she bore a son, and called his name Seth. ‘For,’ she said, ‘God has appointed me another seed instead of Abel, whom Cain slew’” (Gen.4:25).

Again Eve is the one who names the son. She gives this son the name “Seth,” which means “appointed,” “firmly founded,” or “firmly grounded.” Her reason being, that Seth is given in the stead of Abel, whom Cain slew.

What is it that Eve understood? At some point in time Eve came to understand that Abel carried the seed for the coming Son of the Covenant.

What is the issue for all mankind down through the ages? Becoming a son of God and receiving the righteousness of God through faith in His Anointed Son, who came in the flesh as Jesus of Nazareth. The only Way to become a son of God and live forever in the body raised up out from the dead is to become the righteousness of God through believing into His Anointed Son to be born again, of the incorruptible Seed, the Word of God, who lives and abides forever (Jn.3:3-21; 1 Pet.1:17-23; 1 Jn.5:9-13).

Abel believed into the coming Son of the Covenant. He was taught the truth of the glory of the Righteous One through “The Heavenly Revelation of the Son of the Eternal Covenant” declared in the heavens. We have our teaching of the righteousness of Abel in the New Testament, first by Jesus Himself, and then in the letter to the Hebrews (see Mt.23:35). In Hebrews 11:4 God Himself bore witness that Abel was righteous. The testimony is in respect to Abel’s offerings, which God accepted (see Gen.4:4). The offerings show Abel was righteous, not in himself, but in the righteousness of God through obedience to the truth of the Son of the Covenant, whose blood speaks of better things than the blood of Abel’s offerings. Abel’s offerings were “figures of the true” (see Heb.12:24; also Heb.9:1-10:1).

With Abel’s brother, Cain, the issue was sin - the lawlessness of man’s heart to set himself above God and, in opposition to the truth, to go his own way (see Gen.4:16; Jude 11). Cain did not offer the excellent sacrifice of the Covenant Son to die in his stead. God could not accept Cain as righteous. Jehovah warned Cain, “If you do well, shall you not be accepted? And if you do not do well, sin lies at the door. And unto you shall be his desire, and you shall rule over him” (Gen.4:7).

Cain knew the truth which must be obeyed to become the righteousness of God through faith in the Son of the Covenant. Cain had been taught with Abel. The lawlessness of Cain’s heart rebelled at obeying the truth. The sin is a deadly master. The only mastery over the lawlessness of the heart is the righteousness of God. In one’s heart, either one’s own lawlessness rules or the righteousness of God rules. Each person makes their own choice.

Cain did not act on the Divine counsel of Jehovah. He did not want to talk about it. Cain did talk with his righteous brother. What counsel would his brother Abel give Cain? There is no record, but Moses tells us that Cain plotted and laid in wait to ambush and kill his brother Abel in a very bloody, brutal murder.

The apostle John, who was personally taught by Jesus Himself, makes clear the reason Cain killed his brother. Why did he kill him? Because his own works of offerings to Jehovah were evil and his brother Abel’s righteous (1 Jn.3:12).

Jehovah confronted Cain for a confession of guilt. Unlike his godly parents, who confessed their sin and repented their lawlessness (Gen.3:8-13), Cain denied any responsibility for his brother’s keeping. There was no repentance, only a fear of vengeance. At that time Jehovah Himself held the sword of justice. “Vengeance is Mine, I will repay, says Jehovah” (Rom.12:19; Deut.32:35; Ps.94:1; Heb.10:30). He had not yet delegated authority to any human tribunal (see Gen.9:1-6). No one had the power of authority from heaven to take Cain into custody under the authority of the law. No one was to make himself the judge and take the law into their own hands (see Gen.4:8-15).

Though clearly it is not right for one man to take the life of another man, Jehovah allowed Cain to live and made Himself the protector of Cain. Cain would not go unpunished. Cain’s body was already under consignment to return to the dust of the ground. In the end, justice would be done. In the meantime, Cain would suffer the consequences of his own doing. He will live with guilt and fear of vengeance and he suffered the loss of his livelihood.

Eve accepted her newborn son as a gift from Jehovah. It was appointed for Abel to carry the seed for the coming Son of God’s Covenant, but God’s Covenant was not firmly established in Abel. Abel did not have a son to carry the seed. Seth would. God’s Covenant will stand. It will be brought to pass upon earth as it is done in the heavens and declared by the signs and stars as seen in “The Heavenly Revelation of the Son of the Eternal Covenant.” The One who is God will take the likeness of His creation of man and bring life and light down from heaven to mankind (Jn.1:1-14; Rom.8:3).

“And to Seth, to him also there was born a son, and he called his name Enosh. Then began men to call upon the name of Jehovah” (Gen.4:26).

Seth lived one hundred and five years and begot Enosh (Gen.5:6). “Enosh” has the meaning “mortal man.” The mortal body is consigned to return to the dust of the ground from which it came. One must receive the righteousness of God and the eternal life sent from heaven in the Covenant Son. One must put their faith in the coming Son and obey the truth to be born of the incorruptible Seed, the Word of God, and live forever in the Kingdom of God.  A Substitute, the Seed of the woman, has been provided by Jehovah Elohim to die in mortal man’s stead, the death due to the transgression (see Gen.2:17; Rom.4:25-5:21; 1 Cor.15:20-22; Phil.2:5-11; Heb.2:9-17; 9:11-28).

With the birth of Seth’s son Enosh, “mortal man,” Moses inserts the phrase, “then began men to call upon the name of Jehovah. The Hebrew is literally, “Then it was begun to call on the name of Jehovah.” In the Hebrew no subject for the verb is specified. Moses indicates that some change took place at the time of Seth’s firstborn son Enosh.

In the world city built by Cain and his seed, the common noun el was used as the name of their god, a perversion of the living and true Almighty One. As we saw in the lesson on Cain’s line in Genesis 4, the noun el has the meaning, “hero” or “potentate” or “mighty.” The god of the Cainites was only a god so-called. He was neither living, nor did he have might or power, even though the Cainites called him the “mighty one” (see Ps.115:3-8).

Jehovah is the more personal name. The name Jehovah is introduced in Scripture with His personally forming the body in the likeness of the One coming with righteousness and eternal life for sons of God (Gen.2:7; Rom.5:14).

Jehovah is the Covenant God. Jehovah is the self-existent, pre-existent Eternal God, who is the first and the last, the beginning and the end of all things brought forth of Himself. Jehovah is the author and finisher of the faith in which He made Himself known to man through the light of the knowledge of His glory as seen in the face of His Anointed Covenant Son, whom we know as Jesus (see Is.41:4; Rev.1:8; 21:6).

God’s Eternal Covenant is firmly grounded, established upon earth in Seth by the One who appointed him and placed him in Eden. The One coming in the likeness of man to bring righteousness and eternal life for sons of God is coming, as the heavens declare (see Is.42:5-6; 49:5-11). It is done in the Eternal Covenant. It will come to pass on earth at the appointed time (Is.45:18-46:11; 48:3-6; Gal.4:4; 2 Tim.1:9-10; Tit.1:2).

The Eternal Covenant of the righteousness of God shared with man that God might have a Kingdom of sons of God is established. A godly line is established in Seth. There is a renewal of hope of eternal life. The pre-existent, self-existent God of the Covenant has promised and given another son with seed for the coming Son of the Eternal Covenant.

To Seth God gives a son. Here is the first token of the promised godly line and men begin to give God His glory and proclaim His name. They give Him thanks for the renewal of His promise. The good news is shared from faith to faith and the gospel of the Anointed Covenant Son proclaimed.

With God’s Covenant firmly founded in the posterity of Seth, God could leave men, born in the darkness, to make their own choice as to receiving to the gift of righteousness and eternal life for the body shared in the Gift of His begotten Son. Putting the righteous to death and suppressing the truth in unrighteousness would fill the earth with violence and corruption.

Genesis chapter 5 begins, “This is the book of the generations of Adam. In the day that God created man, in the likeness of God He made him. Male and female He created them, and blessed them, and called their name Adam in the day when they were created” (Gen.5:1-2).

Here is a record, an enduring written account of the history of the family of the coming Covenant Son, the One who is coming to take the likeness of man, that God might build a Kingdom of sons of God, sons birthed of the incorruptible Seed, the Word who is God (see Jn.1:1-14; Phil.2:5-11).

In the day that God made man, He made him in the likeness of the One who would be coming in the likeness of man in a mortal body of human flesh (see Rom.5:14). Both the coming Covenant Son and his first man Adam would share the likeness of a mortal body of flesh and blood. The life of a body of human flesh is in the blood. The body is temporary, as the life is dependent upon breathing in oxygen from the air of the surrounding atmosphere to build blood cells of life to circulate through the mortal body and keep it living.

“Male and female” God created them. The female created was, literally, built from bone and flesh of the first body (Gen.2:21-23). God called their name Adam, “man,” in the day He created them, and He blessed them. “And Adam lived one hundred and thirty years, and begot a son in his own likeness, after his image, and called his name Seth” (Gen.5:3).

We have already had the record of Eve having conceived the twin sons, Cain and Abel, through Adam’s seed (Gen.4:1-2a). Other sons and daughters had been born since the first births of the twins. Other sons and daughters would yet be born after Seth. For the record only the ones pertaining to Jehovah’s doing in His Covenant are named.

We note in verse 3 of Genesis chapter 5 the words “a son” are in italics, showing that they are not in the original manuscripts. The point being, that any begetting of Adam’s seed would bring forth the likeness of the flesh of humankind, with the life in the blood, Adam’s own likeness, and bear the image of the earthy body formed by Jehovah Elohim.

All bodies of human flesh come from the seed of Adam and each one bears the image of a mortal body of the earth, earthy, a mortal body which is consigned to return to the dust of the ground from where it came (Gen.3:19).

“And the days of Adam after he had begotten Seth were eight hundred years, and he begot sons and daughters. And all the days that Adam lived were nine hundred and thirty years, and he died” (Gen.5:4-5).

In the listing of the true prophets in Eden in Genesis 5, beginning with Adam, the first true prophet, a pattern is established for the record. A very brief biography is given for each prophet. A man is begotten, and the years that he lived until he himself begets a son is recorded. The fact of his begetting a son and the name of the son is given. Then the number of years he lived after his first begetting a son and the fact of his begetting sons and daughters in those years. The sum total of years that he lived is measured in days, and the last thing recorded is “and he died.”

Man is mortal, as Seth reminded the family in Eden in the naming of his firstborn son Enosh. The repeated record of the death with the phrase “and he died” drives home the fact that the body of human flesh had been consigned to return to the dust of the ground from where it came. Son after son died.

In the naming of his son, Seth put a continual reminder of the law of life everlasting, the Law of Love: “You must be born again” (see 1 Cor.15:42-54; 1 Jn.3:23-24; 4:7-10). The name given to Seth’s firstborn son also bears record that each one died in the faith through having understanding of God’s Covenant. Each one breathed his last breath and departed the body of the earthly image with absolute assurance The Day of Resurrection would come when they would be raised up in a body in the image of God. Each one departed their lifeless body in the likeness of man to be gathered to his fathers, who had departed lifeless bodies. Together they would await the resurrection when they would be raised up together out from the dead clothed with new skin in the image of God’s begotten Son, the Anointed Son, who brought them forth out from the dead in His image (see Jn.5:24-29; 6:38-40; 11:22-27; Phil.3:21; Col.1:12-22; Rev.20:4-6).

As we have seen, the city being built had false prophets. The thinking of the city was given in seven generations of the line of Cain. The names given to the sons born show us the defiance of the enmity of the Cainites against the Jehovah Elohim of Eden. Perhaps with the birth of Seth’s son Enosh it was time for the true prophets in Eden to begin to prophesy of the coming judgment on the ungodly.

No deaths were recorded of the men of the city. Neither was it recorded that any recorded lived. As for Cain and his line, each one named chose to continue to go his own way. They shut out the light of the knowledge of the glory of God. They exchanged the light of the faith for the darkness of a lie of the perversion of God. They loved their darkness (see Jn.3:17-20; Rom.1:18-25). They had their world city of the here and now in which to fulfill the lusts of the flesh and the lusts of the mind. They loved the things of the world city (see 1 Jn.2:15-17). They said they had no sin and they denied their only Master, God, even the Lord and the Anointed Son. That was the way of Cain (see 1 Jn.1:5-10; Jude 4, 11).

Those in the city were without Jehovah Elohim and without His Anointed Son and they were without hope of eternal life (see 1 Jn.5:7-13). Cain’s line chose to ignore the fact of the sin of transgressing the Royal Law of Love. The Royal Law is Love. God is love and love is of God. Everyone that loves is born of God and knows God. He that does not love does not know God, for God is love. In this was made manifest the love of God for man, that He sent His only begotten Son into the world, that man might live through Him. Herein is love, “not that we loved God, but that He loved us, and sent His Son to be the Propitiation for our sins” (see 1 Jn.4:7-10; Rom.3:22-26). They willfully ignored: You must be born again. And they abode in death.

For the line of Cain there was no future. One may be freely justified through faith in the coming Anointed Son. If one has not been justified, he will not be glorified. There is no other hope of being raised up out from the dead than to unite oneself with the Covenant Son in his death, burial and resurrection (Rom.8:28-30).

Cain’s line chose to remain ignorant of the things of God. Each one named willfully chose to remain ignorant of the things of God. Each one named willfully chose the darkness of their mentor, the self-appointed god of this world.

Jehovah Elohim left Cain and his descendants to building the world city for the evil one. The city would continue to offer men down through the ages an alternative choice to choosing to be born from above a son of God and entering the Kingdom of God. Jehovah had made clear in His Covenant written in the stellar heavens that in the end days the city must be utterly destroyed forever and the Kingdom of righteousness and peace established on earth, an everlasting Kingdom (see Dan.2:44-45; 7:13-14, 27; Rev.11:15-18). Destruction must be the end of all in the city. All is a lie. All is contaminated with deceit and perversion and blasphemy of Jehovah Elohim and of His Anointed Covenant Son. The Father and Son are one Jehovah.

However, Jehovah Elohim is not willing that any should perish, but that all should repent and come back to Him and reconcile and receive the Gift of His only begotten Son (Ezek.18:23; 33:11; 1 Tim.2:4-6; 2 Pet.3:9). The individuals born in the city of the world system would each one be given light of the knowledge of the glory of God that they might choose to personally turn from their own way to come to the light and receive the Gift of the righteousness and eternal life shared with man in God’s Covenant Son (see Jn.1:9; Col.1:23b; Tit.2:11). Having heard word of the gospel of the Anointed Son, would those born into the city come? Or would they continue to remain in the darkness? Obedience to the truth is the issue.

In Genesis chapter 4 we have a brief record of the first world city, a civil society under the control of a political, economic, religious system. In the name of the prominent sons of the family of Cain we have the thinking of the new way of living. The prominent thought being to blot out Jehovah is God, which is seen in the name of Mehujael, with the meaning “blot out that Jah is El (v18). The thinking would have been, under man’s dominion, life will be made easier and more comfortable and more pleasurable, not so restrictive.

In chapter 5 we have the record of a very different thinking in Eden. Jehovah is the God Almighty. The city has no effect on God’s Covenant plan. In fact, Jehovah is planning the destruction of the first world city as an example to man of who is God and who is man, who is the Creator and who is the created (Gen.6:6-13). The Flood will not be the end of the world city. The world city will be rebuilt on the plain at Shinar (see Gen.11:1-9).

As with the city, so in Eden we see the thinking in the names in the record given to the prominent sons in the line of Seth. We have seen the appointment by Jehovah and the name of the son of Eve’s conception that, while a city is being built in the east to blot out His name, in Eden Jehovah is going forward with His Covenant plan of the hope of eternal life (Tit.1:2).

With Seth appointed by Jehovah as the descendant of Adam to carry the seed for the coming Christ, the Covenant is first established upon earth in Eden. Seth, in naming his son Enosh, “mortal man,” confirms man is impotent to help himself and is dependant upon Jehovah and the Gift of His Son that one might be justified freely through faith in the Covenant Son.

Having been freely justified through faith, the believing one is glorified and assured of having eternal life with power to raise the mortal body up out from the dead - deathless and glorified. The one believing and receiving the gift of eternal life is made safe from the mortal body being returned to the dust of the ground to perish forever. The mortal body is assured of having been given eternal life through the Spirit of God (see Rom.8:10).

Enosh named his firstborn son Kenan, meaning “their smith” (Gen.5:9). Some Bible translations use Cainan. “Kenan” comes from the same root as Cain, “a builder,” “a maker,” that is, one who makes and shapes things.

Cain went out from the presence of Jehovah Elohim to build a city for mankind and to the glory of man. Kenan was building in the Kingdom of God, using truth and right judgment and justice, sharing the righteousness of God through faith in the Covenant Son, that men might know God as He is and as He has made Himself known in the Covenant Son.

In using the types and symbols and colors and number of the figures of the true in the Covenant written in the heavens, the God of Glory would take the right shape in the mind of Kenan’s hearers. Kenan’s building was to the glory of the Jehovah, that the Jehovah Elohim be praised.

Kenan named his firstborn son Mahalalel, “praise of God” or “God be praised” (Gen.5:12). Mahalalel followed the way of true prophets of God who submit themselves to the truth revealed to them by Jehovah Elohim,  to live to the praise of God’s glory.

Mahalalel named his firstborn son Jared, “a descender” (Gen.5:15). Mahalalel, having learned the joy of service, would teach his son to lower himself to take the place of a servant of Jehovah and serve others rather than himself. Mahalalel would have taught his son what Jesus in His day taught His disciples: “Whosoever will be great among you, let him be your servant. Even as the Son of Man came not to be ministered unto, but to minister, and to give His life a ransom for many” (Mt.20:26-28; see Jn.12:26).

Jared begot his firstborn son and called his name Enoch, “initiation,” “dedication” (Gen.5:18). As was the way in the family of Seth, Jared would have encouraged his son Enoch to live up to his name. And Enoch did. Enoch was dedicated to the faith of the Covenant Son of the Jehovah Elohim.

With the birth of Enoch, there is a break in the pattern of the genealogy of the ancestors of God’s Covenant Son. Moses interposed a testimony concerning the prophet Enoch. “Enoch walked with the God after he begot Methuselah three hundred years, and begot sons and daughters. And all the days of Enoch were three hundred and sixty-five years. And Enoch walked with the God, and he was not, for the God took him” (Gen.5:22-24).

In the Hebrew text we have the name Elohim recorded for the first time with the definite article “the.” The God distinguished as the One who had shown through His Covenant Son what could be known of Himself. Here is the Almighty One as distinguished from the god of Cain as a mighty one.

Enoch had this witness that he walked with God. The verb is in the reflexive stem, with the sense of a continual process. Enoch’s life was a walk with God - a way of life. Enoch walked with God. Enoch initiated the walk and he dedicated himself to walking with God. Later the prophet Amos asked, “Can two walk together, except they be agreed?” (Amos 3:3).

If one would walk with God, he must go God’s Way and he must be led of the Spirit of God. In this way, one is led of the Spirit of God to walk in the spirit of one’s being, in unity with the Spirit of God and not fulfill the desires of the flesh (Gal.5:16).

Moses’ testimony to Enoch fitted Enoch to be recorded in what has been called the Hall of Fame of the Heros of the Faith, Hebrews 11. The New Testament writer to the Hebrews records, “By faith Enoch was translated that he should not see death, and was not found, because God had translated him; for before this translation he had this testimony, that he pleased God. But without faith it is impossible to please Him; for he that comes to God must believe that He is, and that He is a rewarder of those that diligently seek Him” (vv5-6).

Enoch has the written witness that he pleased God. How did Enoch please God? Through faith, without which it is impossible to please God. There is a simple way to please God. God makes Himself known through the hearing of the word of the Anointed Son of His Covenant. In Enoch’s day the Son was yet coming, but His coming was assured.

When one hears of the living and true God, he believes that He is and that He will reward the one coming to Him with righteousness and eternal life for believing in His Son. Then the believing one comes to God. God is pleased with that one’s faith and rewards with righteousness and eternal life. One passes from death to eternal life. In becoming alive, one knows God to walk and talk with Him and share the deep things of God. No longer knowing God through the hearing of the things concerning Him, but with the eyes of the understanding enlightened by the Holy Spirit, who comes to dwell in the earthly tent with the newborn son of God (Rom.8:5-30; 1 Cor.2:9-15; Gal.3:26; 4:6-7; 1 Pet.1:3-12).

One sees God, not in his mind only, but in the very being of his person. What the Holy Spirit teaches of the deep things of God is personally directed and communicated from Himself as spirit being to the very spirit of man, the very life of his being. The words shared concerning the Covenant Son are spirit and life to the soul. The understanding has power and influence that mere knowledge of the facts could not exert over the soul. A change of thinking takes place. Through new thinking a change of one’s ways takes place (see Rom.12:2).

With the eyes of the understanding having been enlightened, one sees God as He is and one is continually rewarded with more understanding of the wisdom of the God Almighty. One’s faith has the substance of the reality of the things hoped for having been done (Heb.11:1-3). No longer is all of one’s attention on the things seen with the physical eyes, the temporal things of the here and the now, but rather, one keeps looking at the things which are not seen, the things eternal, to know God in a new way.

Seen through the eyes of understanding, the eternal things are evident, as we come to know God and see His ways as we walk and talk with Him and He with His born sons. Such was Enoch’s life as he kept diligently seeking God. In his day, Enoch reckoned himself dead to the sin and alive unto God.

In Moses’ simple record of Enoch’s final reward, “Enoch walked with God, and he was not, for God took him,” “was not” is used in the sense that Enoch was no longer found in the realm of time or sense. Enoch did not die as the other prophets in the line of Seth. He did not depart his earthly tent, his body, and leave it behind. The God took Enoch without Enoch having seen the death of the body.

The writer to the Hebrews states that Enoch was translated that he should not see death and was not found as God had translated him because Enoch pleased God and it pleased God to translate Enoch that he should not see death.

The English “translated” is from two Greek words. One denoting a “change of place or condition.” The other, “to place.” To translate is to transfer, to put in another place, to transport or translate. Enoch was translated, that he should not see death.

We have another New Testament witness of Enoch. Jude [Judas], Jesus half-brother after the flesh, whose mother was Mary (see Mt.13:55; Mk.6:3; Ac.1:14; Jude 1; Gal.1:19), pictures Enoch as a prophet of judgment like the fiery prophet Elijah in his day. Elijah is the only other person recorded as not having seen death (2 Ki.2:9-11). Jude denounced the false teachers of his day and charged them with having gone the way of Cain (Jude 3-4, 11).

After a very graphic description of the persons and the works of the false teachers, Jude wrote, “And Enoch also, the seventh from Adam, prophesied of these saying, Behold, the Lord comes with ten thousands of His holy ones, to execute judgment upon all, and to convict all that are ungodly among them of all their ungodly deeds which they have ungodly committed, and of all their hard speeches which ungodly sinners have spoken against Him” (see Jude 12-19).

Jude makes a point of Enoch being the seventh generation from Adam. In Scripture, “seven” is a number of “completion.” In the line of Cain and the builders of the city, the seventh from Adam was Lamech (Gen.4:1, 16-18).

Jude tells us that in his day, seven generations from Adam, Enoch was prophesying of the second coming of God’s Covenant Son, the Coming One, whose glory was written in the stellar constellations in “The Heavenly Revelation of the Son of the Eternal Covenant”  (Ps.19:1-6; 97:6; 147:4; Job 38:31-33; Is.40:26). How could Enoch have known of the coming judgment on all the ungodly in the end of the last times, in the second coming to earth of Jesus, God’s Anointed Son, coming as the Judge?

Enoch walked with God and he agreed with God’s works and God’s ways as the Holy Spirit enlightened the eyes of his understanding to see the Covenant plan written in the stellar constellations. Enoch walked with God to know the God as the God had made Himself known through the gospel of God’s coming Anointed Son. The Jehovah Elohim and His Son are One (see Is.48:12-17; Jn.17:21).

How did Jude know that Enoch prophesied of the last judgment on the ungodly? Jude was a brother of Jesus. When Jesus was raised up out from the dead, Jude saw the truth with his own eyes. His brother, Jesus, is God. Jude believed God and passed from death to eternal life to be a true brother of Jesus of one Father, God. Jesus spent forty days teaching His disciples the Book of Moses and the Law (Ac.1:1-3; Lk.24:13-48). Jude had become a disciple, a learner of Jesus.

Of all the prophets in Seth’s line listed in Genesis 5, Enoch alone did not die. Nonetheless, Enoch’s earthly life came to an end at a premature age because the God took him. Enoch was appointed by the Jehovah Elohim to be a witness in his very person as well as in his prophesying.

Enoch prophesied of the Covenant Son coming as the Judge to lay hold of the ungodly sinners (see Ac.10:42-43; 17:31). Ungodly sinners, those in the city who refused to believe the testimony of Enoch to the Covenant Son of the God. Therefore the ungodly city dwellers deemed the mortal physical body of little consequence. They did not believe in the resurrection to go into a Kingdom of sons of God (see Mt.22:23; 1 Cor.15:12-13).

Before the God took Enoch, Enoch had the testimony that he pleased God. Enoch’s godly life witnessed to his faith in the Jehovah Elohim with his ever present peace with God and his future hope of glory. Then one day Enoch could not be found because the God took him, by transferring Enoch out of this world without his seeing death. Here was a witness to the God who had power to take those who pleased Him into His Kingdom and who would leave the ungodly outside His Kingdom of sons of God.

Enoch named his firstborn son Methuselah (Gen.5:21). The name of Enoch’s son is very significant in the prophetic picture. “Methuselah” is a compound of two words. One meaning “to die,” the other meaning “to send,” which would translate “he dies, it is sent.”

What is to be sent when Methuselah dies? It cannot refer to the judgment of which Enoch preached of which Jude speaks and which Moses says nothing. In Enoch’s day, the Covenant Son had not yet come in person for the first coming to put away sin once for all and to overcome death in resurrection. He was coming to ratify the Eternal Covenant in His own blood (Heb.13:20).

There was a more impending judgment for the ungodly sinners of the city. Enoch named his firstborn son Methuselah as a reminder and a warning to the prophecy of the Jehovah of the judgment to come on the death of his son Methuselah. In Enoch’s walk with His God, the Jehovah Elohim, Enoch had been given to warn the ungodly sinners nearly 1,000 years before “it” - the judgment - came (see Gen.7:10-12).

Methuselah named his firstborn son Lamech, meaning “conqueror,” “destroyer” (Gen.5:26). Methuselah also named his son according to the prophecy. In the coming judgment the Jehovah Elohim would be the Conqueror over sin and death and the ungodly would be destroyed with their city built to the glory of man.

The city, an organized society of man, was named Enoch, “initiation,” “dedication.” Cain initiated the city and named it after his firstborn son (Gen.4:17). Cain had turned to his own way and, mentored by the evil one, Cain dedicated himself to building to the glory of man to have a kingdom for man, supposedly. The Devil has intended the kingdom of man for himself and his angelic host (see Is.14:12-14; Ezek.28:12b-18).

As we have seen, there was also a Lamech in Cain’s line. He was a conqueror through destruction. As already stated, he was seventh  from Adam in the line of Cain, and seven is the number of completion. Cain’s line began with the initiation of the city. In the completion of the ungodly destroying themselves, the city would be destroyed and all that had been initiated and done by man would be destroyed with it. That would be a warning and a figure, a picture, to the ungodly false prophets and teachers in the end times of the last days (see 2 Pet.3:1-14).

The righteous Lamech did not leave the prophecy on the dark note of the judgment on the ungodly, but named his firstborn son after the hope of the righteous. He named his son Noah, “rest,” and he gave the reason for his son’s name, saying, “This shall comfort us concerning our work and the toil of our hands, because of the ground which the Jehovah has cursed” (Gen.5:29). Note that Lamech used the more personal name of “the Jehovah,” the Covenant God of the Covenant Son.

Though Lamech connected the meaning of his son’s name, “rest,” with the “comfort” of his purpose, the stems of the two words in the Hebrew are not immediately connected. However, both words do point back to a common root signifying “to rest,” “to lie down” - a reality of things in Lamech’s thought.

The righteous prophets in the line of Seth, having been freely justified through faith in the Anointed Covenant Son, had peace with God and heart rest. Assured of having been made safe from the coming judgment, they could go about their daily work of providing for their families through the working of the soil to bring forth food. They could wait upon Jehovah to destroy the ungodly wicked and to bring His new beginning on the earth. They would also continue preaching the gospel of the Covenant plan, that some would turn from their ungodly ways and receive the eternal life offered in the Covenant Son.

“Methuselah lived one hundred and eighty-seven years and begot Lamech” (Gen.5:25). “Lamech lived one hundred and eighty-two years and begot [Noah]” (vv28-29).

187 + 182 = 369 years. The Flood came in the 600^th year of Noah’s life (Gen.7:11).

369 + 600 = 969 years.

“And all the days of Methuselah were nine hundred and sixty-nine years, and he died” (Gen.5:27).

“And Noah was five hundred years old, and Noah begot Shem, Ham, and Japheth” (Gen.5:32). Literally, the Hebrew says, “Noah was a son of five hundred years.” A man is a son of a certain year in and up to the close of that year.

In the city named Enoch, the last prophet to be recorded is Lamech (Gen.4:18-22). Lamech had three sons who had prominent roles in the city in which they were all destroyed in the end. The Jehovah Elohim had great plans for his righteous son Noah and his three sons in the new beginning after the Flood. Moses continues the record of the ancestors of the coming Anointed Covenant Son of the Jehovah Elohim through Noah’s line.

With the listing of the names in the two chapters of Genesis 4 and 5 is seen the contrast between those self-willed men, who will not have God rule over them, who have rejected God’s Way, being mentored by the evil one, and the righteous, who have accepted the Gift offered them in the Son of the Covenant and are preaching the truth shared with them concerning the Covenant plan and the righteousness of God and the eternal life being offered them in the Covenant Son. Starting with Cain and the killing of his brother Abel begins the pattern of the killing off of the righteous by the wicked, that the truth revealed concerning God’s Covenant plan be stopped. But God’s Covenant plan as seen in the stellar heavens in “The Heavenly Revelation of the Son of the Eternal Covenant” cannot be thwarted and one day there will be an accounting of all the righteous who were put to death defending the faith by self-serving wicked men (see Mt.23:31-35; Lk.11:47-54; 21:12-19; Jn.8:37-45; Heb.11:32-40; Rev.6:9-11; 16:5-7; 17:1-6; 19:1-6).

This ends our lesson.