The King’s English

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Genesis 5:1-17

When people attempt to read through the Bible, Genesis 5 represents the first hurdle.  It’s a chapter of genealogy.

So and so begat so and so, then they lived this many years and they died.

And on it runs, generation after generation.  The Bible lists them in painstaking detail.

Why the detail?  It’s been a rolicking read so far.  Cosmic creation, catastrophic fall, murder and intrigue.  And now a family tree.  It seems a ridiculous detour from the central story.

Unless of course the central story is about offspring.

But ever since the promise of Genesis 3:15 that has been the concern of the faithful – the birth of the Saviour. Each new generation was a fresh opportunity for the Offspring of the woman to arise and crush our oppressor.  But each new line of the family tree ends… “and he died.”  It’s a brutal drum beat throughout the chapter – throughout the Bible.  “And he died… and he died… and he died…”  It’s the rhythm of life – everything cut off by the finality of death.  It’s relentless. And it seems like there’s no way out.

These genealogies continue through the Bible.  They begin with a wide angle lens and zero in more and more – to the Semites, the Abrahamites, the Israelites.  And then within Israel it’s the priestly and the royal tribes which are highlighted.  The kings in particular.

And then the Old Testament ends and there’s no resolution.  Just a lot of begats that end in death.

Turn the page to the New Testament and what’s the first thing we read?  A genealogy.  Matthew starts with Abraham, then runs through David and all the kings and it all culminates with Jesus Christ.  Luke does the same, though he traces Christ’s line all the way back to Adam.  What’s being communicated?

Jesus is the true Offspring and Promised King.  And with His coming we see the passing of all genealogies.  There are no more lines to be added after Jesus (no matter what Dan Brown might suppose!)

Without Jesus you get an endless cycle of begetting and dying – sex and death!  Is that all there is?

Well with Jesus Christ the cycle is broken.  Here is where the begats have been heading.  And His is the one line that doesn’t end in death.  If Christ is in the picture, it doesn’t have to be birth-sex-death.  Praise God, there’s a Way out.  His is the ultimate begetting, and though it passes through death it ends with life, and life everlasting!.

Genesis 4:13-24

These days, drifting off to the land of Nod sounds like a pleasant slumber.  It was Jonathan Swift who first used the phrase in connection with sleep.  And Rudyard Kipling followed suit.  Now we associate the land of Nod and ‘nodding off’ exclusively with sleep.  I read recently that taking heroin is also colloquially referred to as ‘going to the land of Nod’.  And perhaps here’s where the “nodding off” connotations combine with its original darker meaning.

Because the land of Nod is not a pleasant place in the Bible.

Cain had just killed his younger brother Abel.  The LORD curses him from the earth and he is to be “a fugitive and a vagabond in the earth.”  (Genesis 4:14) More modern translations render that “a restless wanderer.”  And it’s this word for “wanderer” (or “vagabond”) that is the word Nod.  Therefore in verse 16 it says:

Cain went out from the presence of the LORD, and dwelt in the land of Nod, on the east of Eden.

Nod is not about peaceful rest at all.  Nod is about rootless wandering.

And that’s the way sin’s consequences are unpacked throughout the Bible.  Sin leads to exile, it leads to scattering, to dislocation, to violent uprooting.  Sinners (and that’s you and me) are not at home.  We are restless wanderers on the earth.

As Augustine famously prayed in his Confessions:

“Lord, you have made us for yourself and our hearts are restless until they find their rest in you.”

Genesis 4:6-14

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We all know the phrase.  And we all want to be able to answer yes.

Tony Blair first introduced “New Labour” to the party conference describing it as the kind of compassionate socialism that said “I am my brother’s keeper.”

In 2008, Barack Obama’s Christmas Day message was this:

“Now, more than ever, we must rededicate ourselves to the notion that we share a common destiny as Americans — that I am my brother’s keeper, I am my sister’s keeper.”

The phrase “Am I my brother’s keeper?” turns up everywhere.

And in many permutations.

Perhaps my favourite is the joke about a monkey in a zoo reading Darwin.  The lights go on and he asks: “Am I my keeper’s brother?”

“My brother’s keeper” is very well used.  And it’s found on the lips of community-minded, peace-lovers the world over.  But actually the phrase was coined by the world’s first murderer.

Cain, the firstborn, had just killed Abel his brother.

“And it came to pass, when they were in the field, that Cain rose up against Abel his brother, and slew him.  And the LORD said unto Cain, Where is Abel thy brother? And he said, I know not: Am I my brother’s keeper?  (Genesis 4:8-9)

There was history between the two.  Both had been offering sacrifices to the LORD, but in their own way.  Cain brought fruit and grain.  Abel brought blood sacrifices.

Abel had learnt the lesson taught to his parents so powerfully.  The LORD had put aside Adam and Eve’s ridiculous fig leaves and clothed them in skin.  He had demonstrated to them the way of atonement.  We can’t cover ourselves, we must be covered by the sacrifice of another.  Humanity cannot buy God off with our paltry morality.  No, the Promised Saviour would have to come and die as a bloody sacrifice to atone for our sins.

Abel’s offerings modelled this.  Cain’s were just more of the old fig-leaves.

The LORD looked with favour on Abel’s sacrifice but not Cain’s.  And Cain’s jealousy turned to murder.

There were such high hopes for Cain.  He was the firstborn of Eve.  And Eve’s words upon his birth were full of expectation – she seemed to think she had begotten the LORD-man right away (Genesis 4:1).

But the firstborn of the human race according to the flesh was not Saviour but Slayer.  What a damning indictment on the race of Adam!  Out of fellowship with our LORD and thus out of relationship with each other.  The bonds have been broken, vertically and horizontally.  What could ever restore them?

Well Cain should have answered his own question positively.  Not because of some common destiny or an abstract shared humanity. Cain was his brother’s keeper because he was the eldest.  And the firstborn son is meant to watch over the family.

So, finally, when the One promised to Eve was born into the world, He came as Firstborn over all.  Christ’s reconciling work was not simply to unite us to His Father but to restore the family bond as well – “that he might be the firstborn among many brethren.” (Romans 8:29)

We will not answer Cain’s question through our own humanitarian efforts – important though they are.  The answer to Cain is the true Firstborn who shed His own blood to be our Keeper.  Praise God for a Brother who watches over us!

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Genesis 4:1-5; John 17:1-5

“I knew her… in the biblical sense” said the fellow with a ribald wink and a nudge.

Many are aware that “knowing in the biblical sense” is shorthand for sex.  But few know what it is that’s ‘biblical’ about that ‘biblical sense.’

Well it all goes back to Genesis 4:1:

“And Adam knew Eve his wife; and she conceived, and bare Cain.”

To know in the biblical sense means a lot more than remembering someone’s birthday.  There is a deeply relational aspect to knowing.  So, in the context of marriage, this kind of ‘knowing’ means ‘making babies.’

This reflects the intimate nature of all “knowing” in the Bible.  It doesn’t have to be sexual.  Lots of “knowing” in the Bible isn’t sexual.  But it is relational.  The Bible’s idea of knowing is not just a cerebral exercise.

Perhaps it’s the effects of the Enlightenment, but we tend to consider knowledge as a matter of accumulating information.  Someone who “knows” is simply a person who’s had buckets of data poured into their head.

We think of knowledge quite impersonally.  Not so in the Bible.  In the Bible, knowing involves relationship and heart-commitments.

So Adam and Eve were tempted to “know” good and evil (Genesis 3:5).  This was more than the addition of information.  It was a taking of good and evil to themselves to possess those terms.

Or in Amos chapter 3, the LORD is speaking to Israel and says “You only have I known of all the families of the earth.”  Does the Almighty mean that He’s unaware of other nations?  Of course not.  But He knows Israel.  He is in deep fellowship with His special people.

So in this light let’s consider Jesus’ definition of eternal life in John 17:3

And this is life eternal, that they might know thee the only true God, and Jesus Christ, whom thou hast sent.

Eternity is not a matter of IQ or our ability to pass a theology quiz.  But it is determined by our knowledge.  Do we know God the Father and His Son Jesus?  Not simply, Do we hold orthodox ideas of them?  But personally, relationally, from the heart, do we know God in the biblical sense?  That is the phenomenal privilege held out to us by Jesus.

2 Samuel 1:17-27

“Have you seen the news?  Flooding, fires, earthquakes, wars.  If we don’t watch ourselves the world’s going to fall apart completely.”

“I fear we’ll soon pass the point of no return!”

“We must be very near the end!”

These are statements I hear pretty regularly about “the state of the world today.”

The trouble is they’re all far too optimistic.  And they’re tragically out of date.  According to the Bible the world has fallen apart.  We have passed the point of no return and the end was right at the beginning.

You see we live in a world made and loved by the Father, Son and Holy Spirit.   It’s a good world to which this God of love is deeply committed.  But it’s also a world that is catastrophically out of alignment with its Maker.

Adam was placed at the head of this world.  When Adam was at peace with his LORD all was right with the world.  When that peace was shattered all hell broke loose.

When sin entered in, first came shame then fear then hiding then blame.  The LORD curses relationships, family, work, even the physical world is cursed.  Death infects the planet and humanity is thrust out of God’s presence.

You could not imagine a more drastic “before and after” for Adam and Eve to cope with.  The psychological and spiritual trauma involved in their ejection from the garden is almost inconceivable.

How the mighty are fallen!

That was a phrase coined when Israel’s first king died in battle: “How are the mighty fallen!” (2 Samuel 1:19).  Saul was the LORD’s king – he was meant to be foretaste of the true King, Christ.  He was meant to be a righteous ruler who brought peace.  He proved to be an unrighteous ruler who died in war.  How the mighty are fallen.

The phrase applies so well to Adam.  Again, Adam was meant to be a foretaste of his LORD – the One who would take flesh in the fullness of time.  He was meant to be a king ruling under God in righteousness.  But pride came before his fall and the chaos and darkness we see around has been the result.  How the mighty are fallen.

But I wonder if we truly appreciate the heights from which we’ve fallen or the depths in which we find ourselves.  Even the term “fall” could sound a bit trifling.  As though we’re roughly on a plane with the life of paradise but have taken a small detour.  Actually the Bible doesn’t really use the language of “fall”.  Far more it uses the language of “death.”  Fellowship with the LORD in the garden was “life”.  What we’ve now inherited from Adam is “death.”  There could not be a greater contrast.

Our world is not a little bit off kilter.  It’s not heading towards calamity.  Calamity has struck.  Only a Saviour from beyond could possibly remedy the situation.  Only a new Adam, a new King ruling in righteousness could restore the cosmos.

And that’s our one hope.  Not cosmetic improvements.  Not a smoother running world-system.  We are much too far gone for that.

Instead our hope is wholesale and cosmic renewal.  Jesus, the Divine Son of man, called it “the regeneration when the Son of man shall sit in the throne of his glory.”  (Matthew 19:28)  Only He can raise us from this pit.  But rest assured – He most certainly will!

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Genesis 3:22-24

When the person we love is dying of cancer we pray for healing.  We pray fervently.  But even if God grants a miraculous healing, what then?  Do we dare to ask for ten more years of health?  Twenty?  What about a hundred?

How long do we want this kind of life prolonged?  For how long do we want God shuffling around these cursed conditions?  Is it just a case of ‘holding back the tide’ of death and decay for a little while longer?  Or does the LORD have something better for us?

The good news is that God is not reduced to “postponing the inevitable.” He’s into resurrection.  He’s not much into death deferral.  He’s into death-destroyed.

So because of this He needs to close off our attempts at “making the best of a bad situation.”  Once humanity opens the door to death and chaos, He bars the door to eternal life.  Because this kind of life must come to an end.

And the LORD God said, “The man has now become like one of us, knowing good and evil. He must not be allowed to reach out his hand and take also from the tree of life and eat, and live for ever.” So the LORD God banished him from the Garden of Eden to work the ground from which he had been taken.  After he drove the man out, he placed on the east side of the Garden of Eden cherubim and a flaming sword flashing back and forth to guard the way to the tree of life.  (Genesis 3:22-24)

Our future will not be a perpetual life-in-defiance-of-God.  God saves us from that by barring fallen humanity from the tree of life.  He draws a line under this kind of human life.  It will end in death.   And He makes sure of that by guarding Eden with creatures far stronger than us – cherubim.

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What do you picture when you think of cherubim?  What is it to be cherubic?  Or angel-faced?

Art rarely captures what the Bible describes.  When the Bible reports of angelic visitations they usually have to reassure the cowering humans with words like “Don’t be terrified.”  Angels are fearful and awesome creatures.  And their first mention in the Bible here does not describe them as heavenly eye-candy, but as deadly security-guards.

These armed bouncers will ensure that fallen life will not be eternal life.  Adamic life will end.  Anyone seeking to regain paradise will have to pass through the cherubim and their fiery sword.  Only through death can life be opened up.

The resurrection life for which we hope is not this kind of life prolonged.  Instead the LORD Jesus joins us East of Eden and then marches back up the hill to win us immortality.  The cross was Jesus passing through the fiery, death-dealing guard and taking the sword into Himself.   In this way the old Adam-life is killed.

But Christ, and only Christ, has the strength to pass on through to the other side – to immortal life.  And this is the life He offers us.  Not an extension of Adam-life with all its disease, decay and despair.

Our hope is not for life-this-side-of-death.  We hope for life-the-far-side-of-death – the life that only Jesus can offer.

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Genesis 3:21-24; Psalm 24

Humanity is homesick.  We feel restless, estranged, ‘out of place.’  But this is very odd!  Where else should we be?  Where else have we known?  Why should we not feel ‘right at home’ in the world where we live?

Genesis chapter 3 tells us why.  Cut off from the LORD, humanity is deported – exiled from our true resting place in God’s presence:

²³Therefore the LORD God sent him forth from the garden of Eden, to till the ground from whence he was taken.  ²⁴So he drove out the man; and he placed at the east of the garden of Eden Cherubims, and a flaming sword which turned every way, to keep the way of the tree of life.  (Genesis 3:23-24)

The human race began on high (Eden was a mountain sanctuary, Ezekiel 28:12-19).  But soon we were ‘down and out’.  “East of Eden” has been our home away from Home ever since.  And we all know that things are not right.

Our first parents would have told their children and grandchildren tales of paradise.  The next eight generations would have heard from Adam himself about the life of Eden.  And perhaps there’s also a residual memory in our flesh, a primeval nostalgia.  Maybe that’s why the older we get, the more we consider our ‘green salad days’ to be behind us.  As the saying goes “We’re living in the good old days, just wait and see!”

But whether we yearn for yesterday or hope for tomorrow, we all know that life here and now is profoundly disordered.  In biblical terms – we need to make a journey back up the hill.  A journey from east to west.  But how can we, when those cherubim guard the way with their fiery sword?

Well the tabernacle models the answer.  From Exodus 25 onwards we read about the tabernacle, built as a pattern of the gospel reality to come.  When the people saw it they would have become very excited.  In the west was the sanctuary of God – the Holy of Holies.  In a clear reference to our verses today, a thick curtain separated the people from God’s presence and cherubim were woven into the curtain.  The tabernacle was preaching to us about our condition, shut out of paradise, east of Eden.

And yet, every year a man would make the journey from east to west, from estrangement and into God’s presence.  Every year a man would pass through those deadly cherubim and ascend into the sanctuary.  He was the High Priest, and he modelled to the people what Christ would do.

You see Christ came down into our situation to make it His own.  He took our predicament on Himself, exhausting the curse of death in His own body.  He left our sins dead and buried – as far as the east is from the west (Psalm 103:12).  Then He arose to newness of life and ascended back up the hill into the presence of His Father.  There He was not prevented by the angels but proclaimed:

⁷ Lift up your heads, O ye gates; and be ye lift up, ye everlasting doors; and the King of glory shall come in. ⁸ Who is this King of glory? The LORD strong and mighty, the LORD mighty in battle. ⁹ Lift up your heads, O ye gates; even lift them up, ye everlasting doors; and the King of glory shall come in. ¹⁰ Who is this King of glory? The LORD of hosts, he is the King of glory.  (Psalm 24:7-10)

Those who are east of Eden have no hope in themselves.  We cannot regain paradise in our own strength.  The cherubim, the flaming sword, the curtain all stand in the way.  But Christ, our Forerunner, has marched up the hill.  He has taken our side, east of Eden, and has journeyed west on our behalf.  There He sits – at God’s right hand – and He does so for us.

The night before the cross, Jesus made this promise to His followers:

²In my Father’s house are many mansions: if it were not so, I would have told you. I go to prepare a place for you. ³And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again, and receive you unto myself; that where I am, there ye may be also. (John 14:2-3)

We are homesick exiles, east of Eden.  But let us not yearn for a golden past.  In Christ let us hope for a bright tomorrow.  For where He is, there we will also be!

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Genesis 3:14-20

First Eve receives her life and then her name from Adam.  But in between these two events the whole world falls apart.

Between Eve’s creation and her naming, the couple rebel, death and curse are unleashed and the LORD pronounces fearful judgements.  Yet the most hopeful verse comes next:

“Adam called his wife’s name Eve; because she was the mother of all living.”  (Genesis 3:20)

“Eve” is very similar to the Hebrew verb “to live”.  And that’s what Adam calls her.  He doesn’t call her “Woe” or “Death” or “Suffering”, though all those words would have been ringing in his ears.  He calls her “Life.”

Just previously he’d blamed the whole sorry mess on “the woman whom thou gavest to be with me!”  (Genesis 3:12)  But he’s forgotten the blame-game now.

Now he looks at her and sees a source of universal blessing!

How is that possible?

The great 16th century reformer, Martin Luther, commented on this verse:

[Adam] looked to Eve as mother of all the living – he saw through to life when everything around him was being subjected to death.

This is such a remarkable fact it demands an explanation.  And Luther points us towards the only possible explanation. Something must have happened between the blame of verse 12 and the name of verse 20.

And that “something” was Genesis 3:15.  Luther calls the verse, “This first comfort, this source of all mercy and fountainhead of all promises.”

In verse 15 the LORD speaks of “the seed of the woman” who will bruise the serpent’s head.  He will crush the oppressor and reverse the curse.  He would strike the serpent’s head even though he himself would be struck in the process.

There would be a birth – a miraculous birth.  And this child would deal a costly but decisive death-blow to Satan.  He would crush Satan’s head, but he’d be injured in the process.

Here the Christ-child is promised.  And this changes everything.  Even in the midst of terrible judgement Adam knows that the LORD is not finally against us, but for us… and soon to be with us.

Therefore, now when Adam looks at the woman he doesn’t see “this woman you put here.”  He sees ‘Eve’, the mother of all the living.  She would be the source of blessing not curse.  From her would come the Seed who would put to rights what they had done wrong.

Because of Christ, Adam saw through to life when all around him was death.

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Genesis 3:19; Luke 22:39-46

The Authorized Version can’t take credit for this one.  It translates Genesis 3:19 as

“In the sweat of thy face shalt thou eat bread”

If they were even more literal they might have said “In the sweat of thy nostrils…”!

But, unsurprisingly, it’s the more idiomatic translation “By the sweat of your brow” that has passed into common usage.

It means hard graft, exertion, labour.

And this is part of the curse.  This is something new.  Adam was called to work in Genesis 2, but now his work will be sweaty work!

Sweat is mentioned three times in the King James Bible.

Once with Adam.  (Genesis 3:19)

Once with the High Priest.  (Ezekiel 44:18)

And once with Jesus.  (Luke 22:44)

And tracing through the history of sweat will tell us the story of how God works redemption.

Let’s think about Adam.  Before the fall, work was “no sweat”.

But with sin comes sweat.  And this speaks of two things at least.  First, there seems to be an added dimension of struggle.  But also of ‘leakiness’.

When you read through the priestly laws of Leviticus, people are unclean when they ‘leak’.  So often it’s when stuff comes out of a person (I won’t elaborate any further than that!) that they are ceremonially unclean.

This is confirmed when we think of the high priest mentioned in Ezekiel 44.  He’s meant to wear robes that breathe well.  Because it wouldn’t do to have the high priest sweating.

We have that saying, don’t we, “Horses sweat, men perspire, women glow.”  Perhaps we’ve retained something of this priestly distaste for sweat.  We feel it’s unladylike – it’s undignified, unrefined – to sweat.

Well with this background in mind, let’s think about Jesus.  When Jesus comes, what should we expect?  Should we expect Him to sweat like the rest of us – to put His shoulder to the wheel and engage in the struggle?  Or should we expect Him – as the ultimate High Priest – to say “no sweat”?

Will Jesus be a fellow-struggler or will He float above it all without a trace of perspiration?

Well come with me in your mind to another garden.  Not Eden, but a garden called Gethsemane.  It’s the night before Jesus would die to atone for the sins of the world.  He was in the midst of performing the ultimate High Priestly act:

And being in an agony he prayed more earnestly: and his sweat was as it were great drops of blood falling down to the ground.  (Luke 22:44)

Christ put His shoulder to the wheel harder than us all.  His work as the true Adam and the true High Priest would be an intense, costly and sacrificial labour.  He joins us in our cursed state, rolls up His sleeves and gets to work.

Jesus doesn’t say “no sweat.”  And He doesn’t simply “raise a sweat”. Because of His astonishing love, He pours Himself out in blood, sweat and tears.  And He does it for you.  Whatever labours are required of you today, rest in this truth – Christ has really done the hard graft!

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Genesis 3:14-19; 1 Corinthians 15:35-58

As a minister I have often stood beside the grave as they lower the coffin.  It’s my job to say these famous words:

“earth to earth, ashes to ashes, dust to dust”

Each phrase picks up on biblical imagery.

Adam was made from adamah meaning earth.  And humanity is “dust and ashes” as Abraham would say (Genesis 18:27).  But “dust to dust” is fairly much straight from Genesis 3:19.  The LORD is pronouncing curses on sinful man and He concludes with:

For dust thou art and to dust shalt thou return.

At funerals people often want you to read quaint poems that airbrush out the stark reality of death.  They’re full of sentiments about our loved ones not really going away and living on in our hearts, etc, etc.

I always liked Woody Allen’s line about living on in people’s memories.  “I don’t want to live on in memories, I want to live on in my apartment.”

We want real, tangible, physical hope.  But death puts pay to that.  Violently.  Uncaringly.  Finally.

And so actually the Bible’s words are totally realistic.  Dust we are, to dust we return.

It almost sounds like a modern cry of despair.  Or of nonchalant nihilism.  But it doesn’t come from a depressive or a cynic.  This is the LORD who loves His creatures – man in particular.  He’d only just given Adam the kiss of life.

But now, with Adam severed from the Life-Source, here comes the judgement:  You are dirt, and you will crumble to dirt.

Have we understood the hopelessness of our plight?  Left to itself our race is headed for the compost heap.  No amount of saccharine sentiment can disguise that reality.  The children of Adam cannot change their destiny because they cannot change their constitution.

If we are dust we can only expect to become dust.  Those born of Adam have no right to expect any other future.  We could have a future hope only if our fundamental constitution is changed.  Only if we could come into another kind of humanity could we hope to come into another kind of destiny.

But that is exactly the Christian hope.

After I say “earth to earth, ashes to ashes, dust to dust” the next words I say are these:

in sure and certain hope of the resurrection to eternal life
through our Lord Jesus Christ,
who will transform our frail bodies
that they may be conformed to his glorious body,

There is another kind of life that comes “through our Lord Jesus Christ.”

The LORD Jesus was the One who pronounced the curse in Genesis 3.  But it’s not His final word on human mortality.  His plan was always to come and establish a different kind of humanity.

In Genesis 3:15 He had just promised His own birth into the human race.  He would become the Last Adam.  He would be the Man of heaven to answer the frailty and sin of the man of dust.

And in the fullness of time, He took our crumbling dust-to-dust-life and reunited it to the Life-Source in Himself.  He took our humanity and, through death, planted it in the ground like a seed that dies and rises to produce many seeds (John 12:24).  His new life from the dead is not dust-life but Spirit-life.  And He gives it as a gift to all us crumbling dirt piles.

Dust to dust, yes.  But in Jesus there’s also Spirit-life to spirit-life.  And that’s our enduring hope:

The first man Adam was made a living soul; the last Adam was made a quickening spirit…  The first man is of the earth, earthy: the second man is the Lord from heaven.  As is the earthy, such are they also that are earthy: and as is the heavenly, such are they also that are heavenly.  And as we have borne the image of the earthy, we shall also bear the image of the heavenly.
(1 Corinthians 15:45-49)