Genesis 5 Gospel
The Gospel Message, Gleamed from the names of Adam to Noah!
Having doubts about God's authorship of the Bible? Assuming you hold God's Word as truth, here's one example that might assure you.
Starting with the first man, named by God Himself, and following the generations of men leading up to Noah in a timespan greater than 1600 years, we see prophecy being revealed not once, but twice! One prophecy has already been fulfilled and the other is still in progress!
If you ever study names in the Bible, especially Hebrew names, you'll find that they are one of two things. They either tell of the circumstances of the family or nation at the time of the child's birth or the name was influenced by the parents listening to God. The latter senario always ended up being prophetic, speaking into the future either for the individual, the family, the nation or everyone in all of history and still yet future!
We can read the meanings of the names from Adam to Noah, in order, as a sentence. Not only that, it can be read in more ways than one, and yet it still fits with what the rest of Scripture says about both senarios!
The Great Flood
Let's read the sentence with the narrative of the global flood in mind.
"Man was appointed mortal sorrow, yet God's glory descends from above teaching us that his death shall bring the humbled, rest".
When Adam and Eve sinned, all of mankind was separated from God. That meant that we were no longer immortal and our bodies would wither and die. The destruction of sin was strong, but God gave man its first chance to live how they chose to live. In just 1600 years, when humans lived 10 times longer than we do now, humanity spiraled into wickedness. Yet in His mercy, He waited until just one small family was left that would humble themselves before God. In fact, he waited for Methuselah, the oldest man to ever live, to pass away before bringing judgement upon the world. In this reading, "his death shall bring", actually refers to Methuselah himself. Then, the second global judgement came (the first being the curse of sin). However, God spared the one family, and used them to start again. Once the deed was done, and the extreme wickedness was removed, Noah and his family were able to rest in the comfort of God's promise to never flood the earth again! We are still reminded of that promise every time we see a rainbow in the sky.
The Gospel Message
Now, let's read the sentence one more time with the gospel message in mind.
"Man was appointed mortal sorrow, yet God's glory descends from above teaching us that His death shall bring the humbled, rest".
We emphasized a subtle change that will help. This reading begins the same, but applies to all humanity past, present and future. That includes you! We are still dealing with sin that began with Adam and Eve, and God is still teaching us. Even though the Word of God was concluded 2 thousand years ago, we never stop learning from it! There are still prophecies that have not yet come to pass; so we still have pieces of the puzzle that haven't been made available to us. In this reading, we don't reference Methuselah, but rather switch the pronoun to reference the Messiah, Jesus Christ, who's death will bring an Eternal Rest (separated from sin and suffering) to all who Humble themselves before the Lord and accept the Son of God as their Lord and Saviour.
Have you humbled yourself before the Lord and accepted Him? Or will you be wiped away with the wickedness in the final judgement? If not, or you are not sure, please check out the full Gospel message which we help you discover by clicking the link below.