And Enoch walked with God...

The following quote by Dods is about the genealogy in Genesis 5. Each generation follows a depressing pattern: "Thus all the days of "x" lived were "y" years and he died." The author of Genesis emphasizes through this pattern that even in the godly descendants of Seth, the Adamic curse is fulfilled and each one dies. However, there is one break in the pattern, one glimmer of hope, in Genesis 5:24, "Enoch walked with God, and he was not, for God took him." Marcus Dods reflects on Enoch's walk with God.

Only once is the monotony broken; but this in so striking a manner as to rescue us from the idea that the historian is mechanically copying a barren list of names. For in the seventh generation, contemporaneous with the culmination of Cain's line in the family of Lamech, we come upon the simple, but anything but mechanical statement: "Enoch walked with God and he was not; for God took him." The phrase is full of meaning. Enoch walked with God because he was His friend and liked His company, because he was going in the same direction as God, and had no desire for anything but what lay in God's path. We walk with God when He is in all our thoughts; not because we consciously think of Him at all times, but because He is naturally suggested to us by all we think of; as when any person or plan or idea has become important to us, no matter what we think of, our thought is always found recurring to this favorite object, so with the godly man everything has a connection with God and must be ruled by that connection. When some change in his circumstances is thought of, he has first of all to determine how the proposed change will affect his connection with God--will his conscience be equally clear, will he be able to live on the same friendly term with God and so forth. When he falls into sin he cannot rest till he has resumed his place at God's side and walks again with Him. This is the general nature of walking with God; it is a persistent endeavour to hold all our life open to God's inspection and in conformity to His will; a readiness to give up what we find does cause any misunderstanding between us and God; a feeling of loneliness if we have not some satisfaction in our efforts at holding fellowship with God, a cold and desolate feeling when we are conscious of doing something that displeases Him. This walking with God necessarily tells on the whole life and character. As you instinctively avoid subjects which you know will jar upon the feeling of your friend, as you naturally endeavour to suit yourself to your company, so when the consciousness of God's presence begins to have some weight with you, you are found instinctively endeavouring to please Him, repressing the thought you know He disapproves, and endeavouring to educate such dispositions as reflect His own nature.

It is easy then to understand how we may practically walk with God--it is to open to Him all our purposes and hopes, to seek his judgment on our scheme of life and idea of happiness--it is to be on thoroughly friendly terms with God... Things were not made easy to Enoch. In evil days, with much to mislead him, with everything to oppose him, he had by faith and diligent seeking, as the Epistle to the Hebrews says, to cleave to the path on which God walked, often left in darkness, often thrown off the track, often listening but unable to hear the footfall of God or to hear his own name called upon, receiving no sign, but still diligently seeking the God he knew would lead him only to good. [Book of Genesis, pp. 51-53]

As quoted by Allen P. Ross, Creation and Blessing: A Guide to the Study and Exposition of Genesis, pp. 175-176.

Cain's Legacy and Christ's Cure

Allen P. Ross, on page 162 in his commentary Creation and Blessing: A Guide to the Study and Exposition of Genesis, explains Genesis chapter 4:1-16 by quoting Gerhard von Rad concerning Genesis 4:10. Gerhard von Rad points that Cain's rebellion continues to this day.

At the beginning of Passiontide it is fitting to say a word about the extent of the damage done by man. Man approaching the cross is a brother-murderer from the very beginning. The interpreter may also properly sketch out the lines of cultural history--the division of humanity into various states of life, the existence of two altars. And Cain continues to travel the road he has taken--founding cities and the musical arts, developing the art of forging so that the sword comes to be regarded as an approved implement--and the song of Lamech madly celebrates the native force and the boundlessness of revenge (Gen. 4:17-24).

But the sermon should center on verse 10; as far as human understanding is concerned, inconceivable and inexpiable is the accusing cry of the blood of our brother Abel, a cry that ascends to God day and night. This should be the starting point for the dispelling of manifold and familiar misunderstandings: Abel's blood, even the best and dearest, never brings salvation in the presence of God; instead it increases the burden of the curse. But Christ's blood "speaks more graciously than the blood of Abel" (Heb. 12:24). Thus the Bible speaks of two kinds of blood and their voices before God: one of these is millionfold, and its message is accusation, while the other is the blood of the One, and it brings healing. [Biblical Interpretations in Preaching, p. 22]

Grace Covers the Sinners' shame

Allen P. Ross, on p. 149 in his commentary Creation and Blessing: A Guide to the Study and Exposition of Genesis, quotes Marcus Dods about why God chose to cover Adam and Eve with animal skins.

It is also to be remarked that the clothing which God provided was in itself different from what man had thought of. Adam took leaves from an inanimate, unfeeling tree; God deprived an animal of life, that the shame of His creature might be relieved. This was the last thing Adam would have thought of doing. To us life is cheap and death familiar, but Adam recognized death as the punishment of sin. Death was to early man a sign of God's anger. And he had to learn that sin could be covered not by a bunch of leaves snatched from a bush as he passed by and that would grow again next year, but only by pain and blood. Sin cannot be atoned for by any mechanical action nor without expenditure of feeling. Suffering must ever follow wrongdoing. From the first sin to the last, the track of the sinner is marked with blood. Once we have sinned we cannot regain permanent peace of conscience save through pain, and this not only pain of our own. The first hint of this was given as soon as conscience was aroused in man. It was made apparent that sin was a real and deep evil, and that by no easy and cheap process could the sinner be restored. The same lesson has been written on millions of consciences since. Men have found that their sin reaches beyond their own life and person, that it inflicts injury and involves disturbance and distress, that it changes utterly our relation to life and to God, and that we cannot rise above its consequences save by the intervention of God Himself, by an intervention which tells us of the sorrow He suffers on our account. For the chief point that it is God who relieves man's shame.[The Book of Genesis , pp. 25-26]