GENESIS 5


1 This is the book of the generations of Adam. In the day that Elohim created man, in the likeness of Elohim made he him;

2 Male and female created he them; and blessed them, and called their name Adam, in the day when they were created.

3 And Adam lived 130 years, and begat a son in his own likeness, after his image; and called his name Seth:


Men and beasts, say the Scriptures,

"have all one ruach or spirit, so that a man hath no pre-eminence above a beast."

The reason assigned for this equality is the oneness of their spirit, which is proved by the fact of their common destiny; as it is written, "for all are vanity:" that is,

"all go unto one place; all are of the dust, and all turn to dust again."

Yet this one spirit manifests its tendencies differently in men and other creatures. In the former, it is aspiring and God-defying, rejoicing in its own works, and devoted to the vanity of the passing hour; while in the latter, its disposition is grovelling to the earth in all things.

Thus, the heart of man being

"deceitful above all things and desperately wicked, who can know or fathom it"

-- Solomon was led to exclaim,

"who knoweth the spirit of the sons of Adam, ruach beni headam, which exalts itself to the highest, and the spirit of a beast which inclines to the earth?" (Eccles. 3:19-21).

We may answer, "none, but God only;

"He knoweth what is in man, and needs not that any should testify of Him" (John 2:25).

But, from this testimony some one might infer that, as man was made only "a little lower than the angels," and yet has "no pre-eminence over a beast," the beast also is but a little lower than the angels. This, however, would be a very erroneous conclusion. The equality of men and other animals consists in the kind of life they possess in common with each other. Vanity, or mortality, is all that pertains to any kind of living flesh. The whole animal world has been made subject to it; and as it affects all living souls alike, bringing them back to the dust again, no one species can claim pre-eminence over the other; for

"one thing befalleth them; as the one dieth, so dieth the other."

Man, however, differs from other creatures in having been modelled after a divine type, or pattern. In form and capacity he was made like to the angels, though in nature inferior to them. This appears from the testimony that he was made "in their image, after their likeness," and "a little lower than the angels" (Psalm 13:5), or Elohim. I say, he was made in the image of the angels, as the interpretation of the co-operative,

"let us make them in our image, after our likeness." ...

...Man, then, was made after the image and likeness of Elohim, but for a while inferior in nature. But the race will not always be inferior in this respect. It is destined to advance to a higher nature; not all the individuals of it; but those of the race

"who shall be accounted worthy to obtain that age and the resurrection from among the dead . . . who can die no more: for they are equal to the angels (isaggeloi); and are the sons of God, being the sons of resurrection" (Luke 20:35-36).

The import of the phrase "in the image, after the likeness" is suggested by the testimony, that

"Adam begat a son in his own likeness, after his image, and called his name Seth" (Gen. 5:3).

In this respect, Seth stands related to Adam, as Adam did to the Elohim; but differing in this, that the nature of Adam and Seth were identical; whereas that of Adam and the Elohim were dissimilar. Would any one be at a loss to know the meaning of Seth's being in the image of his father? The very same thing is meant by Adam being in the image of the Elohim.

An image is the representation of some form or shape; metaphorically, it may signify the exact resemblance of one character to another. But, in the case before us, the parties had no characters at the time of their birth. They were simply innocent of actual transgression; no scope having been afforded them to develope character.

The Elohim, however, were personages of dignity, and holiness, as well as of incorruptible, or spiritual nature. The resemblance, therefore, of Adam to the Elohim as their image was of bodily form not of intellectual and moral attainment; and this I apprehend to be the reason why the Elohim are styled "men" when their visits to the sons of Adam are recorded in the Scriptures of truth. In shape, Seth was like Adam, Adam like the Elohim, and the Elohim, the image of the invisible Increate; the great and glorious archetype of the intelligent universe.

Seth was also "in Adam's own likeness." While image, then, hath reference to form or shape, "likeness" hath regard to mental constitution, or capacity. From the shape of his head as compared with other creatures, it is evident, that man has a mental capacity which distinguishes him above them all.

Their likeness to him is faint. They can think; but their thoughts are only sensual. They have no moral sentiments, or high intellectual aspirations; but are grovelling in all their instincts, which incline only to the earth. In proportion as their heads assume the human form in the same ratio do they excel each other in sagacity; and, as in the monkey tribe, display a greater likeness to man.

Elpis Israel 1.2.



Seth was the image of Adam, and Adam, the image of Elohim (Gen. 1:26; 5:3). Like Seth, Jesus was an image of Adam, but only in relation to flesh. Adam the First was the image of Elohim, and this was in relation to bodily form. Body and form were the hypostasis of Adam and Seth; that is, they were the basis or foundation of the images so named. Where body and form do not exist, there can be no image; therefore, where image is predicated of hypostasis, that hypostasis must have both body and form. The Father-Spirit, unveiled, is, then, a bodily form; and as all things are "out of Him," He is the focal centre of the universe, from which irradiates whatever exists.

The Father-Spirit is embodied power. Paternal power implies offspring or children, children or SONS OF POWER. Son-power is also embodied power. It is power emanating from the Father, corporealized in one or a multitude, but never separated or detached from the focal centre. The Son-power is, therefore, the Father-power, multitudinously expressed, manifested through many bodies. This is illustrated in the science of arithmetic. Arithmetic is the science of numbers. The hypostasis or basis of this science is the multitudinous expression of one, a multiplication of number one.

Let there be no numerical power called one, and there could be no five, fifty, or any other combination of one. One is the great power of the arithmetical universe; and all the other powers resulting from the multiplication of one combined, cannot exclude one therefrom, without annihilating themselves, and expunging the system.

This is true of Son-power, individually or multitudinously expressed, in relation to the One Father-power. Hence Jesus was led to remark, "The Son can do nothing of himself," and again, "I can of mine own self do nothing" (John 5:19,30). "The flesh," said he, "profits nothing." As son of Mary, he pretended to no power, wisdom or superiority. Mary's son was "the Vail of the Covering" to be rent. The Vail in which the Father-power was veiled, the Flesh-medium of Power-manifestation...

...Veiled in flesh, "the Vail of the Covering" (Exodus 35:12): he that discerneth him who spoke to Philip, "saw the Father" (John 14:9; 12:45). But, veiled or unveiled, the Father-Spirit is substantial. Speaking of the Unveiled Father-Spirit, Paul says in Heb. 1:2, 3, that the Son is the Character of his Hypostasis, rendered, in the common version, "express image of his person."

The Son is the character or exact representation, and the Father is the hypostasis.

Phanerosis - One Deity in Multiplicity


4 And the days of Adam after he had begotten Seth were 800 years: and he begat sons and daughters:


5 And all the days that Adam lived were 930 years: and he died.

For as in Adam all die, even so in Christ shall all be made alive. (1Cor 15:22)


Baptism is not only for the remission of sins. That truly is vital and primary, and clears our past. But it is static. By itself, it would not help us. Baptism is to put us into Christ, and into all he stands for and embodies: to take our feet out of the way of death, and to set them in motion in the way of life.

This used to be spoken of as "passing out of Adam into Christ" (Good Confession, Question 10). But since the Andrew perversion of this expression, and the Andrew error built upon that perversion, sound brethren have avoided this expression because of what it now so widely connotes. It is one of the incendiary "red flags," like "'violent death,"' "alienation," "constitutional sinner," etc., that wise and considerate brethren, seeking understanding and not inflammation, will either not use, or will be very, very careful how they use and define.

We have absolutely no sympathy for the Andrew "violent death" theory: that the sentence on Adam was "violent death," averted from the sinning Adam by animal sacrifice, and carried out on the sinless Christ. This is a repulsive theory. Actually, as regards Adam, the distinction between "violent death" (which he allegedly escaped) and "natural death" (which he admittedly suffered) is an artificial distinction.

For Adam, who previously was not related to death at all, no death was "natural," and any death would have been "violent" death. The only distinction that might be made would be between a quick or slow "violent" death. But even that distinction is meaningless, for 930 years is lightning "quick," compared to the endless ages of life that lay before him if he were obedient.

We do not particularly like the term "violent death." It is not a scriptural one (though admittedly it may be used to express a scriptural idea). It may have been a useful, and not misleading, expression at one time; but it is now inseparably connected in many minds with the false Andrew theory.

Rather than "violent death," as applied to the death of Christ, we much prefer the scriptural conceptions of (1) the condemning of Sin's Flesh by the voluntary nailing of this flesh to the cross, and (2) purification from all forms and aspects of "Sin" by God's appointed way of the sacrificial blood-shedding of a perfect, voluntary self-offering.

God ordained this for His glory. Christ in love submitted to it, for God's glory and man's salvation. He obediently accepted the position he found himself in as part of the condemned, sin-cursed, sin-defiled, purification-needing race. And he accepted and fulfilled God's required procedure for that cleansing, as the race.

We are told that Jesus himself personally was not "liable" to a "violent death," and that brother Roberts said so. Absolutely true! Utterly beyond any cavil. Jesus certainly was not "liable" to a "violent death." That was the penalty for actual transgression of God's Law, and he never transgressed.

But he - as embodying the race, and bearing the unclean, "filthy garments," "Sin-in-the-flesh" mortality - required with all his brethren, by God's appointment, the cleansing of a perfect bloodshed sacrifice.

Everything related to this unclean mortal condition had, under the Law, to be cleansed by sacrificial blood: not only all the obvious uncleannesses, as sicknesses and diseases, but the normal bodily functions, and even birth itself.

Purifying of the heavenly Ch 1


6 And Seth lived an 105, and begat Enos:

7 And Seth lived after he begat Enos 807 years, and begat sons and daughters:

8 And all the days of Seth were 912 years: and he died.

9 And Enos lived 90, and begat Cainan:

10 And Enos lived after he begat Cainan 815 years, and begat sons and daughters:

11 And all the days of Enos were 905 years: and he died.

12 And Cainan lived 70 years, and begat Mahalaleel:

13 And Cainan lived after he begat Mahalaleel 840, and begat sons and daughters:

14 And all the days of Cainan were 910 years: and he died.

15 And Mahalaleel lived 65 years, and begat Jared:

16 And Mahalaleel lived after he begat Jared 830 years, and begat sons and daughters:

17 And all the days of Mahalaleel were 895 years: and he died.

18 And Jared lived an 162 years, and he begat Enoch:

19 And Jared lived after he begat Enoch 800 years, and begat sons and daughters:

20 And all the days of Jared were 962 years: and he died.



21 And Enoch lived 65 years, and begat Methuselah:

1. -Enoch was the "seventh from Adam."

2. -The first who is said to have "prophesied."

3. -A man of faith, godly walk, and well-pleasing to God.

4. -Testified of judgment and the coming of the Lord.

5. -His name means dedicated or consecrated.

6. -He is twice referred to in the Epistles.

7. -Was the father of the oldest man.

8. -His son lived till the year of the deluge.

9. -Lived the same number of years as there are days to a year.

10. -Was translated that he should not see death.



22 And Enoch walked with Elohim after he begat Methuselah 300 years, and begat sons and daughters:

"What think ye of the Christ? Whose son is he?"


But no one, Jew or Gentile, can give a reasonable answer to this question who is ignorant of Moses and the prophets. And the reason of this will be obvious to every intelligent person from the consideration of the facts that "Christ," as the subject matter of a system of knowledge, is peculiar to their writings. Moses' writings may be said to have started the subject.

It is true that the Christ-idea was in the world before Moses lived. Adam and Eve received the first promise of his appearing in listening to the sentence upon the serpent in Gen. 3:15. Enoch, the seventh from Adam, predicted his coming with his ten thousand saints; [Jude v 14] and Abraham saw his day, and was glad. Still the convictions and hopes of these ancients would have been lost but for Moses, who was caused by Yahweh to put them on record, and to commit the writings to the custody of the Hebrew nation.

It is, therefore, exact enough to say, that, as far as we are concerned, the Christ-idea and the Christ-doctrine, originated with Moses. He treats of it at large in his five books. After him the Christ-idea was dramatized, not related, but represented by Joshua at the head of Yahweh's hosts in the conquest of the Holy Land from the Gentiles.

It was also dramatized in the history of David and Solomon, and the Mosaic doctrine concerning Christ, amplified by Samuel, David, Solomon, Isaiah, Jeremiah, Ezekiel, Daniel, and all the prophets.

The idea and teaching, then, concerning Christ being a special system of inspired knowledge peculiar, exclusively peculiar, to the prophetic writings, how can a man rationally answer the question: "What is the truth concerning the Christ? Whose son is he?" in ignorance of what they testify? It is impossible.

We must study Moses and the prophets, or we can know nothing as we ought to know it concerning the "Wonderful One," through whom the knowledge of the "Eternal Spirit Name," or God, is revealed.

It is impossible to know God apart from the Christ-doctrine of Moses and the prophets; for the knowledge of Christ is the knowledge of God-manifestation to man. Let us put it in another form, thus: blot out from the oracles of God the instruction concerning Messiah, and there would remain no revelation of God behind.

The Christ-doctrine is the key to the Sh'ma; to the Memorial Name for a generation of the race; to "the glorious and Fearful Name," and to all the remarkable combinations of words, grouped together without regard to grammatical rules, and so thickly distributed upon the sacred page. Let us then, hear Moses and the prophets:

"for they wrote of me," says Jesus: and "if ye believe not their writings, how can ye believe my words?" (John 5:47).

Phanerosis - Yahweh manifested in a Son


23 And all the days of Enoch were 365 years: 

24 And Enoch walked with Elohim: and he was not; for Elohim took him.

Enoch translated


This might have been for us a very enigmatical saying if it had not been interpreted for us by apostolic comment. Our orthodox friends would, of course, have had no difficulty with it in any case. As they read it, it is a thing that happens every time a righteous man dies. We hear them say of such and such, "God has taken him," when we know that what has happened is the man's death and burial. It is unfortunate for their view of the case that Enoch's case, who did not die, is the only case in which we have this mode of narrative. In all the other cases, the record is, "and he died" (Genesis 5: 5, 8, 11, 14, 17, 20, 27, etc., etc.). The explanation is furnished in the apostolic comment referred to:

"By faith Enoch was translated that he should not see death, and was not found, because God had translated him; for before his translation he had this testimony, that he pleased God" (Hebrews 11: 5).

If we are told that God took Enoch, it is because he continued alive to be taken and was taken, and did not die. If Enoch had died as our modern friends die, it would not have been said of him that God took him, as modern friends say of their dead. The fact is, the Bible and our modern friends are entirely out of harmony. Our modern friends have inherited a philosophic speculation which, not being true, is a fable-to the effect that man is immortal and cannot die, whereas the very backbone of the Bible is the fact, proclaimed, defined, and illustrated times without number that the race of man has become liable to death through the sin of Adam, and in death remains without existence for the time being.

But it is the taking of Enoch in the Scriptural sense that we look at. He was

"translated that he should not see death."

When he fulfilled a year for every day of the year-365 years-he was removed from among men without seeing death. The reason of this removal does not quite belong to the subject of these chapters. Still it is interesting to note, "He walked with God." His life in an age of growing corruption was so conformed to the will of God as to secure the perfect approbation of God.

The disapprobation of God in the case of Adam was expressed in the sentence of death; here we have exemption from death as the result of God's approval of Enoch. It naturally occurs to us to marvel how this exemption could take place in view of Enoch's inclusion in Adam's sentence, as yet untaken away in Christ. But our difficulty eases when we realise that Enoch's "walk with God" included that regular offering of typical sacrifice in which Christ's great work was foreshadowed, and by which Enoch identified himself with that work.

There was no more setting aside of God's appointed order than there will be in the case of those who "are alive and remain unto the coming of the Lord" and shall not see death. In the case of these, the law of God has its fulfilment in their retrospective "crucifixion with Christ" emblematised in baptism into his death; in the case of Enoch, the same result was reached prospectively so far as the divine purpose was concerned, and actually in Enoch's offering of sacrifice.

Visible Hand of God Ch 5



29 And he called his name Noah, saying, This same shall comfort us concerning our work and toil of our hands, because of the ground which Yahweh hath cursed.

Four hundred and eighty years before the announcement of this determination a son was born to Lamech, the grandson of Enoch, whom he named Noah, that is, comfort, saying, "this same shall comfort us concerning our work and toil of our hands, because of the ground which the Lord hath cursed."

This was the hope of those who remained faithful of the sons of Seth. They labored in hope of a translation into a rest from their labours, when the curse should be removed from the earth (Rev. 22:3).