Return to the two lines. The line of Cain is identified by two markers. One is the mention of vocations. Three in his lineage are remembered for their careers. Adah a son of Lamech was the father of all who live in tents and herd livestock. Jubal is the founder of harp and flute playing and Zillah, a third son of Lamech was skilled at forging iron and bronze tools. The second famous link to Cain’s lineage is murder. Both Cain and his descendent Lamech are registered man-killers. Now contrast that to Seth’s line which like Cain’s is described in a linear fashion…only one son per generation in the line is mentioned, the one through whom the family tree is established Cain’s stretches to Lamech, the murderer; Seth’s to Noah. In Seth’s tree two in the line are known for “walking with God’. No murderers mentioned in Seth’s lineage. No “walkers with God” are registered in Cain’s line. The distinction between the two is pretty clear. One line seems to be the sons of man, Adam as it is put literally—Adam the sinner. The other line is the sons of God—walkers with God.
The early history of mankind was marred it would seem by the blurring of the lines. Walkers with God (those of the spiritual lineage of Seth) left off their devotion to Yhwh and began to intermarry with the murderers (the spiritual lineage of Cain). Now we can be reasonably certain that there were far more in the world population than just those who fit into the family lines of Lamech and Noah. But it would seem apparent that there were two camps among all the peoples of the world—those who looked to God and those who didn’t. As generations developed over time, the followers of Seth became intrigued and infatuated by the beautiful women who were followers of Cain. It was a bit like what happened much later when many Israelite men were seduced by the Moabite women and led astray into sin. Sethians married Cainites and mankind was thrown into moral depravity.
Our age of relativism has fooled us into thinking that blurred lines are a good thing. The mixing of cultures, the combining of ethnicities are amalgamated into the acceptance of religion hazing. What is fascinating to consider is that every ethnic group was located in these two first people—Adam and Eve. No one with any shade of skin or shape of nose or size of lip or thickness of eyelid can be placed outside this one perimeter. We all are from Adam and Eve. Therefore mixed marriage is the essence of humanity as first formed. What is not accepted is the mixing of faith. The marriage of Sethians to Cainites did not result in a missionary race of God-seekers who won over the Cain line. Instead what resulted was a Cainite world with just a few Sethian survivors clinging to the last scraps of faith. By the time Noah came along, the entire world had been converted all right. But not to God.
Recently I received an email from a friend who told me that as long as she remained married to her husband, her devotion to God plummeted. His faithless lifestyle made her less and less like Christ. God in Malachi 2 insists that the whole purpose of marriage is to raise up Godly children. The lesson of Genesis 6 is that when the sons of God marry the daughters of Adam, those children do not make it. The occasional Noah may result but that is an aberration, not a normal outcome.
Not only were there two lines of people at this time, one expanding and the other diminishing, there were two ways of seeing them. The heroes of old were called Nephilim. They were, as the Hebrew puts it, “the strong ones, forever men of a name”. Known everywhere for their power, the Nephilim were universally admired. Just recently, the basketball Kobe Bryant was given a thunderous ovation by the 90,000 attending the opening ceremonies of the Olympics in Beijing. Why? Because he has basketball power. Our Nephilim are movie stars, political candidates, CEOs, and world class athletes. The Nephilim, we are told, came out of the union of sons of God with daughters of Adam and despite the flood survived to continue shaping the culture of the world.
To be completed Tomorrow.....
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