RE:GENESIS: BROKEN BUT HOPEFUL (GENESIS 5:1-32)

SUMMARY: Genesis 5 reads like the tolling of a funeral bell. Over and over the refrain sounds: “and he died.” Sin’s curse had spread to every generation, and no one escaped its grip. Yet in the middle of the tolling, hope appears. Enoch “walked with God, and he was not, for God took him.” The rhythm of death was broken, foreshadowing the greater hope we find in Christ, who conquered the grave. Later, Lamech named his son Noah in expectation of relief, reminding us that even in sorrow God’s promises are moving forward. Genesis 5 is more than an obituary—it is an invitation. Sin brings death, but God offers life. Through Jesus, the story doesn’t have to end with “and he died” but can end with “and he lived with God forever.”

“Perchance he for whom this bell tolls may be so ill, as that he knows not it tolls for him…and perchance I may think myself so much better than I am, as that they who are about me, and see my state, may have caused it to toll for me, and I know not that.” - John Donne

“If a clod be washed away by the sea, Europe is the less, as well as if a promontory, as well as if a manor of thy friend’s or of thine own were: Any man’s death diminishes me, because I am involved in mankind, and therefore never send to know for whom the bell tolls; it tolls for thee.” - John Donne