Our Inheritance from Adam’s Family

Genesis 5:1-17 

1 This is the book of the genealogy of Adam. In the day that God created man, He made him in the likeness of God. 2 He created them male and female, and blessed them and called them Mankind in the day they were created. 3 And Adam lived one hundred and thirty years, and begot a son in his own likeness, after his image, and named him Seth. 4 After he begot Seth, the days of Adam were eight hundred years; and he had sons and daughters. 5 So all the days that Adam lived were nine hundred and thirty years; and he died. 6 Seth lived one hundred and five years, and begot Enosh. 7 After he begot Enosh, Seth lived eight hundred and seven years, and had sons and daughters. 8 So all the days of Seth were nine hundred and twelve years; and he died.

9 Enosh lived ninety years, and begot Cainan. 10 After he begot Cainan, Enosh lived eight hundred and fifteen years, and had sons and daughters. 11 So all the days of Enosh were nine hundred and five years; and he died.

12 Cainan lived seventy years, and begot Mahalalel. 13 After he begot Mahalalel, Cainan lived eight hundred and forty years, and had sons and daughters. 14 So all the days of Cainan were nine hundred and ten years; and he died.

15 Mahalalel lived sixty-five years, and begot Jared. 16 After he begot Jared, Mahalalel lived eight hundred and thirty years, and had sons and daughters. 17 So all the days of Mahalalel were eight hundred and ninety-five years; and he died.

As Adam’s family began to grow and fill the earth in their multiplication, the first thing to see here is that the genealogy is focused on the beginning.  God made us in His likeness, made us both male and female, and blessed us as good while calling us after Adam, his kind (man/Adam kind).  We are descendants of the image bearers of God, sons and daughters of Adam the son of God, as recorded in the genealogy of Jesus in Luke 3:38, and are each borne in Adam’s likeness by God’s design.  This means we inherit not only the image bearing of our Creator, but also the sin of our progenitors.  We are all born in sin, guilty before God even before we act out any sin in our thoughts or actions (Romans 5:12, 1 Corinthians 15:21-22).  We are not born good, as some would like to believe.  What we do see here in the first descendants of Adam and Eve is the extremely long lifespans; 930 years for Adam, 912 for Seth, Enosh lived to 905, Cainan to 910, and Mahalalel made it to 895 years old.  These lifespans are about 10 times ours!  This gave them many of our lifetimes to be fruitful and multiply to fill the earth.  Though we are not told of every child born, we know they were able to find mates and continue multiplying quickly and for long times by this design.  In spite of the sin each inherited, God still showed grace by blessing them with many more children.  Here we see God’s goodness which is undeserved, a fact which we all should humbly keep in mind to be thankful of His kindness that leads us to repentance (Romans 2:4) while we were still dead in our sin which is our inheritance in Adam’s family from the womb (Romans 5:8).