Commentary on Genesis Part 20

* What is necessary to interpret Scripture 50.

h. The true sense of these words 51.

* Scripture definition of "to judge" 51.

2. The author of this judgment and lamentation 51-53.

* Man's conduct upon hearing G.o.d's Word preached 54.

3. From what kind of a heart does such judgment and lamentation spring 55.

* What kind of grief is the grief of the Holy Spirit 56.

* G.o.d's severest punishment 57-59.

* What follows when man does not possess G.o.d's Word 57-58.

* Why the heathen are so carnal 58.

4. The nature of this judgment and lamentation 59.

* The lamentation and judgment of Luther over Germany because it lightly esteemed G.o.d's Word 60.

* The spirit of grace and of prayer 61.

* The office of the ministry.

a. It requires two things 62.

b. It is the greatest blessing of G.o.d 63.

c. To despise it is a great sin, and what follows when it is taken from a people 63.

d. A complaint of its neglect 64.

e. This office is explained by the expression "to judge" 65.

* Every G.o.dly preacher is one who disputes and judges 65.

* Luther's grief because of the stubbornness of the world 66.

* Why Ahab called Elijah a troubler of Israel 67.

* Why the world resents being reproved by sound doctrine. It is a good sign if a minister is reviled by the world 68.

* The glory of people who boast of being the Church.

a. Such glory avails nothing before G.o.d 68-70.

b. Papists wish by all means to have this glory 68-70.

c. Papists need this glory to suppress the Protestants 71.

d. Christ will decide at the judgment day to whom this glory belongs 71.

e. Although the first world adorned itself with this glory, it did not save them 72.

5. How and why this judgment and complaint are ascribed to G.o.d 73-74.

6. How they were published to the world by the holy patriarchs 75.

7. Why they were made 76.

8. In what way they have been published to the world 77.

9. How the world resented this judgment and complaint 78.

* Time given to the first world for repentance.

a. We are not to understand the 120 years as the period of a man's life 79.

b. The 120 years the time given these people in which to repent 80-81.

10. Whether and to what end this time was necessary 82.

11. How the old world felt upon hearing this 83.

* The complaint and judgment of the last world 84-86.

* The nearer the world approaches its destruction the less it thinks of it 86.

* How the time of the flood is to be compared with the time G.o.d gives man to repent 87.

II. THE JUDGMENT AND LAMENTATION OF G.o.d OVER THE FIRST WORLD; NOAH AND HIS PREACHING.

A. G.o.d'S JUDGMENT AND LAMENTATION OVER THE OLD WORLD.

V. 3. _Jehovah said, "My Spirit shall not strive with man forever, for that he also is flesh: yet shall his days be a hundred and twenty years."_

41. Moses here begins by describing Noah as the highest pontiff and priest, or, as Peter calls him, a preacher of righteousness. This text has been mangled in various ways, for the natural man cannot understand spiritual things. When, therefore, the interpreters, with unwashed feet and hands, rushed into the Holy Scriptures, taking with them a human bias and method, as they themselves acknowledge, they could not but fall into diverse and erroneous views. It has almost come to pa.s.s, that the more sublime and spiritual the utterances of Scripture, the more shamefully they have been distorted. This pa.s.sage in particular they have managed so shamelessly that you would not know what to believe, if you followed the interpreters.

42. The Jews are the first to crucify Moses here, for this is their exposition: My Spirit, that is my indignation and wrath, shall not always abide upon man. I will not be angry with men, but spare them, for they are flesh. That means, being spurred by sin, they incline to sin. This meaning Jerome also adopts, who is of the opinion that here only the sin of l.u.s.t is spoken of, to which we are all p.r.o.ne by nature. But his first error is that he interprets Spirit as wrath. It is the Holy Spirit Moses here speaks of, as the contrast shows. "For man," he says, "is flesh." The meaning is, therefore, that the flesh is not only p.r.o.ne to sin, but also hostile toward G.o.d.

43. Then the matter itself serves as refutation, for could anything more absurd have been devised? They see with their eyes the wrath of G.o.d swallowing the whole human race through the flood, and yet they expound that G.o.d does not wish to be influenced toward the human race by anger but by mercy, and this after a hundred and twenty years, the very time of the flood.

44. Rabbi Solomon expounds it thus: The Spirit which is in G.o.d shall no more strive and wrangle. As if G.o.d in his majesty would have disputed and wrangled about what should be done with man, whether to destroy or to spare him, finally, wearied by man's wickedness, determining upon his destruction, nevertheless.

45. Others understand this of the created spirit: My spirit that I breathed upon the face of man, that is the spirit of man, shall no longer strive and contend with the flesh, which is in subjection to its l.u.s.ts, for I shall take away this spirit and free it from the flesh, so that when the latter has become extinct, it may create no more difficulties for the spirit. This is the understanding of Origen, and it does not differ much from the Manichean error which attributes sin not to the whole man, but only to a part. And Augustine says that this had pleased him most in the tenets of the Manicheans, to hear that his depravity was not altogether his, but only of that part of the body which is evil from the beginning. The Manicheans posited two principles, the good and the bad, just as certain philosophers have posited enmity and friendship. Thus do men not only miss the mark, but they also fall into unG.o.dly delusions.