Genesis Chapter 5

The Literal Story

This chapter continues the story of lineage of Adam and Eve. There are ten generations between them and their ever-so-great grandson Noah.

The Inner Meaning

As revealed in the last several chapters, the story being told here is about The Most Ancient Church, the Church of Man. Over time, this church changed as later generations did not have the same level of connection with God that their forefathers had attained. This story is being told and revealed so that we can understand that it is man who changes not God. Our Heavenly Father will always be trying reach us to lead and guide us to his Heavenly domain.

The story that develops throughout this chapter is told as a generational story. What was revealed in chapter four in the story of Cain and Abel, the word sons refer to changing doctrines that later generations of this church developed to express their understanding and relationship with God. The ancient writers and story tellers chose names that signified the type of people they represented. The story that unfolds here will give us an understanding of human nature and where we go wrong in our relationship with God. Also, it will be important to understand the ages given for these ancient peoples. As noted in earlier chapters of Genesis, days, weeks, years, and seasons have a correlation to stages. Numbers also portray stages but in a different aspect. Numbers such as 3, 6, 7, 10, and 40, and derivatives of those numbers stand for spiritual or Heavenly things. The ages given for these ancient peoples reveal spiritual or Heavenly things, time as we know it does not apply in Heaven (AC 493).

Of note is the fact that this generational story, “the book of births of man” does not include any reference to Cain and Abel, suffice to say that their story was revealed in the last chapter. This chapter could best be understood as a summary story of the later generations of the most ancient church with additional details to be revealed in later chapters.

Spiritual Lessons

Spiritual lessons from this chapter- Because this chapter is a summary of the fall of the most ancient church of man, what is revealed here is the steps and stages man will go through as the connection to God is lost. This is revealed in the generations of man. As mentioned above, God does not change, it is man who changes. Later generations of this very old church did not attain the same connection that their forefathers had to God. This very old church came to an end and God established a new church in its’ place, the church of Noah and his sons.

Digging Deeper

Here's a link to the Chapter text: Genesis 5

As this chapter opens, we should understand that the story being revealed in the opening verses is the first stage of this new church. This is the book of “man,” in the day that God created him. This is a reference to the story told in chapter one regarding rebirth and regeneration. This church originally was led to rebirth and became a likeness of God, a living representative of the Kingdom of God here on earth. (AC 471) “Male and female He created them” is reference to the fact that there was a marriage of faith and love. (AC 476) By calling them “man” signified this was the church He created (AC 475).

In the process of worldly time, successive generations of the most ancient church did not retain the same perception that their parents had. Each generation will make their connection with God based on their spirituality and their desire to either follow him or follow worldly desires. As the story unfolds, these later generations lost the connection that their forefathers had to God. As Swedenborg describes, it is a natural process, one built into Gods plan for man, and completely foreseen by God. Each generation of man has its own evils and as each generation comes along those evils can be passed on to the next generation thus multiplying those evils until eventually becoming completely blind to their state of being. (The New Jerusalem and its Heavenly Doctrine #83)

At verse three we are told that this church “begat into his likeness, after his image, and called his name Seth.” This means that Seth stood for a doctrine that was very close to that of the first generation of the Most Ancient Church. Here, being an “image” stands for love, and a “likeness” stands for faith. This would then indicate that the second generation of this church was very similar to the first generation. Also revealed in this verse is the age for Adam when Seth was born, that he was 130 years old. As mentioned in other explanations, days, weeks, and years, do not mean actual calendar time it reveals stages. (AC 481) If we remember, we are learning about a church and a group of people that made up that church, where the times or stages can be more easily understood. In verse four it indicates that man lived 800 years after he begat Seth. Viewed as a church, the time indicated is much easier to understand. However, when numbers are used in the Word it does stand for something spiritual and reveals more than can be easily explained here. For those looking for even deeper meanings, it would be good to explore the added detail that a book on correspondences would reveal.

As the story continues to unfold, Seth begat Enosh which reveals that Enosh is now the third generation from man or Adam. These three churches, “Man,” “Seth,” and “Enosh,” constitute The Most Ancient Church, but with a difference of perfection as to perceptions. The perceptive faculty of the first church gradually diminished in the succeeding churches and became more general. Perception consists in the faculty of perceiving distinctly. When the faculty is diminished, then the perception is less distinct and more general. An obscured perception then succeeds in the place of that which was clearer, and thus it begins to vanish away. (AC 502)

The perceptive faculty of The Most Ancient Church consisted not only in the perception of what is good and true, but also in the happiness and delight arising from doing good. Without such happiness and delight in doing what is good, the perceptive faculty has no life, but by virtue of such happiness and delight it receives life. The life of love, and of the derivative faith, such as The Most Ancient Church enjoyed, is life while in the performance of use, that is, in the good and truth of use. From use, by use, and according to use, life is given by the Lord. There can be no life in what is useless, for whatever is useless is cast away. In this respect the most ancient people were a likeness of the Lord, and therefore in perceptive powers they became images of him. The perceptive power consists in knowing what is good and true, consequently what is of faith. He who is in love is not delighted in knowing, but in doing what is good and true, that is, in being useful. (AC 503)

The story of the generations continues verse by verse with not much to understand except that each generation falls further and further from their connection with God until we come to the seventh generation and the man named Enoch. At verse twenty-two it reveals that Enoch walked with God and begat sons and daughters. To “walk with God” signifies doctrine concerning faith. That he “begat sons and daughters” signifies doctrinal matters concerning truths and goods. (AC 518)

There were some, at this time in the genealogy, who constructed doctrines from the things that had been matters of perception in The Most Ancient and succeeding churches. This was done in order that such doctrine might serve as a rule, or doctrine to know what was good and true. We could compare this to today and our Bible, something that we turn to for the Lord’s teachings. The people of this time began to construct their own Word (referenced in the opening summary of Genesis) and such peoples were called “Enoch.” This is what is signified by the words, “and Enoch walked with God.” To walk with God signifies a doctrine to live by that is based on faith. Also of note, the name “Enoch,” means to “instruct.” At verse twenty-three and twenty-four we read “all the days of Enoch being three hundred sixty and five years” is signified that they were few. By his “walking with God” signifies, as above, a doctrine concerning faith. By “he was no more, for God took him” is signified the preservation of that doctrine for the use of posterity. (AC 520)

As to the words “he was no more, for God took him” means the preservation of that doctrine for the use of later generations. As indicated in verse 22, the church of Enoch reduced to doctrine what in the most ancient church had been a matter of perception. The Most Ancient Church could perceive what was good and true. They did not need a doctrine to live by. For to know by perception is a very different thing than from learning by doctrine.

In ancient Hebrew scripture there is a book known as “The Book of Enoch” and it was read by early Jewish Church priests and early Christian Fathers. Whether this book was written by the people known as Enoch it is hard to determine. Current scholarship estimates that this book was written in the second and third century BC.

Continuing in our generational story, Enoch begets Methuselah and Methuselah begets Lamech. “Lamech” signifies a ninth church and ninth generation from Man or Adam, wherein the perception of truth and good was so general and obscure that it was next to none, so that the church was vastated. (AC 526)

In future verses, the name Lamech, as shown in chapter 4, indicates a church that has become vastated. When this happens, the Lord will raise up a new church as we will see in the coming verses.

When we reach the end of this chapter at verses 29-31, we find the story begins to turn and focus on Noah and his sons. Noah will represent a new church that the Lord will raise up to replace the now vastated church of the people known as the Adamic race. The new church of Noah is referred to by Swedenborg as the Ancient Church. The details and story of this church will be revealed in later parts of Genesis, i.e. chapters 6-10.