God’s Presence of Earth and Animal Sacrifice from Gen 3 until The Flood Gen 7
God’s Presence of Earth and Animal Sacrifice from Gen 3 until The Flood Gen 7
This is a follow up from the previous Blog on Gen 4:1-15, to expand on the first 2 points:
God was “physically” present on the earth up until the Flood.
Animal sacrifice was being practiced by Seth’s line.
Regarding #1, listed below are the things God did from Gen 2 until he closed the door on the Ark in Gen 7:16.
he formed (same word as a potter molding clay) Adam = Gen 2:7
he breathed (inflate) the breath of life into Adam’s nostrils = Gen 2:7
he planted (word to plant with our hands) a garden = Gen 2:8
he put (bring, conveyed) Adam to the garden = Gen 2:8
he took him to the garden (hands on word) = Gen 2:15
he commanded him (face to face) = Gen 2:16
he brought (by hand, accompanied) the animals to Adam = Gen 2:19
he waited to see what Adam would call them = Gen 2:19
he operated on Adam (took out rib and closed up flesh) = Gen 2:21
he made (built with hands) Eve from the rib = Gen 2:22
he brought (same word for bringing animals to Adam) Eve to Adam = Gen 2:22
he walked (normal word for walking) in the garden = Gen 3:8
he called out and spoke (face-to-face) with Adam and Eve = Gen 3:9-19
he spoke (face-to-face) with Satan = Gen 3:9-19
he killed an animal and made clothing from the skin = Gen 3:21
he spoke face-to-face with Cain and Abel = Gen 4
he put a mark (visible, real) on Cain = Gen 4:15
he was called upon (visited) by men = Gen 4:26
he walked with Enoch = Gen 5:24
he took Enoch to heaven = Gen 5:24
he saw (he did not come down, as in Gen 11:7) the wickedness of men = Gen 6:5
he spoke with Noah = Gen 6:13
he shut the door of the Ark = Gen 7:16
I think we can say God was “physically” present on earth, but I am not saying he was 24/7 continually on earth, after all, he took Enoch to heaven, but he was present. In Gen 11, he says, “let us go down” to see what the Tower of Babel is all about, so it seems that after The Flood, he was not present on earth, as he had previously been. I do not want to go too far here!
I am writing “physical” in quotes because this would be the pre-incarnate Son of God, the Second person of the Trinity.
The point is, he was on earth, interacting with men.
“Then was I with him, … Rejoicing in the habitable part of his earth; and my delights were with the sons of men.” Pro 8:30-31
Regarding #2, animal sacrifice was practiced by Seth’s line; that was how they worshipped God
The statement in Gen 4:26 “And to Seth, to him also there was born a son; and he called his name Enos: then began men to call upon the name of the LORD.” I take to mean that starting with Enos, men began again to “call upon God,” meaning to “visit” him and bring animal sacrifices as offerings to him, just as Cain and Abel had been doing. During the interval from the murder of Abel, until verse 4:26, and we do not know how long that was, men had stopped bring animal sacrifices to God; verse 4:26 records the resumption of that, and remember, when verse 4:26 happens, Adam was still alive, and so was Cain. As support for this, I offer Gen 7:2 “Of every clean beast thou shalt take to thee by sevens, the male and his female: and of beasts that are not clean by two, the male and his female.” Clean is a designation for animals that are acceptable for sacrifice. And the reason that 7 of them were needed, was that Noah, upon leaving the Ark, would again resume animal sacrifice, just as he had been doing up until he went into the Ark; all the time he had been building the Ark. This was part of his being a “preacher of righteousness” 2Pe 2:5
And this is exactly what we see.
“And Noah builded an altar unto the LORD; and took of every clean beast, and of every clean fowl, and offered burnt offerings on the altar.” Gen 8:20
The very first thing Noah does upon leaving the Ark, is to build an altar, and sacrifice; and he sacrificed “clean” animals. Why did Noah do that? Because that is what he and his relatives, Seth’s decedents, the godly line of people that “called upon God,” had been doing for hundreds of years; Enos was born in the Year 235 (from Creation), the Flood occurred in Year 1656! We are talking a very long time.
A few other things that we tend to not think about:
Garden of Eden was still there.
The Tree of Life was still there, and maybe close enough to the border of the Garden to be visible, in spite of the flaming sword wielding Cherubim.
There were Giants.
There was no rain, just a midst.
The human population at the time of the Flood, by simple mathematical calculation, was near 4 Billion people; you can Google that.
Everybody spoke one language.
There were dinosaurs.
Animals were not afraid of people.
A tenant of Evolution is Uniformitarianism, which means there were no cataclysmic events that effected history, but the bible gives us a different story; pre-Flood, the world was very different; people were not, but the world was.
25 February 2024