{"id":2245,"date":"2025-04-15T08:40:12","date_gmt":"2025-04-15T12:40:12","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/midwestapologetics.org\/blog\/?p=2245"},"modified":"2025-04-15T08:40:13","modified_gmt":"2025-04-15T12:40:13","slug":"enhancing-creation-apologetics-through-biblical-theology-part-three","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/midwestapologetics.org\/blog\/?p=2245","title":{"rendered":"Enhancing Creation Apologetics through Biblical Theology\u2014Part Three"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Interpreting the Bible involves more than applying our own systematic theology to a given passage. We must look carefully at the text in light of its context, while employing both biblical theology and systematic theology.<\/p><\/div>\n

In the previous post in this series on biblical theology, we took a closer look at Genesis 6:3 and examined an interpretation that has been favored by many creationists in recent decades. God had stated that His spirit would not \u201cstrive with\u201d or \u201cremain\u201d in man indefinitely, and then He mentioned a judgment of some sort that had something to do with a 120-year time period. Here is the verse again:<\/p>\n

And the LORD said, \u201cMy Spirit shall not strive with man forever, for he is indeed flesh; yet his days shall be one hundred and twenty years.\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

While most commentators believe this judgment had to do with God limiting man\u2019s lifespan to 120 years, many creationists have adopted the position that the 120-year time span had to do with a countdown to the Flood\u2014that God was giving man 120 years to turn from his wickedness. As we examined that idea, we saw that there were at least three problems with it. First, the text does not tell us that God spoke these words to a human, and when we compare this verse with all of the other passages in the first five chapters of Genesis, we can make a strong case that God was not speaking to a man or group of humans in this passage. So, how would man ever know that God was giving them 120 years to repent? Second, based on a lexical analysis, the word translated as \u201cstrive with\u201d in some Bibles should probably be translated as \u201cabide in,\u201d which would strongly favor the reduction in lifespan view. Finally, even if it should be translated as \u201cstrive with,\u201d the verse doesn\u2019t quite make sense if we view it as a countdown to the Flood. That is, how would a 120-year countdown to the Flood resolve the issue of God\u2019s spirit striving with man since mankind was still wicked after the Flood, and God\u2019s spirit would still be striving with us today.<\/p>\n

Before we turn our attention to discover how we can use biblical theology to better understand this verse, I need to explain how these two posts fit within the overall series. Those involved in creation apologetics generally focus on Genesis 1\u201311, since we see these chapters as providing the historical foundation for the biblical worldview. These chapters include major earth-shaping events, such as creation, man\u2019s fall, the Flood, and the Babel event. Since Genesis 6:3 is right in the middle of these chapters, we need to be sure that we are properly interpreting this verse.<\/p>\n

Genesis 6:3 and Biblical Theology<\/strong><\/p>\n

As we saw in the previous post, careful exegesis shows us that Genesis 6:3 should be understood as saying that God\u2019s spirit would not \u201cremain in\u201d or \u201cabide in\u201d man indefinitely. This translation strongly favors the countdown view. It also gives us a reason for why man\u2019s lifespan dropped rapidly after the flood\u2014God withdrew some of His life-giving spirit that had enabled man to live so long.<\/p>\n

Why would the Lord deliver this type of punishment on mankind? Clearly, this was a way in which God would limit the amount of wickedness humans could carry out. Instead of living nearly a thousand years, now they would have a maximum of 120 years to rebel against their Creator.<\/p>\n

This punishment is also consistent with what God did when Adam and Eve sinned in the garden. If they had not sinned, they would have lived forever, but their rebellion brought death upon themselves and the rest of creation (Romans 5:12; 8:20\u201322). The Lord banished them from the garden so that they could not take from the tree of life and live forever (Genesis 3:22\u201324). So, God had already reduced man\u2019s limitless lifespan to about 1,000 years. ((The Bible doesn\u2019t clearly reveal the maximum lifespan of post-fall, pre-Flood man, but none of the individuals listed in Genesis 5 surpassed 1,000 years.)) Similarly, at Babel, God confused man\u2019s language, which forced them to scatter. While He didn\u2019t reduce their lifespans here, His judgment curbed their overall wickedness by keeping them apart.<\/p>\n

We need to keep in mind how the original audience might have understood this passage. Imagine being one of the Israelites wandering in the wilderness, or if you were able to go back and read the Bible for the first time without any prior knowledge of what it said, what would probably be going through your mind as you reached the end of Genesis 5? 930 years and he died\u2026912 years and he died\u2026910 years and he died\u2026895 years and he died\u2026969 years and he died\u2026777 years and he died. It seems natural to start wondering, \u201cWhy did they live so long?\u201d or put a different way, \u201cWhy don\u2019t we live so long?\u201d I have been asked these questions many times, so I know that a lot of people wonder about this. When the Israelites reached Mt. Sinai, none of them had experienced anything like the lifespans described in Genesis 5 and 11. So, it would make perfect sense that they would be wondering the same thing. If you\u2019ve ever wondered this after reading Genesis 5, wouldn\u2019t it be great if the Bible would give you the answer to that question? That\u2019s exactly what it does in the very next passage\u2014man\u2019s lifespan will be limited to 120 years.<\/p>\n

Beginning at the point, lifespans rapidly declined, and they continued to do so until Moses, the man who wrote this passage, lived 120 years. Since his time, only one person in the Bible is said to have lived longer\u2014Jehoiada the priest lived 130 years (2 Chronicles 24:15). Perhaps God blessed him with a longer life because he and his wife rescued baby Joash from being killed along with all of his brothers by the wicked Queen Athaliah. Even in our day, the oldest people come close to 120, but they don\u2019t reach it. ((Jeanne Calment reportedly lived to 122 years old, but a study published in 2018 demonstrates that she was almost certainly a fraud Nikolay Zak, “Jeanne Calment: The Secret of Longevity,” December 2018. Available at https:\/\/www.researchgate.net\/publication\/329773795_Jeanne_Calment_the_secret_of_longevity<\/a>. Zak makes a very strong case that Jeanne died in 1934 at the age of 58, and her daughter Yvonne assumed her identity to avoid France\u2019s steep inheritance tax that the family had recently paid when Jeanne\u2019s father passed away a couple of years earlier. Then Yvonne lived until her death in 1997 at the age of 98, but because she had assumed her mother\u2019s identity, she claimed to have been 122 at the time.)) And even if there are some exceptions, like Jehoiada, it doesn\u2019t rule out the lifespan view of Genesis 6:3. God often makes exceptions in Scripture. For example, Hebrews 9:27 tells us that \u201cit is appointed for men to die once, but after this the judgment.\u201d But it seems that Lazarus and others raised from the dead in the Bible (other than Jesus) ended up dying twice.<\/p>\n

Finally, there is another detail that is often overlooked in this discussion. The immediate context of this verse is not the Flood. Instead, it appears right in the middle of the passage about the enigmatic sons of God and the Nephilim. The text has not yet introduced the Flood, the Ark, or given a full description of man\u2019s abundant wickedness on the earth. In fact, it is not until the following verses, Genesis 6:5\u201312, that the Bible gives us any indication that the world was filled with violence and other evils. Genesis 3 introduces man\u2019s fall when Adam and Eve rebelled against God, and the next chapter tells us that Cain killed Abel and that one of Cain\u2019s distant descendants was a murderer and polygamist (Genesis 4:19\u201324). Genesis 5 gives us the genealogy of Adam to Noah through Adam\u2019s son Shem. There we read about Enoch, a man who \u201cwalked with God\u201d (Genesis 5:24). By the time we reach Genesis 6, the only statement about the spiritual state of mankind in general tells us that when Seth\u2019s son Enosh was born, men began to call on the name of the LORD (Genesis 4:26). So, why would a first-time reader think that this judgment has to do with something that hasn\u2019t been mentioned yet?<\/p>\n

Objection \u2013 \u201cForever\u201d Contradicts the Lifespan View<\/em><\/p>\n

One potential objection to the lifespan view is that if the passage means that God\u2019s spirit would not \u201cabide\u201d or \u201cremain\u201d in man forever, then the verse doesn\u2019t really seem make sense given its location in the biblical narrative. That is, mankind was not living \u201cforever\u201d at this point in history. Sure, it might have made sense if He said this to Adam and Eve when they sinned, because they were no longer going to be able to live forever. And although some of their descendants before the Flood lived very long lives of over 900 years, these people didn\u2019t live forever. So, how does the lifespan view account for this dilemma.<\/p>\n

This objection poses a good challenge if we were limited to reading this verse in English, because most of our Bibles do indeed translate the Hebrew word \u2018olam<\/em> as \u201cforever.\u201d However, the Hebrew and Aramaic Lexicon of the Old Testament<\/em> (HALOT<\/em>) gives its primary definition as a \u201clong time, duration.\u201d And the Brown-Driver-Briggs<\/em> lexicon defines it as \u201clong duration, antiquity, futurity.\u201d Thus, the NET Bible\u2019s use of \u201cindefinitely\u201d here makes better sense than forever<\/em>: God\u2019s spirit would not remain in man indefinitely.<\/p>\n

Yes, \u2018olam<\/em> can mean forever<\/em>, but there are numerous instances in the Old Testament, particularly in the five books of Moses, where it simply refers to a long time or an indefinite period of time. Let\u2019s look at some examples where \u2018olam <\/em>refers to a long or indefinite period of time to demonstrate why this objection to the countdown view does not hold up.<\/p>\n