Commentary on Genesis, Vol. 2: Luther on Sin and the Flood

by Martin Luther

74. The paramount doctrine contained in these five chapters is, accordingly, this: that men died and lived again. In Adam all men died. But believers lived again through the promised seed, as the history of Abel and Enoch testifies. In Adam, death was appointed for Seth and all others; hence it is written of every one: "And he died." But Abel and Enoch illustrate the resurrection from the dead and the life immortal. The purpose intended is that we should not despair in death but entertain the unwavering assurance that the believers in the promised seed shall live, and be taken by God, whether from the water or the fire or the gibbet, or the tomb. We desire to live, and we shall live, namely the eternal life through the promised seed, which remains when this is past.

IV.	LAMECH AND HIS SON NOAH.
	A.	LAMECH.
		1.	He lived at the time Enoch was taken to heaven [75].
		*	To what end Enoch's ascension served the holy patriarchs [75].
		2.	Why Lamech called his son Noah [76-77].
		*	The erroneous comments of the rabbins taken by Lyra without any good reason [78-79].
		3.	On what Lamech's heart was centered at Noah's birth [79-81].
		4.	How and why Lamech erred in the case of his son as Eve did at Cain's birth [80].
		*	The longing of the patriarchs for the Messiah was of the Holy Spirit [81].
		*	Complaint of the world's ingratitude [82].
		*	The patriarchs' greatest treasure and desire [82].
		*	Comparison of the three worlds [83-85].
		*	Why the present world so lightly esteems Christ, whom the patriarchs so highly revered [84].
		*	The first world was the best, the last the worst [85].

IV. LAMECH AND HIS SON NOAH.

A. Lamech.

Vs. 28-29. And Lamech lived a hundred eighty and two years, and begat a son: and he called his name Noah, saying, This same shall comfort us in our work and in the toil of our hands, which cometh because of the ground which Jehovah hath cursed.

75. Only incidentally Moses adverts in this account to the name of Noah, which certainly deserves a somewhat careful examination. Lamech was living when Enoch was taken away by God out of this life into the other immortal life. When the great glory of God had become manifest in the extraordinary miracle of the rapture from a lowly estate into life eternal of Enoch who was a man like us, a husband, a man with family, having sons, daughters, household, fields and cattle, the holy fathers were filled and fired with such joy as to conclude that the glad day was near which should witness the fulfilment of the promise. That Enoch was taken up living, to be with the Lord, appeared as a salient display of divine mercy.

76. As Adam and Eve, after the reception of the promise, were so absorbed in their hope that, in their joy to see a man like themselves, they identified Cain with the promised seed, so in my judgment Lamech committed a similar pious error when he gave his son the name Noah, and said: This same shall comfort us, and shall deliver us from the labors and sorrows of this life. Original sin, and the punishment thereof, shall now cease. We shall now be restored to our former innocent state. The curse shall now cease which rests on the earth on account of the sin of Adam; and all the other miseries inflicted on the human race on account of sin, shall also cease.

77. Such considerations as these prompted Lamech to base upon the fact of his grandfather's rapture into paradise unaccompanied by pain, sickness and death, the hope that presently the whole of paradise was to be ushered in. He concludes that Noah was the promised seed by whom the earth was to be restored. This notion that the curse is about to be lifted is expressed in unmistakable terms. Not so; neither the curse of sin nor its penalty can be removed unless original sin itself shall have been removed first.