Scripture almost always has multiple applications; past, present, near future, far future, and apocalyptic. Why is that? God is always the same. For instance, if one wants to know the future, look at the past. To know the present, look at the past. The end of time is known by Noah’s time and the present time.
One big difference is the time of man. Their time is based
on righteousness. Many worry about climate change and the longevity of the earth,
but the Earth is forever; not that it will never perish but that it will be
renewed. One of God’s promises is of a new heaven and a new earth. [i]
That promise was known as early as the flood.
Isaiah spoke of that promise, “For, behold, I create new
heavens and a new earth: and the former shall not be remembered, nor come into
mind” (Isa 65:17). That promise is habitable land and a vacant space above the
abode of man. There will be no sun, moon, or stars. Space will be empty, and
the place Heaven and the place Earth will be one realm.
Without the clock, calendar, and aeons — the sun, moon, and
zodiac — there will be no time.
Adam’s time was meant to be eternal. Sin diminished Adam’s
time to 930 years. All the while, Adam was dying. Every cell in his body was
numbered as to their days. Likewise, the days of man are numbered. The number of
days depends on mankind. Sin limited the days of Adam. Perhaps he deserved no
time, but because Adam was sorrowful for his disobedience, rather than die
after eating the “poison,” God gave him a great number of days. Then he withered
until he died… perhaps beneath the withering fig tree.
The psalmist wrote, “My son, forget not my law; but let
thine heart keep my commandments: for length of days, and long life, and peace,
shall they add to thee” (Psalm 3:1-2). That corresponds to the Fifth
Commandment, to wit: “Honour thy father and thy mother: that thy days may be
long upon the land which the Lord thy God giveth thee” (Exod 20:12). Honoring
THE Father adds days to anyone’s life. Look not at them as the “Ten Commandments,”
but the Ten Prescriptions for eternal health. If anyone took all the prescribed
medicine, then there would be eternal life. Not because the Good Doctor forced
the dosages, but because those sick are willing to accept the Good Doctor’s
advice.
The key verse in this commentary is:
And the Lord said, “My spirit shall not always strive with man, for that he also is flesh: yet his days shall be an hundred and twenty years.” (Gen 6:3)
God tires of the strife sinful that man causes. Man is spirit in the image
of God. Hence, mankind is eternal just as God. On the other hand, man is also
flesh. Because of sin, inglorious flesh perishes. Adam was created glorious,
and sin perished the flesh; not with immediacy, but so slowly that it is almost
undetectable.
The soul, of course, is immortal. The brain is within the flesh but the mind
within the soul. As such, the mind never dies. The soul and mind are punished in
Hell along with the wicked flesh. The flesh is immortal in the sense that it never
dies but is continually perishing when in Hell just as in life. In Hell, the perishing
slows such that each moment is an aeon, and the person who perishes is keenly
aware of it — aware every moment of every hour.
Yet his “days” (yome in the Hebrew) are numbered...with half-lives. Yome is
the same word used in the generation of man. [ii]
It means “hot.” Of course, days in this context is not twenty-four hours. “Days,”
herein, are like the “days” of generation. Life is a process… the process of
dying, or a reversal of the process of instilling a living soul into a lifeless
body.
The process is a warm breathing body, twisting from the hotness just as during
the generation of the universe and Adam. It reverses what God had done. (“night”
in scripture is “twisting from the hot;” Strong’s Dictionary). Day to night is
a process, and night is the process coming to equilibrium. Hence, the “days” in
the key verse is mankind coming to equilibrium within the Earth.
Mankind will come to equilibrium (or die) because of the influx of a
contaminate. Righteousness, as has been shown, is the catalyst for longevity,
or a longer “shelf life” so to speak. Sin deems that catalyst inert.
The process of dying, before the flood, was reduced from as much as 969
years with Methuselah, to 120 years for reprobate mankind. As such, the life of
sinners would correspond with the flood which would come in 120 years. Indeed,
it surely took Noah 120 years to build the ark. On the other hand, the years
were numbered in general to be 120 years. The exception is the psalm: “Long
life, and peace, shall they add to thee.”
After the flood, some lived longer than 120 years. Righteous living added
to the 120 years. Today, the maximum age for the life of humans is right at 120
years. Kane Tanaka of Japan was 117 years old in 2020, and at that time, was
the oldest person in the world.
If Christians lived righteously, they could surpass her, but God’s Will
may be that even Christians never live that long. Why so? God has a purpose for
everyone. When His purpose is over, then so is their life. Life in this world
is tribulation, and as Paul said, “To live is Christ; to die is gain” (Phil
1:21).
Those living when God was strived had 120 years of fair warning; to change
or not to change. Change they did not! Under the threat of death, just as Adam
and Eve, they still sinned. And the longer they lived the more horrific their
sinning.
Just as the Commandments are prescriptions for long health, ignoring them
are warnings for certain death. If it was possible, perfect living would result
in eternal life, but knowing that works cannot be done, then by grace, God made
eternal life quite easy. No work is required; one only need to be born again [iii]
to have eternal life. God births. The budding Christian must only understand
that God is the husbandman that does the seeding, nourishing, and transporting of
the old nature to the new creature. [iv]
Not by coincidence, “Noah began to be an husbandman, and he planted a
vineyard” (Gen 9:20). His “vineyard” had two “crops” — grapes and two- kinds of
beings with new opportunities for new natures. Noah “planted” his sons; Shem,
Japheth, and Ham; for the new crop of humans. Like the wine he drank, the third
son was as new wine in an old bottle. [v]
Ham had the spirit of Cain in him. Just as the world was washed clean of Satan,
Satan entered another man. Thereafter the seed of Ham was cursed, and the
Canaanites remain a curse to Shem and Japheth to this day.
Noah was the righteous one, but he too was imperfect because he became
drunken. Noah outlived Adam. He died at 950 years of age. Gradually, to the time
of Moses, the age at death reduced to 120 years and remains there to this day.
Note that Moses could not enter the Promise Land because he too was a sinner.
However, at the transfiguration, Moses made it to the Promise Land and there he
saw that Jesus and God are One! He finally saw the Face of God that was hidden
from him so long.
What redeemed Moses? He saw the Face of God and saw the Man that parted
the waters, provided water and manna from heaven, and killed the brazen serpent
that he carried on a pole as if dead. Moses, perhaps, came to see the Face of
God who merely looked upon the Serpent to kill him and save mankind.
Could it be that Moses was raised from the grave to witness what he saw at
an earlier time? Did Moses get to see the Serpent in Judas on his “pole” — the
hanging tree of Judas? That makes sense as it does Adam, arising from his grave,
when Jesus gave up His Ghost for Adam-kind. [vi]
The days of man “shall be an hundred and twenty years.” The process of
living from “day to night,” from “hot to twisting from the heat,” shall be 120
years. To increase the number of days is increasing the Light.
Bildad, a friend of Job, had said about him, “His remembrance shall perish
from the earth, and he shall have no name in the street. He shall be driven
from light into darkness, and chased out of the world” (Job 18:17-18). Light is life and death is darkness. Sin might
drive Job from life to death. Job needed to retain the Light that he had to
continue living. He did that! Job saw Jesus!
Years later, “John seeth Jesus coming unto him, and saith, ‘Behold the
Lamb of God’” (John 1:29). John saw Jesus just as Adam had. When Adam put a
coat of skin on Adam and Eve, [vii]
sacred literature identifies that skin as from a lamb. When God killed the lamb
to keep Adam and Eve safe from the Wicked One, the Good Shepherd who provided the
lamb was the Lamb of God. Adam saw Jesus and his sins were covered. Darkness in
the Cave of Treasures would no longer be his home, but in the Light of the Lamb.
Jesus saw Adam under the fig tree and had mercy on him. Long after, Jesus
said to Nathaniel, “I saw thee under the fig tree, believest thou?” (John
1:50). Jesus saw Nathaniel then, and he saw him under the fig tree from afar
with Adam. Jesus picked Adam to believe, and Jesus picked Nathaniel; both from
under the fig tree.
Jesus knew Nathaniel before the foundation of the world [viii]
and saw him under the fig tree as Adam’s seed! He knew Nathaniel from long ago.
Nathaniel’s soul lived 4000 years from the seed of Adam to the advent of Jesus.
God knew his soul that His Father had planted in the Garden of Living Souls with
Adam. You were there too, and so was I. We were all planted under and around
the fig tree and the Tree of Life; two trees under which our seeds were
planted!
The Greeks (the seed of Japheth) came to Philip, and merely said, “Sir, we
would see Jesus” (John 12:20). They wanted to see the Light. Saul had been
blinded; he testified that, “I could not see for the glory of that Light” (Acts
22:11). Saul saw the Light of Jesus and received a new nature. He became Paul
because he saw Jesus. Sir, I would see Jesus! And then he would receive
the Light.
Noah saw Jesus. He built the ark to specifications provided by the Son of
the Carpenter. He would provide the wood for the new Garden that would float
again on the waters. The Ark once again separated the waters from the waters
(Gen 1:6) and was the “firmament” on which mankind would stand. Noah’s ship was
surely the passage of the Garden of Eden with seeds of ‘adami and his
animals aboard to plant the Garden again on the same foundation — “the
foundation of peace” (Jerusalem). God would replant His seed on the same Foundation
Stone as before. The Garden of Eden, lost in the waters, would be made firm
again right there atop the Foundation Stone where God had His Temple built — on
the same rock that Noah built an altar to the Lord. [ix]
Life was extended after the flood. Although Adam’s kind would live only
120 years, the Earth would be forever. [x]
God had made the world immortal; never again would it be renewed by water, but
in the end by fire. When the heaven and earth pass away, there will emerge and
new heaven and earth [xi]
wherein mankind’s life will be extended, way beyond those 120 years, to eternal
life!
The life of Adam was meant to be eternal, but one sin reduced it to 930
years. After many generations of mutated “seed,” life was reduced to 120 years.
Only the Light of God can extend life beyond that. When we see Jesus, and believe,
then life will be extended beyond the grave. Perhaps, on the day that Jesus arose,
both Noah and Adam arose from their graves:
Jesus, when he had
cried again with a loud voice, yielded up the ghost. And, behold, the veil of
the temple was rent in twain from the top to the bottom; and the earth did
quake, and the rocks rent; and the graves were opened; and many bodies of the
saints which slept arose, and came out of the graves after His resurrection,
and went into the holy city, and appeared unto many. (Mat 27:50-53)
What happened to the saints that arose? It is not known, but perhaps, they
too would see Jesus. Like Jesus who was seen by many before he arose,
perhaps Noah, Moses, and Adam were seen by many, but with the blinding Light of
Jesus, they would only see Jesus.
What happened on the good ship, Noah’s Ark? Life was reduced to 120 years
but by grace at the same time, eternal life that was lost before was again
possible. Paradise had floated on the waters as before and provided for them a
place to live for eternity.
Jesus told the saints in His day, “In my Father's house are many mansions:
if it were not so, I would have told you. I go to prepare a place for you” (John
14:2). That is what God did on the Ark and what He will do in Paradise! The
first time it was for 150 days on the Ark, and in the end, it will be forever.
Yes, indeed, the Ark was a floating vessel full of the “seed” that would regrow
Paradise lost.
Jesus is the “cup” that could not be passed. [xii]
The more specific translation is that Jesus is the “vessel.” Jesus was the “Ark”
that carried God’s Seed that would make Paradise seen again.
That day, the Holy Cross carried the soul of the thief and the Holy Ghost of Jesus to Paradise. The Ark was symbolic of the Cross of Jesus that would carry the faithful of Adam’s kind to the restored Paradise. In both cases, all the multitude needed to do was get on the “Ship” before God closed the door.
Has the time come? Is the end when time for mankind reaches 120 and goes no further. Has the deadly half-life come where Adam-kind will be no more? Death is gain; it moves from finite to infinite in twenty seconds. It takes just that long for the brain to die but for the soul to live forever. It is that short a time to see Jesus, or the same amount to stare the Devil in the face.
(picture credit: Flkr: "Face of the Devil;" Haller and Maire)
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