Fear No Fear

(All scripture from the World English Bible, ebible.org, all rights reserved)

“This is the book of the generations of Adam. In the day that God created man, he made him in God’s likeness. He created them male and female, and blessed them. On the day they were created, he named them Adam. Adam lived one hundred thirty years, and became the father of a son in his own likeness, after his image, and named him Seth.“
(Genesis 5:1-3)

God resets our view to the line of Adam as it propagates through his third son, Seth. First God re-established the truth that male and female were created as ONE, then separated and meant to inhabit with each other as ONE – equal partners with each submitted to the other and no one dominating the relationship. God re-establishes that we are meant to live in a male-female partnership to accomplish what He sets before us and He sees NO DIFFERENCE between us. We were BLESSED together when created in His image and likeness. We were NAMED together when created in His image and likeness. It is in and through Jesus that we regain this position and live in His image and likeness.

Then God separates out and we look at Adam specifically. We’re not ever told how old he was when he and Eve had Cain or Abel. But they were 130 years old when they had Seth. Seth was in ADAM’s image and likeness – and so has every other human being have been. All Adam’s children share his DNA. His Sin. We are BORN sinful and need Jesus to RENEW us to JESUS’ image and likeness through salvation. If we don’t accept his creative work through the cross, we remain in Sin. If we do, we are new creatures created in Jesus, through our trusting in His mercy and grace, and we become as He is (2 Corinthians 5:21).

The sage Da’at Zekenim writes: ‘In Torat Kohanim Rabbi Akiva is quoted as saying that that verse teaches us “a great rule, an all inclusive concept,” (a variation of Hillel who summed up the essence of Judaism as don’t do to others what you would not have do them to you.) Ben Azzai understands the words as applying to the end of the verse, i.e. אני ה’, “I am the Lord,” a reminder that all human beings have been created in the image of the Lord, so that no race can feel superior to another race, [regardless of the colour of their skin. Ed.] He applies the verse even to people who due to their humility have a low esteem of their own value as not being allowed to forget that we are all descended from the same origin. Everyone must respect his fellow man’s dignity and honour, regardless of how unassuming he himself happens to be. He must look at the likeness of his fellow man seeing that he cannot look at himself objectively.’

The sage Or HaChaim writes: ‘The Torah wished to demonstrate that all of G’d’s ways are designed to ensure that life continues. When the Torah recorded some history for both obvious and hidden reasons, it became necessary to mention the death of Adam and his descendants. G’d began the report by stressing that as far as He was concerned none of this tragedy needed to have happened. People should not accuse G’d as having toyed with creating living beings only in order to destroy them whenever He felt like it. After all, why would G’d bother to create at all if not for the benefit of His creatures? This being the case, why would He destroy the very finest of His products? G’d therefore wanted to go on record that if the descendants of Adam were mostly doomed it was because of their תולדות their own developments, i.e. their own inadequacies, not G’d’s. The word תולדות then predominantly refers to man’s deeds. Rashi has already told us in connection with Genesis 6,9: אלה תולדות נח, נח, that the principal descendants of the righteous are their good deeds. In our verse the Torah stresses the reverse. When G’d created man He created him in G’d’s likeness. His תולדות, developments, however, all tended to run counter to G’d’s will. Ever since the day he was created man developed away from G’d’s likeness. David expressed this more eloquently when he paraphrased G’d as saying (Psalms 82,6-7) “I had taken you for divine beings…but you shall die as humans.”‘