# God's Covenant of Grace and Genesis 4 / Romans 10



## WrittenFromUtopia (Jan 14, 2005)

I was reading some Scripture today and stumbled upon this passage in Genesis 4:

*26Â To Seth also a son was born, and he called his name Enosh. At that time people began to call upon the name of the Lord.*


Immediately, this passage in Romans 10 came to mind:

*10Â For with the heart one believes and is justified, and with the mouth one confesses and is saved. 11Â For the Scripture says, "œEveryone who believes in him will not be put to shame." 12Â For there is no distinction between Jew and Greek; the same Lord is Lord of all, bestowing his riches on all who call on him. 13Â For "œeveryone who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved."*


In Romans 10, Paul is quoting Joel 2:32 apparently, which reads:

*32Â And it shall come to pass that everyone who calls on the name of the Lord shall be saved. For in Mount Zion and in Jerusalem there shall be those who escape, as the Lord has said, and among the survivors shall be those whom the Lord calls.*


The Joel prophecy seems to have an eschatological flavor to it, and I'm not too knowledgable on the book to really be able to comment further on it.

However, my main interest is the striking similarity in phrasiology of Paul and Moses (as the author of Genesis) describing people "calling on the name of the LORD", especially since Paul equates this with "being saved".

Is this a post-fall indication of God's people calling upon His name for salvation by grace-through-faith? Or, am I missing something here and tying-together passages that don't belong together?


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## fredtgreco (Jan 14, 2005)

Gabriel,

There are two good solutions for this:

1. This refers not to the first instance of men being saved, but a comment on the public worship of God. So Calvin:



> 26. Then began men to call upon the name of the Lord. In the verb 'to call upon,' there is a synecdochee, for it embraces generally the whole worship of God. But religion is here properly designated by that which forms its principal part. For God prefers this service of piety and faith to all sacrifices, (Psalm 50:14.) Yea, this is the spiritual worship of God which faith produces. This is particularly worthy of notice, because Satan contrives nothing with greater care than to adulterate, with every possible corruption, the pure invocation of God, or to draw us away from the only God to the invocation of creatures. Even from the beginning of the world he has not ceased to move this stone, that miserable men might weary themselves in vain in a preposterous worship of God. But let us know, that the entire pomp of adoration is nothing worth, unless this chief point of worshipping God aright be maintained. Although the passage may be more simply explained to mean, that then the name of God was again celebrated; yet I approve the former sense, because it is more full, contains a useful doctrine, and also agrees with the accustomed phraseology of Scripture. It is a foolish figment, that God then began to be called by other names; since Moses does not here censure depraved superstitions, but commends the piety of one family which worshipped God in purity and holiness, when religions among other people, was polluted or extinct. And there is no doubt, that Adam and Eve, with a few other of their children were themselves true worshippers of God; but closes means, that so great was then the deluge of impiety in the world that religion was rapidly hastening to destruction; because it remained only with a few men, and did not flourish in any one race. We may readily conclude that Seth was an upright and faithful servant of God. And after he begat a son, like himself, and had a rightly constituted family, the face of the Church began distinctly to appear, and that worship of God was set up which might continue to posterity. Such a restoration of religion has been effected also in our time; not that it had been altogether extinct; but there was no certainly defined people who called upon God; and, no sincere profession of faith, no uncorrupted religion could anywhere be discovered. Whence it too evidently appears how great is the propensity of men, either to gross contempt of God, or to superstition; since both evils must then have everywhere prevailed, when Moses relates it as a miracles that there was at that time a single family in which the worship of God arose.



2. A second option is that the verse is better translated: "then a beginning was made of calling (the men) in the name of the Lord" The word "men" is not actually in the Hebrew, it is supplied. So this would refer to men being called "Yahwehists" kind of like "Christians."

A related translation is supplied by Young's literal translation: "then a beginning was made of preaching in the name of Jehovah"

Finally, the LXX is of little help, for it slightly changes the verse (but again, it is away from the direction of your dilemma):

ou-toj h;lpisen evpikalei/sqai to. o;noma kuri,ou tou/ qeou/
he hoped to call on the name of the Lord God.


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## WrittenFromUtopia (Jan 14, 2005)

That makes things interesting, thanks for the reply, Fred. I'll have to do some more reading about this passage.


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## VanVos (Jan 15, 2005)

I think Gen 4:26 is a references to the time when the line of Seth began to call themselves Sons of God (option 2 on Fred's post). I think it was important at this point in redemptive history for the line of Seth to seperate themselves from the line of Cain as they awaited the promise seed Gen 3:15 to come from their line. I think that this sets the context for Gen 6:1-4. This is why God destroyed the old world, because the promised line of Seth was corrupting itself by marrying the sons of men (line of Cain). The promise line had to be preserved so God saved Noah and his family to repopulate in the world.

VanVos

[Edited on 15-1-2005 by VanVos]


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## WrittenFromUtopia (Jan 15, 2005)

> _Originally posted by VanVos_
> I think that this sets the context for Gen 6:1-4. This is why God destroyed the old world, because the promised line of Seth was corrupting itself by marrying the sons of men (line of Cain).



I totally agree that Gen 6:1-4 is referring to these people who are mentioned almost non-chalantly in the latter have of this verse. However, my main question was is it saying that they were "calling ON the name of God" or that they were identifying themselves with the name of God.

When I get a little better at Hebrew, I'll be able to look myself, but I'll take Calvin's word on it for now  I've only had one semester of it!


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