When Adam had lived 130 years, he fathered a son in his own likeness, after his image, and named him Seth. The days of Adam after he fathered Seth were 800 years; and he had other sons and daughters. Thus all the days that Adam lived were 930 years, and he died. Genesis 5:3-5
Adam and Eve had children, who had children, who had more, and more, and more children.
In Genesis 5 we see that if there was one command of God that human beings have tended to obey, it is the command to be fruitful and multiply. God not only ordained that human beings procreate more human beings, He programmed into human beings a desire to do what leads to propagation of the human race.
First, God ordained marriage of one man and one woman, for life, as the one and only place that the procreative act is to take place (Genesis 2).
Second, God ordained that the act leading to procreation be exceedingly pleasurable.
Sadly, since the fall, one of the most universally perverted aspects of human existence is sex. Sexual intimacy is not perverted. It is supremely holy as long as it is within the confines of God ordained marriage (Hebrews 13:4a). What is perverted is what sin does with sexual intimacy outside of marriage that is a perversion of marriage. God will judge all perversions of sex (Hebrews 13:4b). All.
What has this to do with Jesus? As wonderful as marriage is intended to be, and in fact can be, marriage is about more than the union of a man and a woman in matrimony. Marriage is a living parable about the love relationship between Jesus (the Bridegroom), and His Church (the bride) described in Ephesians 5:22-33.
That passage in Ephesians 5 contains the most concentrated instruction about marriage in the Bible, but note that the passage on marriage concludes these words in (v.32): “This is a great mystery, but I speak concerning Christ and the church.”
Understood correctly, sexual perversion is a desecration not only of the image of God, but of the parabolic image of Christ and His Church. That goes a long way in explaining why God’s law requires the death penalty for certain sexual sins.
Genesis 5 not only informs us of mankind’s proclivity to reproduce (there is a whole lot of “begetting” (KJV) going on in the chapter), but it also reminds us that God was serious about death being the consequence of sin. Don’t miss that as many times as we read of “so-and-so fathering so-and-so,” we also read that every so-and-so “died.”
Because sin and death are universal, so is our need for a Savior who conquers death. His name is Jesus!