Genesis 6:3. And the Lord said, my Spirit shall not always strive with man

Genesis 6:3. And the Lord said, my Spirit shall not always strive with man, for that he also is flesh; yet his days shall be a hundred and twenty years.

from: Genesis 6:3. And the Lord said, my Spirit shall not always strive with man

It will be necessary, in order to understand the sense of this text, to inquire, I. Who is meant by the Spirit of God; and whether the Holy Ghost, the third Person in the Trinity, is designed or not. 1. Some of the Jewish writers think, that the soul of man is intended; which is called not only the spirit of man, but also the Spirit of God; as in those words of Job, All the while my breath is in me, and the Spirit of God is in my nostrils. (Job 27:3).

Some of them derive the word dg translated strive, from zry, which signifies the scabbard of a sword, and say, what the scabbard is to the sword, that the body is to the soul; and give this as the sense of the words; "My Spirit, or the soul which I have put into man, shall not always abide in him as a sword in its scabbard; I will unsheath it, I will draw it out; he shall not live always, seeing he is flesh, corrupt, given up to carnal lusts; yet his days, or term of life, which I will now shorten, shall be one hundred and twenty years." Another of them delivers the sense of the words to this purpose;

"My Spirit, which I have breathed into man, shall not be any more in contention with the body; for it does not delight in nor receive profit from the desires of the body; for the body is drawn after beastly desires, and that because it is flesh, and its desires are plunged and fixed in the propagation of the flesh; however, I will prolong their days one hundred and twenty years; and if they return by repentance, very well; but if not, I will destroy them from the world. The Targum paraphrases the words thus, "This wicked generation shall not be established before me forever."

2. Others, as Sol Jarchi, understand it of God himself, thus saying, within himself, "My Spirit, which is within me, shall not always be, as it were, in a tumult or contention about man, whether I shall spare him, or destroy him, as it has been a long time, but it shall be no longer so; I will let man know that I am not fluctuating between mercy and judgment, but am at a point, being determined to punish him since he is wholly given up to carnal pleasures, when I have spared him an hundred and twenty years more."

This sense of the words much obtain among learned men. And if either of these senses be received, the reasonings of the Arminians from these words, in favor of any branch of their scheme, fall to the ground; but I am willing to allow,

3. That by the Spirit of God, we are to understand the Holy Ghost; so Jonathan Ben Uzziel, in his Targum, expressly calls him; and I am the rather induced to believe this to be the meaning of the phrase; since the Apostle Peter, when he speaks of Christ being put to death in the flesh, and quickened by the Spirit, which is to be understood of the Holy Spirit, adds, by which, that is, by which Spirit, also he went and preached unto the spirits in prison, which sometimes were disobedient, when once the long-suffering of God waited in the days of Noah, (1 Pet. 3:18-20.) which words refer to those in Genesis, and are the best key unto them, and comment on them.

I proceed to consider,

II. Whether the Holy Spirit was in the men of the old world, since, as it is observed, the words may be rendered, My Spirit shall not always strive in man; and whether it may be concluded from hence, that the Spirit of God is in every man, from whom he may wholly remove through man’s misconduct.

1. The Spirit of God is everywhere, in every creature, and so in every man, as he is the omnipresent God; hence says the Psalmist, Whither shall I fly from thy Spirit? (Ps. 139:7.) He may also be in some persons by his gifts natural or divine, and that either in an ordinary or in an extraordinary way, or by some operations of his on the mind; which are not of a saving nature, nor designed to a saving purpose; and in one or other of these senses, the manifestation of the Spirit is given to every man to profit withal; (1 Cor. 12:7); and the Spirit may be said to be both in the men of the old world, and of this. But,

2. That he is in every man in a way of special grace, and to saving purposes, provided they behave well, must be denied; for every unconverted man is destitute of the Spirit; were the Spirit, in this sense, in every man, the indwelling of the Spirit would be no evidence of regeneration; the difference between a regenerate and an unregenerate man lying in this, the one has, the other has not the Spirit of God.

Hence, 3. It is easy to judge in what sense the Spirit of God does and does not depart where he once is. Where he is only by his gifts or external operations, he may wholly remove, he may take away those gifts, or cease from those works; and men, notwithstanding these, may be everlastingly lost; but where he is by his special grace, he never totally departs, though he may withdraw his gracious presence for a time; his people may not be indulged with his joys and comforts, and in their apprehension, he may seem to be taken away from them, yet he always abides in them; otherwise Christ’s prayers for his perpetual continuance with his people would not be answered; nor would the Spirit’s indwelling be a security of the saints’ perseverance nor any certain pledge of their future glory.