King James Genesis 6:3
3. And the Lord said,
My spirit shall not always strive with man,
for that he also is flesh:
for his days shall be an hundred and twenty years.
I was taught by a sincere institute teacher that this means that since the flood, GOD has set the upper age limit for a human being at 120 years. I then discovered the JST and learned this is not the case. Read for yourself...
JST Genesis 8:5*
5. And the Lord said unto Noah,
My spirit shall not always strive with man,
for he shall know that all flesh shall die,
yet his days shall be an hundred and twenty years;
and if men do not repent,
I will send in the floods upon them.
Let's deal with the asterisk first. Because of the material left out of the book of Genesis that precedes GOD describing the creation, the chapters are numbered differently to reflect Joseph's additions.
I like the change that reflects who GOD is talking to, but that is minor compared to the change about why GOD will withhold his Spirit and what the 120 years refers to.
It has nothing to do with people being human, or flesh. This has nothing to do with an age limit and it has everything to do with a time limit being set. GOD is starting a countdown timer of 120 years from this point to the flood. That seems incredibly patient and unbelievably fair to me. I don't think any of the flood victims got to the Spirit World and said, "Hey, I only got 120 years from the time that Noah guy warned me to change my ways!"
Blake Ostler has astutely pointed out in his books, that GOD is merciful because he does not exercise immediate justice when we sin. There is always a time period allowed for the person to repent, or change their mind. GOD is just because there will be an eventual accounting, but GOD is merciful because we get time to repent.
So it is possible to pass the 120 year limit if we are lucky. Perhaps using the advice in D+C 89 to maximize our time here. Of course, that would entail drinking beer and not eating meat all the time. I would prefer being in the Spirit World, to trying to be the world's oldest human of my generation.
Noah knew he had 1 century and change to preach repentance and get an ark built. Nephi got a ship built in a tiny fraction of that time, but he did not have to preach repentance to anyone except Laman and Lemuel and some of Ishmael's hard-hearted family.
So these people are left with 2 options. It appears there was not much success, and possibly no success in getting people to turn back to GOD.
1. If a person repented at this point in time, they were taken up into Zion to be with Enoch and company. That would have obviously been better than option 2 which has two parts.
2a. Death by drowning but that pales in comparison to number 2b.
2b. The time spent in Spirit Prison for the honorable, but misguided, and the horrific time in Hell for the truly evil.
Joseph Smith strikes again.
