Justice Like a Flood
Genesis: Foundations of Our Faith • Sermon • Submitted • Presented
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As we all know, Noah is one of the most important people in history, and certainly in the book of Genesis. Most of the time, when we think of Noah, one of two things come to mind. Either it’s the children’s Bible version of Noah and his ark filled with all of God’s creatures. It’s a nice, friendly story of humans and animals getting along while they save the world under a rainbow.
The other thing is as far from that as possible. It is the flood that kills every human in the world other than one family. It’s troubling, to say the least, that God would do such a thing. What kind of a God are we dealing with? After seeing the God of grace and mercy in the opening few pages of the Bible, has God taken a turn for the worse? What’s going on here? Some people can’t trust in a God that would do such a thing.
This is not a cute children’s story. And it is not a story about irritable god that takes out his frustration on poor, innocent humans. It is a story about the sinfulness of sin and a God who is just in His judgments, and in His mercy, He will carry out His plan to redeem the world and bring new creation, even when humans fail miserably.
The message of Genesis 6-8 is the gospel, that while we humans are sinful and multiply corruption, God will establish justice in the new creation through Christ.
What is truly remarkable is not that God would wipe the earth clean of human wickedness, but that God would choose to include any humans at all in His plan to save the world. But this is what we see consistently in the Bible, that God’s plan to redeem always includes human partners. He uses the righteous of the earth to bring one new beginning after another until the big New Beginning to end all new beginnings that comes at the very end. The story of Noah is a story of a world that has fallen into a pandemic of human sin, evil, and wickedness, is de-created by God, and recreated by God who makes a covenant with one family to give them a new beginning to carry out redemption for the world. But in the end, God is the only hero, and even the human partners need redemption.
We are introduced to Noah and his generations in verse 9,
These are the generations of Noah. Noah was a righteous man, blameless in his generation. Noah walked with God. And Noah had three sons, Shem, Ham, and Japheth.
But after telling us Noah is righteous and blameless in his generation, Moses tells us that doesn’t mean too much,
Now the earth/land was corrupt in God’s sight, and the earth/land was filled with violence. And God saw the earth/land, and behold, it was corrupt, for all flesh had corrupted their way on the earth/land.
So, how did the earth, or land, become filled with violence? That is what the transition verses at the beginning of Chapter 6 explain.
Humans Multiply Sin
Humans Multiply Sin
For the gospel to be good news, we need to understand the human condition. Humans are good at one thing. God’s purpose was that we would be fruitful and multiply His image in the land. But after we failed the garden test, and chose to be wise in our own eyes, when we do multiply, it isn’t fruitfulness and the image of God.
When humans began to multiply on the face of the land and daughters were born to them, the sons of God saw that the daughters of man were attractive. And they took as their wives any they chose.
Then the Lord said, “My Spirit shall not abide in man forever, for he is flesh: his days shall be 120 years.”
The Nephilim were on the earth in those days, and also afterward, when the sons of God came in to the daughters of man and they bore children to them. These were the mighty men who were of old, the men of renown (men of the name).
The Lord saw that the wickedness of man was great in the earth, and that every intention of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually.
These verses have caused no end of debate. I’ll tell you the three views, and you can choose which one you like for yourself. But in the end, we’ll focus on the main point and not get caught up in debatable matters.
View 1 is that these sons of God are angelic creatures that have rebelled against God, given up their heavenly realm and calling, and chosen to live as physical creatures on earth. Similar to the serpent in Genesis 3, that is related throughout scripture to the devil, or the satan, a spirit creature that took a physical form in the garden as a serpent, these sons of God are other spirit creatures that are willing to do the same to enjoy the beauty of human women. Their offspring are mighty men who made a name for themselves through conquest. These sons of God are acting like the seed of the snake, like Cain and Lamech, and causing evil and violence to multiply.
This is the view that was held widely in the ancient world, not just among Hebrew Bible readers. Many cultures, the Canaanites, the Moabites, the Babylonians, even later the Greeks, had stories about the “gods” mating with human women and giving birth to powerful giant men, who became their kings and celebrated heroes. So, in this view, Moses is saying, the “mighty men” who rule the nations are not heroes. They are “nephilim”, which means “fallen”, the offspring of unholy unions, and they are the cause of all the evil, corruption, and violence in the world. The wickedness has spread to every human.
View 2 is that the word “God” here is “elohim”, which is a word used sometimes in the Hebrew text for judges or rulers of the nation. According to this view, the sons of ruling families were using their power to commit violence against women and take whomever and whatever they wanted. They were men who were making a name for themselves through power. This was rampant in the world at the time of Noah, and this was the cause for God’s wrath against all of this injustice.
View 3 is that the sons of God refers to the family line that walks with God, the line of Seth. The sons of man would then refer to the offspring of Cain. The intermarriages of the godly with the ungodly caused the godly to become fallen, and now the offspring of these unions are using their power to make a name for themselves, but corrupting the earth with violence. Every human has been corrupted with wickedness.
Whichever view you think explains who these groups of people were, the result is the same. In verse two, the sons of God are failing the garden test all over again. They
the sons of God saw that the daughters of man were attractive (good). And they took as their wives any they chose.
This is the same pattern of seeing the fruit of the tree of knowledge of good and evil, that it was good for food, for beauty, and for wisdom, and Eve took it. In Genesis 6, the choice of the sons of God to be wise in their own eyes, to give in to their lust for beauty and their lust for power and taking whatever they want, multiplies violence.
In verse 3, God sees that the humans are only living according to the flesh.
Then the Lord said, “My Spirit shall not abide in man forever, for he is flesh: his days shall be 120 years.”
They are not alive to His Spirit. He is going to give the humans 120 years, and then will “blot them out”, or “wipe clean” the earth (verse 7).
So the Lord said, “I will wipe from the face of the earth the human race I have created—and with them the animals, the birds and the creatures that move along the ground—for I regret that I have made them.
The flood will be a cleansing of all the wicked, evil violence that these unholy unions caused. The ground that received the blood of Abel and every other victim of this violence needs a cleansing.
So when the woman saw that the tree was good for food, and that it was a delight to the eyes, and that the tree was to be desired to make one wise, she took of its fruit and ate, and she also gave some to her husband who was with her, and he ate.
Don’t Underestimate the Sinfulness of Sin
Don’t Underestimate the Sinfulness of Sin
To understand the gospel of Jesus, we need to understand the sinfulness of our sin. Sin is not just our actions, but a corruption in our hearts.
The Lord saw that the wickedness of man was great in the earth, and that every intention of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually.
This is the sinfulness of sin. When we say humans are sinners by nature and by choice, we recognize that sin has corrupted not just our actions. Sin has corrupted everything down to my core: my desires, my affections, my intentions, and my thoughts. We want what is wrong, or even if we want what is right, my self-seeking devises a corrupt means to meet my desire. Sin is a corruption in our hearts.
Joseph Seiss uses leprosy as an analogy for sin. Sin, “is a filthiness of the flesh and of the spirit - a tainted clog to all the currents of life - a degrading deformity and corruption of the whole man. A developed sinner is a being covered and pervaded with putrid uncleanness. As Isaiah describes the case,
From the sole of the foot even unto the head there is no soundness in it;
But wounds, and bruises, and putrifying sores: They have not been closed, neither bound up, neither mollified with ointment.
‘From the sole of the foot even unto the head, there is no soundness in it; but wounds, and bruises, and putrefying sores, they have not been closed, neither bound up, neither molified with ointment (Isaiah 1:6).’”
In Genesis 6, the imagery of the nephilim, “the fallen ones”, reminds us of the serpent in Genesis 3, the beast that was cursed to crawl on its belly and has become unclean. When humans listen to the voice of the snake, we become like the snake ourselves. We are fallen from glory. We have become slaves to sin, bent to the ground under the load we carry like a beast, suffering the consequences of our alienation from God and exile from the garden. We are unclean from the inside out, and we bring that into every endeavor.
In Genesis 6, these fallen ones are the men running the show. They are the mighty men, the men making a name for themselves through injustice and violence. When the leaders of people have fallen into injustice, they multiply violence. Wherever the leaders go, the people follow. When the people are forced to play the game of injustice, defend themselves against their leaders, injustice has become systemic. This is when the weakest, the most vulnerable suffer. When God sees a whole world of people suffering, look at what happens,
And the Lord regretted that he had made man on the earth, and it grieved him to his heart.
God is not angry. He is grieved to His heart. He is hurt. The other feeling, translated regret, is the Hebrew word, נחם, regret or sorrow. It is related to the name of the one righteous man, נֹחַ (Noah), the one who will bring consolation or rest from our sorrow. God’s sorrow over the sinfulness of humans leads Him to cleanse the earth for the sake of future humans and bring consolation through a righteous man.
God has wrath for sin, and when we choose to remain in our sins, we remain under God’s wrath. We need to be clear about that. But in Genesis 6, it is worth pointing out that God did not send the flood out of wrath. God saw the direction humans had taken the world and it grieved His heart. Sin had corrupted everyone. No one was seeking God. The powerful were taking whatever they wanted, violence was spreading, the earth, or land, itself, was corrupt from all the bloodshed of the innocent until there were no more innocent. As we see often in times of war, violence by the powerful leads even the victims to perpetrate acts of violence just to survive.
By verse 11, Moses keeps using the word “corrupt”.
Now the earth was corrupt in God’s sight, and the earth was filled with violence. And God saw the earth, and behold, it was corrupt, for all flesh had corrupted their way on the earth.
And God said to Noah, “I have determined to make an end of all flesh, for the earth is filled with violence through them. Behold, I will destroy them with the earth.
The word “corrupt” is the same word for “destroy” in verse 13. It could be translated “ruined”. The humans had already ruined the world. Now God will complete its ruin. But God’s way of ruin is to destroy all flesh. When we live according to the flesh, we ruin everything. God's plan of redemption is to make an end of our flesh to give us life in the Spirit.
So comes the flood. The prophet Amos uses the vocabulary of Genesis 6 to describe what God desires to accomplish through the flood.
“Fallen (naphal) is Virgin Israel, never to rise again, deserted in her own land, with no one to lift her up.”
This is what the Lord says to Israel: “Seek me and live;
Seek the Lord and live, or he will sweep through the tribes of Joseph like a fire; it will devour them, and Bethel will have no one to quench it.
There are those who hate the one who upholds justice in court and detest the one who tells the truth.
You levy a straw tax on the poor and impose a tax on their grain.
Therefore, though you have built stone mansions, you will not live in them; though you have planted lush vineyards, you will not drink their wine.
For I know how many are your offenses and how great your sins. There are those who oppress the innocent and take bribes and deprive the poor of justice in the courts.
Seek good, not evil, that you may live. Then the Lord God Almighty will be with you, just as you say he is.
Hate evil, love good; maintain justice in the courts. Perhaps the Lord God Almighty will have mercy on the remnant of Joseph.
But let justice roll down like waters, and righteousness like an ever-flowing stream.
The flood God desires is a flood of justice. Sin in every human heart creates injustice, violence against the poor, the vulnerable. The righteous are those that seek God, seek good, and live in God’s kingdom.
This brings us to the gospel. Because of God’s great love for the world, He brought justice like a flood to cleanse the earth and bring a new beginning through one righteous man.
Hope in the Only Hero of Our Story, God Himself
Hope in the Only Hero of Our Story, God Himself
God found one man and his family that were not participating.
But Noah found favor in the eyes of the Lord.
These are the generations of Noah. Noah was a righteous man, blameless in his generation. Noah walked with God. And Noah had three sons, Shem, Ham, and Japheth.
While the powerful on earth are making a name for themselves through violence, one family from the line of those who call on the name of the Lord. (This is reflected in the name of the first son, Shem, which just means “name”.)
When all the evil go east, will you be the one who will go west? Even if everyone in your world was doing what’s right in their own eyes, would you continue to call upon the name of the LORD and walk with Him, even if it made you vulnerable? Noah was that man in his generation. His righteousness, his blamelessness, did not come from within. Noah walked with God. This was his righteousness. His hope was in God.
The rest of Genesis 6 is Noah listening to God’s words and doing everything He says. Noah built the ark, brings in the animals. He is living in a little Eden redux. After the de-creation of the flood, God is going to recreate the world through Noah and his family.
Noah did this; he did all that God commanded him.
As a result, Noah and his family are saved through the flood. This is the pattern we saw two weeks ago: abide, listen, do, live. Noah does one other significant act in chapter 8 that moves God’s plan of redemption forward and leads us to Jesus.
After the flood recedes,
Then Noah built an altar to the Lord and, taking some of all the clean animals and clean birds, he sacrificed burnt offerings on it. The Lord smelled the pleasing aroma and said in his heart:
“Never again will I curse the ground because of humans, even though every inclination of the human heart is evil from childhood. And never again will I destroy all living creatures, as I have done.
“As long as the earth endures, seedtime and harvest, cold and heat, summer and winter, day and night will never cease.”
This is really amazing if we’re paying attention. God brought the flood because every intention of man’s heart is evil. Now He will never again curse the ground because of man, because every inclination of the human heart is evil from childhood. What has changed? It isn’t the sinful condition of human hearts. But if God was going to cleanse the earth in every generation, where would that get us? So, what has changed that the curse of sin is being lifted? A righteous man offered a pleasing sacrifice that ends the curse and brought new creation.
Spoiler alert, we will see in chapter 9 that Noah, in this new creation, fails the garden test. He isn’t the snake crusher that overcomes once and for all. God alone is the hero of this story. What Noah offered in faith, Jesus fulfilled in His flesh on the cross. Noah’s sacrifice points forward to the sacrifice of Jesus on the cross. His flesh was offered for the sins of all humans. And justice rolled down like waters and righteousness like an ever-flowing stream from His blood.
How is justice in the new creation established? It is established in those whose hearts are cleansed of our own sin through the blood of Jesus. How can we partner to bring justice to a world filled with injustice? When we are united with Jesus in His death to sin on the cross, God makes an end of the works of the flesh and gives us life in His Spirit. Through faith we are also united with Christ in His resurrection to righteousness, and as a new creation, we bring good news to those suffering any injustice through word and deed.
Communion
Questions for Discussion
What are your hopes for the Advent, either this one, or the one to come?
Were you able to apply anything from our passage last week, Genesis 4-5, and what did you learn?
When you think of Noah and the flood, what are some thoughts that come to mind? What are some questions you have wrestled with?
What do we learn about God in Genesis 6?
What do we learn about humans in Genesis 6?
What do we learn about sin in our passage?
Using the context of Genesis 6:1-13, what does it mean that “Noah was a righteous man, blameless in his generation” (verse 9)?
Why is the sacrifice Noah offers in Genesis 8:20-22 significant, and how does it foreshadow Jesus Christ?
Where is the gospel found in our passage?
How will you respond to our passage this week?
With whom can you share our passage this week?
