Faithfulness through the Flood

Introduction

Good morning everyone! It is my delight to bring the Word of God to you this morning. Today we will be looking at the story of Noah in Genesis 6.5-9.29. Because this is a very large section of Scripture, we are not going to read the entire passage up front, but we will walk through specific sections of it throughout the sermon. So with that said, I would like to open us up in prayer. Let’s pray.

Gracious God, we thank you for this opportunity to gather this morning as your people and to hear your word together. As we reflect on a story that most of us have heard many times - the story of Noah and the ark - we pray that the Spirit would lead and guide us to see the tragedy of our sin, the grace of our God, and the promise of our Redeemer. May our hearts be soft before your word, O God, and may the truths of Scripture permeate deep within our souls and bring us to a deeper love of who you are and of what you have done. In Jesus’ name we pray, amen.

Our passage today is the story of Noah and the ark. This is a story that many of us have heard countless times before, whether it was through children’s songs growing up, Sunday school classes as children, or through sermons that we have heard as adults. We might think that this is a relatively straightforward story, but I propose to you this morning that if we don’t take the time to fully understand the implications of the text that we are missing out on some of the glorious truths that Scripture has to offer. While time prevents us from doing a super deep dive into the text, today we will be focusing on three main points of the story:

The wickedness of man (Gen. 6.5-13)

The wrath and the kindness of Yahweh (Gen. 6.14-8.22)

The second Adam? (Gen. 9.1-29) - that’s right, I hope you heard the question mark there!

So without further ado, let’s jump right in at chapter 6, verse 5:

The wickedness of man

English Standard Version Chapter 6

5 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. 6 And the LORD regretted that he had made man on the earth, and it grieved him to his heart. 7 So the LORD said, “I will blot out man whom I have created from the face of the land, man and animals and creeping things and birds of the heavens, for I am sorry that I have made them.” 8 But Noah found favor in the eyes of the LORD.

There are a few observations that I would like us to make here. The first is the utter pervasiveness of wickedness on the earth. Recall that we are only 10 generations away from Adam! Just as we saw the sharp decline in morality after the fall in the story of Cain and Abel, so here we see that the downward spiral has continued unabated. The morality of humanity has now deteriorated to the point where “every intention of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continuously”. I hope that this helps us to understand the seriousness of our sins. Our hearts, apart from God, are evil and dead. They are incapable of doing righteousness. They are bent, as C.S. Lewis said, towards evil. And if they are not transformed and made alive again, they will barrel ever onward deeper into sin and evil. But we must consider also that the corruption of humanity has also extended to the corruption of creation - when Yahweh pronounces his judgment in verse 7, he extends is to all of the “animals and creeping things and birds of the heavens”. Our first parents were put in Eden to tend to God’s creation that it might flourish. In the ten generations since, we have seen the complete collapse of all of this, all due to the wickedness that resides deep in the heart of men and women. There is nothing redeemable about humankind.

The second observation that I want us to make is the reaction that this causes within God. We read that Yahweh “regrets” that he has made man, and that he it “grieved him to his heart”. We need to be careful that we do not misunderstand what is going on here. We know from elsewhere in Scripture that God is not capricious - he does not change his mind (see for example Numbers 23.19). Verse 6 here is describing the emotional anguish of God in light of human sin. As Kenneth Matthews in his commentary on Genesis writes:

God’s response of grief over the making of humanity, however, is not remorse in the sense of sorrow over a mistaken creation; our verse shows that God’s pain has its source in the perversion of human sin. The making of “man” is no error; it is what “man” has made of himself. By recurring reference to mankind (ʾādām) in 6:5–7, the passage focuses on the source of his grief. God is grieving because this sinful “man” is not the pristine mankind whom he has made to bear his image.

Mathews, K. A. (1996). Genesis 1-11:26 (Vol. 1A, p. 343). Broadman & Holman Publishers.

God’s heart is grieved by our sin so deeply because it demands punishment or atonement. Later in Scripture we will read about those like Moses who intercede on behalf of the people to avert judgment (see Exodus 32.14). But there is no such intercessor here. The depth of the sin of the people is such that justice cries out for judgment.

Friends, do we have an appreciation for how our sin grieves God and pains His heart? Our God grieves for our sins and for the impact that they have on our lives and the lives around us! He grieves because we are not bearing His image in the way that we ought to. This ought to make us take our sin seriously, for collectively apart from God we are no better off now than those before the flood. Our hearts are inclined towards evil, and our sin grieves God. How important it is that we deal with it seriously, just as God does is about to here!

But even in the depths of God’s wrath against sin there is hope. We read at the end of this section, in verse 8, that “Noah found favor in the eyes of the LORD”. We might wonder what it was that caused Yahweh to look favorably upon Noah. There is some insight in the fact that the word translated “favor” here is often translated “grace” elsewhere in the Old Testament. Here God has chosen to place his grace upon Noah.

The wrath and kindness of Yahweh

Having seen the depths to which humanity has sunk and the way that this has grieved the heart of God, we read next in verses 11-19 what God is going to do about it:

English Standard Version Chapter 6

11 Now the earth was corrupt in God’s sight, and the earth was filled with violence. 12 And God saw the earth, and behold, it was corrupt, for all flesh had corrupted their way on the earth. 13 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. 14 Make yourself an ark of gopher wood. Make rooms in the ark, and cover it inside and out with pitch. 15 This is how you are to make it: the length of the ark 300 cubits, its breadth 50 cubits, and its height 30 cubits. 16 Make a roof for the ark, and finish it to a cubit above, and set the door of the ark in its side. Make it with lower, second, and third decks. 17 For behold, I will bring a flood of waters upon the earth to destroy all flesh in which is the breath of life under heaven. Everything that is on the earth shall die. 18 But I will establish my covenant with you, and you shall come into the ark, you, your sons, your wife, and your sons’ wives with you. 19 And of every living thing of all flesh, you shall bring two of every sort into the ark to keep them alive with you. They shall be male and female.

The sentence that God passes upon humanity and creation is clear - they must be destroyed from the earth because they have corrupted the earth and filled it with violence. The text is essentially telling us that sin is so serious that the only righteous way for it to be punished is to undo creation entirely (more on that later)! But at the same time there is a hint of grace - God is not going to wipe his creation completely away. He is, instead, going to make it anew. He is going to start over again with Noah and the contents of the ark. More than that, he is going to establish a covenant with Noah and his offspring that will pre-figure the covenant that he will establish with his chosen people.

God then proceeds to give Noah the instructions on how to build the ark. Using one method to translate into modern measurements, the ark would have been roughly 450 feet long, 75 feet wide, and 45 feet tall. For perspective, that’s about a football field and a half long. The ark was approximately half the length of the Titanic ocean liner that sunk in 1912. This would have been an absolutely enormous boat that Noah was tasked to build.

I want us to pause for a moment and consider the response that Noah has to receiving this revelation from God. He doesn’t question it. He hears that God is planning to flood the earth and that he will deliver Noah and his family and the animals in the ark, and he is simply obedient. He goes out and he does what he is asked to do. The text doesn’t give us any indication of Noah’s interactions with other people, but I think it is understandable that we often assume that he would have been mocked for building such a large boat on dry land. Noah demonstrated his faith in the words of Yahweh via his obedience, and his obedience is later highlighted by the author of Hebrews as an example of faith in God’s promises (Hebrews 11.7).

Friends, none of us are likely to be called to obedience in quite the same visible way as Noah. But we are called to obedience nonetheless. We are called to remain faithful to the gospel. We are called to pursue holiness. How seriously do we take these calls? Do we take them with the faith and seriousness of Noah, where we do “everything just as God commanded”? Or do we come up with excuses for why we are unable to do so, why there are more important things that we need to worry about or handle first? Noah’s faith shines as an example to us, one that we would do well to emulate!

So Noah goes and does what God commands him to do. He builds the ark, he gathers the food, and he waits for God to bring the animals to him to load up into the ark. In 7.11-16 we read:

English Standard Version Chapter 7

11 In the six hundredth year of Noah’s life, in the second month, on the seventeenth day of the month, on that day all the fountains of the great deep burst forth, and the windows of the heavens were opened. 12 And rain fell upon the earth forty days and forty nights. 13 On the very same day Noah and his sons, Shem and Ham and Japheth, and Noah’s wife and the three wives of his sons with them entered the ark, 14 they and every beast, according to its kind, and all the livestock according to their kinds, and every creeping thing that creeps on the earth, according to its kind, and every bird, according to its kind, every winged creature. 15 They went into the ark with Noah, two and two of all flesh in which there was the breath of life. 16 And those that entered, male and female of all flesh, went in as God had commanded him. And the LORD shut him in.

I want us to focus on the last sentence of that passage: “And the LORD shut him in”. You may have heard that the Bible is not the only place where we read about the story of a cataclysmic world-wide flood. In fact, ancient Near Eastern cultures almost all had some version of the flood story. Perhaps the most well known outside the biblical account is that of Gilgamesh. The Babylonian Noah figure, a man by the name of Utnapishtim, is instructed by one of the gods to build a cubic vessel to escape the flood. But along with his family he brings people who are skilled in navigation. The implication is that the people on the boat somehow manage to help steer it throughout the flood, eventually guiding it to a safe stop on the top of a mountain. But we see a very different picture in Genesis. Noah’s ark has no rudder. It has no navigational instruments. It doesn’t even have sailors! And this is why verse 16 is so important - Yahweh shut him in. The salvation of Noah, his family, and all the animals in the ark cannot possibly be attributed to anyone else except for Yahweh. God has promised that he will preserve Noah and the ark through the flood, and Noah is once again left to trust that he will do so when Yahweh shuts Noah in the ark with his family. So even in entering the ark, we see that Noah is demonstrating his faith in Yahweh’s promise that he will deliver Noah and covenant with his family. Yahweh is faithful to do it - there is no safer place in the world to be than shut in on the ark!

The waters continue to rise - we read in verse 20 that they finally cover the tops of the highest mountains 15 cubits (27.5 feet) deep. That seems like a strange detail to include, until we recognize that it is half the height of the ark - it is essentially the draft of the boat, the amount of water that is needed for the ark to not be scraping the bottom while it is afloat. The implication here is clear - there is absolutely no way that anyone could have escaped the flood short of being shut into the ark with Noah. The whole earth has been completely flooded. Creation has been undone, with the judgment of God pouring down upon it in the waters of the flood. We have returned to the state of Genesis 1.1-2, when the earth was formless and void and there is the darkness of a storm over the face of the deep where we are unable to separate the water from the sky. God’s judgment has been executed. His wrath against the sin of humanity has been exercised - and it has brought complete and utter destruction, just as the sins deserved.

But just when all seems hopeless, we hear those glorious words of Scripture...“But God”. Picking up from Genesis 8.1:

English Standard Version Chapter 8

8 But God remembered Noah and all the beasts and all the livestock that were with him in the ark. And God made a wind blow over the earth, and the waters subsided. 2 The fountains of the deep and the windows of the heavens were closed, the rain from the heavens was restrained, 3 and the waters receded from the earth continually. At the end of 150 days the waters had abated, 4 and in the seventh month, on the seventeenth day of the month, the ark came to rest on the mountains of Ararat. 5 And the waters continued to abate until the tenth month; in the tenth month, on the first day of the month, the tops of the mountains were seen.

God’s wrath has been executed on creation, but here we see the germination of the seeds of hope that were planted in his promise to Noah that he would see Noah through the flood and would covenant with him. “God remembered” is covenant language. It is God executing the plan that he has set into motion. It is not that he had forgotten that Noah and the ark were floating on the surface of the waters - this is God being faithful to fulfill the promise that he has made. In Genesis 8, we see a recapitulation of Genesis 1, where creation emerges anew after the flood. First, we see the “wind”, the Spirit of God blowing over the waters, just as we did on the first day of creation. We see the re-establishment of light and the sky with the cessation of the storm in verse 2, echoing how God called light out of darkness in chapter 1 verse 3 and separated the waters above and below in 1.6. We see the slow abatement of water on the earth, as the waters are gathered together into the seas to reveal the dry land, just like in 1.10. We see the re-establishment of vegetation in 8.11, when the dove returns with an olive branch in her mouth. We see the recapitulation of the creation of the animals when Noah finally flings open the doors of he ark in 8.19. Finally, and most importantly, we see the renewal of the value of humanity, their status as image bearers of God, and their dominion over creation in the beginning of chapter 9. Read with me:

English Standard Version Chapter 9

9 And God blessed Noah and his sons and said to them, “Be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth. 2 The fear of you and the dread of you shall be upon every beast of the earth and upon every bird of the heavens, upon everything that creeps on the ground and all the fish of the sea. Into your hand they are delivered. 3 Every moving thing that lives shall be food for you. And as I gave you the green plants, I give you everything. 4 But you shall not eat flesh with its life, that is, its blood. 5 And for your lifeblood I will require a reckoning: from every beast I will require it and from man. From his fellow man I will require a reckoning for the life of man.

6  “Whoever sheds the blood of man,

by man shall his blood be shed,

for God made man in his own image.

7 And you, be fruitful and multiply, increase greatly on the earth and multiply in it.”

It is here that we see the great mercy of God come through after his wrath has been poured out. He has been faithful to what he said that he would do - he has punished the sins of humanity, but in his mercy he has maintained a remnant to begin anew. The same charge is given to Noah and his family that was given to Adam and Eve in the garden of Eden - be fruitful and multiply, fill the earth, and subdue it. God’s plans for humanity have not changed. The flood shows us the terrifying consequence that our sin deserves. The preservation of Noah and his family shows us that despite our sins, God is merciful.

The Second Adam?

If we think back to the promises of Genesis 3, we might assume that we find ourselves in a watershed moment (pun intended). God has just poured out his judgment on the earth, and it seems that Noah has been made into a second Adam, perhaps even the one that Genesis 3 promises will crush the head of the serpent. There is a time of potential hopefulness here - but it ultimately does not take us long to be disavowed of that notion. Read with me chapter 9, verses 18-25:

English Standard Version Chapter 9

18 The sons of Noah who went forth from the ark were Shem, Ham, and Japheth. (Ham was the father of Canaan.) 19 These three were the sons of Noah, and from these the people of the whole earth were dispersed.

20 Noah began to be a man of the soil, and he planted a vineyard. 21 He drank of the wine and became drunk and lay uncovered in his tent. 22 And Ham, the father of Canaan, saw the nakedness of his father and told his two brothers outside. 23 Then Shem and Japheth took a garment, laid it on both their shoulders, and walked backward and covered the nakedness of their father. Their faces were turned backward, and they did not see their father’s nakedness. 24 When Noah awoke from his wine and knew what his youngest son had done to him, 25 he said,

“Cursed be Canaan;

a servant of servants shall he be to his brothers.”

Just as Adam chose sin, so do Noah and his sons. Despite Noah being the most righteous in his generation compared to all the other inhabitants of earth, here is the proof that he is not in fact righteous (and nor are his sons). Noah plants himself a vineyard, drinks too much, and exposes himself in his tent. His drunkeness uncovers his shame. I think we are supposed to see a parallel here to Genesis 3.7, where Adam and Even realize for the first time after they have sinned that they are naked, and they are ashamed and afraid. The key point here is this - sin continues to exist in the post-flood world. Ham finds himself in trouble because rather than covering up his father’s shame he gossips about it to his brothers. Noah wakes up, finds out what has happened, and utters his first words in all of Scripture - a curse against Ham and his descendants. Noah has been silently faithful up until this point - but when he speaks, the first words that he speaks are words of cursing, not blessing. The sin of Adam and Eve resulted in a curse. The sin of Noah and Ham results in a curse. The cycle has not been broken. Humanity is still corrupt to the core. The head of the serpent has not yet been crushed. If that’s not enough evidence, consider that a mere two chapters later in Genesis 11, the descendents of Noah and his sons gather together on the plain of Shinar and purpose to build a tower up to the heights of heaven to stand equal with Yahweh himself. The problem of sin remains. Although he serves as a type here, Noah cannot be the true second Adam, the one who does what the first Adam could not do.

So what then are we to make of the flood? What was the purpose, if the hearts of men have not changed and their inclination is still always toward evil? A hint for how we are to understand this can be found in the preceding verses of chapter 9, when God cuts a covenant with Noah and his sons (and indeed, all of creation):

English Standard Version Chapter 9

8 Then God said to Noah and to his sons with him, 9 “Behold, I establish my covenant with you and your offspring after you, 10 and with every living creature that is with you, the birds, the livestock, and every beast of the earth with you, as many as came out of the ark; it is for every beast of the earth. 11 I establish my covenant with you, that never again shall all flesh be cut off by the waters of the flood, and never again shall there be a flood to destroy the earth.” 12 And God said, “This is the sign of the covenant that I make between me and you and every living creature that is with you, for all future generations: 13 I have set my bow in the cloud, and it shall be a sign of the covenant between me and the earth. 14 When I bring clouds over the earth and the bow is seen in the clouds, 15 I will remember my covenant that is between me and you and every living creature of all flesh. And the waters shall never again become a flood to destroy all flesh. 16 When the bow is in the clouds, I will see it and remember the everlasting covenant between God and every living creature of all flesh that is on the earth.” 17 God said to Noah, “This is the sign of the covenant that I have established between me and all flesh that is on the earth.”

We see here that God is establishing a covenant with Noah and his sons, and also with all living flesh that he will never again destroy all life on earth by undoing creation via a flood. Note, though, that God never promises that he will not judge the earth again - indeed, he would not be true to his justice and his righteousness if he chose to let sin go by the wayside! But God does promise that he will not rain down his justice on the earth in the form of a flood again - and to seal this promise, he speaks about setting his bow in the clouds. This continues the biblical pattern of God providing a sign of the covenants that he establishes with his people - in the covenant with Adam and Eve in the garden, the Sabbath functions as the sign. Later, when God covenants with Abraham we will see circumcision as the sign. In this case, we see the rainbow up in the clouds. As a quick aside, it’s unnecessary for us here to assume that this is the first time that there has even been a rainbow on earth - God is simply appropriating a phenomenon that already occurs in nature and is giving it a deeper meaning in the context of his covenant with Noah.

The underlying Hebrew word here is used both for the bow as a weapon of war and for the phenomenon of a rainbow after a storm. This is instructive for us. Scripture speaks of Yahweh as using his bow to eliminate his foes (see Habakkuk 3.9). The implication is that this is a weapon of war, and the one that God has used to bring judgment upon the earth. But here we see something remarkable - the bow has been hung up in the clouds. Let’s think about the mechanics of using a bow for a moment. If you want to shoot something with a bow, the arch needs to be pointing at whatever you want to shoot. So when God was judging the earth, his bow would have been aimed downward, which we certainly saw in the flood. But now that he has covenanted with Noah, his sons, and all flesh, God has hung his bow up in the heavens. The fact that it is pointing upwards toward heaven emphasizes how he has promised to not bring the same sort of destruction upon the earth again.

As important as it is for us to note that the bow is pointing away from the earth (thereby confirming God’s promise that he will not destroy the earth again), it is equally important for us to consider where the bow actually is pointing. The bow in the sky is pointing up towards the heart of heaven. It is aimed not at earth, but at the heart of heaven itself.

Because, remember - God has not promised that there will be no judgment for sin. He has promised that he will not unmake creation again - he will not pour out his wrath against all of creation in a destructive flood again. And that bow in the clouds, pointing up into heaven, tells us a little bit about how he can be both just and merciful.

Noah, as we have already said, was not the true Second Adam. He was a stand-in for Adam, to be sure, but ultimately his heart was still corrupted by sin. Even in the new humanity that springs from Noah, we quickly see how evil continues to rule in the hearts of men. The story of Noah and the ark demonstrates to us what our sins deserve - they deserve to be destroyed along with us! But it also demonstrates to us the great mercy of God, that he did not finally put an end to humanity. The flood was not a solution to the problem of sin - the flood is meant to show us the seriousness of our sins, the seriousness of God’s wrath against them, and to point us to his mercy in the true second Adam, Jesus.

The bow pointing toward the heart of heaven? It is pointed towards Jesus. It is foreshadowing for us the grand plan of God’s redemptive design, that his wrath and punishment for sin will be poured out not on the earth, like we deserve, but rather on his own Son, the one who stands as the true second Adam.

I want us to consider how the flood helps us to better understand the work and the suffering of Christ in the garden and on the cross. The flood provides us a picture of the awe-inspiring wrath of God poured out upon creation, in such a way that the acts of creation were seemingly undone. The crushing flood waters show us tangibly the righteous wrath of God against the sins of the people. His righteous wrath is enough to overwhelm all of creation. And it was this wrath that was poured out on Jesus for our sake at the cross. He is the one who bore the full flood of God’s judgment and wrath against the sins of the world. It was as though all the waters of the flood from Noah’s time were poured out on Jesus alone.

Friends, I hope that this causes us to pause in wonder of the work that Christ has done for us. So often the wrath of God seems somewhat intangible to us, being on the other side of redemption. We read about the suffering that Jesus endured in his body and his spirit, but it is hard for it to become real to us because it still seems so distant from our experience of God. But our experience of God is filtered through the cross of Christ. The story of Noah shows where we would stand without the death and resurrection of Jesus. It shows us the righteous wrath and punishment that we would without exception deserve. And yet God has not directed that wrath downwards to us, but he has instead poured it out on his own Son so that we might be redeemed through his death and resurrection.

Friends, if you have not put your hope and your faith in the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ, I hope and pray that you would do so today. For apart from Christ we stand condemned with the people of Noah’s generation because of our sins. But just as God showed himself to be merciful with Noah, he has also been merciful with us by pouring his wrath out upon his son. In him is redemption and forgiveness of sins. In him is reconciliation with the Father because of his perfect life and death on our behalf. It is through Christ that God has kept his promise after the flood - he will never again bring destruction upon the earth with a flood, because he has instead poured that wrath upon Jesus for our sake. It is my hope and prayer today that we might see the glory of God’s plan, and that we may rejoice in the great grace that he has shown us.

Let’s pray.

Gracious God, we acknowledge that our sins deserve the flood of your wrath. But we praise you that you are exceedingly patient in your dealings with us. The story of Noah has shown us what we deserve, but for your glory you have instead poured your wrath on Jesus so that we might be saved. Lord, we pray that we might marvel at the depths of your mercy and your grace towards us, and that we might wonder at the incredible sacrifice of Christ on our behalf. Father, set our hearts aflame with love for Jesus. Call us to yourself that we might see the consequences of our sins - how they grieve your heart - and that we might repent of them and cast ourselves on the mercy of Christ. We thank you and praise you for what you have done for us, and it is in Jesus’ name that we pray.

Amen.