Recap
- We have focused on the avalanche of sin that runs from the fall through Cain and Lamech ultimately culminating in the sons of god.
- However, there is another community that runs through the line of Seth. This is the believing community of God that call upon the name of the Lord.
- Just as Lamech represents the epitome of the Cain line, Enoch represents the epitome Seth line. The parallel is made stronger by noting they are both the fifth in their respective lines.
- Enoch walks with God. The stem used for walk typically takes on a judicial meaning. That means that Enoch could be holding the rest of the world to God’s judgment as a prophet would.
- The line of Seth is similar to the Cain line in that the phrase “and he died” is repeated.
- Enoch breaks this pattern by being taken by God and not dying. It is a hint that death may not be the final word.
- In Genesis 5:28-29, Lamech interrupts the flow of the genealogy by naming his son Noah.
Q. Where have you heard this language before, and what do you think it means?
- The language of the cursed ground is from the post-fall judgment in Genesis 3.
- Lamech names his son in the hope that he would be the one to reverse the curse.
- Lamech demonstrates his faith by clinging to the promise of the seed of the woman who would crush the head of the serpent and free humanity from its toil.
- In contrast, the sin has reached a point where every intention of the thoughts of humanity’s heart was only evil continuously.
- Genesis 6:12 has God seeing the earth and his judgment is that it was corrupt, whereas in Genesis 1 God saw the earth and judged that it was good.
Q. What thoughts do you have on the Noah story?
God remembers Noah
- The literary structure of the passage follows the rising of the waters and the falling of the waters.
- Noah waits on the flood for 7 days, then enters the Ark and waits for 7 days. For 40 days and 40 nights the rains come until the water prevailed over the high mountains. This lasted for 150 days.
- So we have increasing numbers as the water covers the whole earth. After 150 days the water begins to abate, and the ark rests on Mt Ararat for 40 days until Noah sends out a raven and a dove, he then waits 7 days and sends out another dove, then Noah waits another 7 days.
- Now the numbers are decreasing just as the water is decreasing.
- The whole story can be set up as a chiasm.
- By viewing the story as a chiasm, we can see the central point is verse 8:1 - God remembered Noah.
- The word remembered is used in conjunction with a covenant. To remember to a covenant is to make sure its stipulations have been faithfully executed.
- For example in Exodus 2:23-24 we are told that God remembered his covenant with Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob and the series of events that lead to the Exodus begins.
.jpg)
Covenant
Q. What covenant is God remembering?
- God had made a covenant with Noah in 6:18.
- The flood is a reversal of creation. The earth returns to formlessness and void where the waters cover the deep.
- After it rains for 40 days and 40 nights the God makes a wind blow over the earth and the waters subside. This recalls Genesis 1:2 when the spirit of God was hovering over the waters. The word for spirit and wind is the same word in Hebrew - ruach.
- At this point, God is recreating the earth - there is a new heaven and new earth.
- This is a picture in miniature of God’s plan for the world, God will save his people through judgment.
Redemptive Judgment
- In 2 Peter 3:2-7, Peter compares the final judgment that will come with the second coming to the flood.
- Therefore we can view the flood as not only a picture of salvation, but of the final judgment.
- So the flood is a foreshadowing of the final judgment, and therefore it is legitimate to draw a parallel with the book of Revelation.
- There is a parallel between the judgment of Noah’s flood and the final judgment of Revelation.
- That is why last week I brought in Revelation even though some of you probably thought I was going off in left field.
- The same forces are at play with man attempting to be God, to rule as divine, and to reject the Kingdom of God.
- The line of Cain builds their cities and stakes out theirs claim that the world belongs to them.
- By contrast the line of Seth claims God as the ultimate authority.
- This battle reaches a crisis where only Noah remains faithful and so God must intervene and save his people to show he is change.
Q. Where are some other places in the Bible where God intervened to save his people through judgment?
- Pharaoh has no respect for God (Who is this YHWH that I should listen to Him?) and so God intervenes to save His people and to show Pharaoh who is in charge.
- God does this through a series of plagues as well as the incident at the Red Sea. Both the plagues and the red sea experience make a distinction between God’s people and those who are not God’s people.
- The same waters that destroy the Egyptians are salvation for the Hebrews.
- This is how redemptive judgment works. A distinction is made between those who belong to God and those that reject God.
Noah as a Christ Figure
Q. The reason God saves Noah is because he finds favor in the eyes of the Lord. Later in Genesis 7:1 God says that in contrast to the rest of the earth that Noah is “righteous before me in this generation.” Does it make you uncomfortable that God saves Noah because he is righteous and found favor in the eyes of the Lord.
- We are very uncomfortable, because this seems to teach salvation by works.
- The King James and the New King James actually translate favor as grace, because the translators are so worried this may come across as salvation by works.
- However it is clear that grace is not the proper translation if we look at some other places this word is used:
1. Deuteronomy 24:1
2. Proverbs 3:1-4
- The way we understand this is to see that Noah is functioning as a picture of Christ.
- Just as Christ earns salvation for his people through His righteousness and obedience, Noah earns salvation for his family through his righteousness and his obedience building the ark.
- Noah is the obedient vassal who fulfills the stipulations of the covenant and therefore earns the reward. Jesus is also the obedient vassal who fulfills the terms of the covenant and earns the reward.
- Remember that there are three levels to the ancient near east model of kingship. The king, the vassal, and the vassal’s subjects. God is the suzerain, Jesus is the vassal, and His followers are the subjects.
- We have the same model with Noah. God is the suzerain, Noah is the vassal, and his family and the animals are the subject.
- We can see this further by noticing that in Genesis 6:5-6 we are told that the reason for the flood was because the wickedness of man was great and that every intention of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continuously. However, after the flood, in Genesis 8:21, God says “I will never again curse the ground because of man, for the intention of man’s heart is evil from his youth. Neither will I ever again strike down every living creature as I have done. While the earth remains, seedtime and harvest, cold and heat, summer and winter, day and night, shall not cease.”
- So God sends a flood to destroy everything because humanity is evil, but then he promises not to destroy the earth because humanity is evil.
Q. How do we explain this? What changed?
- Noah the righteous man makes a sacrifice. There are several things that make this sacrifice special.
- First, it is called an “olah” or whole burnt offering, this is the most special of the sacrifice, it symbolizes total dedication.
- A sacrifice is a substitute for the offerer. It other words the sacrifice takes the place of the offerer. For example, the lamb at passover is the substitute for the Israelite first born. The angel of death required judgment. In the case of the Egyptians it was the first born, in the case of the Hebrews it was the lamb.
- This sacrifice was no easy sacrifice. It required faith, there were not many animals left and so sacrificing the animals and burning them whole would have required a significant amount of trust that God would provide more animals.
- The take home message is that the sacrifice of a righteous man in faith will satisfy God’s wrath leading to a new heaven and new earth.
- Now Noah is a sinner just like us and ultimately his righteousness does not bring him salvation. However, even though Noah was saved through the flood he still died.
- The flood is only a picture of judgment and Noah is only a picture of Christ.
- Bible has a system that tells us about the plan of God and the Bible repeats this point using different stories.
- So here at the very beginning of Genesis we have a great picture of how God works. He promises deliverance for his people and delivers his people through judgment through the faith and sacrifice of a righteous man leading to a new heaven and new earth.
Flood & Baptism
1 Peter 3:20-22
- Peter draws a parallel between baptism and the flood. In fact the word for correspond to is antitype. So Peter is saying that the flood and baptism is an antitype.
Q. Does anyone from our Hebrews study remember what type and antitype mean?
- The type is a model or symbol, while the antitype is the reality the type refers to.
Q. What are some examples of types and antitypes?
Q. How do baptism and the flood relate to each other?
- We often think about baptism as if it only a washing away of sin, but baptism is more than that.
- There is also an aspect of baptism that symbolizes judgment.
- We think of water as something positive but for the Israelites water represented the forces of chaos and disorder. It was not safe. That is why Jesus’ miracle of calming the storm was so significant.
- In Luke 3:16-17, notice John describes Jesus’ baptism is symbolizing more than cleansing.
- Baptism is a passing through God’s judgment trusting that only God can allow the believer to pass through successfully.
- John 5:24 tells us the same thing, the Christian passes through judgment from death to life.
- Isaiah also makes this connection between the new life of resurrection and the flood in Isaiah 26.
No comments:
Post a Comment