Awash with good people - part 3 of 3 (stage 7)

Almost as a second Adam, Noah steps out into a virgin world washed clean by judgement.

From the account of the Flood in Genesis, Noah and the other occupants must have been  on board the ark for a total of 371 days.  Everyone must have experienced sheer physical joy at being 'released' from such a long incarceration - but Noah's first thought was Godward:

Genesis 8: 20, 21 & 22; ''And Noah builded an altar unto the LORD; and took of every clean beast, and of every clean fowl, and offered burnt offerings on the altar.  And the LORD smelled a sweet [soothing aroma] savor; and the LORD said in his heart, I will not again curse the ground any more for man's sake; for  [although] the imagination [thought] of man's heart is evil from his youth; neither will I again smite any more every living thing, as I have done.  While the earth remaineth, seedtime and harvest, and cold and heat, and summer and winter, and day and night shall not cease.''

Homage, dedication and atonement are all expressed in Noah's ''burnt offerings''.  The next steps were for God to establish a covenant with Noah and his sons going forward:

Genesis 9: 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14 & 15; ''And God spake unto Noah and to his sons with him, saying,  And I, behold, I establish my covenant with you, and with your seed [descendants] after you;  And with every living creature that is with you, of the fowl, of the cattle, and of every beast of the earth with you; from all that go out of the ark, to every beast of the earth.  And I will establish my covenant with you; neither shall all flesh be cut off any more by the waters of a flood; neither will any more be a flood to destroy the earth.  And God said, This is the token [sign] of the covenant which I make between me and you and every living creature that is with you for perpetual generations:  I do set my bow [rainbow] in the cloud, and it shall be as a token [sign] of a covenant between me and the earth.  And it shall come to pass, when I bring a cloud over the earth, that the bow shall be seen in the cloud:  And I will remember my covenant, which is between me and you and every living creature of all flesh; and the waters shall no more become a flood to destroy all flesh.''

Not withstanding the 'Agreements' God made with Edenic and post-Edenic Adam, this is the first explicit 'Covenant' in Biblical history. It is remarkable for its breadth (''embracing every living creature''), its permanence (''perpetual'' & ''everlasting'') and its generosity - for it was unconditional as it was undeserved.  For good measure its ''sign'', or seal, a feature of all covenants, was such as to emphasise God's sole initiative and offer His reassurance going forward.

 

Interestingly, the absence of any obligations laid down on the recipients of this Noahic Covenant meant that there was no mutuality between the parties; in other words it was a covenant that could not produce any reciprocal close bond of fellowship.  This is very different to the pattern of future covenants that God would establish which did/do require as a basis of the 'agreement' a close and personal relationship - and in the case of the New Covenant (established through the sacrifice of Jesus) an everlasting one!

Final thought this week from 2 Peter 3:

2 Peter 3; 3, 4, 5, 6, 7 & 9;  ''Knowing this first, that there shall come in the last days scoffers [mockers] walking [according] to their own lusts, And saying, Where is the promise of the coming? for since the fathers fell [died] asleep, all things continue as they were from the beginning of the creation.  For this they willingly are ignorant [forget] of, that by the word of God the heavens were of old, and the earth standing out of the water and in the water: Whereby the world that then was, being overflowed with water, perished: But the heavens and the earth, which are now, by the same word are kept in store, reserved unto fire against [until] the day of judgement and perdition [destruction] of ungodly men.  The Lord is not slack concerning his promise, as some men count slackness: but is long-suffering us-ward, not willing that any should perish, but that all should come to repentance.''

Just as God once destroyed the earth with water to 'cleanse' it of ungodly men (God in the Noahic Covenant said he would never again use water to destroy all flesh), God's earth is now reserved ''unto fire'' until the day of ''judgement''.   However, this time God is ''not willing that any should perish'' clearly expresses His desire for the salvation of all who will trust in Him.

Peter warns that in the ''last days'' of this New Covenant age ''scoffers'' [mockers] will ridicule the promise of the second coming of Jesus.  He further states that people make their assertions based  upon their misplaced confidence that this is a stable, unchanging world and that it will remain so and therefore, so they reason, there will be no second coming of Jesus to judge ungodly men. 

Peter points our that people will and do wilfully neglect to remember the event of the Flood and neglect to recognise that God did intervene in judgement.  The lesson taught through the episode of the Flood was that this is a moral universe, that sin will not forever go unpunished; Jesus himself uses the Flood to point to this moral:

Matthew 24: 37, 38 & 39; ''But as the days of Noah were, so shall also the coming of the Son of man be.  For as in the days that were before the flood they were eating and drinking, marrying and giving in marriage, until the day that Noah entered into the ark, And knew not until the flood came, and took them all way; so shall the coming of the Son of man be.''

The last generation, like the one of Noah's day, is pleasure seeking and self-gratifying (''eating'' and drinking'').  The reference to ''marrying and being given in marriage'' may refer to carrying on the normal course of life without heeding the impending judgement. 

 

The observation that the people of Noah's day ''knew not'' the severity and suddenness of the coming destruction indicates that this last generation will also be totally unprepared for the ''coming of the Son on man'', the return of Jesus, the Christ, to judge the world.

 

Next week something a little different from a 'new' contributor to the eChurch Generation Blog before we resume our journey and 'Stage 8'.