Genesis

AGAIN we are impressed with the remarkable detail of the history. Yet human history, as such and in itself, has no real place in the Old Testament. It is only human life, as seen in the light of the divine purpose that is recorded in the Word of God. The divine and the human elements are here blended and contrasted, and along these lines the chapter will best be studied.

The divine judgment is now drawing to its close. The servant is remembered by God and the covenant established is now to be carried out in full. The waters from above and below were restrained, and the ark now rests in safety upon the mountains of Ararat. The place of rest seems to have been the territory known by the name of one of the peaks (cf. 2Ki 19:37, R.V.).

It was an attitude of Faith. Noah was on the alert and responsive to the divine movements. Having opened the window, he sent forth a raven, which wandered hither and thither and did not return. Then he sent forth a dove, but the dove found no resting-place and returned to him in the ark.

It was also an attitude of Hope. Having waited seven days more, again he sent forth a dove, and the dove came back with an olive leaf, so that Noah now knew that tire waters were abating.

It was also an attitude of Patience. He waited seven days longer before sending out the dove a third time, and when the dove did not return, Noah must have known that the day of deliverance was at hand.

When God pledges His word and establishes His covenant, His servants have a strong foundation for their faith, hope, and patience.

How firm a foundation, ye saints of the Lord, Is laid for your faith in His excellent Word! What more can He say, than to you He hath said to you, who for refuge to Jesus have fled.

At last the time had come for Noah to leave the ark, and the Word which had so clearly told him to enter, now with equal clearness tells him to come forth with his family, and to bring forth with him everything that he had taken in. God never commands before the time required for obedience. Step by step He makes known His will. He is never too soon and never too late.

The servant had obeyed implicitly, accurately, and immediately before the Flood, so he does now. He went forth at once at the command of God. Obedience to be real must be prompt and full. This is one of the supreme tests of genuine living.

V. The Servant’s Consecration (Gen 8:20).

Noah’s first act on landing upon the earth was to build an altar and to offer sacrifices, (Gen 8:20). Thereby he testified at once (a) to his gratitude to God for deliverance, (b) to his need of sacrifice in approaching his God, and (c) to the consecration of his life to the service of God as symbolized by the burnt offering.

In response there is a twofold movement of God. First there is the acceptance of the sacrifice, "The Lord smelled a sweet savour." Quite literally the phrase is, a savour of rest, the word apparently being a play upon the meaning of Noah (Gen 5:29). God thus signified His acceptance of what His servant had done in offering "a sacrifice to God for a sweet smelling savour" (Eph 5:2).

Following the acceptance of the sacrifice was the divine assurance with special reference to the future of the earth. There was to be no more curse in the form of a flood, and there was to be an absolute guarantee of the permanence of the seasons, year by year, as long as the earth remained.

Thus the Lord and His servant revealed their attitudes towards each other all through this chapter, and we have in it one of the most suggestive pictures of God in relation to man, and of man in relation to God.

Let us now review these three chapters and read them afresh in the light of New Testament teaching. In view of the words of the Apostle Peter (1Pe 3:20), it is not wrong to regard the story of the flood as a great pictorial and symbolical lesson full of spiritual truths. It is sometimes said that history never repeats itself, but there is a sense in which it does in relation to spiritual and moral realities. Our Lord distinctly tells us that the history of Noah will repeat itself in the day of His coming (Mat 24:37-42). What were the days of Noah, and what will be the days of the Son of Man?

We think of the people at the time of the Flood, and our thought goes on to those who will be living similarly in the days of the Son of Man.

Thus, as it was in the days of Noah, so will it be in the days of the Son of Man. Days of evil and yet of good. Amid the evil days an opportunity for salvation and an invitation to partake of the Divine mercy. Days of peril and of loss; and yet the opportunity of pardon, peace, protection, preservation. Now is the accepted time; now is the day of salvation.