On the Same Page: Noah and the Flood (Genesis 6:9-22)

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Where is God in this story? We know where Noah and his family are. We know where the animals are. We know where the rest of humanity is. So where is God in this story?  

First, God is on His sovereign throne looking down at the earth. God has authority. He speaks, expecting and deserving our response.  

God looks down from His throne and sees that "the earth was corrupt in the sight of God, and full of violence.” In the beginning, God created the world and saw that it was good. In Noah’s day, only ten generations from the garden of Eden, God saw that it was corrupted. In that Eden event, God made His first covenant with humanity: “Be fruitful and multiply, and fill the earth ...” (Genesis 1:28)— "Fill it with My image. Make the earth fruitful and filled with good things." 

Instead, 10 generations later, God looks... And does not see good. He sees that yes, we have filled the earth. But we have filled it with violence. We have filled it with corruption.  

That word corrupt means to take something good and twist it, to spoil it. We polluted what God had made. It's as if we took a magic marker and drew a moustache on the Mona Lisa. We wrecked it. It's spoiled. The kind of thing that makes us shake our heads and say, “What a waste.” 

That word violence means a disruption of the divinely established order of things: oppression of the weak by the strong, exploitation of the poor by the rich. It means not only physical violence, but also relational violence—pollution that prevent us from pursuing and receiving God's blessing. That ruins our relationships with each other and with the world. Broader than just physical violence, it tears apart what God has made. Destroys our relationships with each other and with him. In Eden, God’s covenant gave us the earth for food, shelter, and comfort. He gave to us the earth and the animals. He gave us to the earth and the animals so that we could care for and cultivate the world of which we are a part. And we twisted those relationships. We did violence to the earth. We did violence to ourselves. 

Noah was born into a people who lived in a land watered by the rivers that had flowed through Eden itself... but on a completely different planet. God on His throne, in His sovereignty, looked down and saw that it was not good, but corrupt. He saw the harm that we had done to the world. The direction we were going. So God on His throne made a sovereign decision.  

The second place I see God in this story is walking with Noah as a loving creator. 

In the beginning, God created us in His image. He walked with us in the garden. He gave us these gifts of sustenance and safety and companionship. Of our animal brothers and sisters. Of each other. And we completely failed. What is God's response? According to the text--with regret. He regrets having created humanity. You would expect God to be angry. You would expect him to say, “How dare you spoil what I have made? How dare you ignore my sovereignty? How dare you defy my authority? How dare you do things so opposite to what I set you to do?” You would expect God's response to be anger, but there's no indication of that in the text. 

There is sadness. There is sorrow: grief at what has been lost, at what should have been. The fact that God regretted the situation does not necessarily mean that He was surprised by it. We can know that something is going to happen, and still be disappointed when it does. (Any Toronto Maple Leafs fans in the room?) It doesn't mean that we're angry. It means that we are sad. God grieves over the situation. 

His response (the thing that we struggle with the most, that makes this story so difficult) is not to abandon the mess and just say, “Oh, forget it. That was a bad idea. I'm never doing that again.” 

His response is to engage in an act of recreation.  

In the beginning He creates. In Noah’s day, He re-creates. God found a family He could invest in because they were "righteous." That righteousness is the opposite of corruption. Righteous means 'in right relationship,' going in the right direction. It means engaging correctly with His commands, living His values. That righteous family was faithful to God. They were faithful to each other faithful in their community. They were whole. They had healthy relationships, and healthy characters. They lived in accordance with God's principles. Especially Noah. And God chose this family to start again. 

Genesis 1:2 says that in the beginning, “the breath of God, the spirit of God hovered over the face of the deep.” 

In Genesis 2:7, God gives the breath of life to Adam and Eve. 

In Genesis 7:22 breath is taken from all life on earth. 

And then in Genesis 8:1, God sends a breath to blow over the waters that covered the poor, beleaguered, cursed earth to start bringing it back to life. To start bringing life back to the earth. To start doing what God alone can do: moving our story towards redemption and towards new life. Giving us, and giving our world, what only He can give: the breath of the spirit of life. 

God's work through the flood and through Noah's family was an act of re-creation, giving us another chance, giving us a second opportunity to obey His sovereignty. A second change to walk alongside Him. 

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There is much debate about the story of Noah and the flood—starting with the question of whether it “actually happened.” In other words, whether it is a parable or an event.  

Regardless, it is Scripture. It has authority. It's there for a reason. Parable or event, it speaks to us in a God-breathed way.  

If, for example, we interpret Noah's flood as being a parable, it still has authority for us. When Jesus talks about His second coming, about His return to earth in ultimate power, about that ultimate act of re-creation, He says this: 

No one knows about that day or hour, not even the angels in heaven, nor the son, but only the father. As it was in the days of Noah so it will be at the coming of the son of man, for in the days before the flood, people were eating and drinking and marrying and giving in marriage up to the day Noah entered the ark. And they were oblivious until the flood came and swept them away. So will it be at the coming of the son of man. Therefore keep watch, because you do not know the day on which your Lord will come.   (Matthew 24:36-42) 

Jesus is teaching from Noah’s story the same way He teaches from parables: picking out one particular core truth, and using the story to reveal a mystery. “You can't know what's going to happen, so pay attention to your everyday life. Live your life the way I want you to live. Be righteous. Be like Noah.” 

If, however, you interpret Noah's story as an event (an actuality that happened to people on this planet) then it's part of our story. It's part of our history: our relationship with the world, and our relationship with God. 

It reminds us that our future, our destiny, is inextricable from that of our world. Our planet, the plants and the animals, and the earth we are part of—this whole great creation, our relationships with each other and our relationships with God—are connected.  

Throughout that history, God made covenants with a number of people: with Adam and Eve, with Abraham, with David, with Moses. Jesus made a covenant with us, promising what He was going to do in us, for us, and through us.  

Noah's covenant with God is a little bit different. 

God said to Noah and his sons with him, “Behold, I now establish my covenant with you and your descendants after you, and with every living creature that was with you... I establish my covenant that never again will all life be cut off by the waters of the flood.” (Genesis 9:8ff)

God is making a covenant not just with Noah, or with his family. God's covenant is with all of creation: that our shared destiny will never again go down that path. That God has a different plan for us, and for the animals and for all creation. God's covenant is with the world.  

We have been created by, we share the universe with, we are accountable to a God who loves us enough to make us better. Who loves us enough to teach us. To refine us. To bring us through the crises of our lives closer to him. A God who has made a promise to us and to every living creature that our story will be completed. That our story will come to its true and best ending.  

The creation waits in eager expectation for the revelation of the sons of God. For the creation was subjected to futility not by its own will, but because of the one the sovereign, one who subjected it in hope that the creation itself will be set free from its bondage to decay. And brought into the glorious freedom of the children of. God and we know that the whole creation has been groaning together in the pains of childhood. (Romans 8:19-22) 

The story of Noah and the flood is a chapter in our story. It's a chapter in the story of our world. The story that God is guiding, and writing, and that He will complete. 

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