Flood: Grace

 

If we look at the Old Testament as it is laid out historically and get a grasp of this basic outline then everything else plugs in. First of all there is the Pentateuch, the first five books. This covers creation to the point where the nation Israel is at the borders of Canaan, ready to go in and take the land that God had given to them. It was written about 1440 BC on the plains of Moab by Moses. Then there are the historical books which begin with Joshua, then Judges, Ruth, Samuel, Kings, Chronicles. These cover the time from 1440 BC when Israel goes into the land until 586 BC when finally the southern kingdom is taken out of the land under divine discipline. At the beginning was a theocracy, then the united monarchy under Saul, David and Solomon, but in 931 BC on the death of Solomon his son Rehoboam follows the advice of his younger councilors and increases taxation and there is one of the first tax revolts in history. The ten tribes in the north separated and there was the divided kingdom—ten tribes in the north and the two tribes of Benjamin and Judah in the south. In 722 BC the northern kingdom is taken out, destroyed in divine discipline by the Assyrian armies, and then in 586 BC the southern kingdom is destroyed by the armies of Nebuchadnezzar and they go into seventy years of exile. Then there are the three post-exilic historical books, Ezra, Nehemiah and Esther. That covers the panorama of Israel’s history and the history of the Old Testament. All the other books plug into that historical framework.

 

Genesis 6:5 NASB “Then the LORD saw that the wickedness of man was great on the earth, and that every intent of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually.” We want to go to a theme verse to focus on this section from Genesis four to Genesis eleven which sets the stage for the call of Abram. This would be the verse. Three verses down we find the contrast. On the one hand we see the evil of man, man’s rebelliousness toward God and the increase of sin. The main thing that stands out in chapters 4-11 is that man continuously rebels against God. Man is not obedient to God, he continuously seeks to try to live his life independent of God and to create his own reality. In contrast to the ebb and flow of human history away from God we find the unique statement: Genesis 6:8 NASB “But Noah found favor [grace] in the eyes of the LORD.” Here we see the twin themes of this entire section: judgment and blessing, and God’s grace always precedes judgment and goes along with judgment. 

 

Genesis 6:11, 12 NASB “Now the earth was corrupt in the sight of God, and the earth was filled with violence. God looked on the earth, and behold, it was corrupt; for all flesh had corrupted their way upon the earth.” Here we see a further development of this theme. This is the indictment of the antediluvian civilization. 

 

What has happened in Genesis chapter three is that man has fallen, nature has fallen, every aspect of the natural world has been impacted by Adam’s sin. Adam and the woman have been cast out of the garden and in the last verse of chapter three we read: NASB “So He drove the man out; and at the east of the garden of Eden He stationed the cherubim and the flaming sword which turned every direction to guard the way to the tree of life.” The interesting thing here is that the garden of Eden was still on the earth during the time of the antediluvian civilization. This was a physical, geographical location on the earth and it was visible to anyone who wanted to go see it. It is interesting that at this time there was the physical presence of God on the earth just as there will be in the Millennial kingdom. And just as at the end of the Millennial kingdom there will be hundreds of thousands who reject God and His grace there were millions, if not billions, who rejected God and His grace in the antediluvian civilization. There is a parallel between the two. So man has been cast out of the garden, he cannot come back into the garden, and God’s presence is still on the earth. He is still executing judgment. Remember human government is not initiated and established until after the flood. What did they do in terms of government prior to that? God is executing judgment personally on the earth from the garden. It was a totally different world from what we have in the postdiluvian world and we must come to grips with that.

 

When we come to Cain and Abel we note that God rejects Cain’s offering. Cain’s his offering is his own works, what he has done, whereas Abel’s offering follows the mandates of God. His offering is the sacrifice of a lamb and that is acceptable to God. God rejects Cain’s offering indicating that God always rejects man’s works. Abel relies not on what he has done but on what God has provided for him and what God has instructed him to do. So we see a contest here. Cain went out and built a city. A city is not evil in itself but it is evil when it is being used to raise man’s standards against the authority of God. The remainder of Genesis chapter four covers the descendants of Cain and his family and we see a picture of evil that is taking place from one generation to the next. Genesis 4:18 NASB “Now to Enoch was born Irad, and Irad became the father of Mehujael, and Mehujael became the father of Methushael, and Methushael became the father of Lamech.” This gets us into looking at the genealogy. Note the difference between this and 5:6 NASB “Seth lived one hundred and five years, and became the father of Enosh.” Seth was the replacement son for Abel. [7] “Then Seth lived eight hundred and seven years after he became the father of Enosh, and he had {other} sons and daughters.” When we compare verses 5,6, and 7 with Genesis 4:18 we see that the difference is numbers added in the genealogy of chapter five. There are no numbers in the first genealogy. When numbers are added the genealogy is protected against any insertion of any absences. There can’t be gaps in a genealogy when there is a numerical formula.

 

What we see in chapters four and five is the decline of the human race. One individual stands out. Genesis 5:22 NASB “Then Enoch walked with God…” Enoch is in contrast to all of the descendants of Cain and many others who are ignorant of God, who ignore God and are in rebellion against God. [24] “Enoch walked with God; and he was not, for God took him.” Enoch had such a close relationship with God, was spending time with God—and God is physically present on the earth—and one day he just walks right into heaven; he did not go through physical death. Enoch goes to be with God just prior to the flood. His son Methuselah died the year before the flood came.

The reason for the flood is first of all because of man’s rebellion, man’s failure to execute God’s plan and purposes. The second reason is given in Genesis 6:1, 2 NASB “Now it came about, when men began to multiply on the face of the land, and daughters were born to them, that the sons of God saw that the daughters of men were beautiful; and they took wives for themselves, whomever they chose.” The sons of God here is a technical term in the Hebrew, beni ha Elohim, and it refers to the angels. It always refers to angels; it never discriminates between fallen angels and holy angels. It is used to describe all the angels, demon angels as well, in Job. Here it refers to fallen angels. It is a term to describe that these angels sought to destroy God’s plan and purposes for mankind. They sought to destroy the genetic purity of the human race. Now the genetic make-up of the human race has been polluted by this angelic strain. If God is going to redeem the human race He has to do that with a Son who is true humanity. When the second person of the Trinity is incarnate He can’t have a human body that has been tainted by angelic DNA, so God judges the human race in order to preserve its purity. The passages in 1 Peter 3:20 and in Jude indicate that there is a segment of angels that are imprisoned in Tartarus right now. It is these demons that violated their position in Genesis chapter six. From this point on God restricted the demons from doing this sort of thing again.

Genesis 6:9 NASB “These are {the records of} the generations of Noah. Noah was a righteous man, blameless in his time; Noah walked with God.” The word “generations” indicates a major division in the writing. God calls out Noah because he is one of the few people left on the earth who is still obedient to God, who has responded to the gospel at that time. Noah and his family are among the few who are going to follow God and they are the ones who are going to survive the flood. It takes Noah 120 years to build the ark; it was a massive engineering feat.  

How long did the flood take? They went into the ark on the tenth day of the second month of Noah’s 600th year, according to Genesis 7:11. They were in the ark for a week and then it began to rain and God closed the door. This indicates that there is only one way into God’s grace recovery system at the flood. There is only one way to salvation—Jesus Christ. Noah did not close the door; God closed the door. This is a picture of eternal security. God is the one who secures and protects us. So the family goes into the ark with all the animals and for forty days and forty nights it rained. After 150 days the ark rested on Mount Ararat. Then there were 74 days when the waters began to decrease. The total number of days of the flood was 371.

Then we have a terrible episode occur which indicated that man’s heart does not change; he is still wicked. Noah gets drunk and there is the scene of embarrassment where Ham goes in and looks upon Noah’s nakedness. It was simply a sign of disrespect for the father. This is followed by the blessing and cursing statement of Noah.

Gen 9:25 So he said, ‘Cursed be Canaan; A servant of servants He shall be to his brothers’.” Canaan is the son of Ham. He doesn’t curse Ham; neither does he bless Ham. The cursing goes to Canaan. Why is that important? The Jews were on the plains of Moab, the nation was approximately 3-million strong and getting ready to go into the land of the Canaanites, the descendants of Canaan, and God is giving them into their hand as judgment upon the because of their sexual perversion. Now it makes sense. Canaan was cursed, and we see a foreshadowing of this curse. Ham, and specifically his son Canaan, probably are already living out this genetic tendency in the family line towards sexual perversion. Genesis 9:26 NASB “He also said, ‘Blessed be the LORD, The God of Shem; And let Canaan be his servant.’” The Jews are the descendants of Shem. Shem has a spiritual blessing on him which is developed through the Jews. Canaan is going to serve the Shemites (Jews). Genesis 9:27 NASB “May God enlarge Japheth, And let him dwell in the tents of Shem; And let Canaan be his servant.” The Gentile races, the Indo-European races, are the descendants of Japheth. They dwell in the tents of Shem. We are sitting here reading the Scriptures given to the Shemites. 

In Genesis chapter ten we are once again we are struck with the same kind of depravity that we find back in Genesis 4 & 5. Man continues to rebel against God and this culminates in the massive international, global rebellion that takes place at the tower of Babel, and then God has to confuse the language. This begins racial distinctions and the restriction of genetic tendencies.