(This sermon was first delivered on September 18, 2011 at Look to the Cross in Edmonton, Alberta. For a further study of the ideas within this sermon, see the previous week's posts in this blog, and the post on September 19.)
Revelation 4:11
“You are worthy, our Lord and God,
to receive glory and honor and power,
for you created all things,
and by your will they were created
and have their being.”
God is worthy of glory . . . because God created all things . . . according to his will . . . and by God’s will all things have their being.
Genesis begins with the stories of Creation, where by the authority of God’s word, all of the cosmos comes into divine order, according to God’s purpose. From the void, God the master conductor directs the symphony of Creation according to his design, a masterpiece of worship that glorifies him. In the second account, he places Man and Woman into his Creation as priests in the garden of his temple, representing God to the world in community.
From the Creation stories we learn:
1. God is Sovereign – By God’s authority purpose is given to the void.
2. Creation is God’s Temple
3. Man and Woman are God’s Priests in God’s Temple
After Adam and Eve eat the fruit in the garden, we see an escalation of sin and violence with consequences for all of humanity:
1. Personal – Adam and Eve - Eat fruit
2. Family – Cain - Murder of a brother
3. Society (systemic) – Sons of God – Racist and Sexist oppression with power and politics
4. Spirituality – Babel - Demote God and promote man
With each incident, God responds to humanity with justice, mercy, and redemption:
1. Humanity rejects God’s Sovereignty for Sovereignty of Self
2. God deals justly with sin
3. God patiently describes the consequences of sin, and deals mercifully with humanity
4. God opens a possible way of redemption
Creation and Recreation. Adam and Noah – The Parallel Structure of Genesis 1-11
Genesis is a beautiful book of rich and deep theology. It is also a beautiful and sophisticated piece of literature.
Like the beautiful balance that is revealed in the six days of creation, or the poetic mirror that connects the two Creation accounts in Genesis 2:4, the narrative continues to find balance, order, and intention in the first eleven chapters of Genesis.
These first chapters form a prehistory to the biographical stories of Abrahammand Sarah, Isaac, Jacob, and Joseph in chapter 12-50. This second (and larger) section of Genesis also has a beautifully balanced literary structure, which we will explore later.
The first section of Genesis reveals itself in two sets of parallel stories, each showing the sovereignty of God, the downfall of mankind, God’s judgment, and God’s redemption.
Here is the parallel structure of Genesis 1-11. This will begin to form our study of the narrative of the Flood, God’s uncreation and re-creation.
Genesis 1-11
A - Creation (Genesis 1-3)
B - Sin of the sons of Adam (Genesis 4:1-16)
C - Human Development (Genesis 4:17-26)
D - 10 Generations – Adam to Noah (Genesis 5)
E - Total Human Downfall – Sons of God/Daughters of Man (Genesis 6:1-7)
Redemption Event – God says he will save Noah – Genesis 6:9-22
A2 - Flood - un-creation and re-creation (Genesis 7:1-9:17)
B2 - Sin of the sons of Noah (Genesis 9:18-28)
C2 - Human Development (Genesis 10)
E2 – Total Human Downfall – The Tower of Babel (Genesis 11:1-8)
D2 - 10 Generations – Noah to Terah, father of Abraham (Genesis 11:10-32)
Redemption – God makes a covenant with Abraham (Genesis 12:1-3)
(we will allow the author licence to switch the last two parallel events)
In this, and many other examples of literary unity and balance throughout Genesis, we see a story in the very structure of the book itself that speaks of a Sovereign Creator God who sustains all Creation according to his divine purpose. There are no accidents, no coincidences. God is behind it all.
(Once again, I acknowledge my debt to the incredible scholarly contributions of Gary Rendsburg of Rutgers University, New Jersey.)
Noah and the Flood - Genesis 6:9:22
9 This is the account of Noah.
Noah was a righteous man, blameless among the people of his time, and he walked with God. 10 Noah had three sons: Shem, Ham and Japheth.
11 Now the earth was corrupt in God’s sight and was full of violence. 12 God saw how corrupt the earth had become, for all the people on earth had corrupted their ways. 13 So God said to Noah, “I am going to put an end to all people, for the earth is filled with violence because of them. I am surely going to destroy both them and the earth. 14 So make yourself an ark of cypress wood; make rooms in it and coat it with pitch inside and out. 15 This is how you are to build it: The ark is to be 450 feet long, 75 feet wide and 45 feet high. 16 Make a roof for it and finish the ark to within 18 inches of the top. Put a door in the side of the ark and make lower, middle and upper decks. 17 I am going to bring floodwaters on the earth to destroy all life under the heavens, every creature that has the breath of life in it. Everything on earth will perish. 18 But I will establish my covenant with you, and you will enter the ark—you and your sons and your wife and your sons’ wives with you. 19 You are to bring into the ark two of all living creatures, male and female, to keep them alive with you. 20 Two of every kind of bird, of every kind of animal and of every kind of creature that moves along the ground will come to you to be kept alive. 21 You are to take every kind of food that is to be eaten and store it away as food for you and for them.”
22 Noah did everything just as God commanded him.
Noah and the flood is a popular Sunday School story. The truth is that children love this story because animals and boats are cool. So too is a story of an old crazy man building a boat for 100 years. And it’s made of gopher wood. How cool is that? But this story is not about animals, or boats, or even Noah, who doesn’t have one single thing to say in the entire story. This story is about God. What we learn about God from what the text DOES say, what it DOESN’T say, and what it probably MEANS is more important than hanging on to our preconceived notions from our childhood memories or understandings.
God is destroying the earth because of violence and corruption because of the evil thoughts and desires of humans. This is the simplest and most clear description for the reason for the flood.
All of humanity has corrupted their ways. All has been bent, perverted from God’s original design. The evil is described as violence.
The passages before God speaks to Noah are about systemic, all pervasive violence and sin. This is a judgment of all of humanity for the perversion and violence of all of humanity that has become bent, not just the kings and rulers.
God is not throwing a tantrum and erupting in a fit of rage. On the contrary, he is thoughtful and intentional. He gives Noah a specific plan. He gives humanity plenty of time to repent. He is merciful and thoughtful and patient in his act of justice. His attitude is described as grief, not rage.
The text does not indicate in any detail that God was considering repentance of mankind as an option. God’s mind was decided. The judgment was already sure.
(v17 – the word flood here is only used in the Bible of this particular flood. Related words outside of scripture always refer to a worldwide catastrophic water event, and sometimes refer to acts of the gods. There is no mistaking the authors’ intention to describe a worldwide, God-orchestrated catastrophic deluge.)
v22 - Noah did what God commanded.
v9 – Why does it say Noah was righteous?
2 Peter 2:5 shows Noah preaching righteousness to his neighbours, but it doesn’t say when or why it happened, and it isn’t in the text of Genesis.
7:5 - Again- Noah did what God commanded
7:21- God said (in ch6) and it was so, just like the pattern of Genesis 1.
8:17- be fruitful and multiply (again)
8:22 – God promises that food, weather, and time will never cease as long as the world exists. These are the Creations of God in the first three days of Genesis 1.
Genesis 9 - Noahic covenant
The end of the flood coincides with the images of Creation in Genesis 1 and 2. For example waters, wind, animals according to their kinds, blessings, and commands to be fruitful are all part of the Creation story
v1 - Be Fruitful and Multiply – the first words to Noah are the same as his first words to Adam and Eve.
God makes a covenant with Noah, sealed with sacrifice. He gives him laws regarding violence and perversion.
God affirms that it is wrong to murder BECAUSE humans are made in the image of God.
The image of God remains with humans after the Fall (Gen9:6).
Noahic covenant – God’s covenant with all mankind.
Abrahamic covenant – God’s covenant with Israel.
Covenant shows an unusual closeness of God with people. In the ancient world, gods were seen as living in a separate realm, and had no personal relationships with humans, except for a few exceptions. Greeks believed gods could have sex with humans. Humans may occasionally achieve divine status, such as the Egyptian Pharaohs. Therefore, the chasm could be bridged. Israel believed God was very close in relationship with humans, however the distance that still existed could not be bridged.
CONCLUSIONS
1. God is Sovereign – By God’s authority purpose is given to the void.
2. Creation is God’s Temple
3. Man and Woman are God’s Priests in God’s Temple
The story of Noah is no different than the rest of Genesis 1-11. Noah and the flood stands in direct contrast to Genesis 1 and 2 and the garden of Eden, yet the message is the same. God is sovereign Creator, and only God is Sovereign Creator. By his will and for his purpose all Creation has its existence.
We are tempted to question God’s severity in his judgment of the whole earth in these chapters. However, I believe that the message is the greatness of God’s mercy in not only sparing Noah and his family, but actually cooperating with him in his plan of Re-Creation.
Just as he cooperated with Adam and Eve in the garden, though God did not need Noah, he actually commissioned Noah to build the boat that would save his Creation. God didn’t need a boat! God made it all himself! God continues, in his mercy, grace, and goodness, to cooperate with mankind in his great work of salvation for the entire world.
In the Creation stories, we see God’s will carried out alone, without help and without opposition. In the story of Noah, we see humans deign to oppose God by the will he gave them. In Genesis 3-11, humans do not act in cooperation with God according to the image in which they were created and the purpose they were given. Though God was pleased to share in his creative work with mankind, man preferred to seek autonomy from their Creator. But autonomy could not be found.
We were Created in relationship, for relationship. We were created for a cooperative, creative, redemptive relationship with God, and a co-priestly relationship with one another, reflecting the divine on Earth. We are not just autonomous individuals. We are community. No matter how different we may seem from one another as humans, every one of us is made in God’s image, and therefore every one of us can live in relationship to God and each other.
Our desire to seek our own sovereignty instead of God’s is the sin that leads to the oppression, judgmentalism, racism, sexism, and violence of Genesis 3-11. Cut off from God’s just, merciful, and redemptive nature, we become fools and we tear one another apart. God did not destroy the earth in the flood. Humans had already destroyed it. Outside of God’s good purpose, it was as good as the void once again. From the waters, God rebirthed his Creation anew.
God’s Redemption
Our temptation to judge God for his actions in the flood, like our temptation to judge God for why he did not accept Cain’s sacrifice, is only a reflection of the very rot that is described in Genesis 3-11.
At the ziggurats, humans applied their own ego to the divine, and turned the beauty Eden inside out and against itself. God made mankind in his image, male and female. He provided everything we need. He condescended to cooperate with his creation, blessing them and placing them as priests in his good world. At Babel, mankind made God in their image, and playacted meeting the supposed needs of God to force him to their will.
God has no needs. We do not get to judge God. Only God is sovereign.
Babel is the last straw. The story of the tower is the final stage of the fullness of the consequences of the fall. Sin has corrupted mankind utterly, and all of mankind has become perverse. All of creation is bent from God's original plan. Creation needs rescuing by its Creator. This is the turning point of the book. We need a Saviour. We need a covenant. For the rest of the book, God establishes his covenant with his people in order to save his creation.
GOD’S PROMISE TO ABRAHAM
Genesis 12:1-3
1 The LORD had said to Abram, “Go from your country, your people and your father’s household to the land I will show you.
2 “I will make you into a great nation,
and I will bless you;
I will make your name great,
and you will be a blessing.
3 I will bless those who bless you,
and whoever curses you I will curse;
and all peoples on earth
will be blessed through you.”
At Babel people wanted to make their name great, and be established in a land by their power.
God promises to make Abram’s name great, and establish him in a land by his power.
In response to the all pervasive sin of all of mankind, God promises a blessing through a seed he plants in the midst of the void. He will direct his own people, and from his people he will give the Earth a new humanity through his own Son.
Genesis 1-11 shows the sin of humanity individually, within the family, systemically, corporately, and religiously.
In Abraham, God makes a covenant that will redeem and bless the entire world. Every area of the world that has been corrupted will be redeemed. His Salvation will be planted in the hearts of his creation. Again, all will be as he intends.
Jesus is the promise of redemption from sin and its consequences for all the peoples of the earth.
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