Genesis 6:1-22

Noah's Flood

Gen 6:13

This is exactly the tone of the creative chapters of the Bible. It is important to remember this, as showing that God's sovereignty has two distinct but consistent operations, it creates, and it destroys, and the creature may not say, What doest thou? It is important, too, to remember that no middle point is proposed between creation and destruction; and as the one is taken literally, so the other must be taken in its plain and obvious meaning: when God "creates," he gives existence; when God "destroys," he takes existence away. It is in this view that I regard the narrative upon the consideration of which we are now entering as singularly important viz., as showing the Divine sovereignty in creation and destruction. Let us look at the narrative and see what we can of God's method, that we may see how he ripens and executes his severest purposes.

It is happily clear that God is moved by what we would call moral considerations, and not by arbitrary impulse, in his government of mankind. The man who does an action simply to please himself is said to act arbitrarily; the action is not founded upon argument or reason, and is therefore arbitrary. In this case God gives his reasons, and discloses every step in the process of his pathetic and mournful argument. "God saw that the wickedness of man was great upon the earth, and that every imagination of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually." That is the basis of action. God's purpose in creating man had been frustrated; its frustration involved the ruin of man, as if by a suicidal act. God, therefore, seeing that ruin must come, acted judicially, as in the first instance he had acted creatively. The question would seem to have been simply this: "Shall sin be left to kill the human race slowly, as if inch by inch, without my asserting judicial rights, or shall I distinctly interpose, as I did in Eden, and bring judgment down upon iniquity?" We ourselves would say, with all humility and reverence, that God was bound to take the second course, if be was to protect not only his own dignity, but the integrity of truth and righteousness. In this act we have on a large scale what in Eden we had on a small scale a determination on the part of God to destroy evil; and by destroying evil I do not mean locking it up by itself in a moral prison, which shall be enlarged through ages and generations until it shall become the abode of countless millions of rebels, but its utter, final, everlasting extinction, so that at last the universe shall be "without spot or wrinkle, or any such thing" the pure home of a pure creation.

But what is the meaning of there being no middle point between creation and destruction? Does it mean that there is no effort on the part of God to save man? It means nothing of the kind. God has never ceased to make this effort until he himself has proved the hopelessness of making it. In this very narrative the law of his working is most clearly defined: "My spirit shall not always strive with man." Many curious interpretations have been given of these words, but none, to my mind, so satisfactory as the one which is most obvious. It may be expressed thus: Man shall not die without remonstrance; i will plead with him; I will ply him with every consideration that can move his conscience and his heart; and not until hope is utterly extinguished will I release him from the importunity of my love. Thus, man is not coldly allowed to die: he is besought, importuned, urged; and by his own uncontrollable madness alone does he rush upon everlasting destruction.

In this chapter we see Divine forbearance exhausted. A very tender expression is here employed: "It grieved the Lord at his heart that he had made man on the earth." The apostle says, "Grieve not the Holy Spirit of God." By putting the two expressions together, we see the wonderful unity of the Bible history and of human nature in all ages. We raise many curious questions about Divine providence, but there is one which ought to arrest our attention, perhaps more gravely than any other Why did God create a creature that had the power to grieve him? It is because out of such power there comes the ability to worship and to serve God, and out of worship and service there comes a blessed progress in all purity and nobleness of life.

The Almighty is about to do here what some of us in our imperfect wisdom have often wished to see done: we have supposed that if all notoriously bad people could be removed at a stroke from the world the kingdom of heaven would be at once established on the earth. The idea may be put roughly thus: Bring together all prisoners, all idlers, drunkards, thieves, liars, and every known form of criminal; take them out into the middle of the Atlantic and sink them there, and at once society will be regenerated, and paradise will be regained. Now this is substantially the very course which the Almighty took in the days of Noah, with what results we know only too well. All our fine theories have been tested, and they come to nothing. The tree of manhood has been cut down to the very root, and it has been shown in every possible way that the root itself must be cured if the branches are to become strong and fruitful. If you were today to destroy all the world, with the single exception of one household, and that household the most pious and honourable that ever lived, in less than half a century we should see all the bad characteristics returning. Water cannot drown sin. Fire cannot burn out sin. Prisons cannot cure theft and cruelty. We must go deeper.

In the meantime it was well to try some rough experiments, merely for the sake of showing that they were not worth trying. If the Flood had not been tried there are some reformers amongst us who would have thought of that as a lucky idea, and wondered that it had never occurred to the Divine mind! After all, it is a very elementary idea. It is the very first idea that would occur to a healthy mind: the world is a failure, man is a criminal and a fool, sin is rampant in the land; very well; that being the case, drown the world. There are persons who seriously ask, Do you think the Flood ever did occur? and there are others who find shells on hill-tops and show them in proof of a universal deluge. O fools and slow of heart! This Flood is occurring every day; this judgment upon sin never ceases; this protection of a righteous seed is an eternal fact! How long shall we live in the mere letter and have only a history instead of a revelation, a memorandum book instead of a living Father? That there was a flood exactly as is described in the Bible I have not so much as a shadow of a doubt; but even if I took it as an allegory, or a typical judgment given in parable, I should seize the account as one that is far more profoundly true than any mere fact could ever be. Look at it! God morally angry, righteousness asserted, sin judged, goodness preserved, evil destroyed, it is true; it must be true; every honest heart demands that it be taken as true.

As we have a moral reason for the destruction of the earth, so we have a moral reason for the preservation of Noah. Observe this closely, so as to escape the idea that there is anything capricious or whimsical in the Divine government "Noah was a just man and perfect in his generations, and Noah walked with God" ( Gen 6:9 ). Of his great-grandfather, Enoch, the same testimony was borne, "he walked with God." This man who so walked was spared. The judgments of God are not mere violences; they keep their course by a law at once merciful and terrible: they spare the good, they overpass the house sprinkled with blood, they throw down no holy altar. How calmly those judgments come! They seem indeed to come suddenly, but they really come up from eternity: slowly, surely, irresistibly! It is something to be able to challenge the severest inquiry into the moral reason of this solemn transaction, something to be able to say that, in all the severity of his judgments, God never mingles the righteous and the wicked in one indiscriminating punishment.

What a rain it was! "All the fountains of the great deep were broken up, and the windows of heaven were opened, and the rain was upon the earth forty days and forty nights"; still the torrents came, and the great cataracts, so that men knew not the dry land from the sea; "and the waters prevailed exceedingly upon the earth"; they rose to the high windows, and the billows dashed upon the drenched roofs like angry seas; and men fled away to the mountains and watched the cruel pursuer from afar; and still it rose, obliterating their footsteps, and rising quickly like one impelled by mighty anger to seek the prey; the wolf, the lion, the leopard stood upon the crags, baying and roaring with fury that drove them mad, and high above the surging deep there screamed the affrighted eagle and the vulture, enraged by hunger: at last there was but one hill top left, and there the strongest and fiercest of the sons of men gathered, and there were heard prayers, and oaths, and curses, and cries that made the wild beasts quiet; and still the cold waters rose, the lightning at midnight showed the dreary waste on which no stars glittered, and amid thunders that shook the universe the last strong man plunged into the infinite gulf! "And all flesh died that moved upon the earth; all in whose nostrils was the breath of life, of all that was in the dry land, died." Oh, what a rain it was! What an outlook from the window of the ark! For many a long day no eye could venture to look out of that window; for who could bear to see the grey-haired man, and the fair woman, and the little child doomed to die! Who can steadfastly look upon the judgments of God, or bear the flash of his uplifted sword? "It is a fearful thing to fall into the hands of the living God."

"The waters prevailed upon the earth an hundred and fifty days." Then came the time of release. "God made a wind to pass over the earth, and the waters assuaged." At the end of forty days after, the tops of the mountains were seen; Noah opened the window of the ark and sent forth a raven; then he sent forth a dove, but the dove returned; a week after he sent out the dove again, and the dove returned in the evening with "an olive leaf pluckt off." In another week he sent forth the dove once more, and the dove came not again. And soon after the ark was broken up, and "Noah builded an altar unto the Lord, and the Lord smelled a sweet savour"; and thus a new beginning was made. We seem now to have a new Adam and a new Eve. How they will turn out remains to be seen. They have a great advantage over the original pair, for they have a solemn history behind them. They can never forget the surge that beat and dashed furiously against the ark; never can they forget that last lightning that flashed past the window, like an angel of destruction, and seemed to shake a sword threateningly in their own faces; never can these things be forgotten! Noah will do better than Adam, and make us grieve that the experiment of humanity was not begun with this noble and incorruptible man! We shall see.