Genesis 7 – January 16

If you are anything like me, then you grew up seeing silly little pictures of Noah’s Ark. Even Donald Duck got in on the action in Disney’s 2000 remake of Fantasia. Noah’s ark is usually presented more like a bunch of children’s bath toys than what it really is. This is not a PG story. It is not a cutesy, cartoon animal, week-long Caribbean cruise. The flood was an extinction-level event. It is the most violent and devastating geological event that has taken place on our planet since the creation of Adam, and nothing else even comes close. We are talking about the tallest mountains on earth being submerged by more than 22 feet. Genesis 7 is about global annihilation.

What those cartoons and coloring pages and children’s Bibles never show are the people scratching their fingernails off as the waters rise and they realize that they really need to get inside of that ark. They don’t show the millions of dead bodies floating around the outside of the ark. They never show the fish feasting on the flesh that was decaying in the heat of the burning sun. They never show the death and devastation and desolation of the flood.  In fact, most of the children’s Bibles that I have for my kids don’t even tell them the source of the flood. They present it as if it were nothing more than a natural, meteorological event. 

What could have possibly prompted God to do something of this magnitude? If God is good (which he is), then why would he levy a death toll of nearly 100% of the world’s population? We read the answer last week. “The Lord saw that the wickedness of man was great in the earth, and that every intention of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually.”

You might say at this point, “That is so unfair.” And you would be absolutely right. It is unfair for two reasons. It is unfair that God delayed 120 years as Noah built the ark and that during that time He permitted the wickedness of the earth to continue. But, God is patient. And, it is unfair because God saved Noah and his family, even though they were also sinners. As it said in the previous chapter, “all flesh was corrupt.” It is not fair because God is gracious.

Genesis 7 is the most extreme display of God’s wrath in the Old Testament. It is a picture of what each and every one of us deserves. Even so, the wrath of God that we deserved was all poured out in its fullness upon Jesus at the cross. Long after Jesus was baptized by John the Baptist, He said these words. “I have a baptism to be baptized with, and how great is my distress until it is accomplished!” (Luke 12:50) He was baptized under the water of God’s wrath so that we might be unscathed. The display of wrath that we find here in Genesis 7 is incredibly important because you cannot fully comprehend the love of God unless it is appropriately presented against the backdrop of His holy wrath.

It is a deeply sobering thing to read Genesis 7:23, “He blotted out every living thing that was on the face of the ground, man and animals and creeping things and birds of the heavens. They were blotted out from the earth. Only Noah was left, and those who were with him in the ark.” As we will see tomorrow, only those who are in Christ will escape the judgment, just like only those inside the ark escaped the flood.