Genesis 6:9–22 (ESV)
These are the generations of Noah. Noah was a righteous man, blameless in his generation. Noah walked with God. And Noah had three sons, Shem, Ham, and Japheth.
Now the earth was corrupt in God's sight, and the earth was filled with violence. And God saw the earth, and behold, it was corrupt, for all flesh had corrupted their way on the earth.
And God said to Noah, “I have determined to make an end of all flesh, for the earth is filled with violence through them. Behold, I will destroy them with the earth. Make yourself an ark of gopher wood. Make rooms in the ark, and cover it inside and out with pitch. This is how you are to make it: the length of the ark 300 cubits, its breadth 50 cubits, and its height 30 cubits. Make a roof for the ark, and finish it to a cubit above, and set the door of the ark in its side. Make it with lower, second, and third decks.
For behold, I will bring a flood of waters upon the earth to destroy all flesh in which is the breath of life under heaven. Everything that is on the earth shall die. But I will establish my covenant with you, and you shall come into the ark, you, your sons, your wife, and your sons’ wives with you.
And of every living thing of all flesh, you shall bring two of every sort into the ark to keep them alive with you. They shall be male and female. Of the birds according to their kinds, and of the animals according to their kinds, of every creeping thing of the ground according to its kind, two of every sort shall come in to you to keep them alive.
Also take with you every sort of food that is eaten, and store it up. It shall serve as food for you and for them.”
Noah did this; he did all that God commanded him.
How Should We Read This Text?
Well, today we get a look at Noah. We get a bit of a zoom in on him—this man who walked with God. And he was walking with God, remember, in a time when the world around him was a mess and filled with sin and corruption.
Verse 9 calls him a righteous and blameless man in the generation. And this really sets him apart from the violence and the corruption and the sin that was filling the earth.
We know that Noah wasn't sinless. Scripture will later show us some of his flaws, and we'll see this in the chapters to come. But he was a man whose heart leaned on the Lord and really wanted and desired to follow him. That's a key part of what it meant to be this upright person—not necessarily to be perfect, but really to have a life that earnestly wants to live for God.
And so we see that God here plans to send judgment on the earth because of all the flesh that had corrupted their way. This is a pretty sobering and stark thing for us to hear. When wickedness and sin continues to spread unchecked throughout the world, God is not going to ignore it.
And yet at the same time, God nevertheless provides a plan for rescue—for redemption in the midst of the judgment that was to come. Now in this case, he instructs Noah to build an ark and to gather his family and the animals into the ark.
And this is a great sign of God's covenant with Noah and with people. In verse 18 he says, “I’m going to establish my covenant with you.” The ark then points us to the safety that we can have in God when he lives according to the covenant that he’s made for us. It is a sign of a promise that God is going to protect even in the middle of destruction.
And so when we talk about the ark, we can talk about its dimensions, its materials, how many decks it should have, and so on. The reality is that these specifics don't seem to matter to us—but they actually do matter, because God showed in carefully putting out the dimensions and all of these things how much he cared about the method of salvation.
So when God says to Noah, “You're going to be building an ark,” he doesn’t say, “Good luck and try your best.” No, he carefully gives him a blueprint. God’s way of salvation is precise. It is always bound into his wisdom in how things ought to work.
Here, in the case of Noah, it’s gopher wood and pitch to seal it and to make it waterproof. But in the fullness of time, later down the track, God is going to bring about salvation through his own means—through the cross of Jesus.
Now these are very different things—an ark and a cross—but the idea is the same: God has a perfect plan for how he will save.
So we might look at this and see a picture of a boat-building project, but really there’s a much deeper theme here that we need to wrestle with: that God dictates and directs the way in which salvation will happen.
How Should the Text Read Us?
Well, I think we should look around at our own world firstly, because we see things like chaos and sin and moral confusion—different opinions about what is right and wrong in our world. And when we see these things, we need to recognize that certainly we are not the first generation on earth that is going to disregard God and his ways.
It's not a question of whether we are sinful. It's a question of whether we are human.
So now we need to ask the question: are we happy to continue to drift along with the culture that is rejecting God and drifting away from him? Or are we going to choose to walk with God like Noah has—because we are Christians, because we have been saved in Christ?
What does walking with God against the culture look like?
Well in Noah's day it was specifically living out the instructions that God had given him. God gave him very clear blueprints for how this ark was to be built. And even though there wasn't rain in the sky, nevertheless Noah went ahead and did what God had commanded him.
His obedience to God required him to persevere, even though it took a lot of effort and a lot of hard work. Maybe he felt lonely too. Maybe the people around him didn't understand the point of building the whole ark—or they simply disregarded whether that God even existed in the first place.
That is true of us today too. Maybe we feel the same kind of loneliness when we seek to obey God in a world which doesn't recognize that God is there. Maybe we can feel like there's a high cost to us when we give of our time and our money and our effort to building up the church that we're a part of or to spread the gospel through our evangelistic efforts.
Noah's story here reminds us that we are acting on God's commands—not the world's commands—and that that is a good thing.
Now we see this beautiful picture of God creating this covenant between him and Noah in the middle of the story. God is taking a step towards humans, towards humanity. He’s making a promise that even though judgment is coming on the earth, he’s nevertheless going to keep a remnant aside through which he's going to then ultimately save the whole earth from their sins.
Ultimately, this is of course fulfilled in Jesus, who came as a direct descendant of Noah and ultimately saved the world through his own arkishness, if you like. Now we are in him—we are in Christ—we are saved in this vessel which is Jesus our Lord.
And so through his sacrifice on the cross, our sin is washed away like the rest of the earth's sins have been washed away here.
There’s this beautiful phrase at the end of this passage: “Noah did this; he did all that the Lord had commanded him.”
Now this might slip away from us, or we might read over it, but it really is one of the most impressive lines in all of Genesis. Noah doesn't cut corners. He doesn't pick and choose which parts of God's commands he can follow. What he does though is he obeys the Lord who called him.
Ultimately, Jesus obeyed God perfectly so we don't have to. He becomes this ultimate fulfillment of Noah and the ark. And in him we find salvation.
Prayer
Dear Lord, we thank you for Noah’s example of faith.
We thank you for his example of obedience.
We thank you that these things ultimately point us to Jesus, who was ultimately obedient to everything that was necessary for us to be saved and washed clean of our sin.
Help us now, in response, to obey you—to live out our lives in the commands and structures you give us.
Help us to serve you with great joy, even when it's difficult.
We pray this in Jesus' name. Amen.