"Come Into the Ark"

Genesis 7 as a Bridge from Creation to New Creation

Well, as we continue forward in the book of Genesis, we're looking at chapter 7, verses 1 -16 together this morning, next week. Lord willing, we'll not only finish chapter 7, but also begin chapter 8.

Chapter 8, verse 1, is structurally the most important part of Genesis 6 -9, and I'll try to show that next week, and that's why we'll go even beyond chapter 7. But this morning, there's plenty to consider just in the first 16 verses.

And as we look at Noah and really the beginning of the flood, we're not going to actually get into the details of the flood and consider the aspect of God's judgment until next week, but we're going to do everything up until that, everything up until the first day, and even the beginning of the flood.

We want to keep in mind that we're talking about the one that God had promised would be a comfort back in Genesis 5, verse 29. That was Lamech's prophecy of Noah. He called his name Noah, saying, This one will comfort us concerning our work and the toil of our hands because of the ground which the Lord has cursed.

And so we remember that fancy word, synecdoche. The ground curse is a small part that represents the larger curse, the larger response of God's judgment to human sin. In other words, even though we're only several chapters away from chapter 3, Noah is a pivotal figure in relation to God's curse upon human sinfulness.

So often, Noah's disconnected from Genesis 1 -3, and we cannot make that mistake. Noah is a very pivotal bridge between the first Adam and his responsibilities and the last Adam, and I hope we can demonstrate that in our time this morning.

He draws us back to Genesis 3, back to God's curse upon the soil, back to Adam, and we're going to see just the way he becomes a comfort from the curse and how that comfort comes by salvation through judgment.

By salvation through judgment. And the judgment, as we'll get into it next week, it's nearly unimaginable. It's nearly unimaginable. We all have, you probably have what I have. We have some Melissa and Doug wooden ark with little wooden animal cutouts that you can build on the ark, and they're all smiling, and the animals are all smiling, and nothing against that.

We teach our children to play these things. We want to reinforce biblical themes, biblical stories, but where are the floating corpses? Where is a globe that's been absolutely destroyed? Where is the breath of life that's been snuffed out?

These are not things that ancient Hebrews would want to decorate into children's cartoons. You wouldn't have a poster of this kind of judgment, Noah's ark, hanging on your wall. It would be grotesque when we understand the details.

Even with this literal restart of creation, the domineering, debauched, abominable ways of sinful humanity continues through the flood. What we'll see, again, this picture of salvation through judgment.

We begin chapter 6 with these men of renown increasing in wickedness. They're destroyed along with the whole earth, all except Noah and the animals on the ark. But then the whole program of human sinfulness begins again, not long after the flood.

And so we set up our major plot toward the city of Babel. And really that takes us to the next several chapters beyond chapter 9. So the drama of sin and the drama of redemption continues through this account of the flood.

The flood is a major, major event in terms of the biblical storyline. In the history of redemption, the flood is paradigmatic. In other words, it's echoed throughout scripture. The paradigm that we've tried to establish, I think I've mentioned this some weeks back, is we begin Genesis with creation.

That's a through line. Creation, when it's corrupted by sin, is counter to God, counter to God's purposes. And therefore we have counter-creation. And that counter-creation, that human rebellion, human corruption, is met with by God's judgment.

And his judgment always takes the form of de-creation. And we'll see that, for instance, this morning. But because God gives salvation through judgment, judgment's not the last note. And de-creation is not where things settle.

But rather, out of that de-creation, out of that judgment, out of the chaos emerges salvation. Out of salvation emerges re-creation, new creation. And so those are the major paradigms that we're going to be dealing with for quite some time.

Along with humanity, we know that animal life and vegetation emerge on dry land, which itself emerges from the waters. And in this way, the days of creation are being echoed. In this way, Noah is a type of Adam.

And therefore, Noah is a type of Christ. Noah is a type of Christ because he is a type of Adam, first and foremost. Noah stands at the head of a new humanity. He's the harbinger of a new creation. He's the promised comfort to the curse.

In all of these ways, he prefigures Christ. In all of these ways. Let's begin with verse 1. Then the Lord said to Noah, Come into the ark, you and all your household, because I have seen that you are righteous before me in this generation.

The Invitation to Enter the Ark

The Lord is addressing Noah. To us, this seems all very natural in terms of the narrative, as though he got the command to build the ark, he spent a weekend hammering that thing together, and then the Lord said, alright, now it's time to get in.

But of course, what's hidden within such a rapid transition of verses is 120 years of labor. And we drew that out a little bit last week. 120 years of exhausting, often despairing, slogging it out. Faithful life in a fallen world, much like unto us.

Except with sin. Two, three, four times as long of a life, a faithful life. A life that had to deal with thorns and trials, hilltops and valleys. Hardships, hurdles, hindrances. Noah has labored long and hard.

He has literally, in the building of the ark, run the race as to win. He's fought the good fight. And with these words, as he stands on the threshold of cataclysm, as he's on the brink of judgment, the Lord says these words to him, Come, come into the ark.

It's a very beautiful way of inviting Noah into the ark. Notice that it's given as a warm welcome, an invitation. Some translations render it as, enter, enter the ark. There's no command here, it's not imperative.

It's drawing this saint who has walked all his days before the Lord and was told, as it were, well done, good and faithful servant. Enter into the joy of your master. That's almost how the Lord is addressing Noah in the ark.

You've labored well. You've obeyed all that I've commanded. Enter now into the joy of my salvation. Enter now into the ark. Come. That's an invitation that we find echoed throughout Scripture whenever we meet with salvation.

A .W. Pink, he observes this. The Lord does not say, go into the ark, but come. Go would be an obtuse command. Come, a gracious invitation. Go would have implied the Lord was bidding Noah depart from him.

Go, go away from me into the ark. Come implies what? I will be with you in the ark. Come with me into the ark. In other words, we're already seeing something very significant about the way God brings about salvation through judgment.

As a result of being in the Lord's covenant, God undertakes to be present with his people. He's present with us in salvation through judgment. Even when that salvation feels like we're hanging on by our fingernails, as Noah must have felt, even when the trials of that salvation through judgment seem incredibly dark, incredibly deep, when we're soaking our pillows with our tears, when our tears are our food day and night, as David would write in the Psalms, even when we pass from death into life, we have the promised presence of God.

All of that is contained within this invitation. Come. Come into the ark. Not go, but come into the ark. Though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death,.

Thou art with me.

See? The promised presence of God in the most unexpected places. This is the promise Noah himself receives. What does he receive? Lo, I am with you always. Come into the ark. Come into the ark with me.

He's invited into the ark. We haven't spent much time describing the ark. We read through the description last week in chapter 6. Most of us have seen illustrations of it. We know the dimensions. We don't exactly know how it was fashioned.

Some of the details are speculative. But we've seen paintings. We've seen those cartoon depictions. Some of us have even seen an accurate replica in Kentucky.

Totally jealous about that.

Here's this incredible timber structure made of gopher wood, and that's very significant. So we don't know what gopher wood is. Could be cypress, but it's written as gopher wood. And it's covered over with pitch for waterproofing.

And the word pitch here is very interesting because it's a unique word choice. It's not the same word that's used as pitch later in the Bible. And it's closely related to, or what we would say it's cognate with, the verb and even the noun to cover, covering.

Which is always in temple language, tabernacle language, an atonement word.

To cover.

Covering.

So this word kefar, literally it's the picture of atonement. And as it were, it's making the ark this vessel of atonement, this vessel of covering in the midst of God's judgment. That's very significant theologically.

The ultimate presentation of God's salvation is glimmering to us through the ark. It's an atonement vessel. It's a covering vessel. It's where sinners go to find refuge from the wrath of God. It has a single entrance into which Noah, his wife, his sons, and their wives, eight souls total, plus all of the animal life in pairs, as well as additional clean animals, pass through this portal.

And then there's a window in the rooftop cut to a cubit in the span above. It's a light in some translations.

It's a very odd choice of words.

A light or a window placed up. And I have to tell you, reading through descriptions of the ark, there's so much, there's probably 13 or 14 observations to make about the ark. The problem is theologians and commentators have too much time on their hands, and I think they allegorize too readily.

So I'm sparing you a lot that I think just stretches a little too far about what the ark is showing us. Every element of the ark is allegorized, but I think some things are quite accurate. Because, of course, God is presenting the ark as a picture ultimately of salvation, ultimately of the cross.

And here I think that window being cut, you have one entrance and you have one light, one roof opening or portal. And I like what Pink has to say here. He says, Noah and his companions were not to be looking down on the scene of destruction beneath and around them, but up to the living God.

We don't need windows on the side to see what's happening on the earth. We just need to look up. When the waves are bashing us around and things are swirling, and we're hearing the shrieking slowly be suffocated into silence, we are to look up.

In the horror and bleakness of the judgment that we're going to see next week, what does Noah and his sons and his son's wives do?

They're only given a portal, a light to look up.

The same lesson taught to Jehovah's people in the wilderness. The pillar of cloud guides them by day. The pillar of fire guides them by night. This isn't just for guidance, but it's for instruction. Israel must look up.

Not be occupied to what's to her left or to her right, but she rather must look up. And so we're called upon our faith, with our eyes to be set heavenward, our attention to be set upon things above, not on things on the earth.

Colossians 3 .2. Notice further that Noah is invited with his household. He's invited with his household. Genesis 7 .1. The Lord said to Noah, Come into the ark, you and all your household, because I have seen that you are righteous before me in this generation.

Noah's Righteousness and the Salvation of His Household

I hope it's not something we glance past, that Noah is being singled out for his righteousness. And we have to remember what we've rehearsed, and this is very important that we remember why Noah is righteous in the first place.

It's because God's grace and favor has found him. God has established his covenant with him. In other words, Noah's righteousness is a result of God's grace, not the ground of it, not the means of it.

God chooses sovereignly to be gracious to Noah. Therefore, because of that sovereign decision, Noah becomes righteous in his generation. We begin with God's grace, and then we see the effects of it, then we see the fruit of it.

Come into the ark, you and all your household, because I have seen that you, singular, you, you alone, Noah, you are righteous. You are righteous, and therefore you and your household can come into the ark, can be saved from the judgment.

So notice, God's grace is effective in Noah's obedience. Noah is then righteous, but that righteousness is not mustered up from himself or by himself. It's given by the Lord, and yet it truly is his righteousness.

And as he walks in obedience, it truly is his righteousness. And the Lord, in light of that righteousness, allows his family to be saved from the judgment to come. And this is confirmed by Scripture elsewhere.

Ezekiel 14, where the Lord is pronouncing judgment on his unfaithful people.

And we read these words.

He singles out Noah as an example of singular righteousness. And then he confirms the fact that his sons and his daughter-in-laws were saved as a result of his singular righteousness. And Ezekiel's given this revelation to say, my judgment is such now that that wouldn't be true now.

I was willing to give Noah that grace and extend it to his family. Such is the height of rebellion in my people now, it wouldn't extend that far.

Noah alone would be saved.

Listen.

The word of the Lord came again to me, saying, When a land sins against me by persistent unfaithfulness, I will stretch out my hand against it. I will cut off its supply of bread and send famine upon it.

Cut off man and beast. That's significant. Man and beast from it. Even if these three men, Noah, Daniel, and Job. That's an interesting addition, isn't it? Job. Job. The one who contends with God for 30 chapters.

Job.

Noah, Daniel, and Job. Even if they were in it, they would deliver only themselves by their righteousness.

Says the Lord God.

They would deliver neither sons nor daughters. Only they would be delivered. And the land would be desolate. Or if I bring a sword on that land and say, Sword, go through the land. And I cut off man and beast from it.

Even though these three men were in it,.

As I live, says the Lord God, they would deliver neither sons nor daughters, but only themselves. Even though Noah, Daniel, and Job were in it, as I live, says the Lord God, they would deliver neither son nor daughter.

They would deliver only themselves by their righteousness. So Noah is being singled out here. And what should pop out to us is the fact that Noah's righteousness somehow enables God to show grace and favor to his family.

We are not told that his family is righteous. We will see the evidence of that in Genesis 9. What we have is this. Noah's righteousness was uniquely and singularly effective to save his household from God's judgment.

Now our Presbyterian friends would want to point to this as an example of what they believe is the case throughout Scripture and throughout church history. That when at least one parent is a believer with the Lord, their household is saved.

That God has saved their household. In some way, their children are in a relationship to God. And so they're covenant children. You'll hear our good Presbyterian friends talk about their covenant children.

And as good Reformed Baptists, you should press back on that in grace and charity and say, I'm sorry, children of what covenant? Of what covenant are these children a part of? They're certainly not a part of the new covenant.

Not based on what we understand about the new covenant. That from the least to the greatest they shall all know Me. My Spirit shall be put within them. I will cast out their heart of stone and give them a heart of flesh.

They're certainly not children of that covenant. Of what indiscriminate, vague, generic covenant are they a part? In other words, this is not representing to us a picture of God saving households. And this is what He's going to do.

He did it for Noah. He'll do it for anyone who becomes a believer in Him. If you come to Christ, your children are already in a relationship to God. That's salvific. And they just need to walk in that.

Yes, it's that rare occasion, unfortunately, that some have fallen away. But, generally speaking, this is God's ordinary way of salvation.

Now, as a counterpoint.

As a counterpoint.

Blessed be God.

Thanks be to God.

He often does save.

He often does save children in the homes of His people. Praise Him for it.

Praise Him for it.

But we begin not from a place of presumption. We begin not assuming that God's grace now belongs to our children by way of blood. We know that salvation comes by way of spirit. By way of a confession of faith.

Of repentance of sins.

Baptism. This is the way God ordinarily brings salvation to sinners. And so, are our children blessed?

Absolutely.

Are they set apart in some sense?

Absolutely.

But they're in no covenant relationship, that Scripture speaks of. They're children in Adam. And they'll die in Adam. Unless they come to Christ. So we have to establish that. And then we have to answer the question, so what is being presented to us here?

Clearly, Noah's righteousness saves his household. If it's not a picture of a Presbyterian family, what is it a picture of? Well, this is vital to understanding, again, Noah as a presentation of Christ.

We're reminded that Christ has a household of his own. Hebrews 3, verse 6. Christ as a son over his own house. Whose house we are. And it's solely on the basis of his righteousness that he saves his household.

That's what Noah's presenting to us. His righteousness alone is what covers those of his household. And so it is that Christ, on the merit of his righteousness alone, saves his household. We look to the true Noah, to Christ.

And we confess, not by works of righteousness we have done, but by his mercy he has saved us. And then also, there's a practical realization here. This is also a picture to us of God's favor. And as I say, he often shows us his favor.

You know, it would have been traumatic enough for Noah to realize that all of the people he ever knew, all of the birds he could ever see fly in the air, unless they were paired up and brought into the ark, all of the vegetation, all of the forms and curvature and beauty of the earth, all of that was swallowed up.

All of that was swallowed up. It was utterly destroyed.

There was at least some comfort of knowing that he and his boys and their wives were saved. Imagine if Noah was in the ark and his wife was outside. And he could hear her cries, her pleas, if only she could come in.

Imagine if one of the sons was lost. There was a mercy of God here to allow Noah's family, though they were not righteous in his sight,.

To enter into that ark of refuge.

Spurgeon picks up on this. He says, notice that Noah's happiness was all the greater because he was shut in the ark with all of his family. This is a great joy to have your household brought into the faith of Christ.

Some among us have one or two of their family still without Christ, strangers to his salvation. And this is a great grief. So rarely does Spurgeon or 19th century preachers in general get personal with reflecting on someone in the congregation.

But this is what he does here.

Listen.

There's a brother among us who joys to dwell in Christ, but his father and mother are still without God and without Christ.

How often we've heard that dear brother's prayer for his relatives.

Perhaps his parents are here, and if so, I would tell them how much their son's prayers affect me. He cries as for his very life that God would save his father. Some among us never pray in the prayer meeting without strong crying and tears for their family members.

They cannot get through a prayer without mentioning their children or their brothers or others of their house. And I hope they never will. I hope God will lay their kindred on their heart as a heavy burden until they're saved and answered a prayer.

Isn't that a good New Year's resolution for us? That God would lay those in our household heavy on our heart until he answers? Spurgeon says, I've been blessed to hear those prayers. I hope they never stop praying those prayers.

I hope we never stop praying those prayers.

We have brothers and sisters here that pray like that.

Our friends, our family. They're not always easy, but we mourn for them.

We yearn for them.

We often don't know what to speak or how to speak it.

It's awkward with family.

And yet, we're compelled to do so.

And I often think we're more frustrated in our efforts when we should be finding the gain in prayer. I think there's wisdom here to say we should put our chief efforts in prayer and let that be the guiding light into how we speak to them and opportunities we have with them.

It's a blessing to see the Lord save a household, but you know what? It's also a blessing to have to walk humbly and dependently upon him and to have a life of prayer before him in the hope that he might show mercy to some loved one.

That's a blessing too.

Clean and Unclean Animals and the Holiness of Creation

Notice the Lord's further instructions. We shall take with you seven each of every clean animal, a male and a female. Two each of animals that are unclean, a male and a female. Also, seven each of birds of the air, male and female, to keep the species alive on the face of all the earth.

For after seven more days, I will cause it to reign on the earth forty days and forty nights, and I will destroy from the face of the earth all living things that I have made. And Noah did according to all that the Lord commanded him.

So notice here we have this distinction between clean and unclean animals. And we've never seen this before so far in Genesis. We've never come across clean and unclean animals. That's not something we're going to see until later in the Mosaic law given to the Israelites.

In other words, this sounds like something that was much later and it's being brought in to Noah.

Here we have no instructions about it.

Two of every kind or species of unclean animal, that's in order to preserve them from the flood.

Literally, he says to keep the species alive on the face of all the earth.

But then seven of every clean animal. And we can gather the fact that they're clean animals. And there's more than just a pair that Noah had and will continue to sacrifice as he and his fathers before him in that promised line of Seth, as they had always sacrificed unto the Lord.

So Noah sacrificed unto the Lord clean animals and will continue to as we'll see after the flood. This is consistent with what we've seen in Genesis 3. God initiates sacrificial covering, Genesis 3 .21.

He makes a covering out of animal skins for Adam and Eve. We saw that Abel had a better sacrifice in that it was a sacrifice of his cattle,.

Of his sheep without blemish.

That was a better sacrifice, a pleasing sacrifice to the Lord. So this clean and unclean instruction, we have it in seed form here. We don't have the actual revelation given to Noah or any of his forefathers.

But we know that it was given. And they understood what was required of them in worship and in sacrifice. The clean-unclean distinction is all about teaching Israel to view all of life through the lens of holiness.

So there's common animals, unclean animals. And then there's clean animals, animals that are set apart. But it's not just the animals or the sacrifice or the worship. For the Israelites, all of life had to be looked at through this lens of what is clean, what is set apart, and what is common, what is unclean, what needs to be cleansed.

Every part of Israel's life, what they wore, what they beheld, what they ate, what they drank, how they labored, what they built, where they lived, how they married, how they raised families, everything was distinguished by what was clean or what was unclean.

And God apparently revealed this to the seed of the promised one, one form or another from the very beginning. But yet, we can take a step back and see another picture here with the animals being brought onto the ark.

And this was something that earlier preachers never missed. Whitfield, Edwards, they always made this point that sin makes men like brute beasts. That somehow a brute beast with no sense, with no reason, will make it onto an ark before a hardened sinner.

That's what sin does.

It makes you less rational, more beast-like than even animals of the earth. Noah had been preaching about the destruction to come, and yet no people outside of his own immediate family came. And yet, here are all these animals.

Here are pigs and parrots and ducks and goats making it onto the ark when human beings that should know better and were created to know better don't. That is what sin does. And this raises another point about animals.

According to the narrative of Genesis 6, God's judgment is a response to human sinfulness. Human sinfulness. And the Lord saw that the wickedness of man was great in the earth. That was the indictment of Genesis 6, right?

And I will not contend with man forever. I will not strive with man forever. His days are 120 years, and then he shall be cut off. Notice, the earth itself and animals have done no wrong. They have no moral complicity.

I know some of us, you know, you chastise your pet maybe because they have naughty behavior, but there's no moral complicity there, is there? It's human sinfulness. Human sinfulness. And yet, animals, and indeed the earth itself, must endure the judgment of God.

God's judgment extends to everything that has the breath of life. And it's not just human beings. It's every form of life on the earth. The picture is cosmic. The judgment is cataclysmic. Because God ordained for man to exercise dominion over creation, human sinfulness corrupts creation itself.

And therefore, the whole created order has to face God's judgment. We see here, from the very beginning, this larger picture, this meta-theme. Human sin corrupts the earth. Human sin corrupts the whole earth.

The whole earth.

This repeats in the story of Israel, when Israel is making conquest into the land of Canaan. What they're told and reminded of, what they're prosecuted with, is the idea that their sin is polluting the land.

Their sin is polluting the land, corrupting the earth. And so here we have the dawning of what we could call a biblical ecology. Or a call to Christian stewardship. God demonstrates that He has concern for the animal life that He made.

He doesn't say, well, I made all these animals, and Adam named them, and they were glorious in their variety and complexity and beauty. Each little variant was a demonstration of my infinite artistry.

But I'm going to wipe them all out, and I'll just create something different. God demonstrates concern for what He has made. Everything was designed and beautified by His hand.

He declared it to be good.

He doesn't arbitrarily wipe away what has been good. Even though it's corrupted and stained and soiled, He extends redemption to the broadest levels of what He has made. So we cannot read Noah and the story of the flood as though it's only about human beings.

It's about all of creation. It's about animal life and vegetation. It's about dry land. It's cosmic. And redemption, then, is cosmic as well. The hope for the Christian of the end time is not that we'll become some quasi-mystical cloud-dwelling angels, something out of the old Philadelphia cream cheese commercials.

We all have a golden harp, and we sit on puffy clouds, in a land of puffy clouds. Everything is white. There's no earth, no animals. That's not the picture of the end. That was never the Christian hope.

Most early Christian tombs were decorated with a picture of Noah re-establishing creation after the flood. They understood, this is my hope, that after that final cataclysmic flood of God's judgment, I will re-emerge in a new heavens and a new earth, with new creation.

Not detached from creation of the earth,.

But in the fullness of it,.

In the freedom of it, in the liberation of what has been groaning. Now, I cannot say that you'll find your old pet turtle waiting for you in glory. I don't know if crackers or peanut is going to be there woofing or meowing when you get to the new heavens and the new earth.

But you could make a pretty good case for it. You could make a good case for continuity one way or another.

There will be animal life.

Because we have it here, pictured, in the way that God brings this cataclysmic judgment and calls Noah as the Adam that is meant to exercise dominion over all that God has made and therefore he's bringing salvation to all of creation, animal life included.

That represents to us a picture of Christ.

Who doesn't just bring salvation to human beings,.

Though human beings are the cause of judgment, but actually becomes the true Adam, the true image bearer and brings redemption to all that God has made,.

All that He has made.

Christian hope, in other words, is a new heavens and earth. And that last word gets dropped off too readily. Sometimes our hope, when we talk about the end time, when we talk about passing on, going beyond the brink, the great Jordan, the verge, sometimes we only talk about it as our hope is heaven.

No, I'm sorry. You're shortchanging the Christian hope. The Christian hope is a new heavens and earth. And that's what's redeemed. That's very significant theologically. Notice how God often demonstrates salvation in terms of animal life and human harmony.

Think about this.

Isaiah 11. This is a depiction of the glory of what is coming at the end.

The wolf will dwell with the lamb.

The leopard lies down with the young goat. The calf and the young lion and the fattling together. And a little child leads them. The cow and the bear shall graze. Their young ones lie down together. And the lion will eat straw like an ox.

The nursing child will play by the cobra's hole. You better know your now and not yet eschatology.

I believe that Isaiah, we are living in the days of Isaiah.

Let me go lay Abby down by the cobra hole.

No, no, no, this is not yet.

Don't do anything quite like that.

The weaned child shall put his hand in the viper's den. They shall not hurt nor destroy.

And all my holy mountain, the earth will be full.

With the knowledge of the Lord.

As the waters cover the sea.

This is a picture of a new heavens and a new earth. If God cares for animals in this way, shouldn't we somehow think of creation in different ways than we're accustomed to? Not as something arbitrary, not as something expendable,.

But as something rooted in the purposes of God's creation.

And therefore in the eventuality of God's redemption. Christ is a savior of the cosmos.