"Holy, holy, holy is the LORD Almighty, the whole earth is full of his glory." Isaiah 6:3
"Holy, holy, holy is the LORD God Almighty, who was, and is, and is to come." Revelation 4:8
Holiness is a difficult concept for most people. If you look in a standard dictionary the definitions are most often vague, such as; "Belonging to, derived from, or associated with a divine power; sacred. Living according to a strict or high moral religious or spiritual system."* Even in some Bible dictionaries the definition is not explicit; "in the highest sense belongs to God and to Christians as consecrated to God's service, and in so far as they are conformed in all things to the will of God."** The definition of the Hebrew word translated holy in the Old Testament is a bit better; "sacred, consecrated, set apart, as dedicated to God; by extension: pure, innocent, free from impurity."***
We may understand the idea of pure and innocent but the reality is we've never experienced it. Everything on our planet has been contaminated and corrupted by sin and death. The second law of Thermodynamics (entropy) says that everything around us, including us, is decaying. Even a baby, which is possibly the most innocent thing we are familiar with, is fighting for survival. Rightfully so, since they cannot meet their own needs, yet if this were a holy world, there would be no need for survival instincts, there would be no death. There can be no death or decay in perfection or it is not perfect. Our human minds cannot fathom true holiness, therefore we often struggle to understand God.
One of the biggest challenges to studying the Old Testament, and in particular stories like the Flood, is that we have a hard time wrapping our brains around God's wrath poured out in judgement. We tend to focus on His Love poured out in the person of Jesus Christ, and His marvelous grace that gives us salvation. As we bask in the wonder of His grace we sometimes overlook the fact that it is that grace that provides us freedom from His wrath. The Lord God does not change, He is the same today, as He deals with us, as He was in the days of Noah. A Holy God cannot tolerate sin, He couldn't then and He cannot today. The Bible is clear that another judgement is coming. God will once again pour out His wrath on the corrupt and sinful, yet 1 Peter 3:9 reminds us that He waits patiently, withholding judgement so that more might come to repentance.
God told Noah to build the ark possibly 100 years before the Flood came. Enoch had been warning the people of the coming judgment over 400 years before Noah was even born. The LORD was patient even then. He allowed plenty of time for those who would repent to do so. Sadly only 8 people stepped onto the ark, but to those 8 people God showed His ridiculous love and grace.
"The LORD then said to Noah, 'Go into the ark, you and your whole family, because I have found you righteous in this generation." Genesis 7:1
This is truly a remarkable verse! Was Noah without sin? Not at all, he was sinner just like everyone else, yet according to Genesis 6:8, he found favor in the eyes of God. A better word for favor in this verse is grace! God gave grace to Noah. Why was Noah the recipient of such unmerited favor? I think the clues point to something amazing.
The writer of Hebrews tells us that by faith Noah built the ark. He couldn't possibly understand the magnitude of what was going to happen, nor did anyone else around him believe that a flood was coming. His faith was completely counter-cultural. But it wasn't just his faith. Twice in scripture, before the rains came, God made a point to let us know that, "Noah did everything just as God commanded him."**** Noah didn't just believe God, he acted on his faith.
"What good is it, my brothers, if a man claims to have faith but has no deeds? Can such faith save him?..faith by itself, if it is not accompanied by action, is dead." James 2:14 & 17
We can say we believe something, but our actions always show our true colors. Noah didn't just tell people the flood was coming, he acted on his faith and in obedience built the ark.
Now I might be going out on a limb here, but please bear with me for a moment.
Genesis 15:6 is the first time the concept of salvation through faith is explicit in Scripture.
"Abram [Abraham] believed the LORD, and he credited it to him as righteousness."
In Galatians 3:8, Paul tells us that, "The Scripture foresaw that God would justify the Gentiles by faith, and announced the gospel in advance to Abraham: 'All nations will be blessed through you.'"
Abraham's salvation was his faith in a future Cross! He might not have understood that it would be an actual cross, but he had faith that God would someday provide the Sacrifice that would remove his sins and reconcile him to God. Just as our faith looks back on the Cross, his looked forward to the Cross. What was the means of Abraham's salvation? Faith. Faith that played out in the actions of his life.
I suggest that, though it is not explicit in the text, Noah was saved by that same faith. He believed God was the only one who could and would provide him Salvation. He not only believed God, he acted on his faith. It was Noah's faith in action that allowed a Holy God to see him through the lens of a yet future Cross and call him righteous.
Because of Noah's faith, God provided him an immediate salvation from the coming judgement. When Noah finished building the ark God brought the animals to him. A pair each of all the unclean animals and 7 males and 7 females of clean animals. (as a quick aside the idea of clean and unclean animals does not become explicit until Moses is given the Law in Leviticus. The fact that Noah knew the difference demonstrates that God had made clear to Adam and Eve what was an acceptable offering. They would have taught their children, who taught their children, and this knowledge eventually passed down to Noah.) Once everyone was on board, God himself shut the door, and then the rains came. Well not just the rain.
"In the six hundredth year of Noah's life, on the seventeenth day of the second month- on that day all the springs of the great deep burst forth, and the flood gates of the heavens were opened. And rain fell on the earth forty days and forty nights." Genesis 11 & 12
God's judgement didn't just fall in a torrent of rain from the sky, the whole earth ruptured with it.
Many scholars believe that prior to the Flood there was a thick layer of water in the earth's atmosphere (this idea is consistent with Genesis 1:6,7). This layer of water could account for the extremely long lives recorded in Genesis 5, as well as the amount of water that it would take to submerge the earth. But the Bible also says that the water from under the earth burst forth. God's Holy wrath didn't just drown all of the living creatures, according to 1 Peter 3:6 it destroyed the known world. When Noah and his family finally, after over a year on the ark, stepped out onto dry land, they were not only alone but they looked out at a vastly different landscape. The earth itself bore the scars of God's judgment.
Today we don't really notice the scars of God's judgment anymore. It could be that we aren't actually looking, His wrath is definitely not pretty. However, everywhere we look, we can see the destructive effects of sin. It didn't take long after the Flood for sin to once again corrupt the hearts and lives of men. You and I live in a world where sin and decay have reigned for thousands of years. There is nothing that is untouched by sin's corrupting influence. As majestic as the mountains are, wind and rain have eroded them from their original glory. Water and air are polluted, all living creatures must fight for survival, and humanity -- still the image-bearers of a Holy and Loving God -- are filled with violence and selfish desires.
God called Noah in a time of utter sin and corruption to be set apart, and He calls us to nothing less.
"I am the LORD your God; consecrate yourselves and be holy, because I am holy." Leviticus 11:44
* holy. The American Standard Dictionary. Boston, MA. Houghton Mifflin Co. 1991. pg 617
** holiness. (n.d.). Easton's 1897 Bible Dictionary. Retrieved May 05, 2010, from Dictionary.com website: http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/holiness
*** Goodrick, Edward W. and Kohlenberger, John R. III. The Strongest NIV Exhaustive Concordance. Grand Rapids, MI. Zondervan. 1999. pg. 1481
**** Genesis 6:22 & Genesis 7:5
No comments:
Post a Comment