The Gospel According to Noah
A Devotional Series from Genesis
Online Bible Audio/Readings Links (ESV)
7/6 Reading Portions: Joshua 8; Psalm 139; Jeremiah 2; Matthew 16
Genesis 8:20-22
Then Noah built an altar to the LORD and took some of every clean animal and some of every clean bird and offered burnt offerings on the altar. And when the LORD smelled the pleasing aroma, the LORD said in His heart, “I will never again curse the ground because of man, for the intention of man’s heart is evil from his youth. Neither will I ever again strike down every living creature as I have done. While the earth remains, seedtime and harvest, cold and heat, summer and winter, day and night, shall not cease.”
FORESHADOW
YHVH God declares that He “will never again curse the ground because of man, for the intention of man’s heart is evil from his youth.” There is no contradiction here with the reason He destroyed the earth in the flood, as the Word declares:
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. Genesis 6:5
Why is this not a contradiction? In Genesis 6:5, YHVH God reveals man for what He is, and judgment, therefore, is what every man deserves. Yet in our verses today, YHVH God shows mercy through the provision of sin—the Lord Jesus Christ. It is written,
For judgment is without mercy to one who has shown no mercy. Mercy triumphs over judgment. James 2:13
By these last three verses of the eighth chapter of Genesis, we have the sum purpose of the previous three chapters, expressing in a prophetic foreshadow why what the entire flood episode was about—the gospel of the Lord Jesus Christ. The sacrifices in v20, foreshadowing the ultimate once-and-for-all Sacrifice of Christ (Heb 10:10), was a pleasing aroma to YHVH God. Not the burnt flesh of animals on a stone altar, but the truth that all these sacrifices pointed to the pleasing Sacrifice of His one and only Son (Isa 53:10). The reason He would “never again curse the ground because of man” is because one day, some 3,500 years later, the incarnate God would live the righteous life that you and I cannot possibly endeavor, and then as the sinless and perfect Man, lay down His life upon Calvary’s tree as a ransom for many. YHVH God did not send the flood in order to correct the problem of man’s sinful, evil heart. Ordained from before God commanded “Light be,” the plan was for the second Person of the Trinity to come to earth to save men by His righteous life and substitutionary atoning Sacrifice (1 Pet 1:18-20). Hallelujah! What a Savior!