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The Lord Has a Plan for His People and His Planet
In Genesis 7, the Lord did what he said he would do and sent a flood to judge the world because of sin. Everything that wasn’t on the ark died. In Genesis 8, the rains stop, the waters subside, and the ark lands. Noah and his family and the animals exit the ark and begin their lives in a new land. Noah offers the Lord a sacrifice and the Lord makes promises to Noah.
The main point of this text is that, despite sin and judgment, the Lord still has a plan for his people and his planet. The Lord starts over with Noah because he hasn’t given up on the earth or on his image bearers. Sin and judgment won’t have the last word.
God Remembers Noah
We can divide this text into two sections: the flood ends (vv. 1-14) and new life begins (vv. 15-22). The Lord ends the flood and begins again with Noah and the earth.
Verse 1 says that “God remembered Noah.” This doesn’t mean that he was so busy managing the flood that he forgot about him, or that he lost him like we lose our keys. It means that God is going to be faithful to Noah. It means that he will do what he said he would do.
This “remembering” language is elsewhere linked to covenants that God makes with his people. Genesis 19:29 says, “When God destroyed the cities of the valley, God remembered Abraham and sent Lot out of the midst of the overthrow when he overthrew the cities in which Lot lived.” God made covenant promises to Abraham, so when he remembers Abraham by delivering Lot, he’s being faithful to his covenant with him. He’s doing what he said he would do. In Exodus 2:24, Moses, the same author of Genesis, says that God “heard (Israel’s) groaning, and God remembered his covenant with Abraham, with Isaac, and with Jacob.” This kind of language is found in Exodus 32:13, Leviticus 26:42 and 45, and throughout the Psalms (eg. 98:3, 105:8-9, 106:45).
So when God “remembers Noah” (Gen. 8:1), it means that God is going to be faithful to his covenant with Noah. We’ll talk more next week about what God’s covenant with Noah entailed, but this “remembering” language tells us that, because God is in a special relationship with Noah, he will unfailingly move toward him at the point of his greatest need.
Can you imagine if God would have told Noah to build the ark, sent the flood, and then just left him and his family and the animals on the ark to float around until they all starved? When God “remembers” his people it means that he moves toward them with mercy. We see this is Genesis 30:22, where it says that “God remembered Rachel, and God listened to her and opened her womb.”
God Will Remember You
When all appears helpless and hopeless, God remembers our need and intervenes with mercy. Not always to take the pain away immediately, but to begin to bring beauty from the ashes. The Lord doesn’t enter into relationship with his people only to leave them at the point of their greatest need.
Have you talked to God about your needs lately? Not wants, needs. Maybe healing, forgiveness, comfort, financial provision, a job, friendship, godly sorrow that produces repentance, wisdom, strength, hope, joy, peace, reconciliation. It’s not selfish to ask God to do things he’s promised to do for his people. Jesus says, “If you then, who are evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your Father in heaven give good things to those who ask him!” (Mt. 7:11).
If you’ve entered into covenant with God, by faith receiving the blessings of the new covenant, then God will remember you, he will move toward you at your point of greatest need. “He who did not spare his own Son but gave him up for us all, how will he not also with him graciously give us all things?” (Rom. 8:32) The cross shows us just how far God will go to take care of us.
The Wind of God
God’s remembrance of Noah spurred him to take a particular action at the end of verse 1. His mercy is never abstract. It always comes to us in concrete ways that correspond directly to our need.
Here, he sends a “wind” to dry out the earth. The Hebrew word for “wind” is the same word for “spirit” (ruah). This is the word used in 1:2. At creation, the Spirit of God was hovering majestically over the waters of chaos, restraining them. Here in 8:1, God’s ruah brings about the evaporation of the waters of judgment. All three persons of the Trinity are active in creation and salvation.
This alerts us to an intentional connection between this narrative and the creation narrative. In the creation narrative, God gathered the waters together and the dry land appeared (1:9) and the earth brought forth vegetation (1:12). After the flood, the waters subside and the dry land appears and the earth brings forth vegetation, as seen in the olive branch that the dove brings to Noah (8:11).
These parallels indicate that, after the flood, we’re going to have a new beginning like the first beginning. God is re-creating the earth out of the chaotic deep, bringing order and life back to the earth again. Despite sin and judgment, the Lord still has a plan for his people and his planet.
An Act of God
Verse 2 parallels 7:11. The passive verbs in these verses (“were opened,” “were closed,” and “was restrained”) indicate that this was an act of God. The flood’s commencement and completion were ordained and controlled by God. The flood was not a freak of nature.
Noah could have said with Job, “The Lord gave and the Lord has taken away, blessed be the name of the Lord” (1:21). The God of the Bible sovereignly presides over everything that happens on the earth he created.
Noah’s Hope Makes Him Patient
The rain lasted 40 days (7:12). The “waters prevailed upon the earth 150 days” (7:24). It took another 150 days for the waters to abate (8:3). And then Noah waited another 40 days before he opened the window (8:6).
Commentator Ken Matthews notes, “Often in life, troubles come on fast and recede slowly.” Our calling is to be faithful, to persevere, to hold on. The waters won’t cover the earth forever. God always moves toward his people in mercy to give them what they need.
As the waters went down, Noah’s hopes go up. But his joy in watching the waters recede doesn’t make him hasty. His hope makes him patient. Verse 6 says that Noah opens a “window,” not the door. He wants to make sure all is safe before disembarking. He isn’t in a rush. He waits forty more days before sending out the birds to allow more time for the earth to dry out. And, as we’ll see, Noah doesn’t leave the ark until God says to (vv. 15-17).
What Do Noah’s Birds Teach Us?
In verses 7-12, Noah sends out birds to determine the condition of the earth. Do these birds have anything to teach us? I think they do. Until now, Noah had received information from God about the corruption of the earth, to build an ark and what to take into it, and about the flood. But then once he’s on the ark, God doesn’t speak to him again until he tells him to get off the ark (vv. 15-17). For some reason, God doesn’t tell him when the earth is habitable again. So Noah sends out the birds as homing devices to gather information about what to do.
God speaks to Noah through special, direct revelation and Noah exercises his wisdom, skill, and common sense. The Creator has spoken to Noah, and now, through the birds, so has the creature.
God often guides his people through sanctified common sense, common grace, and general revelation. For example, Moses received direct revelations from God, but it was his father-in-law who told him how to better handle all the cases that were being brought to him in Exodus 18. Joshua received a direct promise from God that Israel will be given all the land of Canaan (Josh. 1), yet he still sends spies to scope out Jericho and then report back to him (Josh. 2).
Here’s what Noah’s birds teach us: God uses special and general revelation to guide us. Special revelation, what we call the Bible, is sufficient, but God helps and teaches and blesses and guides us through other means as well.
The Sufficiency of Scripture
Many people are throwing around the doctrine of the sufficiency of Scripture today, using it as a weapon against things as divergent as Critical Race Theory and Classical Theism. Many times the impression is that the sufficiency of Scripture means that, if the Bible doesn’t explicitly say it, then I don’t believe it. Or it means that we should operate from a posture of skepticism toward every other source of knowledge. Unfortunately, it’s often used to say, “If you disagree with me on a secondary or tertiary issue, then you don’t believe in the sufficiency of Scripture.”
These kinds of postures indicate that many have lost what the doctrine of the sufficiency of Scripture actually means. Let me give you several ways that this doctrine is defined. Kevin DeYoung says that the sufficiency of Scripture means that, “The Scriptures contain everything we need for knowledge of salvation and godly living. We don’t need any new revelation from heaven.”[1] Wayne Grudem says it like this, “The sufficiency of Scripture means that Scripture…contains all the words of God we need for salvation, for trusting him perfectly, and for obeying him perfectly.”[2] The Second London Confession of Faith says, “The Holy Scripture is the only sufficient, certain, and infallible rule of all saving knowledge, faith, and obedience, although the light of nature, and the works of creation and providence do so far manifest the goodness, wisdom, and power of God, as to leave men inexcusable; yet they are not sufficient to give that knowledge of God and His will which is necessary unto salvation.”
Notice that the Second London Confession does not say that Scripture is the “only sufficient…rule of all knowledge whatsoever,” or that the “light of nature, and the works of creation and providence do not manifest the goodness, wisdom, or power of God.”
In other words, as Jordan Steffaniak says in his recent article “What Does Scriptural Sufficiency Mean?”, “Sufficiency doesn’t mean that Scripture contains all possible knowledge—either word for word or implicitly.”[3] Or as David Murray says in his book Reset, “The sufficiency of Scripture means we don’t need any more special revelation, not that we should shun every nonbiblical source of knowledge.”[4]
The implications of this doctrine are many. This means we can and should learn from creeds and confessions, from theologians outside of our tradition, from scientists who aren’t Christians but are doing good work in observing and explaining the world, from doctors and counselors who are helping us understand how our bodies and brains work.
Sometimes we use sufficiency of Scripture to basically say, “If it’s broke, then the Bible must fix it.” And yes, in a sense, that’s true. Only Christ can ultimately fix and forgive and heal us. But sometimes the means he uses are things he made. For example, when I have a headache, I take ibuprofen because it helps. When I’m struggling, I reach out to friends who’ve been through what I’ve been through. When I’m working through the abusive home I grew up in, I meet with my counselor who helps me process things. When Suzy and I need help in our marriage, we go get it. No one breaks their leg and then just sits there and waits for it to heal itself. Why would we do that with our marriages and relationships and stories and history?
The Bible is all we need to know and please God. But in the Bible we learn that God’s mercy often comes to us through ordinary, created things. Having a high view of Scripture should open up the world to us, not close us off from the world. As Calvin said, the Bible is what we read and what we read with. Like glasses, he says that we should read all knowledge through the lens of Scripture because it will keep us from thinking wrong thoughts about knowing and obeying God.[5] Notice that Calvin is saying that it’s okay to read the world that God made to discover more about the God who made it. We just need to make sure we have good glasses on when we read it. The Reformers taught that Scripture is our final authority, not our only authority. Just read Calvin’s Institutes and notice how often he quotes the Church Fathers.
I’m stopping down on this because I want you to know that you’re free to enjoy and benefit from all that God has revealed to us in his Word and in his world. And because this doctrine guards and promotes the unity of the church. It reminds us that our unity is built on what’s clear and final and authoritative, that is, the Word of God, not on what’s unclear and changing and fallible.
God was silent while Noah was on the ark, but Noah had his promises and his commands, so he kept learning as he went along, applying wisdom to his situation. He knew without God telling him that ravens are scavengers and would find plenty of carcasses and corpses floating on the water, so it was sent out first. And he knew that doves were valley birds that would determine whether the low-lying areas were inhabitable, so he sent them out second.
Moses is exercising sanctified common sense and utilizing a body of common knowledge in order to understand his situation while he waits on further direction from the Lord. We have all the direction we need in the Bible, so we’re free to live and enjoy and discover all the good things that God holds out to us in his world. The Bible is our guide and the world is God’s gift. May God give us wisdom to use each as he intends them to be used.
New Life Begins
After patiently waiting for God’s timing and God’s word, Noah is finally able to leave the ark (vv. 15-19). Through his birds, Noah knows the earth is dry, so why doesn’t he just leave the ark? Because he always subordinates his plans to God’s word. Everything we learn from the world must come under the Word. General revelation is subordinate to special revelation.
We see here the same pattern we saw in chapters 6 and 7. God commands and Noah executes. Have you noticed that Noah hasn’t spoken one word in this narrative? Moses is showing us that Noah is a doer more than he is a talker. This reminds us of what the church is called to do, “Let us not love in word or talk but in deed and truth” (1 Jn. 3:18). Our love for God and for one another is revealed in what we do, not what we say.
Noah Worships
Noah steps out of the ark and into a virgin world washed clean by judgment. He’s a new Adam who, as we’ll see next week, is given the same commands as Adam at creation. But the world Adam stepped into was without sin. The re-created world of Noah was still tainted by sin (vv. 20-22).
This is the first altar in the Bible. The first thing Noah does on dry ground is worship. This tells us that he believed that it was God who brought him through the flood. Notice that at no point does Noah complain or question what God does. He receives the word of God, he obeys, and he worships. Noah understands that he deserved to die like the rest of humanity. What he received was mercy, so what he did was worship.
The Lord Smells
God’s justice has been poured out, been satisfied, he’s provided a sacrifice for sin, and now he’s pleased with the offering that Noah offers (v. 21). Have you ever smelt food cooking and just been pleased? It often leads me to make a pronouncement like, “Babe, that smells amazing! I can’t wait to taste it!” In a similar way, the Lord “smells” Noah’s offering and is moved to make a dramatic pronouncement to himself in verses 21-22.
The Lord speaks both negatively and positively. He says that he’ll never do what he did in the flood again (v. 21) and that he’ll return the earth to regularity and predictability (v. 22). Both of these pronouncement’s stem from his mercy.
The Lord says that, even though the heart of man hasn’t changed, he’s choosing not to judge the world like that again, though he’d be justified in doing so. He won’t give man what he deserves. The punishable won’t be punished.
Man will be preserved, and the earth will be maintained in spite of the human situation. The covenant that God makes with Noah in the next chapter will show us that the Lord’s promises here are meant to create a stage where God will work out his plan for rescuing his fallen world.[6]
Noah in Isaiah
In Isaiah 54, the prophet refers back to this promise and links it to the new covenant God will make with his people (vv. 9-10). Isaiah compares the new covenant with the covenant with Noah. Just as he promised to never cover the earth with a flood of water again, so he’ll never be angry with his people or withdraw his love from them.
How can God not be angry with people like us who break his rules all the time? How can God be at peace with people who’re at war with him?
To find the answer our eyes must move to another wooden vessel, where another righteous and obedient man hung. Paul says that, on the cross, God demonstrated that he is righteous and just, that he’ll never allow sin to go unpunished, and that he’s merciful and loving toward those who believe (Rom. 3:25-26, 5:8). Jesus’ death paid the penalty for our sin and revealed the depth of God’s love for us.
A Fragrant Offering
Paul says elsewhere that Jesus’ sacrifice was “a fragrant offering…to God” (Eph. 5:2). God the Father was pleased and satisfied with the death of God the Son because through it his chosen ones, all those who would believe, were saved from the floodwaters of death.
Paul carries this theme of a “pleasant aroma” one step further in 2 Corinthians 2:14, where he says that through the church, God “spreads the fragrance of the knowledge of (Jesus) everywhere.” This means that Christianity is more than a set of doctrines. It’s also a “fragrance.” Because believe differently than the world, we should also “smell” differently to the world.
The way Ray Ortlund puts it in his book The Gospel is that gospel doctrine creates gospel culture.[7] As Damian put it in paper he wrote for our ministry training group, “Gospel doctrine with no gospel culture is hypocrisy, and gospel culture with no gospel doctrine is
fragility.” Jesus smells good to God. His church should reveal and spread his aroma to the world.
Despite sin and judgment, the Lord still has a plan for his people and his planet. The Lord starts over with Noah because he hasn’t given up on the earth or on his image bearers. Sin and judgment won’t have the last word.
God will send a greater Noah to create a people for his praise by atoning for their sins. This people have his sufficient Word and are free to live in and enjoy his beautiful world. We have his promise that he’ll give us what we need and make us the aroma of Christ in a world rife with the odor of sin and suffering, death and despair.
May God remember us, as he remembered Noah, and move toward us with mercy and make us a worshipping people, a people whose life together is a “pleasing aroma” to him.
[1]Kevin DeYoung, Taking God at His Word: Why the Bible is Knowable, Necessary, and Enough, and What that Means for You and Me (Wheaton, IL: Crossway, 2014), 44.
[2]Wayne Grudem, Systematic Theology: An Introduction to Biblical Doctrine (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 1994), 127.
[3]https://ca.thegospelcoalition.org/article/what-does-scriptural-sufficiency-mean/
[4]David Murray, Reset: Living a Grace-Paced Life in a Burnout Culture (Wheaton, IL: Crossway, 2017), 182-3.
[5]Ibid., 183.
[6]Peter J. Gentry and Stephen J. Wellum, Kingdom through Covenant: A Biblical-Theological Understanding of the Covenants, 2nd ed. (Wheaton, IL: Crossway, 2018), 203.
[7]Ray Ortlund, The Gospel: How the Church Portrays the Beauty of Christ (Wheaton, IL: Crossway, 2014).