• Flood and Judgment: Death Is God’s Just Judgment of Sin
  • General Outline
  • Mankind was completely sinful in all his thoughts and deeds
    • Genesis 6.5
  • God was grieved by the sin of the world
  • God showed grace to Noah
  • God warned of his judgment and provided a way of escape
  • The flood destroyed everything except those in the ark
  • After the flood Noah offered an animal sacrifice
  • God currently mercifully withholds judgment and gives us a way to escape it

§Flood and Judgment: Death Is God’s Just Judgment of Sin

§General Outline

• Mankind completely sinful in all his thoughts and deeds.
• God grieved by the sin of the world.
• God showed grace to Noah.
• God warned of his judgment and provided a way of escape.
• The flood destroyed everything except those in the ark.
• After the flood Noah offered animal sacrifices.
• God currently mercifully withholds judgment and gives us a way to escape it.

§Mankind was completely sinful in all his thoughts and deeds

💬 After Adam and Eve sinned and were sent out of the garden, what happened next? Do you know?**

After Adam and Eve sinned and were sent out of the garden, a few people hoped in faith for the promise that God had given them. These people looked for the coming of the Deliverer God had promised would bruise the head of Satan (Genesis 3:15). But most people went their own way and continued to disobey God. Generation after generation, people got worse and worse until it was clearly seen just how evil people who are separated from God can be.

§Genesis 6.5

5 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.

And a little bit later, (Gen. 6.11) it says that “all flesh had corrupted their way on the earth.”

💬 How does that compare to the world now? What do you think God thought about this?**

§God was grieved by the sin of the world

Surprisingly, the Torah says that God was “grieved to his heart” and “regretted that he had made man on the earth.” (Genesis 6.6). This doesn’t mean that God had made a mistake or that he didn’t know this would happen. God knows all things, even things that haven’t happened yet. The Holy Book also clearly says that God never changes his mind. But God is holy and hates evil as it should be hated. His creation which had originally been “very good” was now corrupted. While this was grievous to God, he also was planning to show his greatness through judging sin justly while at the same time forgiving sin graciously.

Because we are sinful humans, we don’t always hate sin as we should. We look on sin lightly and act like it is no big deal. But God is just and calls black, black and white, white. Adam and Eve’s sin was not just eating a fruit, but disobeying God. And disobeying God comes from the sin of not believing God. Their sin was the result of believing what Satan had said rather than what God had said. Death is the just penalty for the sin of not believing God. And so God finally declared that all of humanity would physically die in a great judgment of a worldwide flood because of their sin.

💬 Do you think it was right for God to do this?**

§God showed grace to Noah

Even though everyone had this wicked heart, God chose one person, Noah—a righteous man through whom he would make a way for people to be saved from his judgment. When Noah was born, his father hoped that he would be the Deliverer that God had promised to Adam and Eve. Therefore his father chose the name “Noah” which sounds like “rest.” This showed his hope that through Noah God would save humanity from the pain and suffering that separation from God had brought (Genesis 5.29)

§God warned of his judgment and provided a way of escape

When Noah was already old and had three adult sons, God promised to make a covenant with him and save him from the worldwide flood. He gave him very detailed instructions for how to build a large boat. Even the materials he used and the exact measurements of the boat are all written in detail in the Torah. Just like when he made the clothes of animal skins for Adam and Eve, God was again showing that being saved from his judgment was something that He would do for mankind and not something that mankind could do in just any way they thought best.

It took a long time for Noah to build the ark and the Holy Book tells us that this showed God’s patience (1 Peter 3.20). Through Noah, God called the people to confess their sin and ask his forgiveness but no one did (1 Peter 3.19, 2 Peter 2.5).

As the time of God’s judgment drew near, God did something else that is interesting. He sent two animals of every kind to go with Noah on the boat—a male and a female.

💬 Why do you think God did that? What did that show about God’s purpose?**

God obviously meant to save the animals just as he was planning on saving Noah. This shows that God had not abandoned his original plan for mankind. Remember that God had told Adam to rule over the creation and over all the animals. God still wanted man to do that. Even though God was judging the earth and everything in it, his plan was also to create it all over again fresh and new.

§The flood destroyed everything except those in the ark

Finally God sent the flood on the earth. He and his wife and his three sons and their wives, and all the animals that God had sent were all on the boat. Rain fell from heaven, and the “fountains of the deep burst forth” (Gen. 7.11-12) which means that water came both from above and also from under the earth. The entire earth was covered with water.

And here is the most important part of this story: Everything died! Every animal in which there was breath and every single human being on the entire earth died! God is showing us through this historical event that the penalty for sin—for not obeying and for not believing God—is death.

The rain continued for 40 days and then after it stopped, the waters were on the earth for 150 more days. When the waters finally receded completely and Noah and his family and the animals were able to leave the boat and walk on dry land, it had been more than a year that they had been in it!

§After the flood Noah offered an animal sacrifice

💬 And what do you think was the first thing that happened after they all came out of the ark?**

Noah offered several animal sacrifices to God.

💬 Why do you think Noah offered those sacrifices?**

The Torah says that these were “clean” animals which shows that God had already instructed mankind which animals could be sacrificed and which could not. This shows that animal sacrifice was not Noah’s idea, but something that God had commanded. Think about this. God had just destroyed everything alive except for the people and animals in the ark, and the very first thing that happens is that some of those animals whose life had been spared are put to death.

God was showing that even though he had judged the earth mankind was still sinful and still subject to death.

When God smelled the aroma from the animal sacrifices he said this: “I will never again curse the ground because of man, for the intention of man’s heart is evil from his youth.” God was saying that even though Noah and his sons and their descendants continued to have an evil heart, he would delay his judgment as long as the earth remains. God said, “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.”

This means that every day we live, every season that passes, every year that goes by is due to God’s mercy. The intentions of our hearts are evil and we see that all around us. But God is giving us opportunity to turn back to him and be forgiven.

§God currently mercifully withholds judgment and gives us a way to escape it

💬 If we turn from our sin, will God forgive us and give us eternal life in heaven? Why should he?**

This story also answers that question. Noah didn’t just say, “God please forgive my family! We will try to obey you better and not do evil deeds!” By giving the ark, God provided a way of escaping his judgment and Noah obediently followed that way. God’s judgment (the rain and the flood) came upon those in the ark just as it came upon those not in the ark. But because they were in the safe place that God provided, they passed through his judgment and escaped death.

God never forgives sin without also judging it. The only way that he can do both is to provide a safe place where we can pass through his judgment of our sins and survive, like Noah did. Jesus is that safe place.

• When sinful men killed Jesus on the cross, that was God’s plan. The judgment of death fell on Jesus just like the flood came upon the ark.
• When we put our faith in Jesus, it is like Noah going in the ark. Jesus saves us from death, just like the boat saved Noah and his family.
• And also just like Noah was taken by the ark into a clean world, through Jesus we enter into a new creation that will last forever in which there will be no more sin and no more death. We will live eternally in a new earth, a brand new creation. Even though it was not yet perfect, the earth after the flood was a picture of the new creation that Jesus will bring us into in the future.
• Noah was not the Deliverer that God had promised to Adam and Eve, but his life and his boat pointed forward to Jesus, who IS the fulfillment of that promise of salvation that God gave mankind.