As it was in the Days of Noah (Part 6 of 0)

“Grace in the eyes of the Lord” – Part 4

Warning and Grace

Genesis 6: 3 records a warning that was given to the antediluvians: “And the Lord said, My spirit shall not always strive with man, for that he also is flesh: yet his days shall be an hundred and twenty years.” Another warning follows in verse 7: “And the Lord said, I will destroy man whom I have created from the face of the earth; both man, and beast, and the creeping thing, and the fowls of the air; for it repenteth me that I have made them.”

It appears that the warnings of Genesis 6: 3 and 7 were not given to any person in particular but were announced generally. But afterwards, God began to com­municate specifically to Noah and to the world through Noah since “Noah found grace in the eyes of the Lord” (Gen 6: 8).

So, how did Noah find grace in the eyes of God? The answer is indicated by: “For by grace are ye saved through faith; and that not of yourselves: it is the gift of God” (Eph 2: 8). It had something to do with faith. But before we talk more about that, notice that Ephesians 2: 8 is directed to the ecclesia. It is about us. So, the example of Noah provides a pattern of the means by which we find grace in God’s sight. Now consider the context in which the statement about Noah finding grace in the sight of God is made. It occurs in Genesis 6:8. The preceding verses consist of warnings from God about events that were coming on the earth. Most of the antediluvians disregarded them. But it is evident that Noah believed what God had said. And his example is extremely important for believers of all generations. That is why Peter makes so many references to Noah in his words about coming judg­ments. Peter wanted the people of his day — and his message applies to our time as well — to earnestly believe what God had revealed about events that were going to take place on the earth, especially as apathy towards spiritual things increased:

“knowing this first: that scoffers will come in the last days, walking accord­ing to their own lusts, and saying, ‘Where is the promise of his coming? For since the fathers fell asleep, all things continue as they were from the begin­ning of creation.’ For this they willfully forget: that by the word of God the heavens were of old, and the earth standing out of water and in the water, by which the world that then existed perished, being flooded with water (2Pet 3:3-6, NKJV).

Noah stood out in his time by believing God. That is the reason that he found grace in God’s sight.

Noah’s beliefs pleased God in the same way that Abraham’s did. Abraham believed the things that God said, and that belief was counted unto him for righteousness:

“For what saith the scripture? Abraham believed God, and it was counted unto him for righteousness” (Rom 4:3).

The same is true for us. When we believe the things that God has stated concerning the Lord Jesus Christ and are baptized on the basis of that belief, righteousness is imputed to us: “Now it was not written for his sake alone, that it was imputed to him; But for us also, to whom it shall be imputed, if we believe on him that raised up Jesus our Lord from the dead” (Rom 4:23-24). It is also critical that we believe the things that God has said about the return of Christ and the events that will take place afterwards. Belief in them will help keep us from getting caught up in the cares of this life since we will know that the things of this world will pass away.

Our beliefs are essential to our salvation, and they should drive our actions. Noah’s beliefs motivated him, and he acted on them. Genesis gives a summary of his character: “These are the generations of Noah: Noah was a just man and perfect in his generations, and Noah walked with God” (Gen 6:9).

The Hebrew word translated “just” in the verse is tsad-deek’. It means “righteous.” Noah was counted as righteous by God because of his belief in what God had said. The Hebrew word rendered “perfect” means “complete” or “whole.” Noah was complete in his service to God. He both avoided the evil that was around him and actively sought to do good. Although he did not participate in the ungodly activities of his contemporaries, he still engaged them and tried to get them to turn to God. Preaching was a major component of his service.

Noah is commended because he was able to save others by the influence of his example. Ezekiel 14 mentions three outstanding men, Noah, Daniel, and Job, who had the common characteristic that others were saved because of them. The friends of Daniel, the friends of Job, and the family of Noah were all preserved because of the influence of those godly men. Ezekiel 14 describes how things had gotten quite bad in Israel. God was going to send severe judgments against the people. He said that even if Noah, Daniel, and Job were in the land, they would not have been able to save others by their righteousness (Ezek 14: 14, 16, 18, 20). The implication is that under other circumstances they would have been able to do so: “Though these three men, Noah, Daniel, and Job, were in it, they should deliver but their own souls by their righteousness, saith the Lord GOD” (Ezekiel 14:14). The invocation of Noah’s name in this context indicates just how exemplary his character was. It also reminds us that a good example can have a powerful, life-altering impact on others.

Noah was faithful even though there were bad examples all around him. Genesis 6: 12 states that people had “corrupted” God’s way on the earth. Therefore, God stated his intention to “destroy” in verse 13. There is a play on words in the original Hebrew. A very similar word, shaw-khath’, is used for “corrupted” and “destroy” in both verses. The idea is that because people had “destroyed” God’s way on the earth, He was going to destroy them. It is a turn of phrase that is echoed in a number of times in the New Testament, including a verse about the judgment that is coming on our world: “And the nations were angry, and thy wrath is come, and the time of the dead, that they should be judged, and that thou shouldest give reward unto thy servants the prophets, and to the saints, and them that fear thy name, small and great; and shouldest destroy them which destroy the earth” (Rev 11:18).

Revelation 11 is one of many examples of the principle that God tells His servants about events that are coming on the earth. “Surely the Lord GOD will do nothing, but he revealeth his secret unto his servants the prophets” (Amos 3:7). God told Noah that a Flood was coming. And He instructed him to prepare for it by building an ark.

“Make thee an ark”

The ark is described in Genesis 6: 14-16. Not too much detail is given. We would be hard pressed to reconstruct an exact replica of the ark using the information that the Bible gives us. But we do not need to know how to rebuild the ark. That is not the point of the record. Instead, we need to replicate the lessons of the ark in our lives.

The Hebrew word translated “ark” is tebah. It is not the same word that is used for the Ark of the Covenant.1In fact, the only other use of the word in the Bible is the basket in which Moses was placed as a baby (Exodus 2: 3, 5). It was basically a box designed to float and to preserve the lives of those inside.

It is interesting to note that there is no steering mechanism described for the ark. There was no rudder, and there were no oars. God was completely in charge of directing it and deciding where it should go. So, those who entered it had to place their trust in Him to guide them. Therefore, the ark is a fitting symbol for salva­tion in the Lord Jesus Christ. When we come to him, we forsake the direction in which our natural inclinations would take us. We look to God to steer us, and we place our lives in His care.

The ark was to be constructed of “gopher wood” according to Genesis 6: 14. We do not know, however, what sort of tree, if any, produces “gopher wood”. (There was once a hoax where a man claimed to have found the ark protruding from a glacier in Turkey. He said that he knew that it was the ark because it was made of gopher wood. That was a pretty strong clue that he was lying.2) The Hebrew word used in the passage is rendered “gopher” in the English because the translators were not quite sure what to make of it. So, they just wrote down what it sounded like. That is called “transliteration.” Since the Hebrew word sounds like “gopher” when it is pronounced, that is how the translators rendered it.3

Some commentators believe that the Hebrew word used is a variant of the verb kaphar, which means “to cover;” kaphar actually appearing later in the verse. It is the first word translated “pitch” in the King James Version. It is used to mean “to cover with sap.” Noah was supposed to cover the boards of the ark with sap to make them watertight. The second word translated “pitch” in Genesis 6: 14 is a noun derived from the verb kaphar. It could mean “tree sap” in this context, although usually translated “ransom”.

So, if “gopher wood” implies wood that has a lot of sap, like pine, then the verse would read something like this: “Make thee an ark of wood that yields sap. Make rooms in it. And seal it on the inside and the outside with sap.”

Think about the process of building the ark for a moment. Noah had to cut trees down. That meant that he had to kill them. He would have taken sap from cuts and punctures in the trees. And he made the ark safe for everyone inside by completely covering it with that sap. Using sap on the inside of the ship might have seemed like overkill. In fact, it might have made it a bit sticky to walk around, but that sap would be a compelling reminder that the ship was safe.

It also made the ark an incredible visual representation of salvation in the Lord Jesus Christ. For the ark to offer salvation to Noah and his family, trees had to die. The process of cutting down the trees might remind us that death had to occur for salvation to be possible. The sap from those trees would have issued forth like blood from the slices, holes, and wounds in the trees. And that sap provided a covering that saved Noah and his family. It might makes us think of the blood of Christ, which John says “cleanseth us from all sin” (1John 1: 7) and “hast redeemed us to God” (Rev 5: 9).

The other uses of the word kaphar in the Bible encourage us along this line of thinking. That word is translated “atonement,” “purge,” “reconciliation,” “reconcile,” “forgive,” and “pardon” 91 times in the Bible. It is used in passages such as “And it came to pass on the morrow, that Moses said unto the people, Ye have sinned a great sin: and now I will go up unto the LORD; peradventure I shall make an atonement for your sin” (Exod 32:30).

The ark, therefore, is yet another foreshadowing of the Lord Jesus Christ and a reminder of his importance. The description of the ark, like so many sections in the Bible, teaches that Christ is the means by which we can be saved. Yes, Noah labored hard. But he and his family had to be inside the ark, or they would have been lost. The same is true for us. We must be baptized into the Lord Jesus. Good deeds alone cannot save us and are not enough to make us pleasing to God. The Lord Jesus Christ is so important. And our minds are so inclined to forsake his way and focus on this world instead. Therefore, we need to call him and his ex­ample to mind often. We need to contemplate his offering and its implications throughout the day, just as Noah and his family would have thought about the protective covering on the inside of the ark — that sticky sap — as they want about doing their daily tasks while inside of it. We will continue our consideration of the ark and the lessons that we can learn from it in our next article in the series.

  1. In the New Testament, however, the words are the same (cf. Hebrews 9: 4 and 11: 7).
  2. P. H. Adams. “Noah’s Ark Discovered?” The Testimony. 1947, p 171.
  3. For more information, see http://biblelexicon.org/genesis/6-14.htm. Accessed November 29, 2009.