Lesson 11 – Restoration
Genesis 8:1 – 9:17
Preparing for Lesson 11
Noah and his family rode out the storm for 371 days. That is the amount of time that elapsed from the moment they entered the Ark to the day they stepped out into their new world.
As the animals and birds were coming to Noah, God told him to take certain numbers of the “clean” versus “unclean” aboard the Ark. How did Noah know the difference between clean and unclean animals?
Scripture does not record the classifications of animals and birds until Leviticus 11.
Many skeptics use Leviticus 11 as evidence that the Bible story of Noah is just that…a story. But consider this: An article written by Eric Lyons states, “That God had given laws concerning animal sacrifices since the time of Cain and Abel is evident from the fact that the second son of Adam was able to offer an animal sacrifice by faith. Since faith comes by hearing, and hearing by the word of God, Abel must have received revelation from God on how to offer acceptable animal sacrifices.”
These revelations would have been passed from generation to generation, so Noah was well aware of which animals were clean and which were not.
And finally, we know quite a bit about the Ark (dimensions, type of wood, number of floors, etc.) and what was on it (humans, animals, birds, food, water). But what was missing from Noah’s Ark?
Have you ever considered the fact that the Ark had no sail and no rudder? So what? There was no way for him to steer the thing!
Noah was not a shipbuilder by trade, and he might not have even thought it odd that there was no sail or rudder. But you can be certain that those who observed Noah’s building project would have pointed it out. “Hey, Noah! Even if the boat floats, you forgot to install a rudder! You know you can’t steer it, right?”
But Noah obeyed anyway and took his entire family aboard just as God had directed him. Those eight people truly put their lives in God’s hands, trusting Him to steer the Ark out of harm’s way and to preserve them to accomplish His ultimate plan.
When we place our trust in Christ, and I mean really trust Him, we are doing the same thing Noah did. We are entering His spiritual Ark and trusting Him to guide our lives wherever He would have us go, and have faith that we will end up exactly where He wants us to be.
People today believe that each person can be the master of his own fate, and the captain of his own soul. But as for me, I’m on board with Jesus.
LESSON 11 – RESTORATION
What Did Noah See When He Left The Ark?
The world Noah left behind when he entered the Ark looked nothing like the world he returned to after the flood. Geologists teach that prior to the flood, the earth consisted of one giant land mass; that is, one giant super-continent. During the flood, the continent was torn apart into individual land masses which collided together again, and eventually drifted apart into the relative positions in which we see them today.
In 1859, creationist-geologist Antonio Snider-Pellegrini was the first to notice the jigsaw puzzle-like fit of North and South America with Europe and Africa, except of course, they were separated by the Atlantic Ocean. After consulting Genesis 1:9-10, he realized that the land mass God formed on the third day of Creation was probably a super-continent.
If this whole scenario sounds unbelievable, consider the scale of the catastrophe. Remember, the destructive forces at work during the Flood were more than just water. One geologist describes it this way: “But we do have a reasonable picture of what happened at the catastrophic initiation of the Flood. Huge plumes of molten rock blasted the underside of the earth’s crust like massive blow-torches. Eventually, the crust was ripped apart, and steam and molten rock burst forth. The supercontinent collapsed, with slivers of land sliding into the ocean at the margins. It must have been horrific.” (Dr. Andrew A. Snelling)
Today we look at maps and see the Euphrates and Tigris rivers and think we know the general location of the Garden of Eden. Not true. “These are not the same rivers or land because, just like the Garden of Eden, the [original rivers] were buried under many layers of sedimentary rocks containing fossils. The names were simply re-used by the post-Flood peoples who would have heard of them from Noah and his immediate family.” The same thing happens today. When, for example, people emigrated from Ireland to the United States during the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, they carried the name Belfast (the capital of Northern Ireland) with them, and at least five locations in the U.S. were named after it.
Think About This: The remains of Noah’s Ark have never been found, but it has not been for lack of searching. Ron Stewart, author of Noah’s Ark: A Scientific Look, Past and Future has documented more than 100 expeditions to locate the Ark. This is just my personal opinion, but I believe that Noah and his family probably dismantled the Ark and repurposed the lumber and everything else on board in order to build shelters for themselves and their livestock.
Genesis 8:1, “But God remembered Noah.” This does not mean that God had forgotten about Noah. Whenever we see the phrase “God remembered…”, He is about to take action toward someone or something due to His previous commitment. Examples: Genesis 19:29, God remembered Abraham and Lot was saved; Genesis 30:22, God remembered Rachel and she conceived; Genesis 8:1, God remembered Noah and caused a great wind to come and dry up the earth.
The Raven and the Dove
While he was monitoring the water levels on the earth, Noah sent out a raven which “flew here and there until the water was dried up” and apparently never returned to the Ark. Noah also sent out a dove who returned to him because there was no place for her to land. Why did the dove return but the raven did not?
J. Vernon McGee says this story reveals a spiritual truth. “The raven went out into a judged world, and he found a feast in the dead carcasses because that is the thing he lived on. May I say to you, that is the picture of the old nature; the old nature is like that raven. The old nature loves the things of the world and feasts on them. The raven went out into the world and loved it.
“The dove went out into a judged world and she found no rest, no satisfaction, and she returned to the Ark. The dove represents the believer in the world. The dove recognized what kind of world she was in, and she found no rest. She found rest only in the Ark, and that Ark sets forth Christ, if you please.”
By the way, ravens are scavengers and are classified as unclean, but doves are clean.
So, when Noah and his family exited the Ark, they saw nothing familiar. Nothing that looked like home, no landmarks, no animals. It would have been a sobering sight. But the Ark, with God as their Captain, had brought them safely through the storm.
The Noahic Covenant
The Noahic (pronounced No-a’-ick) Covenant was the first covenant in the Bible. It was universal, because it applied to all humans and to every living creature on the earth. It was unilateral because God is the sole initiator. It is unconditional because no matter what humans do in the future, God will never again destroy the earth as He had done in the flood. (R Kent Hughes)
The first thing Noah did when he left the Ark was to build an altar and offer sacrifices to God. Genesis 8:20: “Then Noah built an altar to the Lord and took of every clean animal and of every clean bird and offered burnt offerings on the altar.” (So this explains why God instructed Noah to take clean animals by sevens.)
Noah’s sacrifices pleased God and God made a solemn promise. The words recorded in Genesis 8:21-22 were not spoken to Noah; this was a commitment made within the Godhead. And although they are not part of the Noahic Covenant, they are a prelude to it. “And the Lord smelled the soothing aroma; and the Lord said to Himself, “I will never again curse the ground on account of man, for the intent of man’s heart is evil from his youth; and I will never again destroy every living thing, as I have done.” (Genesis 8:21).
God knew that cleansing the earth of sin by means of the flood was only a temporary fix. The problem was not with the creation; the problem was with sin (“for the intent of man’s heart is evil from his youth”). “God therefore determined to deal differently with sin in the future. While sin suffered a temporary setback at the flood, it will be dealt a fatal blow at the coming of Messiah. It is at this time that men will become new creatures (2 Corinthians 5:17). After men are dealt with, new heavens and a new earth will be provided as well (2 Peter 3:13)” (Bob Deffinbaugh)
The first seven verses of Genesis Chapter 9 include the provisions of the Noahic Covenant. Consider the relationship between these “new rules” of Chapter 9 versus the “old rules” of Chapter 1. Things had definitely changed. Also note that God declared the original creation to be ‘good’, but the world of Noah’s day, not so much.
Be fruitful and multiply, and fill the earth (Genesis 9:1, 7). God reaffirms man’s responsibility to populate the earth. Compare to Genesis 1:28.
Animals will fear you (Genesis 9:2); Every moving thing shall be given to you for food (Genesis 9:3). Unlike in Genesis 1:28, God does not tell Noah to rule over the animals, but that animals would now fear man. Presumably this would give man some measure of control over the animals. And while Genesis 1:30 authorizes Adam to use all plants for food, man is now permitted to eat the flesh of animals as long as they did not eat nor drink the blood.
Whoever sheds man’s blood, by man his blood shall be shed (Genesis 9:5-6). These verses are seen as the institution of human self-government, including capital punishment. There was no mention of human government in Genesis 1.
In his article entitled The Noahic Covenant – A New Beginning, author Bob Deffinbaugh states the following: “The command concerning capital punishment is, I believe, the cornerstone of any society of sinful men. The animal kingdom is to be controlled, to a great extent, by means of their fear of man (9:2). Man’s sinful tendencies, also, are kept in check by his fear of the consequences. Any society which loses its reverence for life cannot endure long. For this reason, God instituted capital punishment as a gracious restraint upon man’s sinful tendency toward violence. Because of this, mankind can live in relative peace and security until God’s Messiah has dealt the death blow to sin.”
So the slate has been cleaned of the stain of sin, albeit temporarily, and Noah had some clearly defined rules to follow as he and his family filled the earth. Was he optimistic about the future? We will answer that question in Lesson 12: Be Fruitful and Multiply – Again.
Think About It, Talk About It
Do you think God just forgot to tell Noah to install a rudder on the Ark? Why?
How is Jesus our spiritual Ark?
What forces of nature besides rain contributed to the destruction of the earth and the death of all flesh?
How does the story of the raven and the dove describe the state of mankind in general?
God knew that the stain of sin had been removed from the earth, but that it was only a temporary cleansing. Why?
SOURCES
Deffinbaugh, Bob: The Noahic Covenant – A New Beginning (www.bible.org)
Hughes, R. Kent: Preaching the Word-Genesis (Crossway Books)
In Search of Noah’s Ark: A Chronological Timeline of Expeditions and Sightings, (www.baptistpress.com)
Lyons, Eric: Clean and Unclean Animals Before the Law of Moses (www.apologeticspress.org)
McGee, J. Vernon: Through the Bible, Volume 1 (Thomas Nelson Publishing)
Noahic Covenant: (www.theopedia)
Robinson, Phil: What Would Noah Have Observed Coming Off The Ark? (www.creation.com)
Spykstra, Tim: What Was Absent From The Ark? (www.oceanministries.org)