RIGHTEOUSNESS (3)
[p. 424] RIGHTEOUSNESS (3)
Genesis 7:1; Hebrews 11:7; 2 Peter 2:4,5; Ezekiel 14:12 - 20
JT This verse in Genesis 7 is included with the other passages read because it is important as being connected with the immediate history of Noah. The verse in Hebrews is most important in our subject as referring to an oracular communication which moved Noah to prepare an ark for the saving of his house. Then in Ezekiel 14 righteousness is stressed as in Noah, Daniel and Job. Noah’s house would be included in the covenant made with him by Jehovah, and thus righteousness becomes of great importance to us in household government and baptism. Finally Peter tells us that Noah was a preacher of righteousness — as if his personal importance was in mind. He says, “For if God spared not the angels who had sinned, but having cast them down to the deepest pit of gloom has delivered them [p. 426] to chains of darkness to be kept for judgment; and spared not the old world, but preserved Noe, the eighth, a preacher of righteousness ...” Thus his importance and value is noted in Peter: he is seen as a preacher of righteousness. The importance of the preaching is linked up with him. Furthermore Noah’s inclusion in our subject is noteworthy in that he is viewed as having a ‘history’, including birth or origin; and it is said that he was “perfect amongst his generations”, that is, the circle in which he moved. And Noah was a just man and walked with God. He lived at the end of a dispensation as we do, and he points to the importance of taking on responsibility, not shirking it. The whole world was about to be judged; he faced the matter with God and found support. We are drawing near to the end of a dispensation involving [p. 425] universal judgment; God would lay it upon us to face difficulties, to go through them according to our measure and the strength divinely given, to walk with God in them. Genesis 6:9 points to a man of great integrity and ability, a man who does things, who takes them on and succeeds.
SP Does the thought of his walk with God suggest his secret history, and then the three sons suggest the perpetuation of what is for God publicly?
JT Yes, his three sons were blessed with him. They were carried through in relation to Noah to start another world. The whole position seen in these chapters is of striking magnitude, it enlarges and strengthens the mind of faith. Peter says God “spared not the old world;” Noah did not intercede for it as Abraham did for Sodom. As remarked, the magnitude of the position is enormous. Noah faced the destruction of a whole world in his own time, and in anticipation of it was preparing an ark for many years — evidently one hundred and twenty; and while in faith building the ark he was condemning the world. At the end of the period including the deluge he had so learned God that he built an altar to God and offered burnt-offerings thereon. Abel did not have an altar, but Noah had one.
Ques What bearing had the first four verses of chapter 6 on Noah? We have the description of the sons of God, who would be heavenly beings, I suppose, and yet verse 5 says, “And Jehovah saw that the wickedness of Man was great on the earth, and every imagination of the thoughts of his heart only evil continually”. What is the bearing of the sons of God being on the earth?
JT Peter in dealing with the government of God seen in this section says, “God ... spared not the old world”. But he also says, “For if God spared not the angels who had sinned, but having cast them down to the deepest pit of gloom has delivered them to chains of darkness to be kept for judgment ...” Noah had nothing to do with that, another order of being was involved and God dealt with it directly. Reference is made to certain angels being cast down to “the deepest pit of gloom”: that would undoubtedly allude to those Genesis 6 calls “the sons of God”; they have that status. Evidently great intelligence entered into the scene and into the form sin would take, as if Satan employed beings called sons of God, which would be a link with the book of Job. They are beings who had that status — sons of God; they had it outwardly at least, as unreal Christians have it today. Christianity has enlightened men but the effect of the light aids them in corruption. Then those beings link themselves with the daughters of men and their progeny become heroes; and Jehovah says, “My Spirit shall not always plead with Man; for he indeed is flesh; but his days shall be a hundred and twenty years”. As already noted, the Spirit goes on to point out that “In those days were the giants on the earth, and also afterwards, when the sons of God had come in to the daughters of men, and they had borne children to them; these were the heroes, who of old were men of renown. And Jehovah saw that the wickedness of Man was great on the earth, and every imagination of the thoughts of his heart only evil continually. And Jehovah repented that he had made Man on the earth, and it grieved him in his heart”. God attaches the responsibility to man, not exactly to the sons of God. There is constant reference to “man”. “And Jehovah said, I will destroy Man, whom I have created, from the earth — from man to cattle, to creeping things, and to fowl of the heavens; for I repent that I have made them. But Noah found favour in the eyes of Jehovah”. That is how the matter stands — an account of very great activities — but activities which are only to be engulfed in the judgment of God. For God has in mind another [p. 427] world.
LES So the thought is carried through into Ezekiel where the family side is brought in — the sons and daughters.
JT Well, we see that the family of Noah — his sons and daughters — were evidently apart from what was going on around, although no one is accredited with anything in this section but Noah — neither his wife nor his sons and daughters. We must wait until we come to chapter 9 to see how God takes them on, discriminating between them, but in this section Noah is everything.
HH Jehovah says to Noah, for thee “have I seen righteous before me in this generation” (chapter 7:1).
JT It shows that God is not attaching anything to his wife or children so far; He is making everything of Noah. He is preserving him, however, according to Peter, as one of eight. Whatever virtue there was in them is in abeyance, although the type as a whole implies that they were “in Noah”, saved as his house. So the challenge is to each one, are we able to take on responsibility and go through with it?
AEH Say a little as to the idea of begetting; here it stands over against the thought of bearing, the daughters of men bore children. Is the peculiar delight which Jehovah had in Noah in some way hidden in the word ‘beget’? Does it stand in relation to the testimony?
JT Yes. His sons are his own and they come into chapter 5, that is, the life line. The narrative regards them in this setting and hence apart from the corruption of the antediluvian world. The four wives are included in Noah’s house and hence saved in the ark; the others God destroys. As the Lord Jesus says, “For as they were in the days which were before the flood, eating and drinking, marrying and giving in marriage, until the day on which Noe entered into the ark, and they knew not till the flood came and took all away” (Matthew 24:38,39). But one man [p. 428] and his house numbering seven are carried through.
AEH The way the idea of righteousness is linked with the preparing of the ark to save his house is striking. There is no record so far of practical righteousness in his house.
JT No, it comes out in Noah. Nothing is said of his wife, sons or daughters until later chapters. Of course the antitype requires us to accept that they were subjects of God’s work. The history results in the bringing out of Shem, a man of value in the ways of God; God takes the place of being his God. But that does not enter into this section. What we have here is a man who takes on responsibility and does things for God. Think of this man! Think of him as preaching to a world about to be destroyed and the preaching having no result! The taking in of this would enable us to face things as they are.
HH It was only God’s support that could carry him through. That is true now, we can only go through by the support of the Spirit.
JT And God is assuring us that our labour is not in vain. God would establish us in our exercises, encourage us with His promises; the prophetic word makes things plain, and we are affected by it. Noah prepared an ark to save all his house.
AEH What a sense of holy joy must have filled Noah’s soul when Jehovah said to him, “thee have I seen righteous before me in this generation”.
JT God would fortify His servant. Noah certainly needed it. In chapter 6 God is ministering encouragement to him, even saying, “with thee will I establish my covenant”.
Rem Everything is obedient to Noah — all the creatures mentioned go into the ark.
JT “And Jehovah said to Noah ... Of all clean beasts thou shalt take to thee by sevens, a male and its female; but of the beasts that are not clean two, a male and its female. Also of the fowl of the heavens [p. 429] by sevens, male and female; to keep seed alive on the face of all the earth”. And then we are told, “Noah did according to all that Jehovah had commanded him”. Further we are told, “In the six hundredth year of Noah’s life, in the second month, on the seventeenth day of the month ... went Noah, and Shem and Ham and Japheth, the sons of Noah, and Noah’s wife, and the three wives of his sons with them, into the ark; they, and every beast after its kind, and all the cattle after their kind, and every creeping thing that creeps on the earth after its kind, and all fowl after its kind — every bird of every wing. And they went to Noah, into the ark, two and two of all flesh, in which was the breath of life. And they that came, came male and female of all flesh, as God had commanded him”. It would seem as though his house and the cattle and the creatures generally are under divine control — God has part with him; it would be impossible for Noah to accomplish this unless God worked with him. But with God Noah did accomplish it; he went into the ark and the others with him. It would point to the work of God in him without which none can succeed. In any commission that anyone may have he will succeed if God moves with him. Without God we cannot succeed.
HH There is potentiality in the ark: only eight people but potential material, looking on to what God is going to do in the new world. Wonderful to think of! When Noah came out of the ark there was no man on the earth outside of his own family.
AEJA So God says to Noah, “Be fruitful and multiply, and fill the earth” (Genesis 9:1).
JT Yes. It is a new world really, represented in its head; so that it begins with Noah. It begins with a man who built an altar: “And Noah built an altar to Jehovah; and took of every clean animal, and of all clean fowl, and offered up burnt-offerings on the altar” (Genesis 8:20), all showing that Noah went through, God has His man. Now God is more to him and he is to be for God, so it says, “And Jehovah smelled the sweet odour. And Jehovah said in his heart, I will no more henceforth curse the ground on account of Man, for the thought of Man’s heart is evil from his youth; and I will no more smite every living thing, as I have done”. That is what God said in His heart. There is the mystery already suggested. The present things are the outcome of that — God is not publishing that — it is in His heart. However, what is public is the altar and the clean animals that Noah used for sacrifice; it is his service to God, and God’s pleasure is in it, and the new world is the continuation of that man. God is not going to destroy the earth again. God is not publishing that but history will bring it out. We know it now because it is recorded by divine commandment through Moses. So that is the position. I think we have the idea of mystery in relation to the new world, we become initiated into what is in the heart of God — what He says in His heart.
HH It is interesting that before we have the new world Abel’s history has come in and the sin question is disposed of. Enoch has also been translated and in Noah the judgment question has been solved, so that the new world is in evidence after all this.
JT All this was in the heart of God, it is not published. We are entering into a new world in which is mystery, but history will bring it out. We have to wait for the development of what is in the heart of God, beginning with God smelling a sweet savour: “Henceforth”, He says, “all the days of the earth, seed time and harvest, and cold and heat, and summer and winter, and day and night, shall not cease” (Genesis 8:22). We cannot say how many years or centuries are involved, but it is while the earth remains, “all the days of the earth”, however long [p. 431] that may be. God purposed it in His heart but in due time it came to light and we count upon it now.
HH In the beginning of Hebrews 11 we are told that “faith is the substantiating of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen”.
JT Noah was oracularly warned concerning things not yet seen. Think of the history of that hundred and twenty years! Noah’s faith is understood by what is stated, that he was warned of God in regard of things not seen, and that he was moved by that warning to prepare an ark for the saving of his house; and that by so doing he condemned the world and became heir of the righteousness which is according to faith. This chapter is a record of the leading exploits of faith, and Noah is among the persons who are in it. He did great things! As we have noted, he built to save his house and in so doing he condemned the world. This is a great matter — the world is condemned by his testimony. Enoch had the testimony that he pleased God, but Noah’s testimony affects the whole world. You marvel at the accomplishments of this man. God is justified in the judgment He executed because one man warned the world through his service! That is how the matter stands at the present moment; thus the question may again be asked, Are we prepared to take on responsibility divinely placed, and to go through with it?
LES His was a baptised house. Would that stand over against the corrupting principles of this world?
JT Noah’s house stands over against the corruption which was in the world, just one house against a whole world! The greatness of this is wonderful. We are reminded of what one man can do as directed and helped by God. How many are there now ready to face divine requirements and fulfil them? “having accomplished all things, to stand”, as it says;
(Ephesians 6:13). J.N.D.’s note to that verse reads, “It is to ‘carry through and put in execution all that is purposed and called for, in spite of opposition’”.
DR Peter calls our attention to the corruption and encourages us to go through in spite of it.
JT Quite so. It is a sink of corruption, it exists today in all directions, but we are to carry the things of God through. Noah was only promised his own house and he took it upon himself to save it. God warned him and he prepared an ark to the saving of his house.
HH Noah got through by water. It is different nowadays, people go through baptism and do not live up to it in their families afterwards.
JT This house was saved by water. They came through the thing. The ark must exclude all the damaging influences which the devil has brought into the world; the ark prepared by Noah would be a preventive of all the devil would bring in. No light reading would be allowed there! The bearing of water is cleansing as well as destructive.
AEH The oracular warning would suggest the idea of ministry — it points out the traits of the world and also forms us inwardly. All that God presented to Noah would be formative.
JT Clearly, as he received the divine communications they would form him and he was affected by them. He feared, and hence built the ark for the saving of his house. The divine warning causing him to fear would also cause him to judge the wickedness around him.
JK As moving with fear, there was evidence in him of inward dealings with God, and there would be corresponding results in his family.
JT Yes; the sequel indicates a result in Shem, of whom Jehovah says that He is his God (chapter 9:26), as He was Noah’s God, and as He will be our God as amongst similar conditions. The measurements [p. 433] God gives Noah — the length, breadth and height of the ark — the window in it, too, would assure him of capability. The window really means noonday light, suggesting what we have in which to walk.
AEJA The light will help us as to the destructive heresies that are around us in this day. We need to be moved with fear in relation to our houses and families that they may be saved. We must, therefore, prepare for their salvation.
JT The word ‘prepare’ in this connection is very important, and as we have seen, the preparation condemns the world, because the idea is, What is it for? It is to save from the judgment of God about to come on the world of the ungodly. The means of salvation obviously condemns those who remain in what causes the judgment.
HB Is it similar to “labouring together in the same conflict with the faith of the glad tidings; and not frightened in anything by the opposers, which is to them a demonstration of destruction, but of your salvation, and that from God” (Philippians 1:27,28)?
JT Quite so. We are to work out our own salvation, “for it is God who works in you both the willing and the working according to his good pleasure” (Philippians 2:13). This passage enters into our section in Genesis. And then we are to appear as lights in the world; so as the world looked on it beheld the structure Noah was building.
SP Referring to the window of the ark, there is danger of looking on the ministry as a book of rules which would govern every detail; but we have the light from above to help us to understand. There is that suggestion in Paul’s ministry — pointing to something above the brightness of the noonday sun, the light as to the Man in heaven and the saints here as connected with Him.
JT Quite so; and by the aid of the light as [p. 434] given of God we are able to cope with this wickedness and bring up our families. All Noah’s family, his wife, his sons, and their wives went into the ark; evidently God is working with them. On the other hand the antediluvian world became apostate and went on to destruction. God is not touching them, He is just leaving them. The point is that what God is doing is carrying a family through. As we today set our faces in the right direction God will help us. He is supporting the Christian and his household.
SP “Noah found favour in the eyes of Jehovah”: what is the point in “the eyes of Jehovah”? Would it mean that no matter what was going on, it was not going on unobserved? The eyes of Jehovah see the apostasy and contemporary with that they see Noah.
JT Quite so. As you look at the corruption you feel it is not possible to get a family through; but God says, I am going to deal with the corruption, but meantime I am telling you who have faith that I have you and your family before me and I am working to save you all, all are going into the ark; and not only your family, but the living creatures which I have designated are also going into the ark.
HJ There were no children in the ark.
JT No, everything was mature. Noah had oracular communications from God and hence had intelligence as to what he should do; besides, God was working with him. Thus he was enabled to carry his family through.
HH Today we are going on to what God has in view, through the knowledge of the Son of God, to “the full-grown man, at the measure of the stature of the fulness of the Christ” (Ephesians 4:13). There were no children in the ark and there are no children in Ephesians 4.
JT There is what is going through and there is what is not going through: we have come to the dividing point — the parting of the ways in the history of the testimony. It is a very acute situation, for [p. 435] God is not going on with apostasy. He is against it. In Genesis 6 He tells us of the apostasy existing then and He shows that He has judged it and is about to destroy it. But He is going on in His own way, that is, with Noah and his family, and He is going to carry through in the ark with Noah and his family the living creatures which He has designated so as to inaugurate another world. Genesis 6 makes the position exceedingly clear and definite; and the position today is equally clear and definite.
HH This dark day that the saints have to face has already been foreseen by God and provided for.
JT In the scripture before us God has completely taken account of the corruption and He is giving the antediluvians a hundred and twenty years to repent. But He is carrying His thoughts through in Noah; He is saying to him that he has found favour with Him. God is looking at him, and “Noah found favour in the eyes of Jehovah. This is the history of Noah. Noah was a just man, perfect amongst his generations: Noah walked with God”. And God found rest in Noah — his name means rest. God has rest in this man in view of the accomplishment of His purposes.
LES The Lord says, “Now is the judgment of this world; now shall the prince of this world be cast out: and I, if I be lifted up out of the earth, will draw all to me” (John 12:31,32). And He goes on, “Walk while ye have the light, that darkness may not overtake you. And he who walks in the darkness does not know where he goes. While ye have the light, believe in the light, that ye may become sons of light” (verses 35,36).
JT That is a very helpful suggestion. There is movement towards Noah. There is movement towards him in relation to his wife and children and the living creatures, too: “And Noah went in, and his sons, and his wife, and his sons’ wives with him, into the [p. 436] ark, because of the waters of the flood. Of clean beasts, and of beasts that are not clean, and of fowl, and of everything that creeps on the ground, there came two and two unto Noah into the ark, male and female, as God had commanded Noah” (Genesis 7:7 - 9). So there is now movement towards Christ. The Lord says, “I, if I be lifted up out of the earth, will draw all to me”. That is, another world is in view. It is God presenting Christ as the centre for men’s eyes and hearts.
ABM All speaking of how God is bearing testimony to this Man.
JT Quite so. And so in Genesis He is directing our eyes to this remarkable man — Noah, who is just and a preacher of righteousness. The Spirit of God says that he found favour with God, and God tells us that he was perfect amongst his generations. That is the Lord Jesus in John’s gospel. Who is He? “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God”. Three times in John’s gospel He is spoken of as lifted up: “I, if I be lifted up out of the earth, will draw all to me”. The ‘all’ would not include wicked people, but those whom God has selected; Christ is the centre of attraction and God is bearing testimony to that. The creatures all came to Noah and came to him in relation to his divinely given position and to his household with him.
DR The apostle left Titus in Crete to set right what remained.
JT The idea was to make them self-supporting. In the early days they were to ordain elders in every city and every assembly; these two ideas are seen at the beginning of Christianity. Every local assembly must have elders — it is the principle underlying the position. If there are not in some sense elders, there is no administrative support — things die out. There is nobody to look after them. Sometimes we hear of [p. 437] brethren slipping off to special meetings and the local position is left greatly reduced: it tends to weakness and exposure. A true elder will not do that. So Titus is left in Crete. The apostle tells him what the Cretans were: “liars, evil wild beasts, lazy gluttons”, not people to be relied upon. Well, what are we to do? Count on God to make them, as converted, reliable? Yes, but there is our responsibility. Paul tells Titus to ordain elders in each city, that is, provide for stability in the midst of corruption. In this country the position is very precarious because of the lack of eldership. It is not a question of gift, but of eldership — those to look after the saints, caring with genuine feeling how they get on.
Ques Is eldership seen in Paul?
JT To understand the apostle’s mind we must go to Philippians 1: “Paul and Timotheus, bondmen of Jesus Christ, to all the saints in Christ Jesus who are in Philippi, with the overseers and ministers”. It is how the assembly stood in his mind — “overseers and ministers”, those who would care for the saints in that city. You cannot have stability without them. The apostles Paul and Barnabas ordained elders in every assembly. That is what is needed for stability; persons who will care for the local companies.
AEH The lack of the qualifications for eldership has been the hindrance to many of us. Sometimes, although we know of the need, we do not try to exercise the qualities of eldership.
JT Qualifications are needed, but at the same time whatever our hand finds to do we are to do with our might. One sometimes feels disqualified because of certain conditions which are outside of oneself. But let not that stop us; whatever we can do let us do it in a humble way. Why should I not do it as well as I can? And God would be with us on those lines.
SP Would you say that in Crete it was gross sin,
[p. 438] in Colosse philosophy and in Corinth worldliness — but that eldership covers all this in the assemblies?
JT Yes. At Corinth Paul himself was there for eighteen months but they had not followed up his teaching; they failed because of not taking on responsibility and carrying it out according to right principles. They were not taking things on, nor doing them. Paul sent Timothy to them as a model. Let us take on responsibility in the things of God and we can depend upon God to support us; God says in effect, ‘I see what you are aiming at and I am with you in your efforts’.
LES It is in love and self-judgment that one acquires the moral title to take on eldership.
JT I think so. As you accept the conditions God is with you. As you face things as they are and take on responsibility as to them God is with you and something for Him will result. As these creatures came to Noah there would be encouragement to him that God was working with him. Our labour is not in vain in the Lord.
DR Is that why time is mentioned in connection with Noah, the six hundredth year of his life?
JT Well, his history and personality were in the mind of God. The years of his life are precious under the eye of God, he is taken on by God as qualified and he is successful.
LES Say a word now about the scripture in Ezekiel.
JT It is important to keep before us, and also the preaching of Noah, the preaching of righteousness. Are we in accordance with the things we preach? In Ezekiel 14 we are told of men such as Noah, Daniel and Job — three remarkable men — that even their families would not be delivered by their known righteousness under certain conditions. There are four kinds of judgment from which even these men can deliver only themselves, a most solemn thing for [p. 439] the children. Under certain governmental conditions their parents cannot help them; they must accept that.
JK Does it put the children on their own responsibility?
JT Yes. It is most solemn. The first judgment God brings in is to break the staff of bread and cause famine. In that the parents cannot help, the children there get no help from their parents. “Though these three men, Noah, Daniel, and Job, should be in it, they should deliver but their own souls by their righteousness, saith the Lord Jehovah”. The second judgment is evil beasts passing through the land, and the third is a sword upon the land, God through it cutting off man and beast; the fourth is pestilence, also cutting off man and beast. It is a terrible outlook for the sons and daughters; the time is past for help from their parents, a most solemn thought. This is one of the most solemn things you can get in the Scriptures regarding families. The opposite is that parents who hold their children and bring them up for the Lord have God with them for their salvation, as in Noah’s case.