GENESIS 6
Chapter 6 comes in to show that before repose can be brought in all the evil that is in man’s heart, and in man’s world, must come under judgment; the whole scene must be cleared of every lawless element of violence and corruption. Chapter 6 speaks of a state of things having come about which necessitated judgment; a state of things generated by apostasy. There is a somewhat corresponding state now, but it will be developed to its full height in a coming day. We find [p. 58] in this chapter a state of evil which is the product of apostasy. The sons of God left their first estate, and the result of their unholy intercourse with the daughters of men was that men with extraordinary powers came into being. Men became associated with spiritual powers greater than themselves, powers which, as Jude tells us, had not kept their own original state. The result was a terrible state of things.
It is very solemn to see the significance of what we get here. What happened before the flood was a foreshadowing of that outbreak of spiritual wickedness which will give character to the apostasy of the last days. Men will get an unnatural, or perhaps one might say a supernatural, greatness in the days of the apostasy. The beast and the Antichrist will be indeed men of renown, heroes in man’s eyes. But I believe the source of their being morally will be outside man; wicked spirits who have been in the heavenlies — fallen angels — will endow them with their wonderful powers. It is terrible to think of this combination between two distinct orders of fallen beings — an order superior to man joining with man in apostasy, and giving man powers that he would never have had naturally. We know that even now there is a spiritual power of wickedness in the heavenlies; wicked spirits — real beings — who are the sources of influences opposed to God and to Christ, and against which saints are now called upon to wage a holy warfare. But in a coming day under supernatural influence men will be lifted up against God in a way the thought of which might well fill us with terror. And I think we can see the beginnings of this kind of thing even now. Men are already talking about the superman, and they are coming more and more under the power of supernatural beings. There [p. 59] is a great deal of evil commerce today with the unseen world. Superstitious religions are coming in from the east, such as theosophy, spiritualism, and so on. And, the result will be that men will appear on earth who will be “men of renown” energised by Satan; they will be heroes in man’s eye, and people will give themselves up to hero worship. It will be a state of things which will necessitate the intervention of God in judgment; it cannot be allowed to continue any more than the antediluvian state of things could be suffered to continue.
The contrast suggested by the words, “My Spirit shall not always plead with man”, is very striking. If fallen spiritual beings were corrupting man there was God’s blessed Spirit pleading with man. Morally, we have the same thing now — man being corrupted, the Spirit pleading, and a time limit fixed! The question is, Which influence are we allowing to act on us? Morally, the same kind of influences which will act on men in that dark coming night of apostasy and woe are acting on men now. Not quite yet to the same extent, thank God, and the Spirit is still pleading.
We are told to try the spirits; every spirit that makes anything of man in the flesh is an evil spirit. In the world those spirits are accepted which work for the elevation and improvement of man as in the flesh; they are the popular spirits. If you say that man in the flesh is utterly corrupt and cannot be improved, and that he must go in judgment, people will tell you that they never heard of such a thing! But it is a part of the pleading of the Spirit; it is the testimony of the Holy Spirit.
The wickedness of man did not come fully out until this chapter. In the previous chapters we have seen man’s sin against God and his sin against his neighbour, but here we find that every imagination of his heart is only evil continually; there is never a right thought in his mind; there is no good in him. Man is all the day a grief to God; “It grieved him in his heart”. The man who never has a right thought must go; it is a moral necessity that he must go, because he does nothing but grieve God. How could a man be retained who is a constant grief to God? He must go. But then almost in the same breath as God says, “I will destroy man”, we are told, “Noah found favour in the eyes of Jehovah”. That is another Man; that is Christ. The very paragraph that brings out God’s grief in man tells of his favour resting on Man. But this looks on to the One of whom it is said, “the grace of God was upon him”, Luke 2: 40.
Verse 7 is exceedingly sorrowful. God had looked down and seen that His works were very good, but now He has to look down and repent that He had made them. That is what makes Christ necessary; He must come in. If man is such a hopeless wreck that he never has a right thought, and is only a grief to God, there must be another Man. Noah is the man who finds favour — a figure of Christ. It is blessed to see that God has brought in what He can delight in, so that we cannot say absolutely now that man is a failure. Man in the flesh is a failure, but Man of another order has come in, and in connection with His coming into the world, the angels said, “Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace, good pleasure in men”. Noah was a just man, perfect amongst his generations; he walked with God. And we find he was the beginning of a new line; he had a house, he begat sons. Christ is the Head of a new generation [p. 61] after His own order, and He will have a generation still after the church is gone. The only way to escape judgment is by being kindred with Him; there is no other way. That should be taken to heart. The ark was not prepared save for Noah’s house; he prepared an ark for the saving of his house. The righteous One was a preacher of righteousness, but no one listened to him but his own house. Those who listen to Christ become His sons, if one may apply the type in that way. That is, they are morally kindred with Him. It is an immense thing to be kindred with Christ.
Noah was a preacher of righteousness; but in 1 Peter 3 — a scripture that sometimes puzzles people — we are told that it was Christ who preached. The Spirit of Christ preached, through Noah, to spirits now in prison “when once the longsuffering of God waited in the days of Noah while the ark was a preparing”; that is when the preaching was going on. They were judged according to men in the flesh because they rejected the testimony of righteousness. Men either receive God’s testimony and appreciate Christ, or they reject it. Everyone who appreciates and delights in Christ is kindred with Him, and it is those who go into the ark; they really compose His house. If you see and believe that the judgment of God is on every man after the flesh, but that His favour rests on Christ, and you believe on Him as the God-provided Head who through His own death has brought in righteousness and salvation for men, you are kindred with Him.
We come in this type to the truth of salvation. We have had justification in type when God clothed Adam and Eve with skins; and acceptance when Abel brought of the firstlings of the flock and of the fat thereof; then in Enoch there is a foreshadowing of [p. 62] eternal life; and now in connection with Noah the truth of salvation. He prepared an ark for the saving of his house. Salvation involves complete deliverance and preservation from all the evil of this world. If you think only of going to heaven you do not want salvation there, and a man who has justification and acceptance can go straight to heaven, but to be down here where there is so much evil salvation is most necessary. Noah wanted his house for another world, and not for the world that then was; that is exactly what Christ wants His house for; so salvation comes in as complete deliverance from this world, so that in heart and spirit, and walk and ways, we might be completely apart from the world of lawlessness, and that we might live to God. We have to see that the world is under judgment; we see it, as Noah did, before the judgment actually comes. It is Christ, the true Noah, who said, “Now is the judgment of this world”, and the Spirit has come to convict the world of sin, of righteousness, and of judgment. Christ has condemned the world (Hebrews 11: 7). Have I? If I follow and allow what is of the world I am approving it, not condemning it. If I love it I am not condemning it; I am not practically in the ark. It is in coming into line with Christ and the Spirit that we come into salvation in a practical sense. Have we definitely passed out of the world? That is what baptism means.
Many people’s idea of salvation is that they are fit for heaven through the Saviour’s work. But that does not give the true idea of salvation; salvation is “that we being saved out of the hand of our enemies might serve God without fear in holiness and righteousness before him all the days of our life”. We are [p. 63] saved from our enemies that we might serve God in the very place where we were slaves of sin and Satan. He has saved us by the washing of regeneration and renewing of the Holy Spirit. God says, “The end of all flesh is come before me”; if we believe that, we want to get out of this world, and that is the meaning of baptism. Peter says: “The like figure whereunto baptism doth also now save us, not the putting away of the filth of the flesh, but the demand of a good conscience towards God”. The man who sees that the world is under judgment wants to get out of it as soon as possible; his conscience demands a way out. It is clear that Scripture connects the thought of baptism with the ark.
Baptism means that you go out of the world that is under judgment, and that you are never to go back into it; you are buried with Christ by being baptised to His death. Those true to their baptism are in the ark and they condemn the world. Each baptised person is in the position of subscribing to the total condemnation of the world and of man in the flesh. If I am not true to my baptism, I fall under the power of some influence which is not of God, and if I am under the power of sin or any evil influence, how can I talk of being saved? It used to be said that many were fit for heaven who were not fit for earth! A justified man has righteousness, but to fit him to be on earth according to God’s will he needs salvation; he needs to come into the ark.
The ark was to be pitched within and without. The word ‘pitch’ is the same word as ‘atonement’; it indicates that those in the ark came in figure under cover of the death of Christ; that is where baptism puts us, not for heaven but for earth. We come under [p. 64] cover of the death of Christ, and walk here in newness of life. It is a question of being in accord with Christ and the Spirit. The Spirit brings demonstration into the souls of saints of the true condition of this world; it is under judgment. It means that we are to be in the witness box along with the Holy Spirit, who is witnessing to the true condition of the world. Everyone in the ark is convinced that the world is under judgment, and that he can only be preserved under cover of the death of Christ. When the Jews said, “What shall we do?” (Acts 2) Peter said, “Repent and be baptised”; he, so to speak, opened the door of the ark.
When we come into the ark we get divine light; there is a window there. I was struck by seeing that the word translated ‘window’ is used twenty-four times in the Old Testament, and in every other instance but this it is translated ‘noon’ or ‘noonday’. It evidently suggests the full light of day. Such an expression shows that the language used by the Spirit is selected in view of typical teaching. It suggests that in the ark we come into the place where divine light is found. In coming into the good of salvation, in accepting baptism in its spiritual import and being true to it, we come into divine light, into the light of the covenant. “With thee will I establish my covenant” (verse 18); that is noonday light — the light of what God is as pledged in grace and love to man. Christ is to us the covenant; all God’s love and thoughts of blessing man-ward are secured and confirmed to us in Him, and as being with Him in the ark — in the separation of His death from this present evil world — we enjoy the light of it, we live in the light of it. The ark sets forth the place which Christ has prepared for the saving of His [p. 65] house. Thus, though, as we have said, the ark typifies how Christ will carry the remnant through the tribulation — and this we may touch on again, if God will — it has also an application to the present time. It sets forth the place where saints and their households are found owning the lordship of Christ, and are under cover of His death; the place where the world is seen as condemned, and the end of all flesh is known. But Christ as the true Noah is reverenced, the covenant is known and enjoyed; that is, the love of God made known in Christ who is the covenant. The people of God as brought into the consciousness of being kindred with Christ, and as knowing God, find their place under cover of the death of Christ in this world; they have gone out publicly, as it were, from it by baptism, and as they preserve accord with the truth of baptism in their ways and spirit, they know what the ark is, and are in the good of salvation. Divine light and security are found amongst the people of God, and in separation from the world.