exhortation to me I would make mine to you (though feebly echoed from my heart): "Oh, my brother, set it before your mind's eye as a living reality, and then let hope patiently wait for the fulfilment!"
NOAH.
GENESIS VI. – XI
How changed is the whole condition of things since the day of Genesis!
Were I to read the opening of this fine scripture, and just expose my heart to the simpler earliest impression of what I get there, it is this thought which would engage my mind; and yet with all ease we can account for this strange and wondrous revolution. In chapter i. God was alone, producing the fruit of His own handiwork, in wisdom, goodness, and skill; and then all was good and desirable. On the return of every evening and morning the divine delights lingered over what the divine hand was working out, and behold all was very good; and the seventh day was sanctified for the celebration of this rest and enjoyment. But now, it is not God's hand presenting a perfect work to God's thoughts and affections, but it is man, the apostate artificer, spreading out a wide scene of corruption and violence for the grief and repentings of the divine mind. The secret of the change lies there. Man has been at work; man has been fashioning and furnishing the scene, and not the living, blessed God. The earth is therefore filled with violence; giants there are, mighty men, men of renown; and the imaginations of that heart which was now making "this present evil world" are only evil, and that continually.
Here lies the secret. The change was complete because of the new potter that had been at the wheel; the change could not be less. The song of the morning stars, the shout of the sons of God, had no echo in the scene of creation now; man was now abroad-not as a part of the work, but as a reprobate workman.
It is just this which gives character to the opening of chapter vi. And there is no relief for all this in the creature-the best sample and portion it could offer is itself defiled. The sons of God themselves are dragged into the mire-their will, their desire, their taste, are supreme with them. The daughters of Moab have seduced to fornication; and the Nazarites, who were purer than snow and whiter than milk, whose polishing was of sapphire, are become blacker than a coal. The witness against them is, "he also is flesh."
If Adam was seduced by the subtilest of enemies, and followed the sight of his eye and the desire of his heart, the sons of God are now seduced by an enemy equally successful. He works, it is true, from within rather than without-"he also is flesh" – but the sight of the eye and the desire of the heart are again followed. Wives are taken of all "whom they choose;" other lords are listened to, for God is not in all their thoughts, and then it matters not whether it be the promise of the serpent, or the fairness of the daughters of men. Gen. iii. 4, 5.
The multiplying of men on the face of the earth is noticed as connected with all this corruption-just as in the history of the Church. Acts vi. 1. It was when the number of disciples was multiplied that murmurings and disputings began to arise; and these kindred cases in Genesis vi. and Acts vi. tell us that man is never to be trusted, and that the more we get of him the worse things are. "Jesus did not commit Himself to them, for He knew all men, and needed not that any should testify of man, for He knew what was in man."
Such was the condition of the scene from one end to the other; and against all this corruption and violence which now overspread the earth, the judgment of God is marked-"My spirit shall not always strive with man." There may be, and there shall be, a term of long-suffering-as it is said, "his days shall be one hundred and twenty years" – but still judgment is marked, and the day of visitation will come-the Spirit will not always strive.
But there is resource in God, as well as judgment with Him. If man, the work of His hand, have "grieved" Him, still, drawing from Himself, He will (may I say?) go deeper, and find His joy in the counsels of His heart.
"Noah found grace in the eyes of the Lord." Man, as a sinner, shall become the object of electing, pardoning, justifying love-he shall engage the heart now, as of old, at creation, he engaged the hand of the Lord.
Thus from Himself the Lord draws, but from Himself in a deeper sense and way than before. This was to be no more repairing of the creature-such a thing would have been no fit work for God. As to man, God had to repent that He had made him on the earth; and as to the scene around him, the mind of God was changed-changed unalterably, and for ever. Man, as a thing formed of the dust, was never to be the divine delight again-mere man. But grace can make a new thing-not repairing the work marred on the wheel, but making it another vessel, as it seem good to the potter to make it. In its old estate it was ruined, but in its ruins grace will take it up to make it a goodly and a pleasant vessel of richest treasures and all-desirable beauty.
We admire a ruin; and some, as they have thought of this, have suspected the moral of such a sentiment, and been ready to condemn the heart and eye that could linger with pleasure over what was the witness of decay and death, and the entrance of the power of sin. But I would venture to embolden such, and to tell them that they may still admire a ruin, and do so without fear or self-judgment. The redeemed thing is a vast, and precious, and beautiful ruin; it will bespeak the power of sin and death for ever, while displaying the boundless, glorious victory of death's Destroyer. And the thoughts of the Spirit of God, the mind of Christ, as well as heaven itself and all its hosts, will linger over that ruin for a happy eternity. It will be the ornament and the delight of the creation of God. "Sing, O ye heavens; for the Lord hath done it! Shout, ye lower parts of the earth; break forth into singing, ye mountains, O forest, and every tree therein; for the Lord hath redeemed Jacob!" And again, "Joy shall be in heaven over one sinner that repenteth, more than over ninety-and-nine just persons which need no repentance."
This is heaven's admiration of a beautiful ruin; and these are the ways of God. The operations of His hands were, of old, His delight, and the counsels of His grace are now His delight, and the attending angels have their music, and their dancing in the house of the prodigal's Father.
Noah, having thus found grace in the eyes of the Lord, becomes the subject of divine teaching. An elect vessel is always the vessel for the handiwork of God, through the Spirit. The Lord communicates His mind to him; He tells him that the judgment of an evil world, which had now filled up its measure, was marked before Him, but that for him and his house there was safety, and a great deliverance.
This communication has a very precious character in it-it is strictly according to the previous counsel of His own bosom. This is very much to be prized. God tells His elect one, that the end of all flesh was come before Him-as, in His own secret counsels He had already said, "My spirit shall not always strive with man;" He tells him of the sense and judgment He had of the moral condition of the earth-just such as He had uttered in secret before; and, further, He tells him to get ready an ark for the saving of his house, as, in the counsels of His electing love and sovereign purpose, Noah had already found grace in His eyes.
It is very establishing to the heart to notice this. It lets us understand how exactly the revelation made to us puts us into possession of the divine mind, "Shall I hide from Abraham that thing which I do?" says the Lord, on another occasion, when He was, as here, speaking to Himself. And a fulness, as well as exactness, I may say, distinguishes these revelations. Jesus says to His disciples, "All things that I have heard of my Father I have made known unto you" – with, however, one exception. The Lord God had fixed 120 years as the term of His longsuffering. Noah's preaching, as well as ark-building, was to be for that period. Such was the purpose of God. But Noah was told nothing of this predestinated interval. The Lord kept back all mention of the 120 years. Noah knew, indeed, that the waters could not prevail till he and his were safe in the ark, but how long that might be preparing, or whether or not, after it was finished, any time should pass ere the waters should begin to rise, he knew not. This part of the divine counsel the Father kept in His own power; this was the exception to the fulness of the communication. Events were to take place, signs were to precede "the day of the Lord" – such, at least, as the finishing and filling of the ark. In the language of the prophet, the bud was to become tender, and to put forth its leaves. Had any one talked to Noah about the waters rising ere the ark was ready, Noah would not have been shaken in mind, or in anywise troubled. That could not be. "The time draweth nigh" would have been deceit then, as it will be