Washed with water, now with blood
“Look! I am about to cover the earth with a flood that will destroy every living thing that breathes. Everything on earth will die. But I will confirm my covenant with you. So enter the boat—you and your wife and your sons and their wives. Bring a pair of every kind of animal—a male and a female—into the boat with you to keep them alive during the flood. Pairs of every kind of bird, and every kind of animal, and every kind of small animal that scurries along the ground, will come to you to be kept alive. And be sure to take on board enough food for your family and for all the animals.” So Noah did everything exactly as God had commanded him. Genesis 6:17-22
Noah and the ark, or Noah and the flood is a classic Sunday School bible story. It’s possibly the very first lesson I taught during my teenage years. But it’s quite stark isn’t it? We’re only six chapters into the bible and already everything is being destroyed! How to explain that to seven and eight year olds?!
Since this is the Bible’s Big Story, my desire is to contextualise this important and far-reaching episode into the larger picture of the spreading goodness of God.
Within those first six chapters, a lot has happened! The eternal, perfect triune God, Father, Son and Holy Spirit, who’ve forever dwelt together in perfect union, burst forth in overflowing love. The Word of life breaks out into the formless void. The power of light pierces the darkness. The breath of God moves into the vacuum.
And into this perfect creation He creates man and woman into his own image. Into the image of the relating Godhead, that they might be friends together and know each other. We see this in the delegation of power God gives to man (Gen. 1:26-27) but also in his walking with man and woman in the garden (Gen. 3:8).
We know this didn’t last however! Once the serpent tempted Eve and Adam into eating the forbidden everything changed. The life of God left the humans, and weakness took over. Death reigned! Still created in the image of God, still created with immense value and dignity, but now reduced to flesh and bone.
The glory we see in the remaining pages of the bible is how God maintained relationship with weak and rebellious men and women. The entire Old Testament illustrates the scarlet cord of friendship and promise leading to the arrival of his own Son, Jesus Christ.
The story of Noah, the flood, and his ark kicks off this anticipation in spectacular fashion. For whatever reason, depending on how you read Genesis 6:1-7, the word was in need of a good washing! Noah had become the only friend of God walking upon the earth. Everyone else had succumbed in their weakness to the pleasures of wickedness. Jesus himself tells us their “banquets and parties and weddings” were without God, and he was pushed right out of the picture (Matt. 24:37-39).
But this is not a story of an offended God taking revenge into his own hands! This is not greek mythology! Here we see the perfectly loving, eternally generous, unbounded goodness of the creator doing what is best for his creation. He gives it a good wash!
Just as we do with our clothes, our bodies, our plates. He brought in the waters, and cleaned it all. And in so doing he saved a remnant, a line, a scarlet cord of God-inspired, image-bearing, community on board the ark.
And he does exactly the same today. In these “days of Noah” he is washing the world. Not with water—we have his promise symbolised in the rainbow that he’ll never do that again—but now with his own blood. The blood of his own Son shed upon the cross. The blood of the ultimate sacrifice which fulfils all the Old Testament sacrifices pointing to this bigger promise. The blood of Jesus which cleanses us from all sin (1 John 1:7), purifies our consciences (Heb. 9:14), and makes it possible for us to stand before God again (Rom. 5:9; Heb. 10:19). We are back in the garden again, naked before God, and unashamed (cf. Gen. 2:25; 3:7)
Christ suffered for our sins once for all time. He never sinned, but he died for sinners to bring you safely home to God. He suffered physical death, but he was raised to life in the Spirit. So he went and preached to the spirits in prison— those who disobeyed God long ago when God waited patiently while Noah was building his boat. Only eight people were saved from drowning in that terrible flood. And that water is a picture of baptism, which now saves you, not by removing dirt from your body, but as a response to God from a clean conscience. It is effective because of the resurrection of Jesus Christ. (1 Pet. 3:18-21)
