The Ninth Sunday after Trinity.
The Collect.
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RANT to us, Lord, we beseech thee, the spirit to think and do
always such things as are right; that we, who cannot do any thing that is good
without thee, may by thee be enabled to live according to thy will; through
Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.
Noah
is an amazing type of Christ. His very name, Noah (Heb: Noäch),
means rest (or Sabbath). How appropriate that the former world found safe rest
in Noah in similitude to the rest we have in the very Lord of the Sabbath â€"
Jesus Christ. For the Son of man is
Lord even of the sabbath day (Matt 12:8) Come unto me, all ye that labour and are heavy laden, and
I will give you rest. (Matt 11:28) We have no need to
rest in the Lord the seventh day, any longer, for we now have, in Christ, a
seven-days-a-week Sabbath Rest. As Noah’s Ark was the salvation of mankind from
the old world that existed before the calamitous flood, so is Christ our Ark of
Salvation to spare us from the destruction that shall come upon the post-Deluge
world. This study has revealed even more of the intricate and delicate beauties
of God’s Word to me as I have researched the topic from my Holy Bible. I hope
you, too, will gather many gems of wonder from this short devotion on Noah
as a type of Christ and perhaps seek even further benefit beneath the
sands of God’s Word for more such gems of beauty. An interesting observation:
Lamech, father of Noah, died five years before the flood, but Methuselah (his
grandfather) died the very year of the flood. (The question that goes begging
is this: Did Methuselah perish in the Flood itself?) If so, this would
reinforce the biblical truth that salvation is not hereditary as the Jews aver.
Significant points in which Noah a type of Christ:
1.
Noah was
a savior to the world that then existed. Christ is the Savior of the world as
it is, and has existed.
2.
Noah
built an Ark for the salvation of souls. Christ built His Church for the
Salvation of souls. All humanity who remained outside the Ark perished. The
same will be true of those outside the true Church of Christ at His second
Advent.
3.
Noah was
used of God to restore the earth to a better light. Christ came to restore that
which had been lost in Eden. Christ came as the Light of the World.
4.
God sent
Noah INTO the Ark. Come thou and all thy house into the
ark; for thee have I seen righteous before me in this generation (Gen
7:1) God sent His only Begotten Son, Jesus Christ, INTO the
world. God sent his only begotten Son into the world, that we might live
through him. (1 John 4:9)
5.
Noah
received both clean and unclean beasts into the Ark. So are both righteous and
unrighteous mixed together in the church until the Day of Judgment when the
tares will be separated from the wheat. Let
both grow together until the harvest: and in the time of harvest I will say to
the reapers, Gather ye together first the tares, and bind them in bundles to
burn them: but gather the wheat into my barn (Matt 13:30)
6.
Only the
Father in Heaven knows the hour and day of Christ’s return (and of the closing
of the Door of the Ark). Only God knew the hour and day of the closing of the
door of the Ark on humanity’s salvation. God closed the door of the Ark (not
Noah), unlike the means depicted in popular movies: And they that went
in, went in male and female of all flesh, as God had commanded him: and the
LORD shut him in. (Gen 7:16) Those souls, both human and beast, came
into the Ark to Noah. They, and every beast after his kind, and all the
cattle after their kind, and every creeping thing that creepeth upon the earth
after his kind, and every fowl after his kind, every bird of every sort. 15 And
they went in unto Noah into the ark, two and two of all flesh, wherein is the
breath of life. (Gen 7:14-15) And of every living thing of all
flesh, two of every sort shalt thou bring into the ark, to keep them alive with
thee; they shall be male and female. Of fowls after their kind, and of
cattle after their kind, of every creeping thing of the earth after his kind,
two of every sort shall come unto thee, to keep them alive. (Gen
6:19-20 (KJV) The same is true of all souls who came unto Christ. God the
Father sends those souls to Christ. All that
the Father giveth me shall come to me; and him that cometh to me I will in no
wise cast out. For I came down from heaven, not to do mine own will, but the
will of him that sent me. And this is the Father's will which hath sent me,
that of all which he hath given me I should lose nothing, but should raise it
up again at the last day. And this is the will of him that sent me, that
every one which seeth the Son, and believeth on him, may have everlasting life:
and I will raise him up at the last day (John 6:37-40)
7.
Noah
sent forth a dove from the Ark to determine if the waters were abated. Christ
sends forth His Holy Ghost (compared to the likeness of a Dove) to all sinners
so that they will know that the wrath of God is appeased in Christ.
We
are told in Genesis 6:5 And GOD saw that the wickedness of man was great
in the earth, and that every imagination of the thoughts of his heart was only
evil continually. Now we are told in verse 8 of the same passage, But
Noah found grace in the eyes of the LORD. (Gen 6:8) This is a sure and
typical characteristic of Christ â€" God was well-pleased with Noah, and
God was well-pleased with His Son, Jesus. This is my beloved Son, in whom
I am well pleased. (Matt 3:17) The conditions facing mankind at
the first Advent were also similar to Noah’s day. Men in Noah’s day were
incapable of righteousness. They faced a certain ruin of the coming flood
without a provision of salvation. A righteous man, Noah, was God’s provision.
He preached many years while the Ark was being built, yet no one listened. Were
the exhortations of Noah a vain preaching? Not at all! None of those wicked men
who rejected the Word that Noah preached shall be able to say in that Day of
Judgment, ¡°Nobody ever told me.¡± It is in this respect
that the Word of God is a two-edged Sword â€" to cut both ways in either CONDEMNING
or in CONVICTING of sin!
God
viewed Noah as a righteous man even though the righteousness of Noah was an
IMPUTED righteousness, by faith, as all who live by faith are considered
righteous, having that righteousness IMPUTED to them by the only ONE who was a
righteous Man â€" Jesus Christ. Now when the centurion saw what was
done, he glorified God, saying, Certainly this was a righteous man.
(Luke 23:47) Noah was a righteous man, in his generation, among a world of
wickedness. Christ was a righteous man, in His own right, being sinless and
perfect in all His ways.
37 But as the days of Noah were, so shall also the coming of
the Son of man be. The world was precisely in the same
condition at Christ’s first advent as it was in the days of Noah, and it will
probably be in an even worse condition at His second advent. Nevertheless when the Son of man cometh, shall he find
faith on the earth? (Luke 18:8) In a modern world of
mega-churches, it is sad to realize that most will not be acceptable to God in
the hour and moment of Christ’s return. Will you be ready, Reader? Only eight
souls were saved in Noah’s day. How many shall be saved at the Second Advent?
The
Ark of Noah’s salvation was made of wood like unto that wood of the Cross upon
which the Ark of our Salvation (Jesus Christ) completed His Passion for us.
Noah labored long and hard in the construction of the Ark, and faced the
ridicule and humiliation of those about him who believed not. There is no
mention of any help Noah received from his sons. He worked alone to provide
salvation of his family from the coming judgment. Did not Christ do the same
and in greater, and much more remarkable, degree? He labored alone, for only He
could build His Temple of Salvation, for mankind.
Noah, upon the completion of his work of salvation built an altar unto the
Lord: And Noah builded an altar unto the Lord; and took of every clean
beast, and of every clean fowl, and offered burnt offerings on the altar
(Gen. 8:20). Likewise did Christ make an offering unto God, His Father: Christ
also hath loved us, and hath given Himself for us an offering and a sacrifice
to God for a sweet smelling savor (Ephesians 5:2) Of course, the
offering of Christ was a greater sacrifice for Noah offered of the animals sent
unto him, but Christ offered Himself â€" the only perfect and satisfying
offering for our sins.
And
God blessed Noah and his sons" (Gen. 9:1). Noah and his whole
household was blessed by God. God also has blessed those who believe through
His Son, Jesus: Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ
who hath blessed us with all spiritual blessings in heavenly places in Christ.
(Ephesians 1:3).
God
established an everlasting covenant with those belonging to Noah, and with
those belonging to Christ: And God spake unto Noah, and to his sons with him, saying, And I,
behold, I establish My covenant with you, and with your seed after you. (Genesis 9:8, 9) and Now the God of
peace, that brought again from the dead our Lord Jesus, that great shepherd of
the sheep, through the blood of the everlasting covenant. (Hebrews
13:20)
38 For as in the days that were before the flood they were
eating and drinking, marrying and giving in marriage, until the day that Noah
entered into the ark, 39 And
knew not until the flood came, and took them all away; so shall also the coming
of the Son of man be. This prophecy holds a two-fold meaning:
the first represents the coming destruction of Jerusalem in 70 A.D., the second
represents the world condition at the Second Advent of the Lord Jesus Christ.
The world is, today, fat and happy (seemingly, though they know not their true
misery and nakedness). They mock the preaching of the Word of God and have
attempted to banish its revelation from every public square. The world is
eating, and definitely drinking; the world is also marrying, and GIVING IN
MARRIAGE. The institution of marriage is a final and conclusive act. Any
relationship of giving in a marriage relationship outside that marriage is vile
and sinful (which may be the meaning here). Please observe the low regard for
God’s first Institution that He instituted at the Garden in Eden. Adultery is
today considered a CHOICE (or lifestyle) and not a SIN. For the
first time in the history of the civilized world, nations, and particularly the
United States, have given the credibility of marriage to that filthy and
abominable sin which the Bible labels as SODOMY. I need not point out to the
biblically literate readers of this devotion the view that God has of such sinful
approbation by governments and societies, or what hard judgment this will bring
against the perpetrators.
We
are living, today, as it was in the days of Noah. Just as in the days of Noah,
the Ark of God is receiving souls who shall be spared the coming conflagration,
which will come, not in the form of water, but fervent heat. Are you safely in
the Ark of Christ?
