Genesis 8:20-22
20 Then Noah built an altar to the LORD, and took of every clean animal and of every clean bird, and offered burnt offerings on the altar. 21 And the LORD smelled a soothing aroma. Then the LORD said in His heart, “I will never again curse the ground for man’s sake, although the imagination of man’s heart is evil from his youth; nor will I again destroy every living thing as I have done.
22 “While the earth remains,
Seedtime and harvest,
Cold and heat,
Winter and summer,
And day and night
Shall not cease.”
My wife and I are slowly re-reading Genesis, just a few chapters each week. I have made a commitment to myself to do my best to “forget” much of what I already know about the bible, so it can hit me in a new way. I hope to access some of my childish thinking once again, and to notice new things, see much of what I typically overlook, and ask some really good questions for a change. It’s working for me. God’s word is renewing my mind.
One thing I noticed last week was how God introduces His covenant with Noah’s family and the animals. I don’t think I have spent much time here in the past. The verses I have in mind are found in Genesis 8:20-22. These verses were on my mind yesterday, maybe because it was Christmas and I see them even more fully realized in the person and work of Christ.
Two things strike me here. The first is that God promises not to judge man in the same way that He has in the past. He will never curse the ground again, nor will He destroy all life through a flood (the flood part is clarified in Genesis 9:11). Not only that, but He makes this promise despite the fact that man has not changed (the “imagination of man’s heart” is still evil). So God knows that He will face the same problem again, man will continue to rebel against Him, and yet God makes this promise anyway and He will not destroy all life again.
This same idea gets developed more fully in the New Testament, where believers in Christ find themselves declared righteous by God, despite the fact that they have not yet changed, and despite the fact that they still possess the same evil intentions of the heart (for example, Ephesians 2:8-9). First, God declares someone righteous, and then He goes about making them righteous. A Christian can move forward knowing that God’s wrath has already been fully satisfied because of the sacrifice of Christ (foreshadowed in the story of Noah as the sacrifice of “clean animals”), that there is no threat of being destroyed by God, even if he or she is still inclined to sin and continues to repeat the same offenses as before. It is in this context of security that God begins to work on that individual’s heart, so that the imaginations of that person’s heart are no longer inclined toward sin, a project that will not be complete until that person sees Jesus face to face and is made to be like Him (Philippians 1:6). I have known this theologically for several years, but I don’t think I have noticed it previously in the story of Noah.
The second thing I had not previously noticed is that God expresses Himself through poetry in this passage. This highlights the tenderness of God’s heart toward His creation. When I read the poem in Genesis 8:22, I notice the references to natural rhythms, something that we grasp intuitively, and something we depend on. We take security in these rhythms, and we stake our livelihood on their consistency. Even if we are not living in a traditional agrarian society, we are still at the mercy of natural events in many ways. I think God is emphasizing His message of security by relating His promise to the things we would naturally feel most secure in. This would be especially profound following the traumatic experience of living through the catastrophic worldwide flood.
I see God ministering to the hearts of Noah and His family through these words, and through the words of Moses as he passes the message along to the Israelites, and finally to us.
As I reflect on this, I cannot help but see it through the lens of attachment theory. This illustrates the kind of safe haven and secure base we can find in God, not only spiritually but also emotionally. Colossians 1 describes how Christ fully satisfies God’s wrath, and how believers in Christ can embrace this deepest of all securities.
I pray God will use this to minister to your heart if you know Him already but, like me, you still sometimes find yourself anxious about your relationship with Him, or that you might trust Christ for your salvation if you do not yet have this security for yourself.
