Chapter Summary 6 - 7
Lesson 24
The corruption of human civilization became so great that God resolved on cataclysmic judgment. The Flood, which wiped out all human life except for righteous Noah and his family, serves as a powerful biblical statement of God’s commitment to judge sin at history’s end. The preservation of Noah and his family is an equally powerful statement of God’s commitment to save those who respond to Him in obedient faith.
These chapters:
#1. Explain God’s determination to act (6:1-8),
#2. Relate Noah’s 120-year struggle to build a great ship (vv. 9-22),
#3. Describe the Flood results (7:1-24).
Key Verse 7:4:
God will surely judge man’s wickedness.
Personal Application:
Obedience is costly. But disobedience costs far more!
“Sons of God.”
This obscure passage (6:1-4) has been taken as intermarriage between the “godly line of Seth” and the line of Cain. But Jewish commentators saw it as forbidden intercourse between fallen angels and human women, which produced a race of (giants).
Wickedness and violence.
These two words are used to characterize the sins that brought on the Genesis Flood. Wickedness in the Hebrew means, criminal acts committed against others that violate their rights and profit from others’ pain. Violence in the Hebrew means, willfully destructive acts intended to damage others. When any society is marked by continual expressions of wickedness and violence, that society is in peril of divine judgment.
Noah.
Noah is to be honored for his persistent faithfulness. He labored 120 years constructing a great ship on a waterless plain (6:3). He must have suffered merciless ridicule from his neighbors, none of whom responded to his warnings of judgment to come. Yet his trust in God did not waver, nor did his obedience. It’s when our faith is tested, often by years of working and waiting, that the quality of that faith is displayed
The ark.
The ark was half again as long as a football field, with proportions that match modern cargo vessels. It was large enough for its cargo and the food they required. First Peter 3 views it as a symbol of salvation: God’s agency to carry the believer safely through judgment to a new world.
“Kind.”
The ark did not contain every breed of animal, but prototype “kinds.” A single pair of cattle carried the genes that provide for the wide variation within this animal class that we see in the Brahma, the Longhorn, and other cattle. The biblical account of Creation confronts the notion that all animal life evolved from single-celled ancestors, but has no quarrel with evolutionists’ account of variation within species.
The Flood.
Christians who hold a high view of Scripture debate whether the Genesis Flood was a universal flood, that covered the entire surface of the globe, or a limited flood affecting only areas of human population. Verses that state “all the high mountains under the entire heavens” were covered (7:19-20) and that “every living [breathing] thing” on earth perished (vv. 21-23) support a worldwide cataclysm. But what about the fact that there is not enough water on our planet and in the atmosphere to cover such mountains as Everest? Those who hold the universal view believe that the Flood changed the face of the earth, causing the sea beds to indent, and thrusting mountains up higher than before. Whatever our view, it is clear that the account of the Flood makes a powerful theological statement. It affirms that God is the moral Ruler of this universe, who has and who will exercise His obligation to judge sin. Second Peter 3 reminds those who scoff at the idea of final judgment that God acted in the time of Noah to judge wicked and violent human beings. The God whose hatred of sin is revealed in the Flood will not let our sins go unpunished.