Sabbath: The Flood
Image © Pacific Press
Sabbath Afternoon
Read for This Week’s Study: Genesis 6:13-7:10, 2 Peter 2:5-9, Genesis 7:1-24, Romans 6:1-6, Psalm 106:4, Genesis 8:1-22, Genesis 9:1-17.
Memory Text: “But as the days of Noah were, so also will the coming of the Son of Man be” (Matthew 24:37, NKJV).
“Then the LORD saw that the wickedness of man was great in the earth, and that every intent of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually” (Genesis 6:5, NKJV). The verb “saw” (Genesis 6:5) brings the reader back to each step of God’s initial Creation. But what God sees now, instead of tov, “good,” is ra‘, “evil” (Genesis 6:5). It is as if God regretted that He had created the world, now full of ra‘ (Genesis 6:6-7).
And yet, God’s regret contains elements of salvation, as well. The Hebrew word for “sorry” (nakham) is echoed in the name of Noah (Noakh), which means “comfort” (Genesis 5:29). Thus, God’s response to this wickedness has two sides. It contains the threat of justice, leading to destruction for some; and yet, His response promises comfort and mercy, leading to salvation as well for others.
This “double voice” was already heard with Cain and Abel/Seth, and it was repeated through the contrast between the two lines of Seth (the “sons of God”) and Cain (the “sons of men”). Now we hear it again as God differentiates between Noah and the rest of humankind.
Study this week’s lesson to prepare for Sabbath, April 23.
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Did God not seen the 'ra' coming that He regretted?
There's nothing that takes God by surprise, Robert Kimbil, therefore, evil (ra) didn't catch Him off guard. If you consider the plan of Jesus Christ coming the save us and how this plan was implemented even before the foundation of the world.
Love bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things. (1 Corinthians 13:7 NET.) But Love plans contingently for all things and is willing to pay a high price to save one soul. (John 3:16-17.)
How long did it take for the result of Adam & Eve's choice to come to fruition? Ten generations from everything being good to almost everyone being evil. For a thousand years Adam and Seth had been witnesses to the fact that the LORD offered a choice - goodness and blessings or evil and punishments.
Per Genesis 5 Noah was born 1056 years after Creation, thus 126 years after Adam died and 14 years after Seth died.
Accordingly the people alive at that time had no excuse that they didn't know the truth about the character of the LORD. Rom 1:18-21
Our generations are called to share the Three Angel's message with the whole world before it is destroyed. Rev 14:6-12
"For it was shown to them" answers the question that was fostered last week. "Did God give instructions to Cain and Abel?" Absolutly, "it was shown to them."
Thanks Shirley for your text, it has 'double voice' also, I do believe.
The introduction's last paragraph to the upcoming week’s lesson appears to imply that there is a distinction between the line of Cain and the line of Seth. Would this 'distinction' not ultimately be determined by how each person decides to live his/her life regardless from which ‘line’ they came? Is not humankind by birth the same flesh and given the breath of life by the same spirit of life?
Seth, the ancestor of Noah, was the first to call upon the name of the LORD. Beginning with Noah and his family, the earth became again populated. Now there are 7.735 billion people inhabiting the earth. How does one distinguish between the “sons of God’ and the “sons of men” in our day and time since iniquity and lawlessness, murder and mayhem, are again a daily occurrence all over the world?
The destruction of earth by the Flood came because – Gen.6:6-7 ”it repented the LORD that he had made man on the earth, and it grieved him at his heart. And the LORD said, I will destroy man whom I have created from the face of the earth, both man, and beast, and the creeping thing, and the fowls of the air; for it repenteth me that I have made them.”
Matt.24:37-39 shares that the same circumstances will be present as were in the days of Noah. Like it was then, mankind goes about life thinking everything remains the same. The sun comes up, the sun goes down; wars, famine, unrest and lawlessness have become accepted factors of ‘normal’ life.
But then, suddenly, it is time for the true ‘Reset’ – ”But of the day and hour knoweth no man, no, not the angels of heaven, but my Father only. Matt.6:24.
Brigitte,
The phrase "the line of Cain" or "the line of Seth" is not meant to be taken literally. The distinction is how you have expressed it, "determined by how each person decides to live his/her life..." When one is of "the line of Cain or Seth" this is saying that they have made the same choice as Cain or Seth, and therefore are "related by choice" not merely by blood, since as you say, "humankind is by birth the same flesh." Just as Jesus told the Pharisees, that they were of their father the devil..." Satan is not really their birth father, but due to their choices, they have chosen as satan desires, which makes them a servant/son of the author of lies, sin, etc. The language is hyperbolic.
You ask, "how does one distinguish between the "sons of God" and the "sons of men?" Simple. "By their fruits you shall know them."
Benjamin – thank you for taking thought to comment. The reason why I included the question about how we are to distinguish one from the other was based on the advise that ‘we should not judge’ one another’s spirit – Matt.7:1-3.
It appears to me that believers too often ‘judge’ others first instead of ‘loving’ (active term) them first. The Scripture reference regarding “you will know them by their fruits” relates to false prophets (teachers) - how one can determine the false prophets (teachers) from the true ones - Matt.7:15.
I think to separate the believers and unbelievers into two 'lines' leads to prejudice and being judgemental. Our heavenly Father came to us when we were still sinners. Did He look at our sin, or did He look at the sinner to be His wayward child?
I believe He looked at the sinner, and His loving heart reaching out to His children speaks with only one voice! The Father's voice is always full of Truth, Mercy and Grace. The Word of Truth is a double-edged sword, and mankind seeing the acts of the believer and the unbeliever does not know truth until it is revealed to their heart.
Acts2:23-25 - v.25: "David says about Him: 'I saw the Lord always before me; because He is at my right hand, I will not be shaken... "
Amen ....godly motivations V evil motivations in minds and hearts not race or tribal lines.
Types V Reality as in the letter to the Hebrews.
God's response to wickedness has two sides: justice and mercy.
How are the judgments of God just and also acts of mercy? Would you want to live in a kingdom where there is mercy without justice? Would you want to live in a kingdom where there is justice without mercy?
Jesus told several parables that challenge me/us on this "mercy meets justice" topic. The workers all get paid the same amount even though some worked all day and others had just arrived before quitting time. The shepherd leaves the 99 sheep who followed him, leaves them behind, alone, in order to search for the lost sheep...who when found is lifted up on his shoulders (all the sheep don't ride home on the shepherd's shoulders). The Prodigal Son receives a huge party from his dad while the older son who has worked faithfully on dad's farm the whole time has no party thrown for him. Do these stories show that God is merciful without being just?
I read something that beautifully sums up the "mercy" parables this way:
What does all of this have to do with our lesson this week about the Flood? I see a connection between Cain's flippant answer on judgment day, "I'm not my brother's keeper!", to the older brother in the Prodigal Son story calling his brother "your son", to the self-serving scribes and Pharisees seeking to kill the risen Lazarus (John 12:10-11), to the hearts of many growing cold as we near the final Judgment Day (Matthew 24:12,37),... to maybe even my own heart? Why do I hold on to "fairness" so tightly?
Justice is when people who do wrong things are made to feel the weight of those actions. The weight of sin and God's displeasure against it kills us, so God took all of it on Himself.
It's an oft used imagery but I like it so I'll repeat: the cross has a vertical line to represent God's justice poured out on His Son and a horizontal line representing mercy, with arms open wide "as far as the east is from the west (to show) so far has He removed our sins from us" (Psalm 103:12).
I believe God's justice system is all about reconciliation and repair. When we have the mind of Christ, we'll put reconciliation as the top priority in our lives too, in our actions as well as in our words, like Noah did (1 John 3:16,18). Justice will look less like counting, tallying, sentencing, and punishment... and more like empty prisons, empty tombs, a scarred Savior and a full Ark.
Surely goodness and mercy…………
Can it be surmised then that the righteousness of God necessitates the justice of God, but the mercy of God makes room for relationship with God? For who can survive the measure of God’s justice were it not mete with mercy? God loves mankind, we are His handiwork.
For in the day of disobedience when man knew good and evil he had a choice and therein too is the justice of God; for justice is also equity. Notwithstanding, the Creator did not destroy man that had become a host for sin because man’s will had become forked. So the mercy of God made allowance for reconciliation. The controversy incarnate was Cain and Abel.
We must remember that God sees/knows all; the end from the beginning. That said, in His love for humankind, He leaves room for repentance/forgiveness. Even though the earth was now full of ‘ra’ & it hurt His heart, He still left room for ‘tov’ so His regret had room for salvation. Let us likewise have compassion on others in spite of …
I have previously mentioned that our subconscious, being ready-to-go at birth, sets about to observe the interactions that are our 'reality' within our environment and experience. The reason our subconscious is doing this is to build our 'worldview' which functions as both a template and filter through which all experience is percieved and all resultant thoughts, attitudes, actions, etc are initiated. Our subconcious is essentially trying to make sense (meaning) of what is going on within, around and between us and our environment - including others within our environment. Being a subconscious process, our subconscious mind is trying to derive meaning via development of subconsciosly-driven suggestions that seem to 'fit' our perception of our situation and circumstances. This process is guided far more by what 'seems to fit and make sense to us' rather than what is objectively true (hence Proverbs 14:12; Genesis 3:6; Deuteronomy 12:8).
At the base of this attempted 'meaning-making' process is our subconscious's use of assumptions in the form of presuppositions. These are things we 'intuitively' assume to be true because they seem to match our experience. I believe the above process became the way it currently is in the course of Geneis 3:6 where percieved (subjective) 'truth' is more informed by how things look to our eyes and where experience under a sin-infected, fallen world is considerably distorted. Prior to Genesis 3:6, I believe objective 'truth' guided the process of Adam and Eve's 'mental map' formation - objective truth as taught to them via interaction with God, angels, etc. And objective truth as reflected in the daily experiences within an unfallen world.
The above accords with the principles Paul refers to in Romans 12:2. Via the activity of our subconscious forming our individual mental maps within the individual experiences that we have encountered in and across our lives, we each have typically uninitentionally and unknowingly been conformed to the pattern of this world and need to be progressively transformed via the renewing of our mind - especially of our 'intuitive' mental map. Jesus teaching and mentoring whilst on earth consistently reflected His efforts to assist others to do this.
What does this have to do with today's lesson. Today's lesson reflects a common subsconcious tendency that exists within Christianity and across believers (as a generalisation). That tendency is to unknowingly try to perceive God's being and ways by unconsciously starting from presuppositons/assumptions that are our human ways. Unfortunately, our default bias is to unavoidably do this with the unfortunate result that, by default, we see God in the image of man - and therefore God's ways as operating essentially similar to our ways.
This is how we arrive at concepts such as God having a "double voice" because to us, 'justice' and 'mercy' are experienced in life within this world as two separate phenomena. What if we stop and question the assumption that our justice is the same kind of justice as God's justice? Could it be that God's justice, like many other attributes, differs considerably to ours? And could it differ so much that within God's Kingdom, justice and mercy are exactly the same thing - an inseparable 'single voice'?
What about what we know as regret? Could it be that God's regret is more different than similar to our expeirence of what we have termed 'regret'?
For those who are interested, I would invite you to, under the guidance of the Holy Spirit, seek to become progressively aware of the presuppositions your subconscious mind holds about God. And as you become aware of some of these, I would invite you to pause and consciously consider (even to the point of re-examining) whether these presuppositons are reflecting a God whose ways are essentially similar to our known ways or considerably more different.
Thank you, Phil, for this thoughtful reminder. The One who regrets and grieves in Genesis 6:6 is the same person who was saying, “Father, forgive them, for they do not know what they do” as he was being crucified and reviled by those he created. (Luke 23:34 NET.) He speaks with a single voice, but we perceive a “double voice” where there is none. His ways and thoughts are founded on an eternal love that is without limit. (Isaiah 55:9.) At best, we can but strive to obtain some dim idea of its height, depth and breadth. (Ephesians 3:14-19.)