Dear friends,
After the genealogy of Genesis 5, we have finally left Adam and Eve. But then as we merge into chapter 6, we find Adam’s baleful influence dominating the landscape. This week’s episode of Two Ways News does not seek to answer the many questions people ask about the flood, but to pay attention to the central message of sin and judgement. Your temptation may now be to skip this episode, but that is because of sin and judgement! So as the old hymn has it, “yield not to temptation”.
Yours,
Phillip
Phillip Jensen: Thank you to those who are subscribers to our weekly episodes. We are very grateful for your generosity, because we want to make this podcast freely available, and that is possible only through the generosity of others. There are two ways each of you could help: by telling other people about the podcast, and/or by providing generously if you can; the details of that are at the bottom of the transcript.
We are going to move faster through Genesis now. It has been a pleasurably slow journey so far. Genesis 1-11 deals with such important topics and is foundational to everything in Christian thinking. We come now to the flood, which occupies chapter 6 through to chapter 9, dealing with Noah and his family. Today, we will talk about the sin and judgement element. Genesis 6 starts this way
When man began to multiply on the face of the land and daughters were born to them, the sons of God saw that the daughters of man were attractive. And they took as their wives any they chose. Then the LORD said, “My Spirit shall not abide in man forever, for he is flesh: his days shall be 120 years.” The Nephilim were on the earth in those days, and also afterward, when the sons of God came in to the daughters of man and they bore children to them. These were the mighty men who were of old, the men of renown.
The LORD saw that the wickedness of man was great in the earth, and that every intention of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually. And the LORD regretted that he had made man on the earth, and it grieved him to his heart. So the LORD said, “I will blot out man whom I have created from the face of the land, man and animals and creeping things and birds of the heavens, for I am sorry that I have made them.” But Noah found favour in the eyes of the LORD.
The passage raises a whole host of questions. Who were the sons of God, and who were the daughters of men? Who or what are Nephilim? What about the Lord? Yahweh shows regret, grief, and sorrow; how do we know God as one who regrets and grieves what he has done?
But at the heart of the passage, we see sin, or at least the Lord saw it. The Lord saw, verse 5, that “the wickedness of man was great in the earth, and that every intention of the thoughts of his heart was only ever evil continually.” But we don’t see sin like that today. What have we done with sin?
Peter Jensen: I have been thinking about that question recently. When I talk to university students, particularly those studying the humanities or social work—the disciplines that look into who humans are—I often ask them whether the category of sin or evil ever comes in. Interestingly, the answer is virtually always, ‘No, there’s no such category in use.’ But how can we think about humanity if we do not see ourselves as also taking part in this wickedness? I think it points to the absence of God, because it is God who defines sin and tells us what sin is: the breach of his law.
But there’s also the prevalent belief in the goodness of humanity: that though we do bad things, most of us are good people. The category of sin seems to have disappeared. Paradoxically, there’s widespread frustration at the behaviour of certain other people.
Phillip: It’s funny: people won’t have faith in God but are very keen to have faith in human nature. The faith that you should have in human nature is that we will do the wrong thing. It’s not what people mean, because we’re a moralistic culture. We blame people for their own willingness to see things their way, rather than seeing things God’s way. So we insist on taking actions to solve problems: utilising shame culture in social media; or throwing government money at problems that are in society; or employing specialists who will be able to solve the problems of our society; or passing laws or regulations; or including more teaching in the curriculum of schools that will solve the problem.
Previous generations have talked about moralism in terms of drinking, gambling or modesty, but today they are not the concerns of the moralist. They are focused on big world issues like climate change, domestic violence, or the abuse of children. Of course, the abuse of children and domestic violence are extremely awful, but these are the issues that the moralists are strongly advocating as things that need to be fixed by those in power, usually through government intervention. But none of these things really touch on the two big issues that you’ve just mentioned. Firstly, God saw that human evil comes from sin, for sin is opposition to God. Secondly, he saw that human nature is corrupted; in that sense, it’s no different after Adam than it was in the great decision that Adam made. The world post-Adam is the same now.
Peter: If you don’t understand that, then it’s very difficult to understand human beings and how best to react. For the corruption of humanity is, as this verse tells us, from the heart; from the depths of our own personality. This is a verdict repeated in the New Testament. Sin comes from within ourselves and is defined as evil desire. In that sense, it’s uncontrollable. You may not act on it, but the desire itself is an indication of your sinfulness. The trouble is that it may or may not find immediate expression; you may have an evil desire which you suppress or do nothing about. That is good, but the evil desire exists because sin enslaves us. Jesus said, in John 8:34, “Everyone who practices sin is a slave to sin.” People even turn things which are good into evil via hypocrisy. There are examples of that in the New Testament, for instance, where tithing was taken to the extreme, as people tithed even their garden plants. Tithing was used as a way of commending people to the world and to God, rather than an expression of faith and generosity. So it is an inward thing that we are all victims of.
I’m not saying that we are all totally evil, for there is good in us as well. But this evil touches us all. People often turn good into evil. Human utopianism is the belief that somehow we are good people, and that if only we could do the following things and fix the following problems, we could live in a utopia. This idea that there’s a human utopia that we can reach is a cruel myth. In an atheistic world, this is bad news. It means that we are without hope, and that the evil of humans can be controlled to a certain extent, but it will never be brought to account, for there is no one to bring it to account. However, when God is acknowledged as the maker and ruler of the world and the true judge of human nature, we have a different and better perspective.
Phillip: Walking to church the other day, I saw a large sale sign outside a block of units by a real estate company named Utopia. There were big signs which said, ‘Utopia for sale.’ I thought, ‘There’s Ayn Rand, there’s capitalism in its extreme.’ It is a different perspective when you have God, rather than just commercial markets or government.
It’s so personal with God. You see that in Genesis 6:7, when the Lord says, “I will blot out man whom I have created from the face of the land, man and animals and creeping things and birds of the heavens, for I am sorry that I have made them.”
He regrets it, and it grieves him. The God of the Bible is a very personal God who is involved in the world, and what he sees saddens him. This doesn’t in any way undermine his sovereignty in the creation of the world, and it doesn’t take him by surprise; it just saddens him. So in verse 11 we read, “Now the earth was corrupt in God’s sight.” It’s in God’s sight that corruption is clear. Verse 12, “And God saw the earth, and behold, it was corrupt, for all flesh had corrupted their way on the earth.” And so God announces his judgement. Verse 13, “And God said to Noah, ‘I have determined to make an end of all flesh, for the earth is filled with violence through them. Behold, I will destroy them with the earth.’” It sounds strange, but it really is good news that God is just, because that’s what we want him to be. His compassion is very great, but his feeling and compassion are for righteousness and justice, and his horror is because of our corruption.
The human hunger for justice is always there. I notice in the courts now, we have the victims’ statements about how the actions of others have impinged upon them, hurt them, destroyed their lives; it’s the longing for things to be put right, for justice. You see it in Romans 1 and 2, because at the end of Romans 1, we see an incredible statement of the nature of sin. Romans 1:28, “And since they did not see fit to acknowledge God, God gave them up to a debased mind to do what ought not to be done.”
So the giving up of humans to the freedom of their own decision-making is an expression of God’s judgement upon us. The consequence of it is, as verses 29-32 state
They were filled with all manner of unrighteousness, evil, covetousness, malice. They are full of envy, murder, strife, deceit, maliciousness. They are gossips, slanderers, haters of God, insolent, haughty, boastful, inventors of evil, disobedient to parents, foolish, faithless, heartless, ruthless. Though they know God’s righteous decree that those who practice such things deserve to die, they not only do them but give approval to those who practice them.
It’s extraordinary that we live with the consequences of this judgement even today; for example, the media may condemn certain actions while simultaneously glamourising that which is opposite to God.
Phillip: For example, there are websites where one can easily access opportunities to commit adultery; this is seen as desirable. Yet the media passes judgement continuously. Paul addresses this hypocrisy in Romans 2:1
Therefore you have no excuse, O man, every one of you who judges. For in passing judgement on another you condemn yourself, because you, the judge, practise the very same things.
We do corrupt things and even approve of them, despite knowing that we are wrong. But when others do corrupt things, we call for justice. Romans 2 tells us that God is being patient towards us by not killing us immediately, because he wants to give us the opportunity to repent and be forgiven. But this patience leads us to arrogance, thinking that we can do whatever we like while calling for justice upon everyone else. We do not realise that our corruption is part of the judgement of God, and that we all will receive his justice.
Peter: It’s no good thinking to ourselves, ‘God shouldn’t be judging like that.’ For that’s exactly what we do with one another. We judge each other. We sometimes say that the category of justice is too razor-like, but we forget that from a very early age, we are fully aware of justice. One of my most cherished memories is of a two-year-old boy saying to his mother, when she gave some lollies to his brother, “It’s not fair.” It’s interesting how quickly a two-year-old knows what it is to be fair, particularly when it goes against himself.
So the judgement of God is delayed in our world, out of his mercy, for he seeks people to come to salvation. But it is certain. The promise is very strong in the New Testament, and from the mouth of Jesus, of a day of judgement where our words, our deeds, and even our thoughts will be judged; that’s how serious sin is. It is tragic that our world neglects the category of sin, and fails to analyse the human problem properly. Jesus warns us in Matthew’s gospel that we too live in days which are as bad as the days of Noah. He said in Matthew 24:38-39
For as in those days before the flood they were eating and drinking, marrying and giving in marriage, until the day when Noah entered the ark, and they were unaware until the flood came and swept them all away, so will be the coming of the Son of Man.
We are very good at fooling ourselves, at looking away from what is painful, and it means that we don’t hear the true message of God. We may escape punishment in this life, but it is certain at the end of history.
Phillip: In Japan, there were some stones erected inland over previous centuries, in the mountains where previous tsunamis came up to, with the warning ‘Do not build below this point’. Yet whole cities, even an atomic reactor, had been built below these points. They didn’t believe the tsunami would come. But the flood did come, and as you said from Matthew, the flood stands as the great warning of the final judgement, because God can do this; in fact, he did it.
But let’s not get diverted from the point of the flood. Children’s Bible books nearly always get the flood wrong, as they see it in a romantic sense about animals going in two by two. We have questions like, ‘Were there kangaroos on the ark?’ and about the geographical extent of the flood. The word ‘earth’ is a word that means ground, or a piece of ground, a territory, or a country. It’s used in contrast to the heavens or to the waters. Our geographical extent question, ‘Did the flood come all the way to Australia?’ is anachronistic. It doesn’t matter that we now have more scientific information about the world than they did back then. They used common, everyday words to express the events of the flood. That is, it covered the land and wiped out all that they knew or saw. We can’t ask Moses and his contemporaries to talk in other languages than the language they’re talking in. Just because the word may be translated ‘earth’ doesn’t determine whether Moses was thinking of a globe. The point of this passage is creation being reversed. That is, the waters swallow up the land. The land had been separated out from the waters, but now the waters were taking it back again. So God’s creation is being undone.
But the essence of the universality in the passage is not geography; it’s humanity. It’s the universality of death. These questions of sin and judgement are more important than our questions. Our questions are not answered because they’re not the questions that the passage is dealing with. They likely arise not from our understanding of the passage, but from our avoidance. It’s not about animals climbing in a nice little boat; it’s about God and judgement.
Peter: It’s about a deluge of such significance that it could only come from the judgement of God. For it killed all that they knew, all that they saw, and covered their earth. We mustn’t be diverted from the significance of what you’d call a universal history. It uses such words and concepts that can speak powerfully to all humans. We can all recognise this immense catastrophe for what it is: the exposure of corruption. That is, the corruption that we see and experience in human society. Though we may refuse to talk about it academically, the passage also shows the rightness and reality of judgement: firstly, as our everyday experience in this world of suffering, because that too comes out of the judgement of God; secondly, on the day of judgement. If we allow ourselves to be diverted by interesting questions which we can’t answer, we will miss the voice of God. That’s the important thing.
Phillip: It’s a voice that speaks of sin and of judgement, but of hope as well. For the determination of God to bring the whole thing down is tempered by the remarkable exhibition of his grace and mercy in Noah.
Scripture quotations are from The ESV® Bible (The Holy Bible, English Standard Version®), copyright © 2001 by Crossway, a publishing ministry of Good News Publishers. Used by permission. All rights reserved.
Links & Recommendations
For more on this topic, listen to this sermon by Phillip on Genesis 6-9. It’s called Noah and the Flood.
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