Genesis 7: 1 - 16

 

¹ The Lord then said to Noah, ‘Go into the ark, you and your whole family, because I have found you righteous in this generation. ² Take with you seven pairs of every kind of clean animal, a male and its mate, and one pair of every kind of unclean animal, a male and its mate, ³ and also seven pairs of every kind of bird, male and female, to keep their various kinds alive throughout the earth. ⁴ Seven days from now I will send rain on the earth for forty days and forty nights, and I will wipe from the face of the earth every living creature I have made.’

⁵ And Noah did all that the Lord commanded him.

⁶ Noah was six hundred years old when the floodwaters came on the earth. ⁷ And Noah and his sons and his wife and his sons’ wives entered the ark to escape the waters of the flood. ⁸ Pairs of clean and unclean animals, of birds and of all creatures that move along the ground, ⁹ male and female, came to Noah and entered the ark, as God had commanded Noah. ¹⁰ And after the seven days the floodwaters came on the earth.

¹¹ In the six hundredth year of Noah’s life, on the seventeenth day of the second month – on that day all the springs of the great deep burst forth, and the floodgates of the heavens were opened. ¹² And rain fell on the earth for forty days and forty nights.

¹³ On that very day Noah and his sons, Shem, Ham and Japheth, together with his wife and the wives of his three sons, entered the ark. ¹⁴ They had with them every wild animal according to its kind, all livestock according to their kinds, every creature that moves along the ground according to its kind and every bird according to its kind, everything with wings. ¹⁵ Pairs of all creatures that have the breath of life in them came to Noah and entered the ark. ¹⁶ The animals going in were male and female of every living thing, as God had commanded Noah. Then the Lord shut him in.

The Closed Door of Judgement; The Open Door of Salvation.

Yesterday, in Gen 6: 19 - 20, we saw that God commanded Noah to take two of every kind of animal into the ark. Now, in Gen 7: 2 - 3, the instruction is expanded, and we see that seven pairs of the ‘clean’ animals and seven pairs of the birds were to be brought into the ark. Presumably, this is because some of the animals were to be for food. Of course, it is interesting that the concept of ‘clean’ and ‘unclean’ animals was only introduced through the Law of Moses many centuries later.

This passage describes a shocking moment in history. God has decided that the only option for the sinful state that mankind has reached (in a relatively short time since he created them) is to wipe them all out. All except one family, whom he describes as ‘righteous’. This reminds us that our God, who is a God of love, is also a God of judgement. He calls on all people to follow him – to love him, and love other people; to obey his teaching and to trust in him. When people choose not to do so, they are choosing to turn their backs on God, and choosing to reject him. They are sadly choosing judgement. We need to be righteous before God – and that is not a righteousness of our own: rather it is the righteousness of Christ (see Philippians 3: 9).

The last six words of our reading are incredibly sombre. “Then the Lord shut him in.” Only God could have shut the door of the ark. Because in shutting it, it wasn’t so much that Noah and his family were being shut in, but that everyone else was being shut out. When God shut the door of the ark, it was the final act in the judgement of that generation.

When Christ died on the cross, the door was opened! The door is now open for all to come to God – for all to be saved through him. The way to God is open, and it is open through Christ. No-one comes to the Father except through him (John 14: 6) but “Everyone who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved.” (Joel 2: 32 and Romans 10: 13). We don’t want to be like the people who drowned in the flood – they did not call on the name of the Lord. Similarly, we don’t want other people to be like that either: we all have a responsibility to bring people to that open door and to show them the way of salvation in Christ. People today are needy in so many ways – materially, socially and above all spiritually. It is the responsibility of Christians and the Church to do something about those needs!

 

Prayer

Lord, I thank you for your love and for your mercy. I thank you for the message of salvation, and that all who call on your name will be saved. Please help me to play my part in bringing people to the open door so that they can receive from you. Amen.