by Steve and Terri White

Genesis 6-9; I Peter 3:20; II Peter 2:5; Hebrews 11:7

"Then Cain went out from the presence of the LORD . . ." (Genesis 4:16) From Cain, the decline of man plunged rapidly until 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) God was sorry that He had even made man and determined to destroy mankind from the face of the earth. Only one man on the entire planet walked with God and found favor with Him -- Noah. Thus, God informed Noah of His plans and gave him instructions for saving his family and the animal species. It was at this time that God told Noah He was going to establish a covenant with him (Genesis 6:18), but God did not explain the covenant terms to Noah until after the flood.

It is interesting to note the way God expressed His longsuffering prior to the flood. Noah had a grandfather named Methuselah whose name meant when he is dead it shall come. The limit of God’s patience is expressed in Methuselah -- he lived for 969 years, longer than any other human being on earth. For nearly 1000 years, God was patient with mankind. During the final 100 years of Methuselah’s life, Noah prepared for the coming deluge. He constructed a massive ark according to God’s blueprint while warning the people of God’s judgment. When Methuselah died, God called Noah and his family into the ark, along with the appointed animals ( 7 of every clean animal and 2 of each unclean, male and female). 

THE FLOOD

In order to understand what conditions were like on the earth before the Flood, as well as the awesome mechanism of the Flood itself, we refer to the work of Dr. Carl Baugh of the Creation Evidences Museum in Glen Rose, Texas. His "orchestral creation" model is as follows: Approximately eleven miles above the earth’s surface was a canopy called the firmament (Hebrew: raqiya), which was a layer of water no more than twenty feet thick. With ice formations above and below, the middle was pressurized and frozen into a near-metallic, superconducting, transparent, crystalline form. The firmament filtered out harmful radiation from the sun, bathing the earth day and night in various shades of pink light. Below the earth’s crust were placed great reservoirs of water. Optimal atmospheric pressure, added to naturally -irrigated growing conditions, resulted in an environment which supported huge varieties of plant and animal life, the existence of which the fossil record confirms. Radio waves from distant stars were absorbed by the firmament and transmitted to earth, where they were amplified, producing music. To modern-day man, this would seem to be a description of paradise. How much moreso the Garden of Eden from which mankind was cast out?

After Noah and the appointed animals were tucked safely in the ark, God triggered destructive forces from above and beneath the earth as described in Genesis 7:10-12:

• "The fountains of the great deep were broken up" -- God caused the waters beneath the earth to heat up and erupt, sending steaming geysers up to knock holes in the firmament; therefore,

• "The windows of heaven were opened" and as the tremendous amounts of supercooled water melted, the firmament collapsed, and

• "It began to rain, and the rain lasted for forty days and forty nights."

The catastrophic flood waters rose until the highest mountains on earth were covered, by more than twenty-two feet, with roaring, crashing water.

When Noah and his family were able to exit the ark, they saw a vastly changed environment: a blue sky that would turn black at night replaced the pink sky, great mountains were formed by the heaving of the earth’s crust, a landscape with dwarfed vegetation beginning to return, and no signs of human habitation.

TERMS OF THE NOACHIC COVENANT:

When Noah and his family stepped out of the ark, they comprised the entire human race. At this time God imposed a different covenant on mankind that reaffirmed the Covenant of Creation:

1. Mankind was to be "fruitful and multiply, and fill the earth." (Gen. 9:1, 7)

2. Although men were to continue to have dominion over the earth, now wild animals would live in terror of them. (Gen. 9:2)

3. Provision for food was made in allowing man to eat meat in addition to fruits and vegetables. Because the "life of the flesh is in the blood," man was commanded to first drain the blood from the animal flesh to be eaten. (Gen. 9:3,4)

4. Because man is made in God’s image, murder was forbidden. If someone shed another person’s blood, his own blood would be shed. It was mankind’s responsibility to see to that. (Gen. 9:5,6)

5. Even though God acknowledged that the intents of man’s heart are evil from his youth, he promised never again to destroy the earth by a flood. (Gen. 8:21)

6. A rainbow is set in the sky after each rain as a sign of the covenant. (See #5 from the model covenant given in Lesson One.) In Genesis 9:15,16 the word remember in Hebrew means to reenact, meaning that God would confirm or continue to keep this covenant whenever He saw the bow in the sky.

7. Blood shed when Noah built the altar and offered animal sacrifices. (Gen. 8:20)

8. All creation would be governed by regular and predictable laws. Planting was not to be at any or all times (as before the flood when there was only one season), but a special season would be right for planting, and another for harvesting. (Gen. 8:22)

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