Latest / Reformed Thinking / Grace in the Days of Noah: Human Depravity, Divine Grief, and Sovereign Favor (Genesis 6:5–10)

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Grace in the Days of Noah: Human Depravity, Divine Grief, and Sovereign Favor (Genesis 6:5–10) · Reformed Thinking

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  This is Reformed thinking, the deep dive where we take crucial
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  passages of Scripture, dissect the theological understanding
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  surrounding them, and extract the knowledge you need to grasp
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  the detailed shape of God's saving plan.
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  Today we're going back to the very beginning, to the early
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  chapters of Genesis. We're focusing on a passage that
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  acts as this dark and really defining pivot point in the
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  story of humanity. Genesis 6.
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  Genesis 6, specifically verses 5 through 10.
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  We've brought together material that looks at these verses as a
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  necessary theological lens. I mean, this passage doesn't
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  just tell us what happened with the flood.
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  No, it's the why. It's the why.
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  Why was the flood necessary? And maybe even more
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  surprisingly, how did anyone, against all odds, survive it?
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  Our starting point in Genesis was this world that God himself
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  declared very good. But in these verses we see the
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  shift to a world defined by great corruption.
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  It's a shocking contrast. It is so our mission today is
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  pretty clear. First, we have to face this
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  well, this sobering diagnosis of the human condition that God
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  gives from His all seeing perspective.
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  Second, we need to understand God's holy and just response to
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  that wickedness, his grief and His judgment.
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  And then the turn. And then the turn will trace
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  that startling intervention of sovereign grace that just
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  completely shifts the story and secures a future.
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  You really can't overstate how big a pivot this is.
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  I mean, when you look at the flow from Genesis 3 on to
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  chapter 6, you just see this terrifying, almost geometric
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  spread of sins infection. It accelerates so fast.
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  It does. You go from one act of
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  disobedience to, you know, family problems, then Keynes
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  murder, then Lamech bringing in polygamy and this arrogant self
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  exultation. And all through the genealogies,
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  you have that solemn drum beat. And he died.
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  By the time we get to Chapter 6, evil isn't just a series of, you
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  know, bad choices. It has become the very
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  atmosphere of human life. It's what people breathe.
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  And this text is so vital because it just confronts our
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  modern illusions head on, this idea that humanity is basically
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  good, or maybe just neutral and needs a better environment or
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  more education. This passage just pulls the rug
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  out from under that. It shows us the devastating
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  truth about the human heart, and because of that, it shows us the
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  reality of a God who is both deeply grieved by sin and
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  absolutely righteous and opposing it.
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  This isn't just ancient history, it's anthropology and theology
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  all rolled into one. Let's let's unpack this defining
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  moment. So we jump right into the
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  severity of the diagnosis. In Genesis 6.5 it says God saw
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  that the wickedness of man was great in the earth.
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  The authority of this verdict is absolute, right?
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  It's coming from the all seeing, omniscient God who sees hearts,
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  not just what people do. Right, and that's the first
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  stroke of this divine diagnosis. It establishes the sheer extent
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  of the disaster. God saw that the wickedness of
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  man was great in the earth, and that word wickedness in the
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  Hebrew it's not vague at all. Specific, very specific.
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  It means moral evil, injustice, perversity, basically actions
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  and attitudes that are directly opposed to God's holy character
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  in His law. It's everything from oppression
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  and violence to idolatry and spiritual rebellion.
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  And when the text says the wickedness was great in the
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  earth, it's confirming that sin had permeated everything.
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  It was universal. This corruption wasn't just in
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  one rebellious tribe or, you know, one social class.
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  It was everywhere. It had become the overwhelming
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  reality for the whole human race and the entire social order.
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  Sin had gone public. It was the normal, expected way
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  of living. We're talking about a whole
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  civilization just soaked in unchecked self exaltation,
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  sensuality, violence, and a complete dismissal of the
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  Creator. That picture you're painting is
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  one of total societal breakdown. Violence and injustice are just
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  the law of the land, but the source material we're looking at
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  points out that this diagnosis also has direct consequences for
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  the environment itself. Precisely.
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  We sometimes forget that humanity was put in creation to
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  be its ruler, its vice Regent, tasked with stewardship.
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  Genesis makes it so clear that the environment is broken
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  because the people in it are broken.
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  When the ruler rebels, the world suffers.
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  That's it exactly. And this stands in such sharp
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  contrast to the very common modern idea that if we just fix
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  the external things, if we pass better laws, offer better
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  education, improve the economy, we'll fix humanity, right?
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  Genesis 6 tells us the core problem is internal.
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  It's rooted in the heart. And the external world is just
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  groaning under the weight of that internal flaw.
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  And that external corruption, that societal vision, it's
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  really just the backdrop for the more disturbing part of the
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  diagnosis. God's gaze doesn't stop at the
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  visible actions. Oh no, his sight goes deeper.
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  Down to the very core of what makes us human.
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  Yes, and this is where the diagnosis becomes surgically
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  specific. The focus shifts inward to every
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  intention of the thoughts of his heart.
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  The visible great wickedness is traced right back to its
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  invisible source. So the heart in the Bible,
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  that's not just about feelings, is it?
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  Not at all. We tend to think of it as just
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  the seat of emotion. But in biblical terms, the heart
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  is the Control Center of the entire person.
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  It's where you think, reason, will, desire, choose.
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  It's the spiritual and moral nerve center of your being.
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  OK, so if the heart is the Control Center, what about the
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  word intention? Good question.
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  The Hebrew word there speaks of the bent, the frame, or the
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  formed inclination of that inner life.
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  So the diagnosis is saying that the very structure of human
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  inner life, their settled designs, their purposes, their
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  desires is corrupt. So it's not just that they had
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  bad thoughts sometimes. No, the issue is that the
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  machine itself is fundamentally geared toward rebellion.
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  The disease isn't, you know, a rash on the skin.
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  It is systemic. It's deep in the bloodstream.
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  The entire spiritual and moral orientation is just.
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  Wrong. The source material argues that
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  this this concentrated diagnosis is the biblical foundation for
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  the doctrine of total depravity. So what does this diagnosis,
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  coming from God himself, tell us about our overall understanding
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  of human potential and our nature?
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  Well, this is where we get the bedrock for what Reformed
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  theology calls the doctrine of total Depravity, and it uses
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  what we can call the threefold universal language that's baked
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  right into Genesis 6.5. This language leaves absolutely
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  no room for ambiguity about the human condition without God's
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  help. OK, let's break that down.
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  What's the first universal? First, you have the universal
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  qualifier. Every intention.
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  This means there are no exceptions.
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  It's teaching us that the corruption of sin has spread to
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  every single faculty of our being, our mind, our will, our
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  affections, our conscience. So there's no little corner of
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  the human heart that's untouched, no island of moral
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  purity. None.
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  It's not there. Nothing a natural person does is
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  entirely untouched or unmixed with the corruption of self love
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  and rebellion against God. So if sin extends to every
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  intention, that would rule out the idea of a neutral will or an
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  intellect that's unbiased. That's it.
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  If the intention itself is framed toward evil, then the
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  will is enslaved to its own corrupt desires.
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  It's not that we lose the ability to choose, but we lose
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  the moral ability to choose God or spiritual good apart from His
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  grace. Our choices, no matter how
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  varied they seem, always end up orbiting around self instead of
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  God's glory. OK, so that's every.
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  What's the second part? 2nd, we have the quality of that
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  intention. Only evil.
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  Now this is the starkest possible denial of the idea of
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  moral mixture. It means that sinful man,
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  working just from his own natural resources, cannot offer
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  anything that is morally pure or spiritually pleasing to a holy
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  God. That's a challenging idea for a
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  lot of people. I mean, if it's only evil, what
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  about acts of charity or justice or just human kindness that we
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  see all the time in society? How does the source material
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  handle that? It does, and that's a key
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  distinction we have to make between saving grace and common
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  grace. The fact that society hasn't
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  just completely imploded into pure chaos is a witness to God's
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  common grace, his general restraint of sin in the world.
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  Through things like civil order and conscience.
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  Right. And those charitable acts you
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  mentioned are real, and they benefit humanity.
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  But the source material argues that the motive behind them,
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  when it's done by a heart whose ultimate intention is away from
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  God, is still fundamentally flawed.
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  Can you give an example? Sure.
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  A good deed done for the sake of reputation, or even just a
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  natural affection for one's own child.
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  That's good, relatively speaking, for humanity.
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  But it's not spiritually good in the sight of God because the
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  ultimate orientation is still self focused rather than God
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  honoring. It fails the test of holiness
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  even if it passes the test of civility.
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  The moral mixture is absent because their root motivation is
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  corrupt. OK so we have every intention
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  and only evil was the 3rd universal.
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  The third is the dimension of time.
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  Continually. This rules out any brick, any
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  interval of self generated righteousness.
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  The corrupt orientation is an on and off.
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  It's present all the time. It is the default setting of the
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  unregenerate heart. So.
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  Every only continue like the. Threefold verdict and the
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  theological conclusion is unavoidable.
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  Apart from grace, the natural human heart is entirely oriented
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  away from God and toward evil at all times.
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  This just demolishes all confidence in human nature as a
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  starting point. If we think we have some morally
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  pure corner in our soul, we will never flee to grace.
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  The practical implication of that, then, is huge.
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  If the problem is that deep a congenital heart condition, then
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  no human solution can possibly be enough.
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  Exactly. If the problem is in the
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  thoughts of the heart, then no human program is going to fix
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  it. Not behavioral modification,
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  better laws, public service announcements, or even intensive
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  therapy. Those can only manage the
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  symptoms. At best, they can restrain sin,
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  mask it, or redirect it into more socially acceptable
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  channels. But they cannot perform what you
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  might call heart surgery on the soul.
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  They deal with the symptoms, never the source.
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  Humanity, judged by Genesis 6.5, needs nothing less than a divine
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  intervention, a miracle of grace.
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  What the prophets later promised would be a new heart of flesh to
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  replace the stone. So we've established the scope
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  and depth of human wickedness. Now we have to look at the
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  divine response. And the language Moses uses to
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  describe God's reaction in verse 6 is well, it's surprisingly
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  human and intense. It says the Lord regretted that
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  he had made man on the earth, and it grieved him to his heart.
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  This inner response in verse 6 is it's startling, and it
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  requires some careful handling. The term that's translated,
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  regretted, or repented is the Hebrew verb naksham, and the
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  sources are all clear on this. This is language borrowed from
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  human experience. An anthropopathic expression.
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  That's the technical term. It's used so that our finite
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  minds can get a handle on God's real, personal and intense
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  response to moral evil. Before we go any further, I have
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  to ask, why is it so important to define that word?
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  Nesham correctly doesn't regret it.
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  Make it sound like God made a mistake or that he's changeable,
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  which would seem to contradict other clear teachings about him.
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  That is the necessary question, and the sources all stress that
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  we have to protect God's immutable nature.
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  Scripture is so clear elsewhere, like in Numbers 23.99, that God
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  is not a man that He should change his mind.
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  So this can't mean God recognized an error in his plan.
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  No, or a law and his foreknowledge.
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  Instead, God's regret is understood as His holy moral
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  disapproval of what man using his freedom has become.
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  It marks a change in God's action towards humanity and
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  time, not a change in his nature or His eternal purpose.
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  God is consistently holy, and because man changed from good to
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  utterly corrupt, God's holy disposition toward that
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  corruption had to change from blessing to judgement.
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  It shows us that He is personally opposed to
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  wickedness. So it's not a change of mind,
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  but a necessary the righteous shift in the relationship
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  because man shifted away from goodness, and this disapproval
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  is explicitly tied to an intense emotional experience.
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  Exactly. It's linked directly to the
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  statement that it grieved him to his heart.
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  This phrase immediately protects us from the idea that God is
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  some distant, impassive force. A cold, impersonal clock maker
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  who just wound up the universe and walked away.
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  He's. Personally and passionately
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  engaged. Right.
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  But his grief isn't mixed with surprise or disappointment or
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  weakness like our grief is. It is the grief of perfect
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  holiness and perfect love being betrayed.
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  His grease is his real righteous opposition to the evil that now
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  fills the earth. Sin, therefore, isn't just
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  breaking some arbitrary cosmic rule.
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  It's an offense against the personal, loving God who made
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  man in his image. It's a betrayal of that sacred
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  relationship. And this holy grave is the very
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  genesis of his judicial wrath, which is the settled moral
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  revulsion of a holy God who can never, ever be neutral toward
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  wickedness. That's a key connection.
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  Holy grief leads to judicial resolve, but this is still a
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  concept that you know a lot of people today struggle with.
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  We're comfortable with a God of love and grief, but much less
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  comfortable with the idea of God's wrath.
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  How do the sources help us reconcile God's overwhelming
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  love, which grieved over humanity, with the fact that he
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  chose to blot out almost the entire human race?
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  This is the central theological tension this passage forces us
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  to hold. The sources argue that the grief
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  of verse 6 makes the judgement of verse 7 necessary.
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  The 2 are inseparable aspects of His Holiness.
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  If God truly grieved over the wickedness, the violence, the
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  oppression, the moral evil, He must act against it to uphold
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  justice and goodness. So his love demands his justice.
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  Think about it this way. A God who looked at rampant
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  genocide, idolatry and systematic violence with just
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  serene acceptance. A God who was not grieved would
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  not be good or just or even loving in any meaningful way.
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  His love for his own glory and for the goodness of his creation
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  requires him to oppose evil decisively.
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  The judgement is not some emotional outburst.
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  It's the righteous, measured response of a holy sovereign.
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  That inner grief and moral revulsion leads directly to the
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  outward action. So what was the specific nature
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  of this judicial resolve announced in verse 7?
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  The resolve is firm and absolute.
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  I will blot out man whom I have created from the face of the
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  land. This blotting out is described
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  as a moral event, a judicial act.
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  The Hebrew term brings up this powerful image of wiping ink
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  from a scroll. Or erasing a name from a record.
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  Exactly. Humanity as a collective had
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  failed its purpose and forfeited its right to exist by corrupting
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  itself so completely. And the judgment was
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  comprehensive. It wasn't just man.
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  Right. It included Beast and creeping
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  Thing and Bird of the heavens, and that sweeping nature is
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  highly significant. The source material frames this
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  using what they call the D creation motif.
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  It's a technical term, but it's an incredibly illustrative
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  concept. OK, let's unpack that D creation
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  motif. It sounds like a direct reversal
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  of the creation story itself. Can you connect the judgement
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  specifically to the steps of Genesis 1?
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  We can trace the parallels pretty clearly in Genesis 1.
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  God brings order out of watery chaos.
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  In Genesis 6 and seven, God returns the earth in part to
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  chaos through the waters. Creation starts with the
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  separation of the waters above and the waters below.
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  The flood is the reversal of that, where the fountains of the
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  great deep and the windows of the heavens are open, mixing the
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  waters again. It's a deliberate undoing of
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  order. And what about the animals?
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  Well, in creation, man was given dominion over the animals
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  because the ruler man, the vice Regent, rebelled and polluted
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  the realm through violence and sin.
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  The realm is undone with him. The animals are judged because
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  they are part of the sphere over which the corrupt ruler had
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  charge. This antarapate's later biblical
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  teaching, especially in Romans 8, that creation groans under
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  the weight of human sin. The flood was not an arbitrary
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  natural disaster. It was a deliberate judicial and
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  moral reversal of cosmic order. Precisely, this means the flood
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  was a unified, necessary display of God's character.
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  The grief of verse 6 and the judgment of verse 7 are
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  presented as two sides of the same holy coin.
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  God is the holy Lord whose heart is genuinely grieved by the
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  betrayal of sin and whose perfect righteousness
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  simultaneously demands that evil not go unpunished.
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  And this truth is a necessary corrective.
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  It is. It corrects any sentimental
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  vision of God that has domesticated his love and
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  consequently muter His Holiness. The flood is a terrifying but
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  necessary historical witness to the fact that God is constant,
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  moral and active, never indifferent to injustice or
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  idolatry. And the practical application is
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  sobering. Our own gossip, lust,
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  bitterness, greed and pride provoke the grief of the living
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  God. Sin is never a trivial matter in
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  the mind of the Creator. The narrative has brought us to
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  the absolute brink and we have universal depravity.
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  We have holy grief and then this judicial resolve to blot out
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  humanity. The story seems to be ending in
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  total darkness, disaster, and death.
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  But then we hit Genesis 6 verse 8 and is described as the hinge
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  point of the entire narrative, maybe one of the most hope
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  filled words in the entire Bible.
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  That narrative turn is signaled by one simple but dramatic word.
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  But but Noah found favor in the eyes of the Lord.
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  That single but is the decisive shift.
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  It interrupts this cascade of merited judgement and universal
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  corruption, and it introduces the theme of God's sovereign
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  grace. And the turning point comes
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  entirely from God's side. Entirely.
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  It's his sovereign initiative. The text doesn't say Noah worked
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  hard to earn favor or that he was intrinsically better than
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  his peers. It says he found it.
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  He was passive in the finding. God was active in the giving.
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  So we have to define this concept of favor here.
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  It seems like the very opposite of merit.
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  It is the Hebrew word for favor is Chen, and it carries the idea
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  of grace defined as underserved kindness shown by a superior to
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  someone who has absolutely no claim on it.
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  Given the description of the human heart just a few verses
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  earlier, every intention being only evil continually, Noah by
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  definition must have been just as incapable of earning
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  salvation as everyone else. So this establishes the
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  principle that carries through all of Scripture.
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  If anyone is going to be saved from the universal torrent of
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  judgement, it must be purely by God's unmerited grace.
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  The sheer contrast here is breathtaking.
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  God looks at the whole world and sees wickedness, grief, and
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  judgement. But then he looks at one man,
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  Noah, and chooses to apply favor.
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  And this grace doesn't just secure Noah's life, it secures
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  the entire redemptive line stretching forward.
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  How does God's favor then show up in a practical way in terms
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  of rescue? It shows up immediately in the
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  provision of the ark. The judicial act of judgment is
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  met with the gracious act of provision.
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  God doesn't just forgive Noah. He commands Noah to build the
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  very structure of salvation. The judgment was sweeping, but
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  God's grace preserves A righteous remnant, and it's
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  embodied in a physical household and a literal vessel, the Ark.
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  The. Ark.
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  Therefore, it becomes this massive pattern that sets the
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  stage for the entire Gospel narrative.
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  The great theological analysis of this passage really focuses
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  on this connection. The Ark foreshadows the ultimate
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  final response to human wickedness.
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  Can we have to elaborate on this, Bob?
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  How does a physical ark built to escape floodwaters connect all
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  the way to Christ and the cross? That's a huge theological leap
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  for listeners that we need to clarify.
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  It is, and it's the ultimate deep dive moment in this
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  chapter. The convergence of God's holy
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  grief and His judicial judgment isn't resolved by God just
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  overlooking sin. It's resolved by the provision
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  of a substitute means of safety. So consider the parallels.
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  The ark was the only safe place when the waters of judgment
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  rose. Those outside the ark perished
• 19:25
  justly under the weight of God's wrath against sin.
• 19:28
  Those inside were saved not because they could swim well,
• 19:31
  but by the dimensions, the structure, and the covenant
• 19:34
  commitment of the Ark itself. Right.
• 19:36
  And the water that judged the world actually lifted the Ark to
• 19:39
  safety. Exactly.
• 19:41
  Now, in the New Testament, Christ is presented as the
• 19:44
  ultimate ark. The holy grief and judgement of
• 19:46
  God that humanity deserved didn't just bypass humanity, it
• 19:50
  converged violently upon Christ at the cross.
• 19:53
  He became the greater arc of salvation.
• 19:55
  He bore the wrath that the flood symbolized.
• 19:58
  So to be in Christ today. Is to be hidden, sheltered and
• 20:01
  united to the true Ark. The waters of judgement fall,
• 20:04
  but they don't touch those who are united to him by faith.
• 20:07
  His finished work safely carries those united to him through
• 20:10
  judgement and into a new creation, just as the physical
• 20:13
  ark carried Noah through the floodwaters to the newly
• 20:15
  cleansed earth. The key parallel is that
• 20:17
  movement from deserved death to undeserved rescue, mediated only
• 20:21
  through a divine provision. This narrative shift that but
• 20:25
  Noah found favor, it fundamentally transforms the
• 20:29
  logic of redemption itself. It establishes that salvation
• 20:32
  isn't a human possibility, it's a divine decree that shows up in
• 20:37
  physical action. It absolutely does.
• 20:39
  The nature of the rescue kills all human pride and establishes
• 20:43
  grace as the starting line. I mean, imagine the alternative
• 20:46
  story if the text read. Noah, seeing the wickedness of
• 20:50
  the world, began to work hard, and by his superior virtue
• 20:53
  earned his survival. That would be a story of human
• 20:55
  achievement. Right.
• 20:57
  But instead, the narrative says, God looked upon the universally
• 21:00
  wicked world and selected one person to favor.
• 21:03
  That is the story of sovereign grace initiating the process of
• 21:06
  salvation, ensuring that the deliverance, both historically
• 21:09
  and spiritually, belongs entirely to the Lord.
• 21:12
  The narrative continues by describing the result of that
• 21:15
  favor in verse 9. It says no.
• 21:17
  Was a righteous man blameless in his generation?
• 21:20
  Noah walked with God and the logical and theological order of
• 21:23
  verses 8:00 and 9:00 here is critical, right?
• 21:26
  It confirms what we were just discussing about sovereign
• 21:28
  initiative. The sequence is, as you say,
• 21:30
  just paramount. Moses deliberately states God's
• 21:33
  favor in verse 8 before he describes Noah's character in
• 21:36
  verse 9. And this is the necessary
• 21:39
  theological lesson drawn from the sources.
• 21:41
  Noah did not receive grace because he was righteous.
• 21:44
  Rather, His righteousness was the fruit and the evidence of
• 21:47
  having found grace. Grace comes first, godliness
• 21:50
  follows. Yes, and we have to stress this
• 21:53
  point, especially in a world that's so prone to moralism, to
• 21:56
  reverse that sequence, to imagine Noah earned grace
• 21:59
  through some intrinsic goodness that miraculously survived the
• 22:03
  universal depravity of Genesis 6.5 is to slide directly into
• 22:07
  works righteousness. And that's the exact error of
• 22:09
  the gospel is designed to overturn.
• 22:11
  The decisive difference between Noah and his contemporaries was
• 22:13
  not superior moral effort. Who's the sovereign favor of God
• 22:16
  that rested on Him? Exactly.
• 22:18
  God saved him and therefore he was able to live differently.
• 22:21
  So Noah's righteousness wasn't the cause of his rescue, but it
• 22:24
  was the consequence of his selection.
• 22:26
  What did this righteousness produced by grace actually look
• 22:30
  like in his day-to-day life? What set him apart from that
• 22:33
  pervasive atmosphere of evil? True grace is never just a legal
• 22:37
  declaration that leaves the recipient unchanged.
• 22:40
  It's active. It always produces a visible,
• 22:43
  transformed walk. Noah's character becomes the
• 22:46
  evidence of the invisible favor he found.
• 22:48
  So to be called righteous. Meant he lived in real
• 22:51
  conformity to the light God had given him.
• 22:53
  He trusted and obeyed the Lord. He wasn't perfect, but he was
• 22:57
  aligned with God's will. And blameless.
• 22:59
  Blameless speaks of integrity. This doesn't mean he was
• 23:02
  flawless, but rather that he was whole and undivided in his
• 23:05
  devotion. His life was marked by
• 23:07
  consistency and sincerity in his spiritual walk, which stood in
• 23:11
  absolute contrast to his corrupt peers whose lives were devoted
• 23:15
  to only evil continually. And then there's that simple but
• 23:18
  beautiful summary. Noah walked with God.
• 23:21
  It mirrors the walk of Enoch before him, and it signifies an
• 23:24
  ongoing habitual fellowship, an intimate relationship, and a
• 23:28
  willing submission to God's will, all in the middle of a
• 23:31
  hostile world. The sources really highlight
• 23:34
  that for Noah to maintain this walk in a world that had so
• 23:37
  thoroughly turned its back on its Maker, it shows that grace
• 23:40
  not only starts the relationship, but it also
• 23:43
  sustains the remnant in communion with God against the
• 23:46
  current of hostility. The sources refer to Noah as a
• 23:49
  chosen instrument, and the preservation of this righteous
• 23:52
  remnant extends beyond Noah the individual to his whole family.
• 23:56
  Yes. The closing verses of this
• 23:58
  section state that Noah had three sons, Shem, Ham, and
• 24:01
  Japheth. This is so much more than a
• 24:03
  simple genealogical detail. It is loaded with redemptive
• 24:06
  significance because it secures the future of God's plan.
• 24:09
  How so? Well, first in the most physical
• 24:12
  sense. Through this household, Noah,
• 24:13
  his sons and their wives, God preserved the human race itself.
• 24:17
  After that judicial blotting out, this family stood on the
• 24:20
  other side of judgement as the nucleus of a renewed world, the
• 24:24
  start of the post flood civilization.
• 24:26
  But there's more to it than just that.
• 24:27
  Much more most critically, Sovereign Grace used this family
• 24:31
  to preserve the covenant line. This line, traced specifically
• 24:35
  through Shem, was essential. It would actually lead to the
• 24:38
  call of Abraham, the establishment of Israel, and the
• 24:41
  ultimate coming of the Messiah, Christ.
• 24:43
  Noah isn't just a moral example. He's a chosen instrument, a
• 24:47
  crucial link in the chain of God's saving purpose that
• 24:50
  stretches all the way to the cross of Calvary.
• 24:52
  His preservation was never just about him.
• 24:54
  It was about securing the promise.
• 24:56
  OK, let's zoom out now and consolidate what this deep dive
• 25:00
  teaches us about the major theological doctrines that shape
• 25:03
  our faith. Let's start again with that
• 25:05
  unflinching biblical view of human nature.
• 25:08
  Doctrinal take away #1 has to be the necessity of recognizing
• 25:11
  total depravity. Genesis 6.5 just nails down the
• 25:15
  biblical diagnosis. It doesn't allow us to claim
• 25:17
  that humanity is basically good or that sin is only skin deep.
• 25:20
  The problem, as God diagnosed it, is not corrupt systems, it's
• 25:24
  corrupt hearts. And corrupt systems are just the
• 25:27
  inevitable product of corrupt hearts.
• 25:28
  That's it. This passage forces us to
• 25:30
  abandon any confidence we might place in human autonomy or our
• 25:34
  own moral ability. There is no island of neutral
• 25:37
  innocence within us from which we might, by our own internal
• 25:40
  effort, climb back to God. If Genesis 6.5 is true, we have
• 25:44
  to abandon all confidence in self improvement or moral reform
• 25:48
  or education as a way of achieving spiritual standing.
• 25:52
  We need a fundamental alteration, a divine miracle of
• 25:55
  grace that gives us the ability to turn and walk with God.
• 25:58
  That view of humanity is necessary for understanding the
• 26:01
  next great lesson. What does this passage tell us
• 26:04
  about the character of God, especially in an age that finds
• 26:06
  concepts like judgement and wrath so difficult to accept?
• 26:10
  Doctrinal take away #2 Centers on the necessity of God's
• 26:13
  holiness and wrath. This passage corrects the
• 26:15
  impulse to domesticate God. God is not the deity who is too
• 26:19
  nice ever to judge. He is the holy Lord whose heart
• 26:22
  is genuinely grieved by sin and whose perfect righteousness
• 26:24
  demands that evil not go unpunished.
• 26:27
  His actions, his regret, his grief, his judicial resolve,
• 26:31
  they all reveal that he's personally opposed to
• 26:33
  wickedness. Yes, He is not indifferent to
• 26:36
  the suffering caused by injustice or the offense of
• 26:38
  idolatry. His holy grief and judicial
• 26:41
  resolve are essential parts of His goodness.
• 26:44
  They correct any vision of God that has drifted away from the
• 26:46
  self disclosed character of the God of the Bible by minimizing
• 26:50
  His Holiness. And the implication for us today
• 26:53
  is that if we take God's holiness seriously, we have to
• 26:56
  recognize the gravity of our own sins, no matter how small they
• 26:59
  seem. Absolutely.
• 27:00
  The application here is vital. Sin is never a trivial matter.
• 27:04
  When we allow bitterness or greed or lust or pride to take
• 27:08
  root, we are participating in the same moral bent that
• 27:11
  characterized the ancient world, and these intentions provoke the
• 27:14
  grief of the living God. The flood is a historical
• 27:17
  demonstration of God's holy character in action, and that
• 27:21
  character has not and cannot change.
• 27:23
  Finally, we turn back to the light of the narrative, the
• 27:26
  great theological principle that stands against the darkness of
• 27:29
  depravity and judgement. Doctrinal take away 3 is
• 27:31
  salvation by grace alone. The central logic of Genesis 6.8
• 27:36
  is pure Gospel logic, but Noah found favor.
• 27:40
  The decisive difference between Noah and the world that was
• 27:43
  blotted out was solely God's unearned favor.
• 27:46
  Grace comes first, righteousness follows.
• 27:49
  It reinforces that sequence perfectly.
• 27:51
  Salvation is by grace alone, through faith alone, to the
• 27:54
  glory of God alone. And recognizing this truth does
• 27:58
  two things at once. It kills human pride because we
• 28:02
  can't boast in our own moral ability.
• 28:04
  And it fuels genuine gratitude for the rescue that's been
• 28:07
  provided. So if you are redeemed and
• 28:10
  walking with God today. It is because, like Noah, you
• 28:13
  were sovereignly chosen and brought into the ark.
• 28:15
  You did not climb out of the floodwaters by your own effort
• 28:17
  or your inherent goodness. And that realization should be
• 28:20
  the most liberating and humbling truth we carry forward.
• 28:23
  So let's bring this back to the listener.
• 28:24
  Jesus tells us in the New Testament that the last days
• 28:26
  will be as in the days of Noah, with people just oblivious to
• 28:29
  coming judgement, preoccupied with the normal things of life
• 28:32
  right up until disaster struck. What is the final pressing
• 28:35
  application of this deep dive into Genesis 6?
• 28:38
  The passage is ultimately a call to the Ark.
• 28:41
  Genesis 6.52 pen functions as a divine warning that God's
• 28:45
  patience, vast as it is, will not last forever.
• 28:49
  But in the same breath it announces that the ark is
• 28:51
  available. Our current age, which is often
• 28:54
  so intoxicated with technological progress and
• 28:57
  self-expression, is largely blind to the reality of divine
• 29:00
  judgement because it has forgotten the biblical diagnosis
• 29:03
  of the human heart. The practical implication is
• 29:06
  clear and urgent. We must flee to Christ in faith.
• 29:09
  He is the greater Noah, the perfectly righteous. 1 He is the
• 29:12
  person who was justly judged for sin, so that those united to him
• 29:16
  could be sheltered and carried safely through the waters of
• 29:19
  wrath into the new creation. Only union with Christ will save
• 29:21
  us. Yes, any reliance on moralism or
• 29:24
  religious formality or self reformation apart from him is
• 29:28
  just standing on the deck of the doomed world, waiting for the
• 29:30
  fountains of the deep to open. This deep dive into Genesis 6.5
• 29:34
  to 10 has taken us on quite a trip from the greatness of
• 29:38
  corruption confirmed by the all seeing verdict of God through
• 29:41
  the necessary display of holy grief and righteous judgement,
• 29:45
  and then landing firmly on the hope secured by sovereign grace
• 29:49
  that preserved A righteous remnant.
• 29:51
  And Noah's life provides the blueprint for how we are to live
• 29:54
  as true recipients of that favor, righteous and blameless,
• 29:57
  walking with God against the moral current of our age.
• 30:01
  Grace is the power to stand out from the world's pervasive self
• 30:04
  orientation, not the license to blend in with the civilization
• 30:07
  whose intentions remain oriented away from God.
• 30:10
  We've established that God's love for his own glory requires
• 30:13
  him to oppose evil decisively. So consider this.
• 30:16
  How should the knowledge that sin provokes the grief of the
• 30:19
  living God reshape your own daily view of small acts of
• 30:22
  wickedness, not just in the world's headline news, but in
• 30:24
  the most private intentions and thoughts of your own heart?
• 30:28
  That recognition alone is the start of a renewed walk with
• 30:30
  God.