In the Beginning: A Study in Genesis 1-14Sample

Does God Punish People for Their Sin?

Following the sinful fall of Adam and Eve that plummeted the entire human race and creation under the curse, their descendants simply sinned and died for 1656 years according to a literal reading of Genesis. The mention of Enoch as the only person who walked with God provides an almost entirely bleak view of human nature and history that would be hopeless if God did not sovereignly choose to start again with Noah as a second Adam through whom God would begin again His work on earth establishing a people for Himself.

After Noah was saved by God’s grace, he built the ark according to God’s instructions, and loaded his family on board with the animals as God commanded him. Just as the animals were brought to Adam, they are now brought to Noah as God sent what was likely the first rain in the history of the world. The rain continued for forty days until it covered the land drowning all of the sinners under God’s righteous judgment. The only people spared in the flood were Noah and his family because, as Genesis 6:8 stated, God gave them grace.

The size of the flood has been widely debated and the two primary answers have been a local flood limited to the general area in which Noah lived, and a universal flood covering the face of the entire planet. The point though, is that the flood was big enough. The point of the flood was to judge sinners. Since the human race had not spread out across the entire earth, the majority of the earth was not inhabited and would not be until God scattered mankind in Genesis 11. Therefore, to accomplish God’s purpose of judging all fallen sinners, the flood simply needed to be big enough to cover all of the people who lived on the earth. Subsequently, whether the flood was universal or simply covered the area in which everyone lived it was big enough to accomplish God’s purpose of putting an end to all sin and sinners except Noah and his family who were saved by grace.

After the flood subsided and God dried the ground, Noah and his family exited the ark. Then, Noah did a remarkable thing that we must be careful to note and appreciate. In Genesis 8:20 we read, “Then Noah built an altar to the Lord and took some of every clean animal and some of every clean bird and offered burnt offerings on the altar.”

After recognizing the devastation that God wrought upon the earth Noah was convicted of his own sin knowing that he too should have been killed like everyone else. This was not a command from God, but rather an act of worship out of Noah’s own heart. So, he offered a burnt offering for the atonement of his sin. God was so pleased with Noah’s offering of atonement that He responded by promising to never flood the earth again as the answer to sin would henceforth be atonement which foreshadowed the death of Jesus for sin.

Question:

What does the flood reveal about the inevitable fate of those who persist in sin without repentance? Who do you know that does not know Christ that you can be praying for and speaking with about Jesus?