The Flood: Was God Angry?
Posted January 5, 2020 by Pastor Shep
January 4 was Day 2 of our Bible reading plan – and we came to one of the most well-known stories in the whole Bible: Noah’s Ark.
What do you think God‘s emotion was when he judged the earth in Genesis 6-9 with a flood?
What is your emotion when someone sins against you? My typical response is anger. I usually snap and I’m enraged that they would consider hurting me and getting in my way.
And yet, perhaps to your surprise, that’s not what you find with God. Genesis 6:6 says that God was “deeply troubled.” In other words, he was sad or grieved – but not angry.
Why? Because the human beings he had made in his image, designed to reflect his glory and enjoy his presence and his gifts forever have rejected him, turned away and were recklessly destroying one another and the world that God gave them.
God is like the ultimate host, inviting humanity into the greatest party ever known – life with him. But humanity refuses to come in, preferring to stay alone outside, sulking in the dark. God is “deeply troubled” or grieved because he knows that there is no such thing as real life outside of a relationship with him, only death. But in the flood, God gives humanity over to their sin (Rom 1:24) and the results of their rejection of the source of life.
Yet throughout the whole story, we see God’s grace and kindness to these fallen image bearers. In the flood, there is judgement… but also mercy. God did not totally destroy all he created, but saved all who were hidden inside a carefully constructed, floating box of wood; Noah, his family and some of the animals.
As followers of Christ, we cannot help but see the ark as a foreshadow of Christ, who was hung on another man-made contraption of wood, this one designed to bring death, not life. At the cross, judgment and mercy meet like a kiss (Ps 85:10), where Jesus left the party to received the consequences for our sin and showed us mercy, instead of judgment.
Here’s the invitation of the flood story: Enter Christ, the ark, turn from our rebellion against God and enter the party of life with him.
