A New Order Concerning The Beasts. Series

November 5, 2013

Commentary on the Book of Genesis

By: Tom Lowe

Lesson I.D.4: A New Order Concerning the Beasts. (Gen. 7.1-5)

Introduction

Have you ever noticed that the book of Genesis is attacked more than any other book of the Bible by those who hate God and the Christian religion? They call it a collection of fairy tales, stories that only the weak minded could believe. I am glad when I hear of articles by men who are defending this book. Why, though, do men attack God’s record of Noah and the Flood? It is because if they can get you to doubt any part of it, you may question the truth of the rest of God’s Word. Well, I believe it is all true, every word from Genesis 1.1 to Revelation 22.21. I accept it by faith, and because it is backed up by the historical record, by geology, by archeology, and by personal experience. Noah was a man who “lived by faith,” and that is how I want to live my life too.

Commentary

1 And the LORD said unto Noah, Come thou and all thy house into the ark; for thee have I seen righteous before me in this generation.

2 Of every clean beast thou shalt take to thee by sevens, the male and his female: and of beasts that are not clean by two, the male and his female.

3 Of fowls also of the air by sevens, the male and the female; to keep seed alive upon the face of all the earth.

4 For yet seven days, and I will cause it to rain upon the earth forty days and forty nights; and every living substance that I have made will I destroy from off the face of the earth.

5 And Noah did according unto all that the LORD commanded him.

“Do not be like the horse or the mule,” God councils in Psalm 32.9, and Noah obeyed that council. The horse sometimes wants to rush ahead impetuously; and the mule wants to drag its feet and stay back; but Noah walked with God and worked for God and let God arrange the schedule.

Noah has not yet gone into the ark to await the rain. I am not sure he even knew what rain was since it had never rained on earth before. Noah did not go into the ark until God told him to do so though he knew it was to be his place of refuge. It took one hundred and twenty years for Noah to build the arc and all during that time he had been warning his neighbors of the pending catastrophe, but they didn’t listen; instead they laughed at this man who built a boat on dry ground.

Then “the LORD said unto Noah, Come thou and all thy house into the ark.” The Lord’s invitation to Noah was very kind, like that of a loving father to his children to come indoors when he sees night or a storm coming. It is very comforting to us when we see God going before us in every step we take, and I am sure the Lord checked out the ark before He demanded Noah to bring his family inside. Noah had taken a great deal of pains in building the ark and now he would be kept alive in it. What we do in obedience to the command of God, and in faith, we can certainly receive comfort from either before or after. This invitation to Noah is reminiscent of the invitation Jesus makes to poor sinners[TL1] : “Come unto me, all ye that labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest” (Matthew 11.28). Christ is an ark in whom alone we can be safe when death or the final judgment approaches. The Word says “Come,” the minister says, “Come,” and the Spirit says “Come, come into the ark!”

Since the rains started on the seventeenth day of the second month (Gen. 7.11), it was on the tenth day of the second month that Noah and his family went into the ark according to God’s Instructions (v.1). During that final week before the Flood, they finished gathering the animals into the ark and putting away their supplies. They followed the Lord’s instructions, trusted His covenant promise, and knew that there was nothing to fear.

Noah was considered righteous, not because of his own righteousness, but because he was an heir of the righteousness that comes by faith: “By faith Noah, being warned of God of things not seen as yet, moved with fear, prepared an ark to the saving of his house; by the which he condemned the world, and became heir of the righteousness which is by faith” (Heb. 11.7). He believed the promise of a Savior which he had received by revelation, and he sought and expected salvation through Him alone. Therefore, he was justified by faith, and received the Holy Spirit whose fruit is goodness; “but if any man have not the Spirit of Christ, he is none of His.”