Flood - The Path From Ruin to Renewal Pt. 2

Tuesday, November 3rd

Yesterday I drew your attention to the language around God and that it was about his presence with Noah more than anything else. Today I want to draw your attention to the altar and sacrifices.

Read Genesis 8:20-22- 20 Then Noah built an altar to the Lord and, taking some of all the clean animals and clean birds, he sacrificed burnt offerings on it. 21 The Lord smelled the pleasing aroma and said in his heart: “Never again will I curse the ground because of humans, even though every inclination of the human heart is evil from childhood. And never again will I destroy all living creatures, as I have done. 22 “As long as the earth endures, seedtime and harvest, cold and heat, summer and winter, day and night will never cease.”

I get it, especially in the Midwest, we don’t understand the altar and sacrifice. If you see your neighbor sacrificing a goat in their backyard, you are calling the police. But that wasn’t the case in this time and culture.

Altars and sacrifices were a very common practice, especially for pagan cultures. They would sacrifice to the sun god, rain god, sex god, warrior god, to get their attention, approval and influence.

I believe the author is meeting his audience right where they were at, because they would expect, especially after a major event like the flood, you would need to appease the gods. You would need to get the gods attention, get their approval and favor.

So even though we may not understand what is going on here, in our time and culture, for the ancient audience, this isn’t a surprise, but it will be soon.

What can we learn about this sacrifice? The phrase “burnt offerings” is the Hebrew word olah, which means “a going up offering”. It comes from the root word, alah which means “to ascend or go up”. Which means the entire offering goes before God.

Other offerings, which you see in other areas of the OT, are offerings for a different purpose and only the fat portion is given to God, the rest is either not used or is used to serve the priests.

My point is this, we see the righteous one (Noah) function as a priest, but the type of offering that Noah is giving is a full surrender offering, Noah is giving everything to God. Everything to dwell in and with His presence.

Hold that thought, because after Noah sacrifices what does God say. “Never again will I curse the ground because of humans, even though every inclination of the human heart is evil…” The flood narrative brought justice to a ruined world. But did it solve the problem?
No. After the flood, God still saw, in his omniscient vision, that the heart was still evil. The flood didn’t fix the heart of man. Which means God needs to tend to the human heart and evil in a different way. “Justice only” wouldn’t work. “Mercy only” doesn’t satisfy justice. He will need an expression of justice and mercy.

That statement comes after the sacrifice, which should give us a clue that God is tying the sacrifice of the righteous Noah to cover the wickedness of the human heart. Or let me share what Tim Mackie highlights. “Noah is one example in the larger pattern leading to the ultimate anointed one who will suffer on behalf of the wicked – a righteous one will die for the wicked and make atonement to open the way back to Eden.” God is making a way back to his created order and presence.

God is doing something different and he uses something that is very familiar to get the attention of the ancients. How have you seen God do something different in your life, by using something familiar? Can God work in new ways? Or do you expect him to always work in the ways of old? What does it mean for you to ask God to do something new in you?