Genesis 6:9–11:32: On the Flood, the Tower of Babel, and PETA's Beef with Genesis 9:3

Something I noticed while I was reading today, 6/12, and God saw the earth and behold it was corrupt. So instead of God seeing what He had made and calling it good, He looks and it's filled with corruption and then the verse just before that, 6/11. The earth wasn't filled with image bears who had multiplied and were showing the glory. God, it's filled with violence. Welcome to episode 3 of Bible Talk, it's a new podcast brought to you by Nine Marks. Nine Marks exists to equip church leaders with the biblical vision and practical resources for building healthy churches for more visit 9marks.org. My name is Alex Duke and with me is Samamadi and Jim Hamilton. Well brothers, last week we talked about Genesis 3 and through Genesis 6. We covered a lot of ground. We talked about the cherubim with the flaming sword and how it inevitably foreshadows the temple curtain tearing into it, Jesus's death. Seriously, if you didn't listen to that, you should go listen to that. It had my mouth on the floor as we were talking about that. We also talked about Cain as the seed of the serpent and Seth as the seed of the woman. We heard some truly encouraging, frankly, and surprising reflections based out of the genealogies in Genesis 5. That's right. We tried to figure out who the Nephilim and the sons of God were in Genesis 6. I'm not sure that we solved it, but we tried. And we ended on the righteousness of Noah, the one who has found favor in the eyes of the Lord. So this week, Lord Willing, we're going to go from the flood through the Tower of Babel. So the rest of Genesis 6 through the rest of Genesis 11. So I want to start with the most pressing question. What do we just agree on? Well, no. That's the second. That's the silver medal. This is the gold medal. Have you seen Darren Aeronofsky's 2014 film, Noah? You know, the one with Maximus Desimus Aurelius Russell Crowe and the one that doesn't even mention God's name one time? Same. Have you seen this movie? I've not seen that movie. But I did watch. I did watch a 1999 Hallmark mini series on Noah, starring John Voitt. And it was amazing. John Voitt. So for some reason, Lot is in this story with Noah. And he builds a dinghy, which also protects him from the flood. And Noah's Ark is attacked by pirates, and they fend off the pirates by throwing breadrolls at them. Is this an edgy tale? No, no. I'm dead serious. This is a Hallmark. What is the name of it? It's called Noah's Ark with John Voitt. I don't know. I don't know. Jim, have you seen Darren Aeronofsky's 2014 film? I have not seen that movie. I'm not a big movie watcher. And even -- What are we even doing? Yeah. Well, other things and watching movies. Well, okay. Let me just say this. You've not seen it. I have seen it. I saw it in theaters. I think the opening night. It came out the same weekend that God's not dead, too, came out. Believe it or not. So what I appreciated about that movie -- I don't see that either. Yeah, I mean either. [LAUGHTER] What I appreciated about that movie is that I think it captured the weight, the darkness, the destruction of these chapters. It's not a perfect movie. You know, it certainly takes some liberties. It has a kind of environmental message. I would even say at its core. But the movie does have gravitas. I think of a picture of the movie of people who are climbing the world. The movie of people who are climbing to the top of a rock as the flood rains are coming down. And they're trying the best they can to get to the top of the rock so that they can stay safe from the destruction. And of course, it doesn't work. And then it pans back into the boat. And you see Noah and his family safe. They're sort of in safe harbor in this boat. And they can hear the screams of thousands of people from the boat. Again, the movie has problems, but I think that it captures the weight and the destruction of these chapters. Let me ask a question. Do you think that we have lost the weight of these chapters of Scripture, Jim? I think it's easy to read the Bible and not imagine the reality that in the flood the world is being made into a massive graveyard. And it's easy to read in a kind of disconnected way. In part because the biblical authors are not writing in a modern, novelistic kind of way that does provoke our imaginations along these lines. And that's something that we have to strive against. We have to try to read our way out of our culture so that we understand the significance of the things that are being stated. Jim, you're preaching through Genesis right now. How did you preach through these chapters? I mean, I'm curious how many sermons did you devote to Genesis 6 through 9? How would you even describe the tone of the messages that you preached? I think I did one for each of the chapters. So one for six, one for seven, one for eight. But I could be misremembering that. I think that's what I did. And the tone, you know, there are some things to rejoice over in these chapters. And then obviously there are other things that are troubling. Not troubling in the sense of calling into question God's justice, but troubling in the sense that our sin is so grievous and so heinous that really what we all deserve is to be buried under the floodwaters of God's wrath. And were it not for God's mercy? It's sort of like what Isaiah says. If the Lord God had not left us a remnant, we would have been like Sodom. We would be like Gomorrah. That's a troubling thought, you know, that God created us to fill the world with His glory. Genesis 6.11 instead the earth was filled with violence and to know that we had we lived in Noah's day, we would not have done any better really. And if we think we would have, we're thinking too highly of ourselves. Jim, you mentioned that these chapters turned the world into a graveyard. But from that graveyard, I think we've mentioned before in one of the first two episodes that these chapters also function as a new creation. So in the midst of the death and the destruction, there is also rebirth. What are the hints going on in the text that we can see that this kind of new creation is what Moses wants to highlight? Yeah, I think there's two lines of thought in these chapters that we need to follow. The first one is de-creation. That's what's happening here at the end of 6 and through chapter 7. So for instance, if you look at 721 and all flesh died that moved on the earth, birds, livestock, beasts, all swarming creatures that swarm the earth and all mankind, everything on the dry land in whose nostrils was the breath of life died. He blotted out every living thing that was on the face of the ground, man and animals and creeping things and birds of the heavens they were blotted out from the earth. Now what does it sound like? That sounds like Genesis 1. But it sounds like the reverse of Genesis 1. Instead of the Lord giving life to the creatures and to the swarming things and to the birds of the sky, he's taking life from them. Instead of separating the dry land from the waters, he's causing the waters to come over the dry land. So that's one side of the story here is de-creation. There's even the repetition of the Genesis 1 language according to its kind over and over and over again. That's right. Something I noticed while I was reading today, 612, and God saw the earth and behold it was corrupt. So instead of God seeing what he had made and calling it good, he looks and it's filled with corruption and then the verse just before that, 611. The earth wasn't filled with image bears who had multiplied and were showing the glory of God. It's filled with violence. So this is the de-creation that's happening. This is the exercise of God's judgment. Creation is dying, but it's dying in order to rise again. Jim, any reflections on the kind of textual clues that what we see in these chapters is a de-creation and a new creation? Sure. You know, one of the pointers to this is the way that in back in Genesis 1, in verse 9 and following God, he said, let the waters under the heavens be gathered together into one place and let the dry land appear. Now as the windows of heaven are opened, and the floods of the wells of the springs of the great deeper opened, the waters recover the dry lands. It's an undoing of creation as Sam was saying. And then when God remembered Noah in Genesis 8 1, when it says God made a wind blow over the earth and the waters subsided, this is really similar to Genesis 1, verse 2, the spirit of God, the Ruaq Elohim, was Marahefet is hovering over the waters. And then in verse 9, of course, the waters recede and the dry land appears. So there's a lot of similarity between the creation of the dry lands, the flooding of the dry lands, and then a kind of re-creation. And then I think that these things are really also confirmed with what God says, or what is presented in Genesis 9 1, which is so similar to Genesis 1, 28, God blessed Noah and his sons and said to them, be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth. So it's like a restatement, what was spoken regarding Adam in Genesis 1, 28, with regard to Noah in Genesis 9 1. And that's the only time that that command is repeated and even in these chapters, I think it's three times. Yeah, and if I can just expand on what Jim is talking about in chapter 8, so there we have the wind blowing over the earth and the waters subsiding, that sounds a lot like day 1 of creation. Well, actually in chapter 8, if you follow this through, you will see a repeat of all at least the first six days of creation. So you have day 1 represented in that comment about the wind blowing over the earth. In verse 2, you have a mention of the sky. In verse 3 to 5, you have the mountain tops appearing out of the waters. separation of the water from the dry land, corresponding to day three, and then corresponding to day four, in verses six to twelve, you have this account of the birds, and then corresponding to day six, in verse 17 through 19, you have mentioning of the creatures that are now going out onto the land, and then you have in 816 and 18, and then also what Jim just mentioned in chapter nine, Noah and his family being given the blessing that was originally given to Adam. So this correspondence to day six there. So I think there's actually just a really intricate correspondence between the days of creation and what's happening here in chapter eight. One part that struck out to me, and I'm not a Hebrew scholar, as hopefully all my friends know, less they'd be very confused about who I am. The beginning of chapter eight, you know, we read about the destruction, and then at the beginning of chapter eight, I'm sort of assuming that Moses is assuming that his readers would know that that this water that's filling the earth is God's judgment, right? It is a sign, a true sign of his wrath coming on these people, and then at the beginning of chapter eight, you get words like the waters retreating, abating, subsiding, restrained, receding. It's like he uses all these different verbs to describe that the water is going away, and then in verse four, it says that the ark came to rest on the mountain of Ararat. Is that another clue that what has happened is now over, and then we're restarting that word rest? Could be a day seven link? My understanding of this is you have Noah introduced and described in verse nine as he was a righteous man and blameless in his generation. This is an interesting word pair, righteous and blam, I'm getting to the mountains of Ararat. This is an interesting word pair, righteous and blameless. This occurs again in Psalm 15. Listen to this as six, right? The righteous and blameless. Listen to what the Psalmist says in Psalm 15, Psalm 15, O Lord, who shall sojourn in your tent, who shall dwell on your holy hill, he who walks blamelessly, and does what is right, does righteousness. It's like Noah here is the type of man who has the qualities necessary to re-enter Eden, he's a blameless and righteous man, you know, he's maybe lame at his right, and this is the one who's going to restore creation from its curse, he's going to be a new Adam, and then when they land on Ararat, I understand this to be the region that is essentially the headwaters of the Tigris in Euphrates, which is it's almost like he's landing here in a new Eden, and then he's being re-commissioned with Adam's commission in nine one, also again in nine eight, he's being given authority over the animals, every moving thing that lives, shall be food for you. As I gave you the green plants, I gave you everything. I think landing on Ararat, seeing the rest, the location they are, the type of person that Noah is, the commission he's giving, I think that's all evidence that we're meant to see that this is Adam 2.0 as it were. And just, oh, he's pulling out his Hebrew Bible. Just to pick up some of these things, you know, the fact that the art comes to rest there, this picks up Noah's name, and all through these chapters, there are a number of word plays on Noah's name. So Noah's name is Noah in Hebrew. In Genesis 529, Lamek, his father called his name Noah saying this one, and they render it, will bring us relief, it's Nakham. So you get that noon gait, you know, the Nakham sound again with Noah. And then this kind of thing is going to echo through the chapters, these kinds of plays on the noon gait and Nakham, Noah. And so for the arc to come to rest there, it's almost an outworking of Lamek's words in Genesis 529, this one will give us relief or rest in some way. You know, it's really interesting, Alex, is this story is a great illustration of one of the major themes in the Bible, which is that God saves his people through judgment. Amen. There's a really good book on this, called God's glory and salvation through judgment. You got the title right. But what's unique? What's intriguing? I think it has a subtitle. The center of biblical theology is that the subtitle? A biblical theology. It almost had it, Alex. He almost got the title right. It never happens if people get it right. But what's really interesting about that book? This book is that the author really doesn't talk about this story. Really? Which is really odd. I think I say some leaves this as inspired. No, sure. I think I say some things about it. A sentence. Well, a little bit. Oh, see, we have a, okay, there's not necessarily a disagreement, but some, some, you know, you're leaving some attention. You can't say everything. You're leaving some. I don't know if it'll be the second edition. All right. So amidst this story, which, which, which Jim admittedly, or at least on Sam's, I've got three sermons on at least. I've got several sermons on it. I'm kidding. We'll be able to search.com. You can check them out. All right. At the beginning of this story, or throughout this story, Noah is marked by, I would characterize it as silent obedience. God says this. Noah does it. God says this. Noah does it. You see that in 622, 75, elsewhere, just God gives Noah a directive and Noah does it. At the beginning of all this at Genesis 6 for 17, Sam, would you read 6 for 17 and 18? And we're going to come across an important word, which we have not even discussed. And I think we should. For behold, I will bring a flood of waters upon the earth to destroy all flesh in which is the breath of life under heaven. Everything that is on the earth shall die. But I will establish my covenant with you, and you shall come into the ark, you, your sons, your wife, and your sons' wives with you. So I know that our subtitles and our Bibles are not inspired. But the subtitle in my Bible says, when you get to 820, God's covenant with Noah picks up this covenant idea again. And we see all sorts of things going on. So Sam, help us understand, help the reader understand what is going on at the beginning of Genesis 6 and how is it then picked back up for the end of this story in Genesis 8 and 9? Well, I think the Lord here is the language that's being used establish a covenant. I think indicates that there's already a preexisting covenant that the Lord has made with Adam, and that the Lord here is making firm that covenant, which is why we see all these relationships between Noah. And a covenant is just to find it a biblical understanding of covenant quickly. A really simple definition would be something like a special set of promises that define a relationship between two people. Do you be okay with that, Jim? Sure. And I think that with that also comes privileges and responsibilities. That's right. And I think that there are various ways in which the covenant with Yahweh is connected to the covenant of marriage between the first man and woman so that there are marital overtones to these covenants as well. So I think what the Lord is doing here with Noah is restating what he's already told Adam, which is why you have all these similarities of commission and the similarities between Noah and Adam. Then between 6 and 9, what you have are the floodwaters of judgment. And the waters of judgment, the flood becomes a prototype for how the rest of the Bible is going to talk about judgment. So for instance, you can look at Isaiah 8, and you'll see there that the army of Assyria is described as a flood coming over the people of Israel. We find similar statements in the Psalms, that Psalm 124, or you can look at the Exodus, where again the Lord uses water to judge the nation of Egypt. So you have God's judgment, his wrath, being poured out on mankind, and then look at what Noah does in verse 20. Chapter 8. Excuse me, yet chapter 8 verse 20. 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. And when the Lord smelled the pleasing aroma, the Lord said in his heart, "I will never again curse the ground because of man, for the intention of man's heart is evil from his youth." So Noah here is acting like a priest, like Adam, he's a priest king. And he offers this sacrifice to the Lord, which the Lord receives, and it's this sacrifice that turns away the Lord's wrath from judging creation. It's like this sacrifice is a propitutory sacrifice. Propitutory, don't know what that means. It means it's a sacrifice that takes away wrath. So then you get into chapter 9, where the Lord, you know, tells Noah to be fruitful, multiply, fill the earth, he recommissions him according to the commission of Adam. It's like the new creation is founded on this wrath-bearing sacrifice that Noah has offered for creation. Jim, anything to add about covenant, the idea of covenants, and particularly the one that the Lord has with Noah. Yes, you know, it seems to me that though I think that I think we're saying was going a moment ago, and I think we would agree on this, though the word covenant is not used in Genesis 1 through 3, and though a phrase like Karat Barit to cut a covenant does not appear there, the language of establishing the covenant, Hakeem Barit, to cause the covenant or the terms of the covenant to stand, that language seems to assume an existing covenant, and I would understand what God says to Noah, particularly in 9/1 and following God bless Noah and his sons and said to them, be fruitful and multiply, to be the Lord establishing the terms of the covenant that he made with Adam and continuing in that project through Noah, so that in many ways Noah is in this original covenant with God that entails him being responsible to fill the earth with God's image bearers and carry forward God's program that he set out to achieve with Adam. So we get to the after the flood in the beginning of Genesis chapter 9, and we have this changing of the guard where the Lord suddenly says, "All right, I'm giving you everything to eat. You can eat meat." How are we to understand both the Lord's new command, Jim, to do that? And then also the verses 9, 4 through 5, where some people would say they are sort of establishing a sin restraining or an evil restraining government. Well, You know, interesting, I think again, in addition to the verses that Sam just read in 8/20, particularly 21, the references to the clean and unclean animals and the pleasing aroma. And then with this prohibition on eating blood, it seems to me that here again Moses is assuming information that he's going to clarify later in the book of Leviticus. So in Leviticus 17, Moses is going to outline how the Lord, the life of the body is in the blood, and the Lord has given that for a sacrifice upon the altar. And that seems to inform why Israel is not to eat it, and all of the clean and unclean stuff will be laid out in detail in Leviticus, and the pleasing aromas will be referenced over and over again in Leviticus. You know, it's interesting. The Lord says you can eat meat. And then he does seem to institute human government, and government seems to have the responsibility to, I think, restrain evil and promote goodness. But it's particularly with reference to capital punishment. And we now have governments that refuse to exercise this responsibility, which God has given to them. And then they try to engage in responsibilities that God did not give to them, like trying to keep people from eating meat and this sort of thing. You can totally cut this if you don't like this. Sam, would you two like to go on a screen against Peter? I'll just note, I'm glad you're bringing out Jim. We want the full Jim Hamilton experience on this podcast. I'll just note. Government doesn't want to do what God told it to do, but it does want to do what God does not allow it to do. Government. I'll just note the interesting contrast here between the first time we have mentioned of the image of God in Genesis 1, where the Lord is, you could describe it as singing over his people in this poem in Genesis 1, 27. So God created man in his own image and the image of God created them, male and female. He created them. And then here in 9, 6, you have another poem about the image of God. But this isn't so much a celebration as it is using the fact that we are made in God's image as the grounds upon which governments should restrain evil. So you see just how corrupt and the world has become and how far sin has taken us. It could be argued that this is prohibition in 9, 6 is merciful of the Lord. I mean, you've got Lamek, not Noah's dad, but the other Lamek who's trying to do not that. He wants his vengeance to be 77 fold. And so I think this is a good example of the Lord's mercy. And I, for an eye, is not just like, oh my gosh, how barbaric is that principle? I don't think that's what's going on. There's comfort for us here, too, in that, you know, 9, 5 says, for your life, blood, I will require a reckoning. So even if people escape justice in this life, the Lord is going to do justice. And then it seems to me that in 9, 6, when he says, whoever sheds the blood of man, by man shall his blood be shed, having just said in 9, 5, I will require a reckoning. And then restating it, I will require it. And then, again, from his fellow man, I will require a reckoning. It seems to me that for people to do justice, particularly against murderers, is godly. And it's, it's enacting God's own character in, as Sam said, upholding the dignity of the image-bearer. Now, the tricky part, of course, in applying that is we're not going to do it perfectly. So the, you know, we're not going to always pursue justice against the correct perpetrators. Right. I don't want to do that, but I think that there are principles laid out in the book of Deuteronomy that have given rise to concerns in our culture for things like due process, and things like establishing guilt and, and determining what happened. And, and not just coming to a snap conclusion where you have this sort of mob violence that pursues this kind of vengeful murder for murder kind of thing, but, but rather, adjust and, and measured and warranted execution. Have you seen the movie Just Mercy? That's good. I know you don't love movies, but- It's not that I don't love them, I just don't get to them. Yeah, it's a good, it's a good, I think, good, distinctly even Christian exploration of everything from death row and the kinds of things we're talking about. When you were talking about government being a mercy, the, the type of regulation the Lord, the Lord puts in here to restrain evil, the New Testament corollary that immediately comes to mind as 1 Timothy 2, where Paul says, "I urge them that supplications, prayers, intercessions and thanks-givings be made for all people, for kings and all who are in high positions. Well why?" So that we can lead a peaceful and quiet life, godly and dignified in every way. This, this type of restraining arm you might say of the government is, is what allows for there to be order in a fallen world, it, it, it keeps human sinfulness in check. So racing to the end of Noah's life at least, the, the text does zoom a little bit farther in on his descendants and, and you have this incident between Noah and his sons. And honestly, upon reading it, I don't really understand what did Ham do wrong, Sam? Well, let's just get the context and figure out what's going on. So 920, Noah began to be a man of the soil and he planted a vineyard. He drank of the wine and became drunk and lay uncovered in his tent and ham the father of Canaan saw the nakedness of his father and told his two brothers outside. Then, Sam and Japheth took a garment and laid it on both of their shoulders and walked backward and covered the nakedness of their father. And then following this, you have Noah cursing Canaan, the son of Ham and blessing his two other brothers. So when you look at all the elements of this, well, I mean, let's just list them out. You have a vineyard, which sounds like a garden, and then you have Noah sinning by taking the fruit of the vine, and then you have nakedness and you have shame and you have covering and you have curses and blessings. What does this sound like? This sounds like Genesis 3. This sounds like a repeat of the fall narrative. And so I think what you have here is a new creation, new creation, you know, this righteous man, Noah, who's new Adam, who's been commissioned by God with the Adamic commission, who's been given a covenant. New fall. New fall. He failed to do it. I'm in the whole thing. I have the only time that Noah speaks. He doesn't say anything about this whole thing, except for a song about his sons. You know, when I was in college, I made it my ambition to read through the entire commentary by Matthew Henry. And I didn't make it all the way through, I think of college experience. I got to the New Testament, but I'll never forget the line he used in describing this. Noah, who for so long was righteous and drunken company, is now drunken and righteous opening. That's good. You know, what it is that ham is doing, you know, so some people will say he's mocking his father. Other people will say that he's doing something perverted to his father because his father's naked. I don't know if there's something kind of in the subtext here, Jim, do you have an opinion on this? Yes, I do. So a couple of things, you know, the phrases that are used here that people appeal to maybe a sexual assault because of the way that it's described that ham saw the nakedness of his father and that expression saw the nakedness of is used in later texts when it's, for instance, the Israelites are threatened by enemy armies who are going to conquer them. And then they're going to see the nakedness of the women. But the difference is that in those contexts, it's always a heterosexual transgression or exposure that is being described. So it's not a homosexual situation as we would have here. When we have same-sex transgressions described, they are not described in these terms. So they are outlined and prohibited in the book of Leviticus. And the terms used there are not the terms used here. And then the remedy that Shem and Japheth engage in involves them not looking. So they turn their faces away and this seems to imply that the problem in what ham has done is in the way that he has dishonored his father. He has looked upon his father's nakedness and his brother's remedy that by not looking and by turning themselves away and covering their father. And ham rather than covering, he went, he goes outside and tells his two brothers. So it seems to me that what is the root issue here, it's an honor, shame thing, not a sexual assault thing. And that ham is not honoring his father. He's dishonoring his father. He's exposing his father and then he's telling others about the exposure. And then Shem and Japheth are doing the opposite of this, they're covering their father, they're not looking on his shame. And so I think it's reinforcing the idea of honoring your father and mother. So it says after the flood Noah lived 350 years, all the days of Noah were 950 years and he died. Tying Noah's account in with the genealogy of Genesis 5. And then we get another genealogy, Sam, what's the function of Genesis 10 and how does it segue into the story of the Tower of Babel and Genesis 11? Yeah, so we've already noticed a genealogy in chapter 5. That genealogy is what scholars call a linear genealogy. Most commentators will refer to it in that way. Because it basically goes father to son, father to son, it just traces one line of descent. This genealogy, however, is commonly referred to as the table of nations is a segmented genealogy. So you have a father and then all his sons listed and then all their sons listed, right? So it's not just a line of descent, it's a family treat. But I think that one of the things that we're meant to see in this chapter is that these are the nations that Abraham, who's going to be introduced to chapters later, that his family is going to bless, right? So this is now the created world. These are the nations of the earth. And the Lord is at the end of this genealogy going to identify Shem and then from Shem's line comes Abraham. and then through that line, all the nations of the earth are going to be blessed. So Israel's creation, God's promise to Abraham, is not just for the nation of Israel. It's being put in this global context where we're seeing that the blessing that's given to Abraham, the blessing that's going to go out from Abraham, is going to fulfill God's purposes for all creation that he established with Adam, which is basically to see every land and every nation blessed, where on every square inch of the earth you have image bears who are reflecting the glory of God. And the sons of Ham are sort of the, you know, the usual suspects, right? Egypt and-- - Babel, Babylon, and-- - Babel, Shiner, - He got a miracle from whom the Philistines came. So those are the bad guys. - That's right, see the serpent. Jim, explain to us the tower of Babel. We don't have a lot of time. So why is this where I assume most people would agree that Jesus 1 to 11 is kind of like the prologue of human history, the prologue of the book, and this is the way that it ends. Why is this a proper place to end the prologue of Genesis? - Well, I think that when the Lord wants His image bearers to be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth, He wants them to fill the world with His glory. And instead of doing that, these rebels are trying to build for themselves a city and a tower to make a name for themselves, lest they be dispersed over the face of the whole earth. So they're explicitly rejecting God's purpose of filling the earth with His glory and instead gathering together to build this structure for their own name, for their own glory. And it seems that they want to build this tower into heaven. It's probably an ancient Near Eastern ziggurat by which they mean to access the realm of the gods. So they're trying to climb their own way into heaven and make their own name great. It's like they're running head on to God's purposes, rejecting God's purposes and trying to go the other direction. - And Moses sort of takes out his sarcasm pin. - That's right. - I mean, the text, it doesn't take a PhD or an emative to see the sarcasm there. You know, or he says, "The Lord came down to see what they were doing." That's right. Disperses them in all the rest, saying anything to add. - Yeah, they're trying to build a tower up to heaven. And the Lord has to come down to see the tower. I think what's intriguing about this passage is the way that it mirrors what we already saw happen in chapter four. And in that chapter, Cain's line of descent. And if you remember, when Cain is exiled, he builds a city. And he names the city after his son. He's trying to make a name for himself and for his family. And here you have these people building a city, building this tower in order to make a name for themselves. And I think what's intriguing is we've already had, you know, Eden, which is on the Garden of Eden, which is on a mountain, and then Moses, excuse me, Noah landing on Mount Erarat, which I think we're supposed to see as a new Eden. What are these people building? They're building a ziggurat. They're building a mountain, right? They're trying to access the presence of God. We're going to build this tower up into heaven. This is like an anti-Eden, or it's like an anti-Sionae where the Lord reveals himself to the 70 elders of Israel on Mount Sinai. Yeah, this is the height of human wickedness. - So through 11 chapters, we've seen that every inclination of the human heart is evil. You see here in Genesis 11 in particular that man is using his creative capacities to kind of wag their finger at the Lord, and they are now dispersed, divided, and confused. How is Jesus the answer to every problem that the first 11 chapters of this Bible has introduced to us? - Well, in promising, we're about to see the Lord promise to Abraham land seed and blessing. And so Jesus will be the seed of the woman who comes through the line of Abraham, and thereby, as the seed of the woman, he is going to be the one who's going to crush the serpent's head and defeat the one who brought evil into the world. And also, as the seed of the woman, the relational difficulty between the man and the woman introduced in Genesis 3.16 is going to be overcome by Abraham and Sarah as they eventually have Isaac and as those in the line of descent continue to reproduce in spite of all of the challenges and difficulties to that. And then Jesus is going to be the one who's going to defeat the serpent and bless all the nations of the earth and make it so that God's people can re-enter a realm where there will be no flood waters to destroy all living things. So all the problems introduced in Genesis 3, 15, 14 through 19 problems between the seed of the woman, seed of the serpent, problems between man and woman, problems between man and the land, those are all going to be resolved through the work of Christ. There are so many problems in Genesis 1 to 11, and I think the New Testament unpacks each individual problem and shows how Jesus resolves it. I'll just highlight that what we see is Adam is a priest king, but he fails to carry out that commission, so he's exiled from God's presence. Noah is given that same commission, and he too fails. And where does the story end up? Well, it ends up in Babel. Later on, you have the people of Israel who are priest kings before the Lord, but they rebel against the Lord. They don't carry out that commission faithfully. And where does Israel's story end? In Babel on. In Babel. Israel is no better than Noah and Adam. They both end up in the same place. Israel is supposed to be the new humanity, but it ends up in the exact same place as the old humanity. So we need a faithful priest king. We need someone who even better than Noah is righteous and blameless completely, and someone who can lead us back into God's presence. And that's what Jesus does for us, because that's what Paul says in places like Romans 5 and 1 Corinthians 15 when he calls Jesus the new Adam. And thinking of the Tower of Babel for a second, my mind is drawn to Acts chapter 2, where it seems like the inverse of Babel happens through the work of the Holy Spirit. That's right. Because we saw in Genesis 3 and 4 that sin caused a rift in the relationship between God and man, and it caused a rift in the relationship between man and man. And Jesus comes to solve both of those problems to reconcile us to God, but then also to reconcile us to one another. And then we see that beautifully displayed in Pentecost, which is an anti Babel, where you have all the languages of the earth represented there and coming to faith in the Lord Jesus. Anything dead? Amen. That's a wonderful place to end. Friends, thanks for listening. And remember, Psalm 111, verse 2, "Great are the works of the Lord, studied by all who delight in them." Here we are for a few rapid questions to help us understand some things that want to immediately in the text, but are kind of connected to it. So in the new testament, you have the Apostle Peter in 1 Peter chapter 3, verses 18 to 22, "Make an appeal to the flood." And frankly, it's a complicated passage. Jim, could you read 1 Peter 3, 18 to 22, and help us understand it? Sure. For Christ also suffered, once for sins, the righteous, for the unrighteous, that he might bring us to God, being put to death in the flesh, but made alive in the Spirit so far so good. I think in the next verse, in verse 19, I'm commenting as we go. I hope that's okay. When it says in which he went and proclaimed to the spirits in prison, I think this is saying that when he was dead in the body between Friday and Sunday, he proclaimed his victory over these spirits who sinned in the days of Noah. And then it goes on to say, because they formerly did not obey when God's patients waited in the days of Noah. So because of their sin, I think with the daughters of men in Genesis 6, these spirits were imprisoned. And then Peter goes on to say, "When God's patients waited in the days of Noah, while the ark was being prepared, in which a few that is eight persons were brought safely through water, baptism, which corresponds to this, the bringing of those eight people safely through water, now saves you not as a removal of dirt from the body, but as an appeal to God for a good conscience through the resurrection of Jesus, who has gone into heaven and is at the right hand of God with angels, authorities, and powers having been subjected to him." Okay, so the first thing I just want to note is that baptism is not a washing away of dirt, but it's an appeal to God for a good good conscience. And I think for that, you have to have faith. You have to be crying out to the Lord to save you. So I think this would indicate that only those who believe should be baptized. This is nine marks. Amen. Baptists, there we go. It's right. Technically, we're not, but nine marks is not technically baptized. It's not one of the nine marks. Believers baptism. We do. It might as well be published with B&H and Crossway. And you hear this. There are just the nine marks, which is the PC version. Okay. But then if you add baptism theology on top of that, that's the MacBook Pro version. Okay. Nice. So why does Peter say that baptism corresponds to the flood? So as Sam indicated, I think that the flood comes to be a sort of archetypal image of the visitation of God's wrath. And as Sam said, the covenant wrath of God against his people can be depicted as, as waters, even though we're talking about human armies, whether it's Assyria in Isaiah 8 or the peoples who rose up against Israel in Psalm 124 or other places. And then Jesus says, I have a baptism to undergo, you know, in Mark 10, his disciples, they want to sit on the right hand on the left. And he says, can you drink the cup that I have to drink, which is the cup of God's wrath? Can you undergo the baptism that I'm facing? And he's talking about the cross. And it seems to me that what Jesus is saying is, I am going to be submerged in the flood waters of God. wrath against the sin of God's people so that the God's covenant wrath is going to fall on Christ. And when we place our faith in Christ, we're united to Him by faith. And then when we are put under the waters of baptism, we are symbolically united with Him in His death and resurrection so that we are submerged in the flood waters of God's wrath by faith with Christ, by virtue of our union with Christ, so that those who have believed in Him and been baptized in His name, they have entered into His experience on their behalf of the flood waters of God's wrath and no wrath remains for them. That's what I think. That's the connection I think Peter is drawing. Sam, let's say you're in an evangelistic conversation and someone says, "I thought Christians believe God is love, but you also believe that God killed every person He made except for eight in a flood. How can you believe those two things? They're contradictory." Well, they're only contradictory if you believe love only affirms all the time no matter what the context and no matter what's happening. I don't think even though people articulate that and they kind of live in light of that, I don't think people really believe that deep down. All of us want to live in a moral universe. All of us want to live where there is both love and justice. And when you look at the description of the violence and the sin that's happening in these early chapters of Genesis, you can't but walk away and think, "Man, the Lord needs to judge this because the world is wicked and these people are wicked and they're committing atrocities. We want justice because we know that it's not a contradiction of love." So, you know, I don't think there's any contradiction there and I think passages like this can be really profound in sharing the gospel because it shows that God cares about justice in the way that we care about justice. But it also shows that the biggest issue of injustices in the world is that we don't give God the worship that he deserves. We don't value God in the way that he ought to be valued. And when we come to that place, and I think only the Holy Spirit can bring us to that place, then we recognize God's justice in killing everybody on the planet. And, you know, as R.C. Sproul owes you to say about the account of us touching the ark and the Lord killing him. The question that you ought to ask in reading that passage is not, "Why would the Lord do that?" The question you ought to ask is, "How am I still breathing?" Amen. Thanks for that.