Glad you asked - the truth about Noah.

Glad you asked – the truth about Noah.

When it appears, miss-taught, in our children’s Bibles I’ve torn the pages out.

Hollywood trailers look phenomenal – I’ll certainly be in the queue.  I’m also certain the epic will miss the vital point.

Noah was NOT righteous.  Noah was NOT good.  Noah was NOT the hero.  Noah is NOT to be emulated.

Hollywood have made the same mistake we make when we read the awesome events around the Ark and the terrifying flood.  We make Noah the hero and we make Noah good.  The story is told as if there was a world of bad guys and then there was Noah – the good guy.  That if you are a good guy (and work hard for God) then God will save you.

That is not what the story actually says.  Careful reading of the Bible is important here, as it is everywhere.  Careful re-telling of the story to our children and friends even more so.

First – Noah, like everyone, grieved God

“The Lord saw how great the wickedness of the human race had become on the earth, and that every inclination of the thoughts of the human heart was only evil all the time.” (Genesis 6:5-7)

All of humanity is in the same boat – as such!  Noah included.  Even after the flood our human default remains ‘evil’.  God’s promise never to flood again is not because we are good but because he is:  “Never again will I curse the ground because of humans, even though every inclination of the human heart is evil from childhood.” (Genesis 8:21)

Noah shows his true colours immediately after the flood – Noah “drank some of its wine, he became drunk and lay uncovered inside his tent.” (Genesis 9:21)

Noah is not good.

Secondly – grace found Noah

“But Noah found favour in the eyes of the Lord.” (Genesis 6:8)

The only difference between Noah and everyone else was grace.  ‘Favour’ is the same Hebrew word as grace.  The word ‘grace’ appears first in the Bible here – to become one of the Bible’s major words.  ‘Unmerited and undeserved favour’ is a good definition of grace.  Noah was not good.  God was – and showed his goodness to underserving Noah. 

Thirdly – grace changed Noah

“Noah was a righteous man, blameless among the people of his time, and he walked faithfully with God.” (Genesis 6:9)

Grace, God’s underserved favour, is so powerful it changes Noah.  The order matters.  ‘Grace’ comes in 6:8.  Righteousness comes in 6:9.  It flows from grace.  That is always the way.  

Without grace we are nothing.  With grace we have everything. 

Fourthly – grace saved Noah

“God remembered Noah and all the wild animals and the livestock that were with him in the ark, and he sent a wind over the earth, and the waters receded.” (Genesis 8:1)

God remembered Noah.  God acts to save. 

Noah

Noah is not good. Noah is not righteous. Noah is not the hero. Noah is not to be emulated.  Noah was bad, like all of us.

God

God is good. God is righteous. God is the hero. God’s grace changes and saves us. God is to be trusted. God saves.

Jesus

We are just like Noah – undeserving.  Jesus is incomparably kind to us, as God was to Noah.

“As for you, you were dead in your transgressions and sins... All of us also lived among them at one time, gratifying the cravings of our flesh and following its desires and thoughts. Like the rest, we were by nature deserving of wrath. But because of his great love for us, God, who is rich in mercy, made us alive with Christ even when we were dead in transgressions – it is by grace you have been saved…” (Ephesians 2:1-10)

Tell the story of Noah.  Watch the blockbuster. But make sure God is good, God is righteous, and God is the hero.  Make it about God’s grace to wicked Noah, and God’s grace to wicked us.