Noah Before and After the Flood

As we continue tracing the development of worship, we come to the genealogies recorded in Genesis 5. These genealogies provide an important reminder: Genesis is history. It records the names of real people, their lifespans, their descendants, and their spiritual status before God. At this time, the curse on humanity was less heavy, and people lived extraordinarily long lives. Yet, even amidst these blessings, sin was at work.

Genesis 6 records a pivotal disaster. The “sons of God”—those who believed in God and sought to keep His commands—compromised their faith by marrying the beautiful but unbelieving daughters from the line of Cain. This mixing of the two lines led, as it always does, to unbelief gaining the upper hand.

Do you remember the first command given to humanity? To be fruitful, multiply, and fill the earth— with people who know and worship God. But now the earth was filled with those who hated God. The consequence of this was a world filled with violence and corruption. God, in His sovereignty, permitted this rebellion to reveal something profound about His patience, mercy, and justice. The story of Noah and the flood highlights that the heart of fallen humanity is desperately wicked. A longer lifespan only provided more time to devise evil and build communities entrenched in sin.

In response, God "repented"—not in the sense of regret over a mistake, but in the sense of changing direction regarding humanity’s future to reveal a new aspect of his glory. This leads us to Noah and the Great Flood. Jude references Enoch’s prophecy concerning Noah, and God confirmed Enoch’s faithfulness by taking him directly to Himself without experiencing death (Genesis 5:24). Enoch “walked with God,” echoing the close communion that Adam once enjoyed before the Fall.

Noah, too, understood the need for vicarious atonement. We see this in Genesis 7:2, where Noah is instructed to bring extra clean animals aboard the ark—animals set apart for sacrifice. After the flood, the first act Noah performs upon leaving the ark is an act of worship: he builds an altar and offers a sacrifice to the Lord (Genesis 8:20). God increases suffering on mankind by decreasing their lifespan, introducing eating animals, and reinstating the death penalty that has been suspended for Cain when men were so few. All of this was a call to repent but the vast majority of mankind neglected this call.

Noah’s actions demonstrate his understanding of the gravity of sin and the necessity of atonement. The flood was not merely a natural disaster but a divine judgment that swept away an unbelieving system built by those who refused to know God and keep His commands. By offering this sacrifice, Noah marked the beginning of the post-flood world with an acknowledgment of God’s justice, mercy, and holiness. Worshiping God through vicarious atonement was the foundation of this new start.