For 40 Days – Day 3: The Clean Slate Initiative: Concepts

Key Episode Scripture: Genesis chapters 6-9

For in seven days, I will send rain on the earth for forty days and forty nights, and every living thing that I have made I will blot out from the face of the ground.” And Noah did all that the Lord had commanded him. (Genesis 7:4-5 ESVUK)

We’ve considered the context of this episode and previously reviewed the content. What happened is explained, and then there’s an understanding of what happened. We can gain an understanding by answering a few questions.

What does this episode say about God?

God rules: what happens to the earth is His prerogative. God judges: just as He did in creation, God looked at something, evaluated it, and acted on that evaluation. When He saw the wonder of creation complete, He blessed it. When He saw the creation corrupted and polluted, He purified it. His judgement is wise and just.

God is merciful: the importance of the family is seen in who is rescued and who is tasked with re-establishing the fruitful mandate given at the beginning. It’s an act of redemption on His part.

God is considerate: it’s touching how God remembers Noah after 150 days of an earth covered by water. It’s awesome to see God take in the offering given by Noah and express Himself as He does. God is presented as one who cares about His creation enough to be about blessing. He expects something from that blessing, and that’s flourishing in purity rather than violently polluting and corrupting.

God is faithful: We see what God will do to reach His design, and it says something glorious about that design and how faithful He is to it. As we will see, this has consequences for what God is looking for in His encounters with humanity. Something that goes beyond just rescuing people from death, but through covenants encouraging creation to live up to the mandate.

What does this episode tell us about humanity?

Humanity is responsible for the earth, and their tendency to corruption, violence, and wickedness has global consequences. If we think we’re any better, Jesus will inform us that conditions would be similar to when Noah was told to build the ark before the return. How Jesus describes it helps us understand how the wickedness of humanity will be prevalent and the state of normality it will have as well.

Noah is not the first righteous man in God’s sight. However, he is the first righteous man called and sent by God. He was sent with the significant responsibility of being the remnant that would renew God’s plan for humanity after the clean slate. This is the fascinating issue of what it is to walk with God. A great hallmark to note is Noah’s consistent obedience to God’s instructions.

There is also the initiative of the offering he gives to the Lord after he and his crew disembark (geddit?). That issue of giving something to the Lord, first seen in the episode of Cain and Abel, points to something special about how man interacts with God that we should learn.

Noah isn’t flawless, which is why the last episode after the ark is important to take into account.

What about the 40 days in this episode?

The idea is not to get hung up with the number more than it is to get hung up about what’s happening. We’re told that the rainfall lasts for 40 days. This indicates, along with the burst banks of the fountains that released more water, that God was clear in washing out everything that had sickened him. Intriguingly, the combination of the water from above and below brings the planet to a similar state to how God found it when He first created all things. Reaffirming the sense of a clean slate – this isn’t a simple matter to be done immediately – it is a thoroughgoing, life-eliminating experience over days.

This is not an exhaustive overview of the episode’s concepts, but it’s good to reflect on these as a basis for what follows.

Next, we’ll consider the conclusions we can reach after exploring this episode of the 40 Days.

For His Name’s Sake

C. L. J. Dryden

Shalom