There's Noahthing You Can do about it

“For it is by grace you have been saved, through faith—and this is not from yourselves, it is the gift of God— not by works, so that no one can boast.” I remember hearing my preacher’s sermon on this verse when I had just come to faith in a small rural baptist church. The sermon was about salvation “by faith alone”. It was only by our faith that we are saved, and nothing else. There is nothing we can do to earn our salvation, my preacher said. It is only by faith that we are saved!

There's a land that I've heard of once in a lullaby.

Somewhere over the rainbow, skies are blue

And the dreams that you dare to dream,

Now, at the time, I thought this was great news. All I had to do was say a special prayer, and I’d be on my way to heaven. As I got older, however, I really began to question this. Isn’t my faith a kind of work? Some days, it certainly seems like having faith takes work. And what if I have days where I’m not so sure about my faith? If I die on one of those days, am I not saved? And the bigger question I had was, “what does it really mean to have faith to begin with?”

Really do come true.”

I heard Dorothy sing this song in the Wizard of Oz when I was just a little boy.

Noah’s Faithfulness

Consider the faithfulness of Noah. Noah was truly an exemplar of faith. In the midst of a dark and sinful world, Noah was a beacon of light. He found favor in the eyes of the LORD. Noah was a righteous man, blameless in his generation; Noah walked with God. His faith, however, was not some abstract mental assent to an idea. It wasn’t a short and sweet prayer to God, followed by a ticket to heaven!

For Noah, faith was something to be lived out. Noah’s faith was his “walking with God”, an action. Noah’s faith was building the ark, which was, I’m sure , quite a lot of work! Noah’s faith was building an altar, offering sacrifices, and worshipping God because of his salvation through the flood. Faith, for Noah, was more than a prayer. It was more than mere belief, it was a life lived leaning on the promises and character of God. Faith and works were one and the same, there was no distinction. To build the ark was an act of faith, to build the altar and offer sacrifices upon it was Noah working out his faith.

And, coming off of the Ark, Noah once again exhibited faith in God. The first thing Noah did when coming off of the ark was to build an offer and make sacrifices to God. And scripture says that, because of Noah’s faithfulness, because of his act of worship, because of Noah’s great faith, God will never again send a flood on the earth.

So, what are we to conclude about faith from Noah? For one, I think we can toss the faith/works dichotomy right out the window. There is no such distinction to be made. Faith and work go hand in hand. To be faithful is to build the ark, to build an altar, to offer sacrifice, to worship, to walk with God.

Was it then, on the basis of Noah’s faith in action that he was saved?

And so scripture says Noah has been faithful to the LORD, and because of that faith, God saved Noah.

Move B:

God’s response of Grace

God’s Response of Grace

But is it Noah’s faith that becomes the basis of his salvation? In other words, is Noah “saved by faith alone?”

The story would seem to say no. As the pleasing aroma of Noah’s burnt offerings rise up to the LORD, God proclaims, “I will never again curse the ground because of humankind, for the inclination of the human heart is evil from youth...” The reason, God says, that He will not curse the ground once more is not because of Noah’s faith, but because humans are evil.

How does this make sense? Why is that a good reason to save and preserve humanity? The plain and simple answer is: it’s not! This passage is pointing us on to a greater reality about God’s salvation. This gracious response to Noah’s sacrifice is not at all based on human actions, but on the character of God. Indeed, even at the beginning of Noah’s story, it was not by his faith that he was saved, but because “Noah found favor in the eyes of the LORD.” That word, favor, in Hebrew is hen (chaen), and it is also often translated “grace”. Noah found grace in God. It was by that grace that God provided a way of salvation for Noah through the flood. And it was by the grace and mercy of God that, though the human heart is evil, God vowed never again to judge the world as he had done. Noah was saved by grace alone, not faith. It was through Noah’s faith, but by God’s grace. Noah’s faithful participation with God was the means by which God’s grace was poured out into the world. Through faith, but not because of it. Noah was saved quite simply because God is gracious, he is loving, he cares for his creation. His heart was grieved by the world’s sinful brokenness, and by his grace he longed to save it. That grace was then poured out through the faithful action of Noah, and made real and available for all.

Covenant God’s Response of Covenant

Move C:

Covenant and New Creation

And so by God’s grace and through Noah’s faith, the world was offered a second chance at life. In Chapter 9, it is as if the world is being made new all over again. The themes and words of Genesis one and two are repeated. The waters receded and dry land appeared. “God blessed Noah… Be fruitful and Multiply, and fill the earth…” Just as in Eden God set the parameters for his creation, instructing Adam and Eve “you may eat from all the trees of the garden, but not the tree of the knowledge of good and evil,” so now God says to Noah and his sons, “Every moving thing that lives shall be food for you; and just as I gave you the green plants, I give you everything. Only, you shall not eat flesh with its life, that is, its blood.” Permission and Prohibition are set as God makes creation new once more.

But not totally new. The effects of sin can still be seen in this renewed creation. The waters receded and dry land appeared, but Noah is by no means back in paradise. Whereas Adam and Eve had a relationship of peaceful rule over the animals, now “The fear and dread of you will rest on every animal of the earth...” Whereas death was once alien to creation, now humans must kill to eat, and death is recognized as an inevitable part of this new world.

The creation is made new again, but only partially so. Things are not at all what they were meant to be. But that is not all that has changed. The relationship between God and Mankind has also changed. God has set his bow in the clouds (‘bow’ as in ‘bow and arrow’) to signal that he will no longer wage total war and destruction against the world he has made. God dedicates himself to finding a new way of fixing his good creation.

God’s Response of Covenant

New Covenant and New Heavens and Earth

And fixing creation is what God is all about. The story of the Bible begins in the Garden of Eden where God rests in full unity in his creation, and it ends in Revelation with Heaven coming down to reunite with earth, with a New Heaven and New Earth. This new creation comes after God establishes a new covenant whose sign is not his bow in the sky, but his only Son on a cross. The New covenant is an invitation to place our faith in that sign, and in so doing to participate in the work of God. Like in the Noahic covenant, however, it is God who picks up most of the slack. It is God who makes the promise of life to those who enter into the covenant with him.

God’s Grace through Christ

Christ as the new faithful Noah

And, just as this first covenant was given by the grace of God and through one man’s faith, so too is the New Covenant. It is because of God’s gracious love and through the faithfulness of Christ, even unto death, that the New Covenant is opened up for all.

Through Noah’s faith, all of humanity was given the prospect of life. God’s grace, made active in Noah’s faith, carried all of humanity through the flood waters on the ark. 1 Peter says this:

And baptism, which this [the flood] prefigured, 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 Christ, who has gone into heaven and is at the right hand of God, with angels, authorities, and powers made subject to him.

By God’s grace, through our faith and baptism, we are joined to Christ to share in his victory over death. The Noahic promise was a promise of life for all of humanity by the sheer grace of God. The New Covenant, however, is a promise of eternal life made possible by God’s grace and made active through faith.

God’s Grace Through the faithful Christ

Sharing in Christ’s Faith

So my old pastor was a little off base. Maybe if he’d read Ephesians a little closer, he would have picked up on this.

God’s New Covenant

“For it is by grace you have been saved, through faith—and this is not from yourselves, it is the gift of God— not by works, so that no one can boast.”

“it is by grace you have been saved, through faith—and this is not from yourselves, it is the gift of God— 9 not by works, so that no one can boast.”

It is by God’s grace and goodwill that we are saved. The Greek here translated as “you have been saved”, is the word σεσῳσμένοι. It is a Perfect Passive Participle. Perfect means that it is something that’s already happened, but that lasts until the future. God’s salvation happened on the cross, it is done, we only have to enjoy its effects. σεσῳσμένοι is Passive, which means that it is not something we do , but something we recieve. Salvation belongs to the LORD, God alone can save and no other. Our salvation comes from the LORD, not from ourselves.

Salvation is the free gift of God. It is by grace that you have been saved. In Greek, this phrase “have been saved” is σεσῳσμένοι. It is a Perfect Passive Participle (say that three times fast). Perfect means that it has something that has already been done. It’s already been accomplished, you don’t have to do it, because God by grace has already done it. It is passive, which means that it doesn’t depend on anything you do. There’s noahthing you can do about it, God is the one who saves.

Just as in Noah’s day, salvation is by grace alone. But that salvation comes through our faith. Salvation is a free Gift from God, it is something he has done for us, out of his deep love for us.

There, peeping among the cloud-wrack above a dark tor high up in the mountains, Sam saw a white star twinkle for a while. The beauty of it smote his heart, as he looked up out of the forsaken land, and hope returned to him. For like a shaft, clear and cold, the thought pierced him that in the end the Shadow was only a small and passing thing: there was light and high beauty for ever beyond its reach.

There's Noahthing You Can do about it

Introduction

Noah’s Faithfulness

Move B:

God’s response of Grace

God’s Response of Grace

Covenant God’s Response of Covenant

Move C:

Covenant and New Creation

Covenant and New Creation

Covenant and New Creation

God’s Response of Covenant

New Covenant and New Heavens and Earth

God’s Grace through Christ

Christ as the new faithful Noah

God’s Grace Through the faithful Christ

Sharing in Christ’s Faith

God’s New Covenant

A New Heaven and New Earth