Notes on the Book of Genesis

by Charles Henry Mackintosh

"And it came to pass, at the end of forty days, that Noah opened the window of the ark which he had made: and he sent forth a raven, which went forth, to and fro, until the waters were dried up from off the earth." The unclean bird made its escape, and found, no doubt, a resting-place upon some floating carcase. It sought not the ark again. Not so the dove. "She found no rest for the sole of her foot, and she returned unto him into the ark ... and again he sent forth the dove out of the ark: and the dove came in to him, in the evening; and, lo, in her mouth was an olive-leaf, pluckt off." Sweet emblem of the renewed mind, which, amid the surrounding desolation, seeks and finds its rest and portion in Christ; and not only so, but also lays hold of the earnest of the inheritance, and furnishes the blessed proof, that judgment has passed away, and that a renewed earth is coming fully into view. The carnal mind, on the contrary, can rest in any thing and every thing but Christ. It can feed upon all uncleanness. "The olive-leaf" has no attraction for it. It can find all it needs in a scene of death, and hence is not occupied with the thought of a new world and its glories; but the heart that is taught and exercised by the Spirit of God, can only rest and rejoice in that in which he rests and rejoices. It rests in the Ark of his salvation "until the times of the restitution of all things." May it be thus with you and me, beloved reader! May Jesus be the abiding rest and portion of our hearts, that so we may not seek them in a world which is under the judgment of God! The dove went back to Noah, and waited for his time of rest; and we should ever find our place with Christ, until the time of his exaltation, and glory, in the ages to come. "He that shall come, will come, and will not tarry." All we want, as to this, is a little patience. May God direct our hearts into his love, and into "the patience of Christ!"

"And God spake unto Noah, saying, Go forth of the ark." The same God that had said, "Make thee an ark" and "Come thou into the ark," now says, "Go forth of the ark." "And Noah went forth ... and builded an altar unto the Lord." All is simple obedience. There is the obedience of faith and the worship of faith: both go together. The altar is erected, where, just before; all had been a scene of death and judgment. The ark had borne Noah and his family safely over the waters of judgment. It had carried him from the old into the new world, where he now takes his place as a worshipper.[14] And, be it observed, it was "unto the Lord" he erected his altar. Superstition would have worshipped the ark, as being the means of salvation. It is ever the tendency of the heart to displace God by his ordinances. Now, the ark was a very marked and manifest ordinance; but Noah's faith passed beyond the ark to the God of the ark; and hence, when he stepped out of it, instead of casting back a lingering look at it, or regarding it as an object of worship or veneration, he built an altar unto the Lord, and worshipped him: and the ark is never heard of again.

This teaches us a very simple, but, at the same time, a very seasonable lesson. The moment the heart lets slip the reality of God himself, there is no placing a limit to its declension; it is on the highway to the grossest forms of idolatry. In the judgment of faith, an ordinance is only valuable as it conveys God, in living power, to the soul; that is to say, so long as faith can enjoy Christ therein, according to his own appointment. Beyond this, it is worth just nothing; and if it in the smallest degree comes between the heart and his precious work and his glorious person, it ceases to be an ordinance of God, and becomes an instrument of the devil. In the judgment of superstition, the ordinance is every thing, and God is shut out; and the name of God is only made use of to exalt the ordinance, and give it a deep hold of the human heart, and a mighty influence over the human mind. Thus it was that the children of Israel worshipped the brazen serpent. That, which had once been a channel of blessing to them, because used of God, became, when their hearts had departed from the Lord, an object of superstitious veneration; and Hezekiah had to break it in pieces, and call it "a piece of brass." In itself it was only a "Nehushtan," but, when used of God, it was a means of rich blessing. Now, faith owned it to be what divine revelation said it was; but superstition, throwing, as it ever does, divine revelation overboard, lost the real purpose of God in the thing, and actually made a god of the thing itself. (See 2 Kings xviii. 4.)

And, my reader, is there not a deep lesson in all this for the present age? I am convinced there is. We live in an age of ordinances. The atmosphere which enwraps the professing church, is impregnated with the elements of a traditionary religion, which robs the soul of Christ, and his divinely full salvation. It is not that human traditions boldly deny that there is such a person as Christ, or such a thing as the cross of Christ: were they to do so, the eyes of many might be opened. However, it is not thus. The evil is of a far more insidious and dangerous character. Ordinances are added to Christ, and the work of Christ. The sinner is not saved by Christ alone, but by Christ and ordinances. Thus he is robbed of Christ altogether; for it will, assuredly, be found that Christ and ordinances will prove, in the sequel, to be ordinances, and not Christ. This is a solemn consideration for all who stand up for a religion of ordinances. "If ye be circumcised Christ shall profit you nothing." It must be Christ wholly, or not at all. The devil persuades men, that they are honoring Christ when they make much of his ordinances; whereas, all the while he knows full well that they are, in reality, setting Christ entirely aside, and deifying the ordinance. I would only repeat here a remark which I have made elsewhere, namely, that superstition makes every thing of the ordinance; infidelity, profanity, and mysticism, make nothing of it; faith uses it according to divine appointment.

But I have already extended this section far beyond the limit which I had prescribed for it. I shall, therefore, close it with a hasty glance at the contents of Chapter ix. In it we have the new covenant, under which creation was set, after the Deluge, together with the token of that covenant. "And God blessed Noah and his sons, and said unto them, Be fruitful, and multiply, and replenish the earth." Observe, God's command to man, on his entrance into the restored earth, was to refill that earth; not parts of the earth, but the earth. He desired to have men dispersed abroad, over the face of the world, and not relying upon their own concentrated energies. We shall see, in Chap. xi., how man neglected all this.

The fear of man is now lodged in the heart of every other creature. Henceforth the service, rendered by the inferior orders of creation to man, must be the constrained result of "fear and dread." In life, and in death, the lower animals were to be at the service of man. All creation is delivered, by God's everlasting covenant, from the fear of a second deluge. Judgment is never again to take that shape. "The world that then was, being overflowed with water, perished; but the heavens and the earth, which are now, by the same word are kept in store, reserved unto fire against the day of judgment and perdition of ungodly men." The earth was once purged with water; and it will be again purged by fire; and in this second purgation none will escape, save those, who have fled for refuge to him who has passed through the deep waters of death, and met the fire of divine judgment.

"And God said, This is the token of the covenant ... I do set my bow in the cloud ... and I will remember my covenant." The whole creation rests, as to its exemption from a second deluge, on the eternal stability of God's covenant, of which the bow is the token; and it is happy to bear in mind, that when the bow appears, the eye of God rests upon it; and man is cast, not upon his own imperfect and most uncertain memory, but upon God's. "I," says God, "will remember." How sweet to think of what God will, and what he will not, remember! He will remember his own covenant, but he will not remember his people's sins. The cross, which ratifies the former, puts away the latter. The belief of this gives peace to the troubled heart and uneasy conscience.

"And it shall come to pass, when I bring a cloud over the earth, that the bow shall be seen in the cloud." Beautiful and most expressive emblem! The beams of the sun, reflected from that which threatens judgment, tranquillize the heart, as telling of God's covenant, God's salvation, and God's remembrance. Precious, most precious sunbeams, deriving additional beauty from the very cloud which reflects them! How forcibly does this bow in the cloud remind us of Calvary. There we see a cloud indeed,—a dark, thick, heavy cloud of judgment, discharging itself upon the sacred head of the Lamb of God,—a cloud so dark, that even at mid-day "there was darkness over all the earth." But, blessed be God, faith discerns, in that heaviest cloud that ever gathered, the most brilliant and beauteous bow that ever appeared; for it sees the bright beams of God's eternal love darting through the awful gloom, and reflected in the cloud. It hears, too, the words, "It is finished," issuing from amid the darkness, and in those words it recognizes the perfect ratification of God's everlasting covenant, not only with creation, but with the tribes of Israel and the Church of God.

The last paragraph of this chapter presents a humiliating spectacle. The lord of creation fails to govern himself: "And Noah began to be an husbandman, and he planted a vineyard; and he drank of the wine, and was drunken; and he was uncovered within his tent." What a condition for Noah, the only righteous man, the preacher of righteousness, to be found in! Alas! what is man? Look at him where you will, and you see only failure. In Eden, he fails; in the restored earth, he fails; in Canaan, he fails; in the Church, he fails; in the presence of millennial bliss and glory, he fails. He fails everywhere, and in all things: there is no good thing in him. Let his advantages be ever so great, his privileges ever so vast, his position ever so desirable, he can only exhibit failure and sin.

We must, however, look at Noah in two ways, namely, as a type, and as a man; and while the type is full of beauty and meaning, the man is full of sin and folly; yet the Holy Ghost has written these words, "Noah was a just man, and perfect in his generation; and Noah walked with God." Divine grace had covered all his sins, and clothed his person with a spotless robe of righteousness. Though Noah exposed his nakedness, God did not see it, for he looked not at him in the weakness of his own condition, but in the full power of divine and everlasting righteousness. Hence we may see how entirely astray—how totally alienated from God and his thoughts—Ham was in the course he adopted; he evidently knew nothing of the blessedness of the man whose iniquity is forgiven and his sin covered. On the contrary, Shem and Japheth exhibit in their conduct a fine specimen of the divine method of dealing with human nakedness; wherefore they inherit a blessing, whereas Ham inherits a curse.