These words more fully shew, that this sacrifice of Noah was a type of the offering up of the body of Jesus Christ, he being said to be that blessed sacrifice that is as perfume in the nostrils of God: "He gave himself for us an offering and a sacrifice to God for a sweet-smelling savour" (Eph 5:2). Besides, this offering of Noah was a burnt-offering to God; which burning signified, the curse of God, which Christ was made in his death for us. Wherefore, the burnt offerings were all along a type of him; as by reading the epistle to the Hebrews you may see: "It is the burnt-offering, [saith God,] because of the burning upon the altar all night unto the morning, and the fire of the altar shall be burning in it" (Lev 6:9). Which was a type of the fire of the law, and the guilt of sin, that Christ, when he offered himself, should undergo for the sins of man.
"And the Lord smelled a sweet savour." This signifies the content and satisfaction that for the sin of the world, God should have by the offering upon of his Son for us upon the cross: Wherefore, he is said to be now "in Christ, reconciling the world unto himself, not imputing their trespasses unto them" (2 Cor 5:19).
Now it is observable, That Noah was a man of faith long before this. Hence note two things.
1. That men, even of eminent faith have yet need of a continual remembrance of the death and sufferings of Christ; yea, and that in the most plain and easiest manner to understand.
2. They have need also, notwithstanding they have faith before, to present themselves before God, through Jesus Christ our Lord: For as our persons are not accepted, but in and through him, no more are our performances; yea, though they be spiritual services or sacrifices; it is the blood that maketh the atonement, as well for work as persons (Lev 17:11; Heb 9:21). As he saith in another place, I will accept you with your sweet savour, but not without it (1 Peter 2:5; Eze 20:41). As he also said to his church in Egypt, "When I see the blood, I will pass over you, and the plague shall not be upon you to destroy you, when I smite the land of Egypt" (Exo 12:13).
"And the Lord said in his heart, I will not again curse," &c. By heart here, we may understand two things.
1. That God was altogether unfeigned in this promise. He spake it from his very heart: which we use to count the most sincere expressing of our mind: According to that of the prophet, "Yea, I will rejoice over them to do them good, and I will plant them in this land assuredly—[in truth, in stability,] with my whole heart, and with my whole soul" (Jer 32:41). Mark, I will rejoice to do it, I will do it assuredly, I will do it in truth, even "with my whole heart, and with my whole soul."
2. By his saying, "In his heart," we may understand the secrecy of his purpose; for this doctrine, Of not cursing again, it is hid from all but those to whom it is revealed by the Spirit of God. For this purpose, in the heart of God, is one of the depths, or of the deep things of God, which the spirit of a man cannot understand. "Who hath known the mind of the Lord?" None of all the sons of men, but those that have the Holy Ghost: Therefore Paul applieth that to himself and fellows, as that which is peculiar to them to know, "We have the mind of Christ" (1 Cor 2:16). It is said, that after Christ had by his parables preached his gospel to the world, he in private "expounded all things to his disciples" (Mark 4:34).