Dec 03 2007
Just a Little Rain
This video looks at Genesis 6-9 concerning Noah and the great flood. Great in the sense that it was huge, not in the sense that it was really fun time. There are a number of issues in this text, and there have been volumes written on it, but my video is only 5 minutes long. That means my goal for the video was simply to cover the author’s main point in including this narrative in the overall story. Let me know if I do a good enough job explaining how that works, because I really breezed over a lot of stuff. Thanks and stay tuned:)
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Is God’s “common grace,” of which you speak, “saving grace”?
You speak of God pouring blessing and gifts into the lives of Jew and Gentile.
I was teaching a class on spiritual gifts this weekend and someone asked me “do all people have the Holy Spirit?” People who are not Christian seem to have spiritual gifts of teaching, leadership, etc. People who are not Christian have evidence of love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, gentleness and self-control in their life
I answered the question by saying something like, “all people are created in the image of God” but I was trying not to say all people have a spark of the divine in them because that sounds so new agey. I was reluctant to say all people have the Holy Spirit because of several New Testament passages indicate we need to respond to the gospel to receive the gift of the Holy Spirit (Acts 2:38) And then you got passages like Romans 8:9You, however, are controlled not by the sinful nature but by the Spirit, if the Spirit of God lives in you. And if anyone does not have the Spirit of Christ, he does not belong to Christ. 10But if Christ is in you, your body is dead because of sin, yet your spirit is alive because of righteousness.
IF you have the Spirit of Christ.
I was hoping to offer a more definitive answer by next Sunday if you had any thoughts.
One more thing. Genesis chapter 9 is the first place in the Bible that the word covenant is used. And oddly enough it is a covenant God established with all creation. What was this saying to the people Moses was leading. The covenant Moses brought was much more limited. What does it say to people who have entered in to the New Covenant through faith in Christ. Do we experience an uncommon grace? Is it the covenant concept that has us thinking we are a privileged people?
GREAT QUESTIONS!!!
I have a presentation I have to give tonight, but look for my response by late tonight. These are the (in my opinion) crucial questions that we must ask as we approach this text. Check back soon!
Jeffodist,
I will try and hit on all your questions, so if anything needs any clarification let me know.
God’s common grace is NOT saving grace. It is God’s work in all people preventing them from being as evil as they could, and blessing all people with His sustaining of creation. As a result, we can say that God is at work in every culture on the planet, because of this common grace and because everyone is made in His image. This means when we communicate saving grace to people, we are guaranteed that God is already at work in that culture to that people, giving us a starting point.
The quintessential example is Acts 17 where Paul engages the learned Greeks. He sees all the pagan idols, but rather then condemn them for their idolatry, he commends them for their devotion to something higher then themselves. He tells them that he has come to proclaim to them the truth about this “unknown God” they have been worshipping all the time. Then he tells them some things that really challenge their understanding, and as a result some believe him and some walk away.
So as far as what this does to the covenant community God has established in the Jews all the way up to us today, we recognize that there is beauty, value, and truth in the world because God is creating it. However, at no point does God say that this truth is all that is needed for relationship with Him. It does not solve the problem of sin in the world, and in fact it has nothing to do with His promise in Gen. 3:15 regarding the one who will crush the serpents head. That is still to come.
You make a solid point about the fact that this is where the term “covenant” first pops up. I was actually waiting until we got here to mention it, but simply because the word isnt used doesnt mean God wasnt already making covenant. The language about God bringing Adam and Eve together is all covenantal. In Romans 5, Paul makes it quite clear that the Jewish community regarded Adam as the covenant head for all mankind. Adam sinned, and so we have all sinned in Adam. It is this same principle that Jesus’ sinless life is given to us, should we receive it. That is the final answer to the problem of sin, and it is the reason that no one receives the Holy Spirit without belief in Jesus.
I hope that helps. Let me know if I can clear anything up.
Mike,
Your comments have been very helpful. You made a connection that I failed to see and I plan to clear things up the next time the study group gets together. Your reference to “preventing” grace is very Methodist. John Wesley believed God provided three kinds of grace: prevenient grace, justifying grace, sanctifying grace.
Prevenient grace is like the common grace. The Holy Spirit working in the lives of all people hoping we will respond in faith to receive the justify grace we need for salvation so the Holy Spirit can do the work of sanctification. That is why Methodist baptize infants. We understand baptism to be a sacrament that acknowledges that the Spirit is already at work in the life of the child. The emphasis on nurture not conversion for a child brought up in the church. That is why children can receive the sacrament of Holy Communion. They are already part of God’s family. I can not remember a time in my life that I did not believe in Jesus. But as we grow older we need to confess Jesus as Lord and respond in faith to the Gospel for the Holy Spirit to complete his work. Do all people have the Holy Spirit? Yes! The Holy Spirit is working in every ones life hoping they will respond with faith in Christ so that grace may abound.
Thank you.
I think it is very informative to hear you talk about the renewed promise of grace in relation to the flood myth.
Speaking from a narrative angle, it’s like God over-estimated man’s ability to be obedient. Or maybe he under-estimated man’s will.
Either way, it is interesting that his next step was to kill so many of his children (and his own followers) and then offer them common grace. If I were Noah, I don’t know if I would be happy at the end of it. The new promise would be soothing and reassuring, yes, but I might be very very uneasy……..but then I suppose that is old-testament God.
Jeffodist,
I think I might want to nuance slightly a couple of things you commented on. First, while Wesley’s prevenient grace and the Reformed common grace have some similarities, but they also have significant differences. For more on that, I highly recommend reading the companion sets Why I am Not a Calvinist by Walls and Dongell, and Why I am Not an Arminian by Peterson and Williams. They speak to the very issue of prevenient grace as well as a number of other issues that tie into what you were discussing.
I think it is important to note that there is no mention in this text of the Holy Spirit. As a result, we should be very hesitant to include that into what God is doing here. God’s Holy Spirit only enters mankind in special circumstances in the Old Testament, but is promised quite explicitly in Ezekiel 36:24-27 to the people of His covenant when it is renewed. This parallels Jeremiah 31:31-34 and we see that after Christ ascends in the New Testament that believers in Him truly do receive it. This order is important, because it is those who trust in Jesus who receive the Spirit, not everyone in the world. Does that make sense?
I dont know that you were saying that everything you mentioned comes directly from this text, I just wanted to make sure we were on the same page.
Kyle,
I see where you are coming from in relation to this text, and I confess it is pretty tempting to want to view God as absent, vindictive, or just plain incompetent as He relates to His people. However, our point of view is too often from an assumption of innocence in the whole deal.
Think of it in terms of a child in the kitchen with his or her parent. The parent is cooking and has the stove on. The parent takes great care to tell the child not to touch the hot stove or they will get burned. The child then goes and touches the hot stove. Do we blame the parent for the child getting burned? The parent gave the child everything they needed to avoid getting burned, and yet the child willfully disobeyed and got burned.
I realize this is pretty simplistic, but rather than asking “Why would God destroy so many of His children for their disobedience?” we genuinely have to ask the question “Why wouldn’t God destroy everyone the instant they disobeyed?” In other words, what we see throughout scripture is a picture of God preventing the disobedient child from getting burned, even though they have done everything they need to to be burned badly. The story of Noah is horribly tragic from a human point of view, considering everyone deserved that death. The truly awesome part is that God would be willing to save one family and start again. He didnt have to do that.
Does that make sense? I imagine you probably have more thoughts on this specifically, so let me know if I addressed them.
Mike,
I got a little carried away spewing my methodist propaganda, but the light kinda went on for me when you mentioned “God’s work in all people preventing.” We are on the same page. I have definitely deviated from the text here, that resulted from me wanting to question further your video comments because of the question that came to me about the Holy Spirit. Which has nothing to do with Genesis 6-9. After viewing the video I thought you might have been flirting with universalism. In David Lowes Watson’s book, “God Does Not Foreclose” he makes the distinction between salvation and discipleship. He suggest all people are recipients of God’s saving grace but few are God’s disciples. I thought that might have been where you were coming from. Genesis does not speak of discipleship but it begins to speak of covenant. I would like to hear your thoughts on covenant when you get to Abram.
I don’t mean get to away from Genesis again but you did ask “does this make sense?” You are saying not everyone in the world has the Holy Spirit. What I am asking is, do people who have the evidence (fruit of the Spirit) of love, joy, peace, patience, kindness (you said kindness in your video that was another reason I asked the question) gentleness….do these people have the Holy Spirit who are non Christian….Muslim, Jew, Hindu…whatever? “Everyone who loves has been born of God and knows God” 1john 4;7
I am going to put the prevenient grace spin on things in my study group this weekend unless you can figure out a way to stop me.
I enjoy your blog and your comments……I plan on checking out your recommended reading.
I don’t really have a taste for metaphors (or, really, analogies and similes) in this kind of conversation. I’m not blasting your comparison, I’m just saying it doesn’t translate for me.
I don’t find God in this light to be hard to understand, and I certainly don’t view him as absent or vindictive, not even in reference to this text. In fact, I find the Old Testament God (pre-Jesus) waaaaay easier to understand than God post-Jesus. The flood thing isn’t hard to grasp. People disobeyed. They were destroyed. I think that, if I believed in set laws, I could really get into Judaism.
I was more musing that maybe Noah, after the flood, wasn’t like, “THANK YOU GOD,” but more like, “Holy crap, God really means business….”
Jeffodist,
Okay, gotcha. Yeah, I am not taking this text to a Universalist bent because the common grace God extends to all mankind and all creation is not redemptive in nature. The problem of sin continues to exist, and God’s promise to make the sun shine on the wicked just as it does on the righteous doesn’t put a dent in that problem. The recommissioning of the new Adam in Noah is where God is at work, and flowing from this narrative is a list of genealogies divided by the Tower of Babel story. The emphasis here flows from the first genealogy describing the origins of the nations, and the second follows the lineage of Abraham because that lineage directly impacts the promise of God to redeem mankind. Alas, I am getting ahead of myself…next week’s video is on the Tower of Babel.
Now, as to your question about the Holy Spirit regarding those who do not believe in Jesus. Everyone has the ability to show kindness, love, and mercy stems from their being made in the image and likeness of God, not in some working of the Holy Spirit. We should also expect that every aspect of our image has been marred, and our ability to love, be kind, and extend mercy are all not what they could be. What you are reading in 1 John specifically speaks to those who ARE indwelt by the Holy Spirit, because they are the only ones with the potential to love fully as we were meant to love (not saying that they always do, but the potential is there because the Spirit acts on our behalf).
We enjoy having you here! Always feel free to leave a comment, critique or discrepancy anytime:)
Kyle,
Sorry, analogies help me out a ton. Doesnt work for everyone though.
Now I see where you are coming from. One of the major things I want to point out is that there is no difference between God pre-Jesus and post-Jesus. He is still as just as He was then, and He was always extremely gracious. There are of course passages that make us kind of go “Huh?” but the overall theme throughout the Old Testament is a Father guiding His children. That is the reason that I started this whole series off with the video “Are You a Jew?” It is so important for Christians to realize that the family stories found in the Old Testament are our family stories too. That is why Paul tells a mixed Jew and Gentile audience in 1 Corinthians 10 that the Jewish patriarchs are “our” fathers! This is a case that I will continue to build, so if this is a big sticking point for you, let me know some more of your questions so I can plan on addressing them.
Ultimately though, you are right…God means business:)
Well…..I mean……there is a difference, though. Because with God pre-Jesus….there was no Jesus. There was no forgiveness through original sin by accepting his son as the redeemer of our sins. And post-Jesus….there was. I think that pretty significantly changes the nature of God. And so does Judaism. In fact, that is exactly the difference between Jehovah (blessed be his name) of Judaism and the God of Christianity.
I understand the notion that, for Christians, it is the same God throughout, and I understand the notion that, as a Christian, your religion’s philosophical inception lies with Judaism, and your system of belief is therefore rooted in and entwined with that of the Jewish philosophy, but I feel pretty confident in saying that most Jewish scholars and Theologians would definitely define the Christian God as something very different from the Creator (blessed be his name) of Judaism.
anyway, I’m talking more about God’s actions than his….persona (?). haha! That’s funny to read. I’ll say right now: I’m definitely not out to understand God’s personality. ha! Point is: God’s old-testament actions are easier for me to understand.
erm….”forgiveness through original sin by accepting…” just drop the bit about “original sin.” Don’t know where that came from.
And the bit about Jehovah. WOW! It is LATE for me.
Kyle,
Thanks a bunch for the input. It really does help to know what questions people are asking. I still disagree, but I hope to make that case over the course of the whole series. As far as Jews agreeing with Christians on the nature of YHWH, of course you are correct for the most part. But remember the first day after the Holy Spirit descended in Acts 1 there were 3000 Jews who became followers of Jesus. So clearly the Jews as one big group do not all disagree with the Christian conception. If you are really interested on more about that, you might look up Jews for Jesus.